Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
I WANT MY FAMILY
PRESENT
S aturday nights in the Patterson/Milas home used to mean date night with the girls. They’d spend all week trying to decide what activity we’d do and the four of us would go to a movie or the aquarium or whatever they ended up deciding.
Saturday nights are now ping-ponged between Peter and I and it’s Peter’s turn.
So, I sit home alone, with a bottle of wine, trying to hash out some design plans for clients.
Certainly not the life I’d pictured at our intimate wedding ceremony. Not the life my yiayia had pictured as she wiped her tears when I said, “I do.”
Because I don’t anymore.
I hear the front door unlock and I smile when Jilly comes bounding inside, her mouth blue.
“Someone had a slushie,” I sing out just as she jumps into my arms.
“I finished the whole thing,” she answers, triumphantly, a large grin showcasing the space where one of her front teeth still hadn’t grown in. I take her golden braids in each hand before pressing my palms to her cheeks.
She is all the things I love; she’s all the things I never thought I’d lose.
“Go ahead and get in the bath. I’ll be up there in a few.” I press a kiss to her nose, and she skips away, already to the stairs by the time her older sister makes it inside.
“How was the movie?” Penelope shrugs and I’m surprised when she pulls up the stool next to me and sits on it. “Everything okay?”
Peter stands just outside the kitchen, his arms crossed as he leans against the doorway. But I’m not focused on him as I stare down at my ever-emotional Penny.
I wasn’t thinking clearly when I named her after my mother. All I saw was her dark hair and I felt this momentary strength that we could break cycles, the two of us. At the time, I didn’t know healing is nonlinear and some days I’m not strong enough to stare that decision in its eyes.
“Can we all go together next Saturday?” she asks, and I glance up at Peter, unsure of what transpired tonight.
“Uh…” He shrugs, his eyes wide with that innocence that makes me wonder how he ended up with someone like me. “Yeah, sure.”
“I think you would’ve thought the movie was dumb too,” she reasons as she hops off the stool and I smile after her.
“Probably,” I offer her, remembering a time when we were a team and shared opinions. I used to think Penny was more like me and Jillian was more like Peter. And maybe that’s still true but the way Penelope has latched onto her father lately makes me wonder if similarities mean nothing when it comes to love.
Her long dark hair is in a ponytail, and she grabs her tablet from the counter before she begins to head upstairs toward her room .
“Twenty minutes and then I’ll be up there to get you ready for bed,” I call out after her.
“’Kay,” she says in her sweet little voice.
I glance back at Peter and before I can ask, he sighs and sits on the stool Penny vacated. His long legs jut out and I glance down at his sock-clad feet. He hates wearing shoes in the house. It was something I used to think was cute about him.
“She’s convinced I’m always on Jilly’s side,” he explains. “But it’s hard to explain to her that although she doesn’t enjoy something that her sister does, she doesn’t need to mock it. And you know Jilly thinks the world of her older sister, so she starts crying and then it becomes this whole thing.”
He rubs his hands over his face, and I begin to see just how tired he truly is. How deep the lines of time have etched in his face, how the glimmers of gray have weaved into his blond hair. Peter’s thirty-six to my thirty-two was never something I paid attention to.
Until I realize this is the age Abraham was when I met him.
Thinking of a twenty-one-year-old me dealing with Peter as he is now confuses me. I can’t see this man dipping into that young a dating pool.
And it warps a past I once only saw through my own biased eyes.
“Parenting is tough,” I try to offer, “But they love you so much. And we’re doing the best we can.”
“Are we?” he asks, his bright eyes piercing mine as he sets his hands down on the counter. “Are we enough when we aren’t a unit anymore?”
My own fears stare back at me through his eyes.
“We’re still a unit,” I tell him, adamant in that truth. “Just because we aren’t together, doesn’t mean we aren’t a team.”
“You know what I mean, Sabrina,” he says, looking down at his hands on the counter, his wedding ring absent from his finger. “And you know it isn’t the same thing. Just look at tonight.”
“Honestly, I’ve been the bane of Penny’s existence since we told them we’re divorcing. So, I know exactly how hard it’s been.” I try to say it without resentment, but it still slips in the conversation.
His expression softens as he glances up at me again.
“I guess it comes with the territory. A tipping scale in one of our favors, depending on their moods,” he tells me, shrugging one shoulder.
“It was like that even before we decided to divorce.”
“ You decided to divorce.” It’s a gentle reminder that makes me pause.
“Do you regret marrying me?” I ask, wanting to know the truth, even if it stings.
“There are a lot of things I regret. Marrying you isn’t one of them.” His words sound so even, so confident, so strong that I’m convinced I could lean on him forever.
“Sometimes I think you’re too good for me,” is all I can say in response. Because who would stay with me through all of this?
“What good is it if it doesn’t mean you’ll stay?” His question is quiet, but it breaks me down and I wipe the single tear that streaks down my cheek.
“You don’t want me to stay, Peter.”
“I want my family.”
His words make my eyes well with more tears.
“You were always so great about family. Even when I wasn’t easy?—”
“Don’t.” He shakes his head. “You don’t have to turn me into some kind of hero. I was selfish. I wanted you to myself.”
“And where did that get you?” My question sounds like a sob.
“It led to a more beautiful life than I could’ve ever hoped for,” he answers without skipping a beat .
We sit there in silence and I’m too afraid to look in his eyes, so I stare at the screen of my laptop just as it goes into sleep mode. I can see the glimmer of my tears in the reflection of the screen, and I sigh, wondering what the fuck I’ve done here.
What a fucking mess I’ve made of my life.
I stand and he follows suit, placing his hands on my shoulders and pulling me in for a hug. His body has fit mine for so long, that I breathe him in and let myself mold into the familiar planes of his shape.
He leans into me, and it would be so easy. To kiss, to go upstairs and share a bed again, to go back to a life where everything makes sense to my daughters.
If someone were to peek into my kitchen window, I know what they’d see. I’m almost certain of how they’d view the little family inside with the mom and dad embracing in the kitchen.
Perfect.
It’s a word my younger sister has used to describe me many times. And each time I feel the weight of it, feel it crack at my tough exterior.
I pull away from him, wiping the rest of my tears with the back of my hand.
He nods, as if my actions confirm all he needs to know.
“Goodnight, Sabrina,” he murmurs before stepping away to head to the guest room. I close my eyes at the quiet click of his door shutting, wishing I could skip forward to a day when all of this isn’t on the forefront anymore.
Or go back to a time when it hadn’t even happened yet.