Chapter Thirty
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE NIGHT I LOST MY MIND
PRESENT
T he conversation with Miley plays over and over in my head as I walk into my house, dinner in my arms.
I set the bags on the kitchen counter, smiling at Peter as he types away at the dining room table.
“How’re they doing?” I ask, grateful that he was able to keep an eye on them while I ran some errands and picked up dinner.
“Fine,” he answers, not looking up. “Penny is playing on her tablet in her room and Jilly is bothering her, I’m sure.”
Another smile blooms at how well we know our girls.
But it fades quickly when I remember that I have to tell him something. That if I managed to talk to Miley, I have to say something to him, too.
No matter if it shatters our peace, he has a right to know.
“Peter?” I ask, my voice uncertain as I approach him, my hands clasped together.
“What is it?” Peter looks up from his laptop, worry marring his features. I fucking hate that he works at the dining room table. He has a study that we spent months getting just right. I haven’t changed it since he moved out, still offering him the space that we’d created just for him.
And when I ask him why he never uses it, his answer is always the same.
I want to be present, even when I’m working.
A better father than I know what to do with. But an absent husband. A neglectful man who doesn’t see me anymore.
As he stares at me, waiting for me to speak, I take a shuddering breath, hoping it will give me the confidence to speak.
“He’s back,” I whisper, my confidence deflating.
I’m twenty-one again, falling in love with the unattainable. I’m twenty-five again, not having learned my lesson.
“Who…” and I recognize the moment it dawns on him. Fingers press into his temples as he processes the information overload.
Neither of us speaks.
But the unspoken words linger, regardless.
What now?
“You promised me he was out of the picture. What is he doing back here?” His words come out in a frenzy, his face reddening. His words take on a frantic tone and I see the man I’ve known as safe and steady unraveling before me. This isn’t him just losing me anymore.
And I’m sure that feels terrifying.
But Peter doesn’t typically get angry. I don’t know how to handle him right now.
“I don’t know…I don’t—” I start to stumble and stammer, but he interrupts me.
“Is he why you asked for a divorce? It wasn’t enough to cheat on me with him,” he exclaims, and I glance at the stairs to make sure the girls can’t hear us.
“I didn’t cheat on you. You and I?—”
“I loved you.” He pauses as if he realizes he’s yelling, lowering his voice. “I fucking loved you by then and I love you now. ”
“You said you were okay with being casual?—”
“Of course I pretended it was okay! Because if I hadn’t, I would’ve lost you. And now I’m losing you anyway.”
I don’t speak, afraid he’s going to interrupt me and further lose his temper. I don’t want Jilly and Penny to hear us.
He’s silent a moment, his head in his hands. And when he looks back up at me, the sour expression on his face makes me think we’re not going to have a quiet and civilized conversation.
“You think because my love isn’t loud that it isn’t real? That just because I don’t make you fucking kill yourself for my affection?—”
“What affection?!” It’s my turn to interrupt him. To remind him of just how dead our marriage became. “I can’t remember the last time I felt like our sex life wasn’t a chore.”
Before I can say anything else, he stands, gathers his things, and storms out of the house. After a moment of silence, I hear a quiet voice from the top of the stairs.
“Is daddy not staying for dinner?”
Penny’s eyes are wide and Jilly’s are full of tears and I rush up the steps to gather them in my arms.
“Come on,” I whisper, “we’ll order pizza and eat it in my bed.”
All while I spend time with my babies, trying to erase the fractured moment they witnessed, I’m reminded of the night I asked Peter for a divorce.
Of his anger then, much quieter than tonight.
He’s never left without saying goodbye to the girls before. Never been so upset with me, even when I first told him about Abraham.
Is all of this coming out of nowhere for him? Was he unable to see the subtle shifts in me; the way I spent more time at work than at home? The way I took work trips without him and shied away from alone time with him ?
Because all alone time would do is make it painfully obvious that he and I are devastatingly incompatible.
Men will never understand the language of women.
What is seen as emotional is intuitive. What’s seen as selfish is self-preservation.
And what’s often seen as an abrupt departure is a long-suffering denial, finally acknowledged.