Chapter Eighteen
Tyler
Having Maggie show up the next day didn't surprise me at all. Marilyn being with her?
My jaw dropped before I threw myself into her arms. “What are you doing here?”
“Checking on you.” She smirked and tucked my hair behind my ear.
“No, in Georgia.” My eyes pricked, much as they had for the past two days. I hated to cry, but ever since Jase stood in the kitchen and said “she says it's mine?”
Waterworks. All the time, with the smallest provocation.
“My boss is angling for some accounts in Atlanta and my husband is getting on my nerves. Plus, you need me, so here I am.”
She cupped my face while Maggie unpacked goodies from a bag bearing the Tea Room logo. “Now show me the nursery.”
I burst into tears. She was here. They were both here. For me.
“Oh, honey.” Marilyn gathered me close, stroking my hair. She clucked in sympathy. “Those pregnancy hormones are something, aren't they?”
I cried harder, burying my face in the curve between her neck and shoulder, inhaling subtle expensive perfume and friendship – pure Marilyn.
Maggie's arms came around me from the other side, and I sagged into Marilyn. She continued to smooth my hair, murmuring soothing nonsense while Maggie simply held on. We stood like that, the two of them hugging me while I sobbed out my disappointment and fear.
When I was spent, eyes swollen and aching, nose stuffed up, Marilyn took one step back and brushed a finger over my wet cheek. “Better?”
A harsh laugh scored my aching throat. “No.”
“I'm sure.” Marilyn wound an arm about my waist. “I want to see the baby's room for real and the painting you did for him. And you can tell us what you're thinking.”
“I'm thinking I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
Marilyn tutted in dismissal. “Come on and tell me what's happening. Then we'll talk about mistakes.”
Like always, she was grounded - unemotional and inexorable.
Maggie was practical but let me dwell in my emotions.
Marilyn? She was the epitome of rational and would expect me to operate outside of my emotional upheaval.
I could have emotions, according to my friend who played hardball with a stone cold CEO daily, but I couldn’t let them rule me.
“Good luck with that.” Drawing my disappointment around me like an icy cloak, I led them through the den and down the hall to where the nursery and guest room doors stood open.
Marilyn peered in the guest room first, the bed rumpled and messy, because I hadn't slept well and hadn't been able to dredge up the energy to take two minutes and straighten it like I normally would.
And really, what was the point? All my structure and routines, keeping our lives and what had been our home neat and easy and secure, had proved useless.
Because his past had blown everything up with just a few words.
I simply couldn't move past the way I felt, an echo of being small, waiting for someone to come for me when they never did. I'd let myself lean into a future with Jase, and that hope, those dreams, had been yanked away. At least it felt that way.
“So you're sleeping in here.” Marilyn's observation was not a question. I studied the words for any sign of judgment and found none.
“Yes.” I pointed toward the baby's room. “Here it is.”
“Oh.” Maggie's sigh was reverent. “It's pretty.”
I paused in the doorway, throat aching. We hadn't done much—the ivory walls Jase had painted, the hardwoods he’d waxed so they gleamed.
We’d ordered a sweet rug in blues and greens that echoed the tones in the watercolor I'd done for the baby.
He'd hung the painting I’d done on the wall where we'd planned to put the crib.
Filmy beige curtains covered the white plantation shutters and let the afternoon sun filter into the room.
“This will be really nice.” Marilyn turned in a small circle, then pinned a no-nonsense look on me. “So what are you thinking?“
“I talked to a divorce lawyer.” I tilted my head in Maggie’s direction. “One of her clients.”
“Do you want a divorce?“
Irritation sizzled over my nerves. “Why does everyone keep asking that? The lawyer did, too. If I’m talking to a divorce lawyer, obviously I want a divorce.”
“Because it’s a valid question.” Marilyn shrugged, a soft roll of her shoulders. “I know you, and you would have put a lot of thought into marrying him. You trust him and feel something powerful for him, or that ring wouldn't be on your finger.”
I waited, knowing she wasn't finished.
“So the question isn't about whether you'll divorce him, but whether you want one.”
“No,“ I hissed, anger bubbling up. I flexed my toes, feeling the cool wood beneath me and pulled them inward, caught my breath, counted to four, then let the exhale go while I counted again to seven, “But how do I live with this?”
“Tell me what this is?” Marilyn crossed her arms, every inch the no-bullshit CFO. “What have y'all talked about?”
I gave an irritable shrug. “He says they'll be no contact except about the baby with a co-parenting app. And he'll do his visitation at his parent's house.”
One of Marilyn's brows rose, and she glanced at Maggie, who had folded to sit on the floor, legs crossed. She fiddled with the fringe running around the edge of the rug. I didn't miss the troubled expression that flitted through Maggie's eyes or how the same emotion tugged Marilyn's brows together.
My shoulders slumped. “I know.”
Overnight, I'd tossed, staring at the ceiling or the wall. Jase's promises – and the way the skin around his mouth paled, a sick tinge to it – as he talked about keeping the baby separate from me and our child.
I saw that nauseated expression and felt a corresponding knot in my stomach. “And the lawyer says there's no reason for her to be around our baby.”
I crossed my own arms, defensiveness heating my neck.
“Well, I can see that.” Marilyn nodded, features set in thoughtful lines. “Your baby is not an issue where she’s concerned.”
I snorted. “Oh, I’m sure my baby is an issue for her.”
If she knew I was pregnant. I doubted she did, though. Jase had no reason to tell her, and he was protective of me and our boy already.
Everything a good daddy should be.
And Lord knew any child of Elizabeth Hall’s would need a good father. I bit the inside of my bottom lip. I knew what that life was like – living with a selfish, unstable mother. If that was Jase’s baby, he would need to be present.
Steady.
Stable.
The same father he’d be to our child – who would be a brother to her baby.
My brows tugged together, and I rubbed at the center of my chest. The two women standing before me in my baby’s room were like my chosen sisters.
I’d not only felt the lack of a mother or father, but the absence of a sibling, family to love me and walk through the wasteland of my childhood.
I would never have wanted another child to experience that fear and instability, but as a little kid, I’d wished for a real brother or sister, someone who was mine and would be with me in the dark.
“What are you thinking?“ Maggie asked, voice soft.
With a rough sigh, I folded to sit on the rug facing her. Marilyn joined us, knees updrawn and one arm wrapped around them.
“They're siblings.” The words hurt my throat, but deserved to be said. “Family.”
Maggie nodded. I wound my hands together in my lap, fiddling with my rings. I'd tried to take them off the night before - and couldn't. I loved him, despite this mess, and removing his ring felt too permanent.
Too wrong.
“So, I'm not influencing you. Or rushing you.” Marilyn spoke with exquisite care. “I can't imagine what you're experiencing-“
I nodded. If she only knew.
“--but I would want to gut Joey if that snotty little Houston high-society hoochie he proposed to when he was twenty showed up with a baby she said was his.” Marilyn scowled. “Even if it was before me, because still ... it would be hard.”
“It was before you,“ Maggie said, quiet and subdued.
I twisted my wedding band around my finger again. “I know. That's not the problem. He's not the problem.”
“Is the baby really the problem?? Marilyn held my gaze, her own gentle and sympathetic.
“I don't know. It can't help who its mother is.” We all knew who the problem was. What I had to decide was whether I could accept the presence of that problem.
Decide if Jase was worth that complication.
“So, we'll support you in whatever you decide.” A weighted glance passed between my friends, and Maggie leaned forward to cover my clenched hands with hers. “However we can because we're family and we love you.”
My eyes burned and I blinked hard, firming, my trembling lips into a smile. “I love you, too.”
“Tyler.” Marilyn spoke with hushed seriousness. “We all know there is no one more suited than you to realize that baby's needs. Or your baby's needs. You're going to be an amazing mother because you know how important the
role is. Whatever you choose, that will be the right choice because you'll choose what's best for your baby.”
I nodded, letting her reassurances settle in my soul. Lovely words, from two of the people I loved best in the world.
They trusted me to find the right way.
If only I trusted myself as much.