38. 38
T he pending sunrise lightens the sky as my feet pound the pavement. When I woke up from a fitful sleep at five a.m., I quickly gave up on sleeping. Grabbing the first clothes my hands touched, I got changed, laced my shoes, and started a slow trot around my neighborhood.
Once I was properly warmed up, I started pushing my body faster and faster.
That was almost an hour ago and yet my brain can’t think of anything but the fact that in a little more than twelve hours, I get to see Anastasia.
Sweat drips down into my eyes, stinging, but I keep going until my legs almost give out on me. Hands on my head, I look around and don’t recognize anything around me. My neighborhood is like a labyrinth of loops and streets that double back on themselves. I pull out my phone and see Brittany texted, asking if I was okay. Apparently, she heard me leave the house.
As my lungs work to bring oxygen into my body after my excruciating pace, I know it’s time.
Pulling up a map, I plot out my route back to my house, and start walking, giving myself time to get my thoughts in order.
Sun rays break the horizon as I open my front door, shutting it behind me with no thought to the noise. I know Brittany didn’t go back to sleep. She’s been asking me, almost constantly, if everything was okay, picking up on my energy since my dinner at Charlie’s.
“Brittany?” I call out when I don’t see her in the kitchen, her favorite place in any home.
“I’m here,” she says, sitting up from the couch. “There’s fresh coffee in the pot, if you want some.”
Moving to the cabinet, I grab out a mug and pour myself some, long since abandoning my petty refusal to drink any if she made it.
“It’s time to talk,” I say, making my way to the couch, sitting opposite her. She fiddles with the blanket covering her legs. “And then you need to go.”
“I know.”
“I need to know why you left, Brittany. The whole answer. Please.” If we had been having this conversation a year ago, I would have yelled or begged her for an answer, but I know now that won’t change anything. Any of the hurt. Only getting through this will allow healing to begin.
She looks up at me and I see the woman I loved so long ago.
“Because I couldn’t breathe. I would walk past the nursery every day and I would think about him, my sweet Wyatt, and how he was gone and I couldn’t breathe. And there was a day I was trying to avoid walking past the room, and while watching TV I saw a commercial for the University of Illinois and I thought about my acceptance letter. It’s the first time I ever thought ‘I’m not trapped here. I don’t have to stay.’”
“Is that when you decided to leave?”
“Not consciously, but yes.”
“Why the middle of the night?” I ask, taking a drink of my coffee, giving my hands something to do.
“Because, despite everything, I loved you. I loved you more than I hated what we had become and I knew if you were awake, I could never walk away from you. I partially thought I wouldn’t even make it out of the driveway.”
“I called you,” I say, but there’s no accusation in my voice. I’m simply stating a fact.
“I know. Parker, I regret everything. I wish I had gotten help, worked through my grief. I did later, but it was too late. I am so sorry for hurting you. For leaving like that. For everything I said.”
“I’m sorry, too. I was a crappy husband even before everything happened. I didn’t know how to be an adult, let alone a partner, and so many things fell on you. And then everything with Wyatt happened. You weren’t the only one who needed help. I didn’t handle any of it well. I shouldn’t have shut down.” I try to blink back the tears, but I can’t hold them in any longer and tears well in her eyes in answer. “The only way I could live from one second to the next was to turn everything off.”
“Do you ever think of him?” she whispers.
“Always. Every day. I wonder if he’d have your smile and my eyes. How his laugh would sound. I’ve thought about all the parent-teacher conferences. The art projects he would have brought home. His first Christmas.” I sniff, wiping at the tears that have started falling. “How we would have enrolled him in soccer or dance. Whatever he wanted. We would have gone to the park and I would have taught him how to ride a bike. I love him with every beat of my heart. Every time I close my eyes I see his face, every perfect feature.”
She bursts into sobs as tears continue leaking down my face. I put my coffee mug on the table, and make my way to her, pulling her into my arms and we cry. Together, we mourn our son and all the heartbeats he never got to have. We mourn the end of us and as my tears subside, my soul feels lighter for the first time.
We pull back from each other, mopping up our faces.
With a tear-soaked voice, she brings us back to the present.
“You love her, don’t you?”
I couldn’t stop the smile that comes to my face if I wanted to.
“Yeah, I do.”
“What if I told you it would be different with us? That we could move forward?”
My heart breaks at the sad hopefulness in her eyes because I can’t give her what she wants. We can’t go backwards, so I shake my head.
“It doesn’t change anything for me. I’m hers. I never stood a chance against her.”
She nods with dejected acceptance and pushes the blanket off of her, standing from the couch.
“I needed to know for sure. After I saw you on House of Deceit and then Desire , I couldn’t stop thinking about how maybe you were in a better place, too. Even when I was getting the degrees and building a life for myself, I think I always had this hope that maybe we could find each other again. ”
“You never did tell me what you ended up studying,” I say, because I am curious for a peek at the woman she’s become in the aftermath of our loss.
She smiles at me and it’s like the first one she ever gave me.
“My freshman year I found an amazing therapist and she suggested that I join a grief group for those who had lost children. I joined for a time and made a couple of friends. One day, I realized how much it helped me to help others. Now I’m a nurse in the NICU.”
“That’s amazing. I’m glad everything worked out for you,” I tell her honestly.
“Me, too. I’ll go get my stuff together.” She stands from the couch, folding the blanket, before heading toward the hallway. Her steps pause and I look back at her, her eyes already on me. “Thank you, for letting me insert myself into your life. I know I didn’t do any of this right either, and I’m sorry about that. I just want you to be happy, Parker. I hope you know that.”
“I do. And I want you to be happy, too.”
I stand and make my way toward her, holding my arms out to her, and as we embrace, it feels comfortable like a worn sweatshirt, but we don’t fit together like we used to.
“I missed you, Parker,” she mumbles.
I drop a kiss on top of her head. A goodbye to the past. “I missed you, too, Brittany.”
The cold of the concrete has seeped through my jeans, my ass going numb an hour ago. A car makes its way down the street and finally it’s Anastasia. I stand from my spot on the ground, making a mental note to buy her some outdoor chairs, and watch her come to a stop next to my truck.
“Hey, you’re early,” she says, and I feel a little bad for surprising her.
“I couldn’t wait any longer,” I tell her, honestly.
My eyes don’t leave her as she makes her way to me. I always thought she was beautiful, but after not seeing her for over a week, I’m starving for every inch of her. She stops in front of me, tilting her head back just a touch to look me in the eye.
“I’m glad,” she says. I give her a small smile, but otherwise make no move toward her.
“No hello kiss?” she asks, her voice soft.
“Are you sure?” I ask, hope sprouting inside me.
She lifts up on her tiptoes and gives me a chaste kiss.
With a deep exhale, I wrap my arms around her, pulling her hard against me as I press my mouth against her. Her arms go around my neck, pulling my hair free of its tie, her fingers tangling in the strands. My tongue swipes over her bottom lip asking for permission she eagerly gives.
The groan I release at her taste would be embarrassing if not for her moan as our tongues tangle together, my hands dropping to her biteable ass, gripping her so hard, I hope there will be bruises tomorrow.
With the self-control of a saint, I pull back, panting. “Should we go inside?”
“Definitely,” she says, grabbing my hand and pulling me after her. As she goes to unlock the door, she wraps my arm around her. I let my finger trace the skin where her jeans rest, dipping just barely below the waistband .
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
“Not for food,” I say, my voice rough, as I pull her against me once more.
My mouth brands her with the hot kisses I trail down her throat.
“Parker, before all of that, I think I need to know what happened between you and Brittany.”
When I pull away, I don’t let her go. Instead, I search her face. Her expression remains neutral and I know it’s time. Because I want this woman, and there’s no way to ignore the elephant in the room any longer.
“You’re right,” I say, giving her a soft kiss on the lips before spinning her to face away from me, my hands heavy on her hips, and I guide her through the house.
We take a seat on the couch facing each other, much like our first night in the House of Desire .
I close my eyes and take a breath. When I open them again, I’m settled.
Ready.
“I met Brittany in high school. From the moment I barreled into her cheerleading pyramid, we were basically inseparable. I loved her with everything I was. It felt like I was born to love her. Like the only reason I could continue breathing after meeting her was because my heart beat for her. Our senior year, we started to have sex. If there was time and even a little bit of privacy—well, you get the point.”
My eyes lose focus as I fall back into the memory.
“One day”—I swallow thickly before continuing—“one day, she told me she was pregnant.”
I remember the day perfectly, Brittany’s panicked voice stopping my heart cold .
“We were nervous, but excited. Eventually. When we told our parents, they were shocked and disappointed. They made sure Brittany wanted to keep the baby and when we reassured them that we did, everyone started talking about marriage. I was never against the idea. I figured I’d end up married to her eventually anyway, so what did it matter if it was a few years before I intended to propose or not.
“She was a bit more hesitant. She always wanted to go to college and move around the country, exploring new places. She was going to backpack across Europe with friends for the summer while I stayed and worked my summer job. But I convinced her this was the best option. The sensible option. And she agreed. I didn’t have a ring for her. I didn’t even officially ask her. She said ‘okay’ and we were engaged.”
Anya reaches out, touching my arm that’s resting along the back of the couch, rubbing her thumb back and forth. The small sign of support bolsters my heart for what’s to come.
“We graduated and got married. Rented our first apartment. It was a lot of changes. And throughout that, the pregnancy was normal. No one saw anything until it was too late. We were a week out from her due date, the final touches on the nursery being done whenever I’d come home from work.
“On one of the last ultrasounds, the technician must have noticed something because the doctor was called in immediately. After a few moments, they told Brittany to get dressed and brought us into their office.”
Sadness drops my shoulders as I bleed for the kids Brittany and I were, and the crushing weight we were under.
“They had missed a congenital heart defect. He was given a month to live, but not more than a year. There was so much medical talk and after that, I could barely hear anything they said, but the gist was there were no options and my son was going to die.
“To say Brittany fell apart is, well, it’s an understatement. As I held her, I knew I had to be strong for her, so I pushed down all my emotions. All my fear, my sadness, my worry. My grief. I shoved it all aside and held her. We were scheduled for her to be induced and within twenty-four hours, we were parents.”
“What was your son’s name?” she asks. My eyes fill with tears as I smile. It’s a simple question, but it means more than any other.
“Wyatt Parker. Wyatt for Brittany’s dad and Parker after me and mine.”
She smiles at me, linking our fingers together.
“That’s a handsome name.”
I nod, my chin quivering.
I love this woman. This one with sadness, but not pity, written all over her face as I give her the darkest parts of me. As I share the only thing left of my son.
“He was alive for a day. He was so tiny in my arms. We never put him down. There wasn’t a second of his life our arms weren’t around him. I loved him more than anything in the entire world in those few minutes. Once he was gone, Brittany fell into a deep depression and I kept pushing everything aside and went back to work, making sure on top of losing our son, we didn’t lose our house. I didn’t know how to be a good husband even without all the grief. I know that now.
“Anyway, as time passed, we pulled apart from each other. It was impossible to know how to reach her across the chasm that was Wyatt between us. The angrier she got, the more I pulled away until all we were doing was fighting. And then one day, she left in the middle of the night. After a few years of trying to find her, I filed for divorce in absentia. It was granted after the appropriate amount of time given to let her respond.
“The day we found out about the defect is the same date, years later, our marriage officially ended.”
My words trail off and she gives me time to collect myself, pressure free. I want to pull her into my lap, hold her, but I need a small amount of space. Just a little, to get the rest out.
“Why did she come here?” she asks, understandably. A tendril of guilt rises.
“She wanted to get back together.” I search her face for how this makes her feel, but she’s carefully blank.
“Do you still love her?” she asks. A fair question.
“She is the mother of my child. The person I expected to sit out on the front porch with every night. And I loved her. So much. It felt like I had always loved her. There will always be a soft spot in my heart for her, for what we shared and lost. For that time.” I’m prepared for all the feelings that normally come with this story, but for the first time, all I feel is calm. Rightness. Like I’m finally ready to confront the pain of my past. “But that time is gone and when I look at her now, all I see is the boy she knew and the girl she was. She doesn’t know me, now. She doesn’t know the man her leaving helped to create. The one that has to fight to believe he’s worth loving. I can’t be that boy again. I don’t want to be.”
“Did anything happen while she was here?” Her voice is steady, but I doubt she feels that way inside.
“Nothing. She didn’t try anything and I wouldn’t have been open to it, but she did stay in my house. In the guest room. She never even crossed the threshold of my bedroom. But when she asked to stay, the part of me that remembers us together, that she gave me Wyatt, couldn’t tell her no.”
“I can understand that. But I’m glad to know nothing happened. Then what happened?” she asks, wanting me to finish the story as much as I want to finish it.
“Toward the end, before she left, our fights turned toward how I was trapping her. How boring I was. I ruined her life. I kept her from going to college. If we had thought of birth control at all, then none of this would have ever happened and she wouldn’t know how much it hurt to lose a child. And I thought how right she was.
“I knew she wasn’t on birth control but, like all teenagers, I just wanted to know what it felt like without the barrier. They weren’t lying though when they said it only takes one time.
“The reason I ended up on House of Desire was because of something my therapist said. But I still wasn’t ready. I hadn’t healed from the abandonment and the angry words she had hurled at me. The lack of closure. And then I met you. And for once, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I never should have proposed to you. I should have told production to fuck off and do what I wanted, which was to ask you to be my girlfriend and date me in the real world. I’m so sorry, for putting you in the position of having to reject me. That wasn’t fair of me.”
Her eyes are filled with tears, but she reaches out, taking my hand.
“It’s okay, Parker.”
“No, it wasn’t. I knew I couldn’t give you the things you needed at that time but I just didn’t want you to leave. I wanted to keep you and the ring was in my pocket and I didn’t want to lose you. And that didn’t work. But then I saw you at the movie premiere and I knew I needed to do what I had to so I could be a whole person again. I worked with my therapist three times a week for an entire month. We’ve finally downgraded to once a week lately. I’m not perfect. I’m not healed, I probably won’t ever be after that loss, but I’m doing the work. And I’ll keep doing the work, but I hope you want to give me a chance, imperfections and everything.”
I lay myself bare to her and as she opens her mouth to respond, I cut her off.
“Actually, don’t say anything. Not yet. Because this was heavy and a lot. I want you to take your time and really give it thought. Because if you want me, I want you to know I intend to keep you. Our wrap party for House of Desire is Friday, as you know, and if you want me, tell me then and be my date.”
“If that’s what you want,” she says and then gives me a shy smile. “Do you want to help me cook dinner tonight? I was thinking the sausage and tortellini recipe I made you before.”
“Sounds amazing,” I say and we make our way into the kitchen. We spend hours cooking, eating, and just talking. The sun has long set when I make my way home, finally at peace.