30. Maren
— ? —
Maren
I wake up angry.
Not at Rhodes. Not at the sex, which was, God, it was exactly what I remembered and nothing like I remembered, all at once. And not, exactly, at the way he left this morning, quiet and careful, pressing a kiss to my shoulder before slipping out while Rowan was still asleep.
I’m angry at myself.
I lie in bed staring at my ceiling, listening to Rowan babble to Mr. Zorp in the next room, and I finally let myself think the thing I’ve been dodging for weeks.
Rhodes was right.
He broke our marriage. He crushed those flowers in front of everyone I was trying to impress, stood in front of cameras and made me small, chose his company over me, over and over, until I couldn’t breathe in our own house.
But I kept his son from him for three and a half years.
One doesn’t cancel the other. That’s what he said, and I’ve been treating it like an accusation instead of what it actually is: the truth.
I sit up, pushing the heels of my hands against my eyes. Rowan’s space monologue has shifted into some kind of elaborate tea party scenario - “Mr. Zorp, you have to share the cake, that’s the rules” and the normalcy of it makes something crack in my chest.
Three and a half years of that. Three and a half years of first words and skinned knees and the way Rowan says “lellow” instead of yellow - years I decided Rhodes didn’t deserve to have.
Because I was hurt.
Because I was scared.
Because being the injured party felt safer than admitting I was capable of causing injury too.
“Mama!” Rowan appears in my doorway, Mr. Zorp dangling from one hand. “I’m hungry for waffles.”
“Yeah, baby. Give me a minute.”
He climbs onto the bed and settles against my side, warm and heavy and smelling like sleep. I wrap my arm around him and breathe into his hair.
I told myself I was protecting him. And maybe part of me was, the part that remembered Rhodes’s face when he said I built this, you decorate it. The part that imagined my sweet, sensitive kid growing up in the shadow of a father who might minimize him the way he minimized me.
But that isn’t all of it, is it?
The rest is uglier. I was angry, devastated. And I wanted Rhodes to lose something too.
So I made sure he lost the most important thing.
“Mama, you’re squishing me.”
I loosen my grip. “Sorry, bug. Let’s go make those waffles.”
Rhodes texts at nine-fifteen: Still okay if I come by around eleven?
I go back over the message, slower this time. He’s not pushing, not demanding. He’s asking permission, exactly like he’s been for the past two weeks, and suddenly that restraint feels less like respect and more like a mirror I don’t want to look into.
Yes, I type back. See you then.
The next hour and a half crawls. I clean the kitchen twice, reorganize Rowan’s rocket shelf by size, then by color, then give up and let him scatter them across the living room floor. I check my phone eleven times even though Rhodes hasn’t texted again.
When the knock comes, Rowan scrambles for the door before I can stop him.
“It’s Rhodes!” he announces, bouncing on his toes. “Mama, it’s Rhodes, open it!”
I open it.
Rhodes stands on my porch in jeans and a gray henley, looking like he slept about as well as I did. His eyes meet mine for exactly one second, complicated, careful, giving nothing away, and then he drops into a crouch to catch Rowan’s enthusiastic launch.
“Hey, buddy. Good morning.”
“Rhodes, I had waffles and I saved you some but then I eated them.”
“You ate my waffles?” Rhodes’s voice pitches into mock outrage. “All of them?”
“They were really good waffles.”
“I bet they were.” He straightens up, Rowan still clinging to his leg. “Hi, Maren.”
“Hi.”
That’s it. That’s all we say. He doesn’t bring up last night, doesn’t touch me or search my face for answers or ask if I’m okay. He just follows Rowan into the living room and gets down on the floor to admire the rocket chaos while I stand in my own doorway feeling like a coward.
The morning unspools normally. Rhodes plays rockets with Rowan while I answer emails in the kitchen, pretending to focus.
I make grilled cheese for lunch. Rowan insists Rhodes sit next to him instead of across from him, so Rhodes folds his long body into the tiny chair beside my son and eats his sandwich without complaint.
It’s domestic, it’s easy, it’s exactly what I’ve been afraid of, because it makes me want things I told myself I stopped wanting.
By one-thirty, Rowan is yawning every thirty seconds.
“Nap time, bug.”
“No.” But he says it while rubbing his eyes, which means he’s got maybe ten minutes before he crashes.
“Come on.” I scoop him up. “Say bye to Rhodes.”
“Rhodes is staying,” Rowan mumbles into my shoulder.
I look at Rhodes. He’s already standing, already reaching for his jacket on the back of the couch.
“Actually,” I say, before I can talk myself out of it, “can you? Stay, I mean. Just, after he goes down. I need to talk to you.”
Wariness flickers across Rhodes’s face. Or hope. I can’t tell anymore.
“Yeah,” he says. “I can stay.”
It takes fifteen minutes to get Rowan down. He wants three stories, then water, then Mr. Zorp repositioned exactly right on his pillow. By the time I ease his door closed, my heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
Rhodes is in my living room. Waiting. Because I asked him to.
I find him standing by the window, looking out at the street. He doesn’t turn around when I come in.
“Is he asleep?”
“Getting there.”
Silence. The afternoon light catches the silver at his temples, and I remember when that wasn’t there. When we were young and stupid and I thought loving each other would be enough.
“I need to say something,” I tell him. “And I need you to let me finish.”
Now he turns. His face is neutral, guarded, the expression I used to hate because it meant he was shutting me out. Now I understand it’s also the expression he wears when he’s trying not to hope for too much.
“Okay.”
I don’t sit down, don’t move closer. I stand in the doorway of my own living room and force myself to hold his gaze.
“I was wrong to keep Rowan from you.”
The words land in the quiet. Rhodes doesn’t react, just watches me with those steady brown eyes.
“I was hurt,” I continue. “I was scared, so angry I couldn’t see straight for months after I left. And none of that, none of it, makes what I did fair.”
His jaw tightens, just slightly. But he doesn’t interrupt.
“You missed his first steps. His first words. Three years of birthdays and Christmases and regular Tuesday afternoons. You missed him learning to say astronaut and figuring out that he hates carrots and the way he laughs when you tickle his feet.” My voice cracks, but I keep going.
“I took that from you. I made that choice, and I told myself it was protection, but it wasn’t. It was punishment.”
“Maren-”
“I’m not done.” I hold up my hand. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I’m not asking for that. I’m just telling you that I see it now. I see the damage I did, and I’m sorry. Not sorry with an explanation. Not sorry with a list of reasons why you deserved it. Just sorry.”
The silence stretches. Rhodes’s hands are at his sides, and I watch his fingers flex, curl, flex again. When he finally speaks, his voice is rough.
“I hear you.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m still angry.”
“I know.”
“I accept that you were hurt, that you were scared. I even accept that leaving was probably the right thing, I wasn’t a husband worth staying with.
” He takes a breath, and something fractures in his careful expression.
“But there are parts of those three years I’ll never get back.
First steps I’ll never see. Words I’ll never hear him say for the first time.
And I can understand why you made that choice and still be furious that you made it. ”
“That’s fair.”
“Is it?” His laugh is bitter. “Because it doesn’t feel fair. It feels like we’re both standing in the wreckage of something we destroyed together, and neither of us knows how to stop destroying it.”
My chest aches. “Rhodes-”
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this real.”
The cold of it hits me all at once. I go very still.
“What?”
“Before we-” He gestures vaguely, and I know he means before last night. “A few days ago. How to be his father for real. On paper, not just when it’s convenient for everyone.”
“You made plans about him without telling me.”
“I found out I had a son less than two weeks ago.”
“And your first instinct was to go around me?”
“My first instinct was to sit in my car and cry, actually.” His voice is flat, exhausted. “The rest came later. When I realized we can’t keep making it up as we go, deciding about Rowan based on whatever we’re feeling that day.”
My hands are shaking. I press them flat against my thighs. “You could take him from me.”
“What?”
“You have money, you have people, you have everything, and I have a flower shop.” The fear rises in my throat, thick and choking. “If you wanted to, you could-”
“I’m not trying to take him from you.” Rhodes steps forward, and I step back, and the hurt that crosses his face is unmistakable. “Jesus, Maren. Is that really what you think of me?”
“I don’t know what to think!” The words burst out louder than I intended, and I lower my voice, remembering Rowan asleep down the hall. “You show up after three years, and you’re perfect with him, and you’re patient with me, and now you’re talking about making him yours on paper and-”
“I’m talking about making him safe.” His voice is strained but controlled. “Something that protects both of us, so he’s never caught in the middle when we can’t agree.”
“Something you started without me.”
“Because you weren’t ready to hear it.”
“That wasn’t your call to make.”
“You’re right.” He drags a hand down the back of his neck. “You’re right, I should have told you first. I’m used to, I’m used to making decisions alone. I’m trying to unlearn that.”
The fight drains out of me. I sag against the doorframe, suddenly exhausted.