Chapter 43
“Have you heard from the doctors yet?” I ask Mom as I bring her another cup of coffee in the living room. I’ve been crashing at her place for the last couple of weeks because I can’t stand to go back to that giant empty suite at the Colonnade. My left hand already feels too light without the wedding band on it.
I still have it, of course.
It sits on my nightstand in my childhood bedroom, wrapped in one of Andie’s pocket squares, mocking me.
Mom shakes her head as she takes the mug from me. “Some mail came for you.”
I let the change in subject go and follow her gesture to the cream, calligraphed envelope on the dining table. Despite not living at home for over a decade, I always list it as my permanent place of residence. I figure I’ll change it when I finally have a place of my own, even though that’s not in my near future.
There’s no return address. I pop open the flap at the top.
All the air in my lungs whooshes out when I read more calligraphy on cardstock. It requests my presence at Atlanta Fashion Week. Scrawled on the bottom in Andie’s harried handwriting is the message: I don’t know the perfect words, but perhaps I can show you.
“What is it?” Mom asks with a grunt.
When I see she’s trying to get up to investigate for herself, I return to the living room, envelope clutched in my hand. “An invitation to a business event,” I tell her. It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s definitely not the truth.
I take a seat in the recliner in the corner and toss the invite on top of the divorce papers I received a few days ago, collecting dust on the side table. I don’t know what to do with them. When I got to the first page Andie had already signed, it felt like a fist to the gut. It had only been a couple weeks. Her signature was confident and straightforward on the page, ready to be done with me and our relationship.
I can’t blame her. It’s not like I gave her an option or left the door open for further communication or … any of it. With a frustrated sigh, I turn my attention to a short stack of romance novels. I nudge the one on top with my index finger.
I clear my throat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make things work with Andie.”
“Why are you sorry?” She calmly takes a sip of coffee.
I sigh. “Because you want to see me settled, and I can’t seem to make that happen.”
Mom chuckles. She shakes her head and asks me with a smile, “Did you want it to work for yourself, too? Or just for me?”
I scratch the stubble appearing on my jaw after a few days without shaving. I’ve been calling in to work while I lick my wounds, so I haven’t been pulling myself together like I normally do. Hell, I’m still in sweatpants and a T-shirt and it’s almost noon. Patrick invited me out for a beer with Jamie, but I don’t know if I can fake a smile, even for them.
Had I wanted it to work for myself? I want to say yes, but I’m not sure that’s true. I went into it thinking I could give Mom some peace of mind. Then my wife was Andie, and I thought I could make it right after hurting her all those years ago. I spent our eight weeks trying to show her all the ways I could be a good husband.
Quietly, I answer, “I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?”
“I mean …” I look at the romance novels on the table. “I originally signed up for you, and then I spent eight weeks trying to be perfect. For her.”
Mom tilts her head in question. “Did she expect you to be perfect?”
I frown, rubbing the spot on my finger where my wedding band used to be. Over the past eight weeks, Andie asked me for a lot of things. But none of them were about being perfect. She asked me to stop trying to solve her problems. She asked me to do the dishes because she hated doing them. She asked me to let her in and tell her how I felt. She asked me to let her be there with me in the hospital.
I love you feels so simple now. Why couldn’t I bring myself to say it back to her in the hospital?
“No,” I finally say. “She didn’t. I think I put that expectation on myself.”
“Kit.” Mom scoots across the couch so she can rest a motherly hand on my knee. “I’m not sure where you’ve gotten the idea that you have to be everything to everyone, including yourself.”
I swallow. “You gave up so much of your life to raise me, and Andie gave up so much of hers to be on the show and be married to me.” I’m still not sure we’re eligible for the “damages” listed in the contract, especially after Andie left filming to be with me in the hospital. That’s her dream of saving her business, potentially gone.
“It sounds like you feel guilty for taking up our time.”
Honestly? I do. But I don’t know how to voice it.
“Honey,” Mom squeezes my arm, “did it ever occur to you that I chose to have you?”
I know that. I’ve always known that. My parents were so young when they had me. Mom chose my dad over being left in her family will. Which is yet another layer to my guilt. “Don’t you think you could have had a better life without me? If you hadn’t married Dad?”
Mom grunts. “You’re not hearing me. I chose to have you, just like I chose to love your father.”
I meet her gaze. She says she chose it all, but I never thought about choosing to love somebody. I thought it was something that happened organically. That you were born into it or felt the connection and just fell into it. That there was no choice in the matter. None of the love in my life felt like a choice.
“The life you think I gave up to have you?” Mom smacks her hand against her own knee in frustration. “It was my choice to let it go. I was happy to do it. I chose to be happy.”
“Even though we both … left you?” I choke on the words. Dad slipped away in front of our eyes, and then I ran to avoid the memory of walls closing in. To avoid her because I couldn’t look at her in pain without my lungs collapsing. Leaving was the only way I could breathe again.
“We can’t control everything.” She sips on her coffee. “It hurt like hell when your father died. It still does. But we chose to love each other every day, even when it was hard. I can’t find it in me to wish I’d chosen differently.”
I swallow and stare at a spot on the carpet.
She nudges me with her fuzzy slipper. “And you came back.”
“Did I, though?” My voice catches. “I took a job that keeps me away from you most of the year because it pays well. So I can take care of you.”
“I thought you took your job because you like it.” She sets her coffee mug aside.
I frown. I can’t remember the last time I thought about whether I like my job. I like that it allows me to support her. I like that I can pretend, if I’m halfway across the world, that I don’t miss this single-wide trailer and the memories it holds.
But as I think of boarding a plane to Italy, I’m so weary of it all. The running, the pretending, the constant battle between my heart and my head. The life that showed me how to breathe again now threatens to suffocate me. I rub my palm across my forehead to ease the ache spreading beneath my skull.
Mom shakes her head. “You can stop using me as an excuse, Kit.”
My instinct is to argue, to circle the same point I made when I came home in the spring. That I do enough for me. But I can’t convince myself anymore. I only nod, staring at my hands.
After another long silence, she tells me, “I liked Andie. I thought she’d be good for you.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it work, Mom.”
“For me?”
“For me.” My voice breaks, and I clear my throat in an attempt to shake it. I drag my hands down my face and let out a heavy sigh. I feel like I’m on the edge of a breakthrough; I’m just not sure I want to know what the other side looks like.
“You care about her.” It’s a statement, not a question.
I swallow the lump in my throat and admit with a croak, “I do. But I’m a complication her life can’t afford.”
Mom’s question is gentle. “Who decided that? You, or her?”
I look at the divorce papers on the table. Her signature on the documents is decisive, isn’t it? “It doesn’t matter. It’s over now.”
“Forgive me for saying, Kit, but it doesn’t seem like you want it to be.”
“I don’t think it’s my choice anymore.” I drag my hands through my hair. “I fucked it up.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Her signature on those divorce papers tells me that.”
“She chose to divorce you?”
I swallow. Because no. No, she didn’t. I’ll never know what her choice was.
And I walked away because I will never be the man she needs. I can’t face it.
“Kit,” Mom says firmly, “did she choose to divorce you?”
I clear my throat and admit the truth. “No. I’m the one that opted out.”
Mom rolls her eyes dramatically. “Why would you go and do something like that?”
“Because I was never going to be what she needs, Mom. I’m too … difficult to love. With my job and my need to take care of everyone even though I can’t be in the same room with them.”
“Have you not been listening to a damn thing I just told you?” She smacks me on the leg. “She chose to be on the show, and she chose to marry you. She chose to show up at the hospital when you needed her. I don’t care what you think she needs; she showed you that what she wants is you.” Another smack on my leg. “And you walked away because—what?—that isn’t what you think love should look like?”
“I should be able to love her without hurting her.”
“Oh, Kit.” She shakes her head. “Do you know how many times you hurt me growing up? Too many to count. Loving someone doesn’t mean you won’t hurt them. It means you’ll stay even when you get it wrong.”
You know I won’t ask you to stay. Andie’s words come back to me, her image framed against the bark of an oak tree. She knew I would leave, knew I would do this, and she told me she loved me anyway.
“You’ve never hurt me,” I murmur.
“That’s a lie.” Mom shakes her head. “Aside from all the times you were angry with me growing up, for whatever reason, I can tell I hurt you by not being … present, myself, after your dad died. And yet here you are, still talking to me. Forgiving me for my misstep. Choosing to let it go and love me still.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
I frown. It is different, right? I think of the day we fought at the hospital. Andie was furious with me. For a lot of reasons.
But all the same, she let me in. She told me all the ways she was upset with me. Then she told me she wanted to be there for me when I needed her. She let me into her bed and into her body and into her heart. Because I asked. She chose to do it. Even after I hurt her.
“Do you love her?” Mom’s words interrupt my thoughts.
“Yes.” The word escapes my lips before I can stop it. I love her. Fiercely. I can’t love her perfectly, but I can love her with all of me.
“And she wanted to stay in the marriage?”
I swallow, gripping my knees so tightly my knuckles blanch. “I don’t know. I didn’t let her answer.”
Mom throws her hands up in frustration. “Then what the hell are you doing slouching around my house?”
“I thought it was my house, too.”
“That was before you got married.” She says it with a smile. “It’s time to build your own home now.”
I shake my head slowly. “She signed the divorce papers. She’s done.”
“Why don’t you let her choose what she wants instead of rejecting yourself for her? Why? Because you think you’re not good enough for her?” Mom looks at the papers on the table too.
“I’m not.” I shake my head. I am definitely not good enough for Andie. Not after this.
“Her choice to make, Kit. You are so easy to love; I can’t imagine she doesn’t. Face it. Let her choose you.”
Our eyes meet, and I swallow as hope blossoms in my chest for the first time in weeks. If Mom is right about choosing to love someone, do I dare hope that Andie might still choose me? Even after I hurt her again?
I don’t want to spend my life hurting her. But I remember her falling apart at the dinner with her mom after she announced another marriage. Andie didn’t need another person to come in and out of her life. She needed someone who would stay, even when things got a little rocky. All I’ve done so far is leave.
Do I even deserve to ask for her forgiveness this time?
“You do.” Mom nods, because apparently, I said that last bit out loud. “You always deserve love and respect, and that includes forgiveness.”
I chew on my cheek while I mull it over. My big boss Hammersmith is in town this week. It might be time to have a difficult conversation about my future with the Colonnade. For once, what I need isn’t their security and giant paychecks.
“Don’t sit here and wallow, wishing you could have done it differently.” Mom insists. “Do it differently, and give her the choice to keep loving you, just like you’ve chosen to love her even now, after you’ve seen her signature on the divorce papers.”