Chapter 6 #2
Stevie cleared her throat and looked away. “Right.”
“What? I’m not saying he’s perfect, but he’s qualified, and more importantly, we can afford him.”
“I get it.”
“Well, I don’t. What? You’re clearly hiding something, just let it out.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything, because I didn’t know if you’d decided on that guy, so it doesn’t really matter.”
Jasper crossed his arms. “Stevie.”
“Ryan called me and asked for that guy’s number. I said I didn’t know if you’d decided on Logan or not. He asked me not to say anything, so please don’t tell him.”
“Why the hell did he want Logan’s number?”
“He was going to pay for the work.”
Jasper let out a loud, disbelieving sigh. “Of course he was.”
“He’s just trying to help, Jasper.”
“You don’t get it.”
“No, I guess I don’t! Because this seems like a pretty good solution to me. You get the contractor you want, and we don’t have to pay for it.”
Jasper crouched to put the rest of his tools in the toolbox.
“I asked him for one thing. To let me handle this and not get involved. This is what he does, Stevie. He fucks up and thinks he can fix it by throwing money at it. He decides what I need instead of what I’ve asked for in plain English.
I’m just asking for his respect, even if he thinks I’m an idiot. ”
“The way I see it, you need a way to pay for this work. He needs a way to feel useful. You owe him that much, I think.”
He looked up at her and sighed, so over being painted as a person who did this to Ryan, rather than one half of a couple that just didn’t work out.
Jasper could admit there had been moments since their fight when he wondered if he’d been too quick to end things.
If he’d let years of frustration and hurt boil over until he’d made a decision he couldn’t take back.
But during moments like this, where Ryan displayed the behavior Jasper had been hurt by repeatedly, he wasn’t so sure.
Stevie wasn’t helping matters, though, saying very explicitly that Jasper had made a huge mistake and he should have given things time to settle down.
But that was easy for someone like Stevie to say, someone who hadn’t felt the abandonment Jasper had, who hadn’t sat in a car with Ryan for two hours watching the future he’d been waiting for get shoved back into a carry-on bag, squeezed in beside every commitment that wasn’t him.
She hadn’t just discovered that someone had, once again, decided what was best for everyone without bothering to ask if it was okay.
But still, the ghosts of their conversations haunted him.
“It’s okay to admit you were hasty. I know he’d take you back,” she’d said when he told her he’d ended things.
That had touched a nerve, one too raw to indulge her obtuseness. “I waited nearly two years before I finally told him I was done. I would have done it earlier, but he kept putting off his retirement, which only solidified my feelings on it. How is that hasty?”
“Because, Jasper! You made this decision without talking to him about this. And I know what you’re gonna say—”
“I did talk to him!”
“Right, I know. I just can’t believe that Ryan, of all people, would have heard you say you were unhappy and ignore you completely. He worships you. He always has.”
“He does not worship me.”
“No? When’s the last time you had to change a filter in the furnace? When was the last time you had to cook a meal? How many freezer meals have you eaten over the last few years, even after these discussions you’ve had with him about not being happy?”
“It’s not only about changing filters and cooking meals,” he’d said.
“You fucked up,” she’d said simply.
An unfair accusation, but an inevitable one.
Stevie was repeating what she’d heard from Beni, Beni had obviously heard it from Ryan, and Ryan was someone people trusted.
He was the emotionally engaged one, the rich one who gave them down payments for their houses and bought their moms new cars.
Ryan was the one who got to play fun uncle with their sisters’ kids, taking them on trips to the shore when he was home for more than a few nights.
Jasper was stuck doing things like watching the kids several evenings a week when their moms went to the gym or went out with friends.
He had to make sure Stevie’s daughter, Winnie, finished her essays and math homework, and that Beni’s daughter, Nina, ate her roasted broccoli.
He even had to chaperone one of Winnie’s dates.
He did it all because he loved his family and didn’t want them to miss opportunities for avoidable reasons, but that didn’t mean anybody really noticed.
Longing for true partnership weighed on Jasper for years, invisible to everybody.
Maybe from his own doing, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
Ryan’s love, parceled into frozen plastic trays and tucked into the freezer, wasn’t enough to carry him anymore.
It didn’t feel like being chosen. It felt like he was being saved for later.
Well, Jasper was tired of being saved for later, sealed up while life moved on without him. Ryan had plenty of chances to choose Jasper, and he never did.
Choosing himself now, even with Stevie's words lodged stubbornly beneath his ribs and the threat of new debt hanging over his head, didn’t feel cruel. It, too, felt inevitable.
“I owe him respect, but I don’t owe him feeling useful,” Jasper finally said.
“Okay.”
Jasper finished shoving the rest of his tools in the toolbox with no finesse, then snapped it shut. He grumbled and shook out his finger, which he’d forgotten was so sore in the midst of his aggressive packing. The throbbing pain followed him as he brushed by Stevie.
“There is another option,” Stevie said quietly. “If we don’t want to involve Ryan.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, we could sell the park. Someone could invest a bit into it and make it really nice again.”
Whatever relief he’d felt by putting distance between him and Stevie vanished as his feet froze in place. His stomach lurched. “Sell it? How long have you been thinking about selling it?”
“Only recently.”
“This is Uncle Cliff’s park. We can’t sell it.”
“I don’t want to sell it, but come on, Jasper. It’s so much work, all the time. I outsource what I can, and it’s still impossible. Do you really want to go into debt to save a park that barely makes enough to cover the taxes on the land?”
“Kind of, yes! I love this park.”
“I love it too,” Stevie said, “But—”
“It’s all that’s left!”
“All that’s left of what?”
“Of… how things used to be. I need it.”
Her face took on that same sympathetic shape from earlier. “Okay. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know the park was that important to you.”
“I don’t know it was either,” Jasper said, rubbing his neck. “But it’s important to both of us, right?”
“Yeah. It is.” She smiled at him. “And we’ll be fine, because now we have… Logan?”
Jasper nodded. “We have Logan.”