Seven
Peter
Three days later
“What’s going on here?” My father’s voice echoed in the foyer.
I stiffened at the sound. He’d been driving for almost two solid weeks and wasn’t supposed to be back until late tonight.
I could fill an entire book with the humiliations I’d experienced since the accident.
But my father watching my wife cry in his living room while I slouched on the couch, feigning indifference, would go down as one of the worst.
I adjusted my posture as an instant surge of adrenaline hit my blood and reddened my cheeks. If Mom was here, it would be easier. He was softer with her around. I cleared my throat and turned my hat frontwards over my head, shielding my face.
His voice softened. “Sarah, honey, are you okay?” I could imagine him placing his hand on her shoulder, rubbing it slightly as he pulled her into a side hug—like he did with my sisters.
Her quiet crying stopped as she sniffed. “No, Cal, I’m not. I came to pick up Peter but he’s refusing to come home.”
“Home?” A ripple of shock turned his tone to steel. “Son, how long have you been in my house?”
My tongue dried in my mouth. Dad was a big softie—in fact, most people knew him as a bit of a pushover—but Ben and I knew the truth. Callum Thompson could and would muscle his sons around when necessary.
I opened my mouth, but no words came.
What had started as one night turned into three. She’d come every morning to retrieve me, her emotional desperation growing each time. I didn’t want to admit any of that.
“I asked you a question, Peter.”
“I’ve…been here since, um, Friday.”
“Friday morning,” Sarah clarified with a whisper.
A chilling silence filled the room. “And…I’m assuming your wife has been here with you?”
I said nothing.
“Son?”
“Uh, no. She hasn't, sir.”
“Why not?”
I sat forward, rubbing my palms together. “We’re taking a break to figure things out.”
“Taking a break.” He repeated the words like they were the dumbest load of crap he’d ever heard. “What do you need to figure out that you can’t work through under the same roof?”
“We needed some space—”
“Both of you? Or just you?”
“Well, it was good for both of us—”
“Your wife is standing in my living room, crying. Don’t lie to me.”
“Okay, fine. I guess just me then.” I squeezed my hands together, anger swallowing up my embarrassment. Being treated like a child gathered the heat from my face and pushed it into my chest. “I couldn’t sit at home anymore.”
“Why not?”
Clenching my teeth, I filtered my words. No matter how intimidating my father could be, I wouldn’t open my chest for him to scrutinize my motives. “It’s not really your business.”
After a moment of silence, he clicked his tongue and stepped into the living room—a few feet from where I sat. “You’re sitting under my roof, aren’t you? Using my heat pump, flushing my toilets, and eating my food?”
“Dad—”
His volume rose. “You can’t leave an ass print on my couch and worry my wife then claim it’s not my business”
I scoffed, anger roiling through my veins.
“I’m going to give you one more chance to answer me like a man. Why can’t you be at home with your wife?”
Sarah's soft sniffling filled the silence.
I rolled my tongue over the inside of my cheek, annoyed that the answer floated to my lips with no effort whatsoever.
I bit it back though, unwilling to divulge my insecurities right here and now.
I’d built my fortress like a skilled mason and I’d be damned before I let my father blow it to smithereens with a single blow.
Clawing for a single shred of pride, I set my jaw—a silent defiance.
His voice came like a hiss. “Get out.”
I didn’t move.
A long, uncomfortable beat of quiet passed before he spoke again. “You deaf now, too?”
I blinked in disbelief as my jaw dropped.
“I said get out of my house.”
“Dad—”
“You were raised better. The next time you can’t handle a domestic spat you can book a hotel room or piss around until you wander into a homeless shelter.
But you’re not coming to my house to escape the woman you’re supposed to love.
” He was on a roll now. “I had a feeling that you coming in the afternoons might escalate and I should’ve nipped it in the bud way back when.
” His voice softened again. “Sarah, I’m sorry. ”
“It’s—okay.”
“No, honey. It’s not.” He sighed. “Have you been here for a while?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath, gathering her resolve. “I came to pick him up Saturday morning, and I’ve been here every day since.”
“And Lynn?”
“She stays out of it.”
He clicked his tongue again. “When she gets home in a couple hours, I’ll talk to her. This won’t happen again.”
“Thank you, Cal.”
Dad’s voice sharpened, directed at me. “I’m assuming you have stuff to pack?”
“Upstairs.”
“I don’t know why you’re still sitting there then.”
I stood, wanting to hold my chin high but it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. So I kept my hat down, covering my face, as I made my way up the stairs and into my old bedroom. Shoving stuff into my duffle bag, I cursed my blindness the entire time.
“You missed our turn,” I said as Sarah blew right past the turn-off for our neighborhood.
“I know.”
Starting to sweat from the full-throttle heat blowing straight at my eyeballs, I reached forward and yanked the direction of the vent to the side. “Where are we going?”
She didn’t answer.
“Sarah?”
“You know what, Peter?” Her tone was the usual—cold as ice. “I don’t really feel like chatting with you right now.”
I scoffed. “Well, neither do I, but can’t I at least know our destination?”
“If I tell you, you’ll probably whine for the rest of the day.”
My jaw clenched as familiar rage pumped through my veins again. “Just because I’m blind, I don’t get a say on where I go?”
“Oh, stop it.” Sarah seethed. “Me not telling you has nothing to do with you being blind, and everything to do with your giant entitlement attitude. What happened with your dad was embarrassing, and I’m not ready to deal with your bitching yet.”
“Embarrassing for you?”
“Yes! I will never live that down.”
I scoffed and laughed at the same time somehow. “Enlighten me. How does me getting chewed out by my dad embarrass you?”
“Because the man I married is…” Her words tapered off as a surge of emotions squeezed her voice. “Never mind. Just forget about how I might feel. That’s the theme recently anyway.”
She’d left a lot to unpack with that statement. “Finish your thought.”
“I don’t think I will.”
“Just say it. Might as well! ‘Because the man you married is…’ what?”
She paused. “I don’t even know where I was going with that.”
“Try.”
“Stop.” She took a shaky inhale. “I promised myself that I wouldn't fight with you.”
“Well, it seems like we already are, so we should just say what needs to be said. I want to know why my dad chewing me out embarrassed you.”
She turned on her blinker. I frowned. We were merging onto I-50?
“Because it’s like you’ve reverted back to childhood.
And it’s humiliating to watch my husband cry to his mommy.
When you go to her for help it makes me feel like I’m not doing a good enough job taking care of you and—” Her voice raised a little as her emotion escalated.
“And I’m killing myself trying to take care of you and love you and be everything you need. ”
“Then just stop. You don’t have to do all that. I don’t want you to.”
“So, you want me to stop working and paying the bills? Or making dinner, doing laundry, and cleaning? Last time I checked, Peter, you weren’t doing housework or bringing home a paycheck.”
Ignoring the housework accusation, I skipped to the paycheck. “No, obviously you still have to work. But you don’t have to work so much. We have money—a lot of money—in the bank.”
“Which is for our future family. I’m not using it.”
My head lulled back as I groaned. “Sarah, come on. Please don’t tell me you’re still hanging onto that.”
“Hanging on to what?”
“Kids.” I looked over at her for the first time so she could see my face.
I didn’t allow myself to think about the fact that I couldn’t see her red-rimmed eyes or her fiery hair.
I didn’t entertain the idea of what she might look like in this moment.
I didn’t wonder what expression she threw my way or what her perfect lips were doing: pursing, pressing into a tight line, or rolling together.
Those wandering thoughts were too heavy for me to carry—always were.
“You really think we can still have a kid?”
We’d had this conversation repeatedly, but maybe I hadn’t been direct enough. Maybe I’d let a flicker of hope remain in her heart.
“I still want a kid.” Her tone, though hurt, clung to its fire.
“How? You said it yourself that you’re in over your head. That you’re ‘killing yourself’ just trying to take care of me. How are you going to go through IVF and take care of a baby without help?”
“Without help? Why are you assuming you couldn’t help with a baby?”
“Because look at me, Sarah!” I turned toward her again and blinked away the immediate sting in my eyes, hoping she didn’t hear the trembling swell in my voice. “I can’t even hold a job.”
“That right there—how you talk to yourself—is the root of the problem. It’s so childish! You think you’re useless but it’s not true. You can do everything a seeing person can do. You just have to overcome the barrier in your mind first.”
I groaned. “You sound like Dr. Bates.”
“Good. Dr. Bates is a very wise man.”
I hated my shrink. “Well, you should know you’re working yourself into the ground to preserve an option I don’t even want anymore. Our lives have changed and there’s no fixing it.”
“You’re wrong. Obviously, we can’t reverse what happened, but I have not stopped believing for a second that you will wake up.”
That you will wake up.