Chapter 20 #2
Sighing, I said, “Listen, Shelb, she is who she is. I brought this whole thing on. I was so lost in the idea of winning her and keeping her won that nothing else mattered. It’s on me.
I knew what she was, and I still married her.
I didn’t care about the wedding. She was happy planning it, and I was relieved that she was happy. ”
And thinking about that angered me more than anything.
We didn’t say anything for a while. I was busy trying not to think about my wedding day. There were only so many times a man could regret something, and I was at my limit. It had happened. No going back.
“I remember feeling so sad at your wedding.” Her voice came out soft, and I almost groaned that we weren’t finished talking about it yet.
“Me too.”
I meant it as a joke, to lighten the moment and hopefully move us onto other topics, but neither of us laughed.
“I felt like I was too late.”
My body stilled. I looked down at her. “What?” My words came out soft, but my mind was now reeling with…the idea her words immediately invited.
“After I moved away, you stayed here with Dusty, and worked for Layne, and did rodeo. I remember feeling sad that I wasn’t a part of your world here anymore.
I was busy with basketball and hardly ever came home.
Pretty soon, we had our own lives apart from each other.
I didn’t even know you were dating Miranda until I met her at Dusty’s wedding.
I hated that we let ourselves drift apart, but it was at your wedding that I wondered if I’d stuck around, if you’d be marrying her. ”
“What are you saying, Tuck?” My breath and my body were frozen solid as I held Shelby’s very warm and very real body against my chest.
She readjusted her head, sending another whiff of the tropics my way, and I had to talk myself out of pulling her closer, which terrified me enough that I sat up straighter.
“Remember when we were juniors and that senior girl with the blonde hair started chasing after you?”
“Clarissa?”
“Yeah.”
“She had the hots for me?”
Shelby turned her head, giving me a great shot of her side profile, and gave me a look that made me laugh.
“I had to fend her off with a stick,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because she was mean. She was mean to Dusty. Mean to you. She would have eaten you alive. You didn’t see that in people back then. You didn’t want to see it. You only saw the good things, but a girl like her would have crushed you. So Dusty and I kept her away.”
“Crushed me? Wasn’t she a cheerleader? I could have taken her.”
“I just wonder if it would have been like that if I had stuck around.”
For a brief second, I imagined my life if Shelby hadn’t ever left Eugene.
Would she have liked Miranda? I almost snorted at the thought.
No. She most definitely would not have liked her, and she wouldn’t have been shy about letting me know.
But I also knew that I wouldn’t have been in the frame of mind to let Shelby tell me anything.
“So…you got married…” she prompted, waiting for me to fill in the rest of the story.
“We got married. A few months later, she was pregnant.”
“How’d that go over?”
I tried to put into words the emotions suddenly coursing through me right now.
“Well, she’d been getting restless. Bored, I think.
The wedding was old news. She was off the market.
So I think the pregnancy was exciting to her at first. It put her back in first place with all her friends.
I remember her acting really happy, which I thought was a good thing.
The baby thing was another exciting development she could shout about.
But it always felt like the idea of it was more exciting than anything else, but I kept talking myself out of thoughts like that.
I had to be wrong. But obviously, I wasn’t. ”
Suddenly, this whole conversation exhausted me, and I attempted to speed things up.
“Then we had the baby. She got lots of attention that first year. Acted like the perfect mom. Got after me about everything. Then her social life tanked. She got restless and, from what I can tell, carefully began making her exit plan over the next couple of years.”
“Where is she now?”
“Paris, last I heard. I came home from work one day and found her bags all packed, and she told me she was leaving.”
It had been a long time since I’d allowed myself to think about that day, but I couldn’t stop the memories from infiltrating my thoughts.
Miranda had been impatient to leave by the time I arrived home that day.
Adventure awaited her in the form of a backpacking trip through Europe with some of her online friends she’d met from who knows where.
“What did she say?” Shelby asked.
I breathed out a laugh that had no trace of humor.
Miranda’s words had been full of self-righteous indignation that still burned me up inside.
“She said a lot of things. She had to live her life. She was dying here. She got married too young. She tried too hard to fit the expectations of me and everyone else in her life. She wasn’t meant for this life.
She wasn’t fit to be a mom. Or a wife. Sophie would be better off without her.
And my personal favorite: maybe one day, Sophie would see her on a runway in Paris and be proud of her. ”
Shelby gasped, holding a hand over her mouth.
There wasn’t much more I could tell Shelby. I’d probably said enough. The gutted and empty feeling of that day settled over me once again.
Our house hadn’t been much of a home for a while, but even with that knowledge, it was a devastating blow.
Miranda had been planning it all for a long time.
I listened to all her excuses, and I didn’t say a word.
I didn’t fight her on anything. She was already gone.
I was terrified that if I opened my mouth, the only thing that would come out would be tears, and I wouldn’t give that to her.
Sophie was watching cartoons on TV when the woman who gave her life kissed the back of her head, raised her chin, and, with a defiant glance at me, stepped out of our home forever.
Miranda had taken the most important things in her possession that could fit in four bags of luggage and a couple of boxes.
She took her designer clothes and jewelry.
The cashmere sweaters and shoes, and boots made by Italian names I couldn’t pronounce.
Our meager savings was wiped clean—her payout for childcare the past three years, she’d told me, reducing her daughter to a few paychecks.
Among the things left behind were the photos of our time together.
Our wedding album sat collecting dust. Every picture of our daughter was still in its place.
The photo album of Sophie’s first year still sat on the coffee table in the living room.
She never bothered to document much beyond that.
I’m now wishing I had thought more about pictures.
But then again…did I want Sophie to remember?
Though she wouldn’t remember that particular moment, the events of that day would be a branding iron on her innocent life.
A burn that would scar her for eternity.
I knew all too well the pain of a selfish parent, and I almost couldn’t breathe at the thought of bringing this to her. And I did bring it to her.
My choices brought this to her. We would forever be broken. I had been chasing a dream all along, but the perfect family was never in the cards for me. I just found out too late. And now, not only at the cost of me but at the cost of Sophie.
We rode on for a while in silence. For once, Shelby didn’t press me any further, and I could only be grateful.