Chapter 20
CHELSEA
“He threw you out?” Heather sounded outraged. She set her glass of wine down hard on Chelsea’s kitchen island, the liquid sloshing up the side of the glass. “You could probably sue him for that, Chelsea.”
“No, he didn’t throw me out,” Chelsea said. “And I don’t want to sue him, anyway. He didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one who made the decision to leave.”
“Well, he must have done something to make you leave,” Heather insisted. “After all that time you spent together… I know you weren’t sure how he felt about you, but he was the one who asked you to move in with him in the first place. And now—”
“And now nothing. He would have let me go on living there if I had wanted to,” Chelsea said.
“He didn’t even know I was leaving, Heather.
I slipped out while he was at work and told Trudy where I was going so he wouldn’t be left in the dark, but I didn’t give him the chance to argue or try to convince me to stay. ”
“You think he would have?”
“I think so.” Chelsea had spent some time considering that question in the forty-eight hours since she had left Miles’s house.
“Things like keeping promises are very important to Miles, and he always told me I’d be taken care of.
I have to be grateful for that — he’s serious about the responsibility he has as this baby’s father.
A less honorable man might have tried to stick me with everything. ”
“Didn’t the two of you sign a contract?” Heather asked. “He probably just feels like he can’t get out of his contract.”
“No, I really don’t think that’s it. It was his idea to sign papers in the first place…
and, if I’m honest, I think he did that out of concern for my comfort.
” Chelsea sighed. “He’s a good man, Heather.
I know it would be easier to hate him right now.
A part of me wishes I could. But he’s still my child’s father, and he’s still providing for us. ”
Heather bit her lip. “What happened exactly? You never said. You told me you had realized you had to leave, but you didn’t say why.
And I know his father just died… You wouldn’t have left right after something like that if it wasn’t really serious.
I know you didn’t leave over something petty while he was grieving. ”
“Of course not,” Chelsea said. She frowned, trying to find the words to explain.
“I believe that he would have let me stay, like I said. But I don’t believe he really wanted us there.
Not anymore. After he found out his father had died, the very first thing he said was that our arrangement had been for nothing. ”
Heather’s face turned pale. “He actually said that? That it was all for nothing?”
“I’m not angry with him,” Chelsea said with a sigh. “The things he said were harsh, but I know he only said them because he had just heard about his father’s death. I can’t be angry at him for what he said in a moment of grief.”
“But you are angry! If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have left the house the way you did.”
“No, I didn’t do that out of anger.” Chelsea picked up her glass of juice and swirled it slowly, wishing that she could have joined her friend in drinking wine.
“I did it because… well, because I believe he meant what he said to me. He didn’t say it to hurt me, but when he told me that our arrangement was all for nothing now that his father isn’t going to see the baby born…
I believe that.” She sighed. “I’m not mad about it, but I do think he doesn’t really want this anymore. Not the way he once did.”
“You really think he doesn’t want the baby?”
“It sounds so cold to say this,” Chelsea said slowly, “but the truth is… I don’t think he ever wanted a baby.
I did. But he wanted to give his father a grandchild, not to have a baby himself.
And now he can’t do that. He’s right. It was all for nothing, as far as he’s concerned.
And he’s stuck with the consequences for the rest of his life. ”
“If that’s really how he feels about it, he’s a terrible person!” Heather fumed.
“No, he isn’t,” Chelsea said. “People have children for all kinds of reasons. He would be a terrible person if he wasn’t going to stand by me and take care of our baby, but he is going to do those things.
I don’t have any doubt about that. The fact that he doesn’t want a child for sentimental reasons — that he doesn’t want to be a father — that doesn’t make him a bad man. ”
“It kind of does, since he’s having a child,” Heather insisted. “You are much more forgiving than he deserves, Chelsea, and I don’t understand why.”
“He never hid from me that we were only doing this to give Silas a grandchild. I always knew that.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be hurt by it,” Heather said, sympathy creasing her brow.
“No, I know that. That’s not what I’m saying. But I agreed to our arrangement knowing those were the terms.”
“The way you’ve been talking, though — the stories you’ve told me about him — it did seem like the two of you were seriously anticipating becoming parents together,” Heather said.
“What about that big bear you told me he bought? That doesn’t seem like something a person would do if he didn’t care about becoming a father. ”
“I know,” Chelsea said. “Believe me, I know. This is what I’ve been trying to figure out as long as I’ve known him.
Sometimes he seems like the kindest man in the world, the best father anyone could hope to have for their child.
And then, at other times, he’s so distant and disconnected that I can’t believe we’re going to be raising a kid together, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that he would turn away in a moment like this. ”
“What do you think it all means?”
“Silas meant the world to him,” Chelsea said, staring into her glass.
“I think he wants to be just like his father, and… he’s still figuring that out.
He wants to make his father proud by having a child — but he wants to be a good father himself, too.
But then, at the same time, he wants to be a good businessman like Silas was, and he has more of an aptitude for business than he does for fatherhood. He’s more comfortable in that arena.”
“But he could still become a good father,” Heather pressed.
“He could, but what can I do? I can’t force him to get there. It will happen or it won’t.”
“And you don’t believe it will?”
“I don’t believe it has, so far. I just… I guess I let myself forget it over the last few weeks. I let myself believe that he was as excited at the idea of becoming a parent as I was. But that was never true, and I should have known it.”
“Do you really think he doesn’t care about the baby at all?” Heather asked, her eyes searching Chelsea’s face. “I mean… he is still going to pay for everything, right? That hasn’t changed.”
“He wants to do the right thing.”
“That’s good, at least.”
“It is. I’m grateful for that.” She sighed, “I just got it into my head that we were going to be raising this kid together, and now it isn’t like that.”
“It’s more than that, isn’t it?” Heather asked her gently. “It wasn’t just co-parenting you were hoping for. The way you talked about him… I know it wasn’t just that one kiss months ago.”
“It was, though,” Chelsea insisted. “Nothing else ever happened between the two of us.”
“Really? Nothing at all?”
“I never slept with him. I never even kissed him again after that.”
“But there are a thousand little things that can happen between two people,” Heather pressed.
“Just… little touches. Eye contact. The moments when you look at each other and feel sure that you’re understanding one another perfectly, in a way nobody else ever has.
That’s what my marriage was like in the beginning.
Losing that was how I knew we had reached the end of the road. ”
Chelsea was quiet. She knew exactly what kind of moments her friend was talking about, because there had been dozens of them.
Heather was right. That was what she was missing now.
Not just the promise of their time raising the baby together, but the potential for something more between herself and Miles.
I promised myself I wouldn’t fall in love with him. And I did. There’s no point in trying to deny it anymore. I fell in love, and now I’m heartbroken because it’s obvious he never saw me as anything more than a means to an end.
She had no one to blame but herself. He had never promised her anything more. He had told her from the start what he could offer. And she had agreed. It wasn’t Miles’s fault Chelsea had developed this yearning. It was her own irresponsibility.
“Chelsea,” Heather said quietly, her voice laced with sympathy.
Chelsea felt tears rising. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“Oh, honey. You’re not stupid.”
“I am, though. I knew exactly who he was, Heather. Right from the start. He’s a good man, but his work is what he cares about. His work and his father’s legacy. He told me all of that the day I met him. I knew nothing was going to change. I just… hoped. And I was so stupid to hope.”
“Hope is never stupid,” Heather said softly. “You wanted it to be something more. It makes sense, Chelsea. He’s the father of your child. Whatever else might have happened between the two of you, he’s still that, and he always will be.”
Chelsea sighed. “I know. And everything is going to be all right. I know that too. In fact… maybe this is good. I mean, it isn’t good that Silas is gone.
Miles might not believe it, but I wanted him to meet the baby as much as he did.
He was such a good man, and he would have been a wonderful grandfather.
It’s a tragedy that they won’t get to know each other. ”
Heather nodded. “You’ll have to make sure to keep Silas alive for the baby. It’s lucky you had the chance to get to know him before he passed, so you’ll be able to share your memories of him.”
Chelsea smiled. “That’s a nice way to think of it. You’re right. I’ll have all kinds of stories to tell my child. I just… I guess I got it into my head that we would be telling those stories together.”
“Maybe you still will,” Heather said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe you and Miles will move past this.”
“No,” Chelsea said steadily. “I got my hopes up already, and I was disappointed. I’m not going to put myself in that situation again.
I’m not going to go back to that. This served as a reminder to me of what our relationship is supposed to be.
It’s a business arrangement, like Miles told me from the start, so I won’t let myself believe it’s going to be anything else. ”
“You’re giving up?”
“If he was going to fall for me, it would’ve happened already,” she said firmly. “You know I’m right.”
“I suppose you are,” Heather grudgingly admitted. “But I just can’t believe this has all come to an end so quickly. I really believed you two were going to find a way to work it out and be together in the end, Chelsea. It seemed like you were growing closer by the day.”
“Closer some days,” Chelsea said. “Other days, we got further apart. And I know it was as awkward for him as it was for me. The bottom line is that I can’t ask him to sort out his feelings for me while he’s grieving his father, and I can’t keep putting him through the daily discomfort of being in his house.
Maybe we’ll find our way back to one another someday.
Obviously, we’re always going to be in each other’s lives.
But I can’t count on that happening.” She shook her head. “I just have to move on.”