CHAPTER THIRTY #2
“Since the first day I saw you, there has never been anyone for me but you.”
“What about that whole mess with Scarlett?” I whispered, looking down.
“Hey, don’t do that.” He gently lifted my chin so I’d have to meet his eyes. “I’ve done some reading. You were right. Whatever was between Scarlett and me was an emotional affair. I feel even worse about it than I already did.”
“Wait. How did you find out about it? You wouldn’t even listen to me back then…”
He looked angry… with himself. “I was a dumbass back then. I can’t even believe I told you I would go to therapy and then never fully committed to it.
Not really.” He sighed. “I read all of your magazines and some of those romance books you like. I finally realized what I did. I’m so damn sorry.
” He shook his head. “The thing is, I didn’t even like her.
Not really. I didn’t even try to get to know her.
I just liked the way she treated me like I was a goddamn superhero.
I know, just like you said back then, that she was a woman who would say whatever it took to get me interested. But she didn’t mean a word of it.”
“Took you a while to see it that way,” I gave him a look.
“Yeah. And I’ll be sorry about that for the rest of my life.” He kissed my hand then moved back into his chair. “I want to propose a couple of things to you.”
My eyebrows went up. “Like what?”
“It’s a lot of change, but just hear me out. I want to go part-time at the dental practice. I’ve hired not one but two dentists. I started with one, who you’ll love by the way, but hired another one part-time.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But why do you want to do that?”
“I think if I work part-time and you work part-time, we can work out a schedule where we’re both there for the kids.”
My mouth dropped open. “What? Why?”
“I know how successful That Cookie Lady is. I found some of your files after customers started calling me. Why didn’t you tell me how well you were doing? And how much you had to sacrifice to make it happen?”
“I tried,” I said honestly. “You… didn’t want to hear it. You seemed to think that a part-time cookie business was a hobby, and being a mom was basically me hanging out with mothers at parks.”
He rolled his eyes, covered his face with his hands, and said, “Fuck!” before looking back up at me. “I don’t think I can possibly say I screwed up enough to prove to you how I’m aware of what I did.”
“I might need to get you a thesaurus,” I admitted, and was pleased when he grinned.
“I probably need that, anyway.”
“So… what are you proposing? How would this work with the divorce?”
He flinched. “Blair. The doctor says there’s no way you can get around completely on your own for another month or so.
That’s not even including the kids’ activities.
Let me stay in the house. If you want me in another room, that’s fine.
I get it. But you need me. You really do. And so do our children.”
I wanted to yell and scream. It took me a long time—a very long time—to get worked up to the point of being furious.
I’d finally gotten there with Scott, decided on a divorce, and now that was being taken away from me.
But he was right. I needed someone. My closest friends worked, and even though Diane Crenshaw didn’t work per se, the time she spent on committees and volunteering was more than a lot of people put in at a law firm.
And I shouldn’t expect Gam to be ready at a moment’s notice.
That felt backwards. I should be helping her, not the other way around.
As much as I hated to admit it, I might have to re-evaluate my relationship with Scott until I was more mobile.
I just wasn’t sure I wanted to, even knowing that I’d misinterpreted both his behavior leading up to seeing him in his office with the party planner as well as what he’d been doing with her. It was just… so much had happened between us. I was tired. And I wanted to move on.
To have to count on him for anything rankled, but I didn’t have much of a choice.
***
Weeks later, I was inside the middle school gym watching the volleyball team practice.
I couldn’t believe how good my baby was.
Selene was gifted at every sport she tried.
But volleyball? It was like she was made for it.
The high school coach had wanted her, but Scott and I had been afraid it would be too hard on her.
I mean, she was in fifth grade. Allowing her on the high school team could mean getting hurt.
I did wince a little, though, when she jumped up and spiked a ball at the net. It bounced off the head of one of the girls on the other side, and she immediately went down. Hard. Selene, horrified, ran over to her and cradled her head in her lap while someone ran for ice from the cafeteria.
Maybe we should’ve let her be on the high school team. I glanced around to see several angry moms’ faces looking at me. “Um, sorry,” I said.
“She should be playing up,” one mom said.
“She is,” I defended our decision. “She’s in the fifth grade and this is a middle school team.”
“Then she should be on the high school team,” the same mom said, and there were murmurs of assent. Great. Another thing to talk to Scott about. No matter how many times I tried to pretend like he was just another person who lived in our home, he was always going to be more than that.
And I couldn’t discount everything he’d done over the past months.
He’d been true to his word, constantly there for me and the kids as I worked hard to recover.
He helped me bathe, drove me to and from physical therapy appointments, got the kids where they needed to go, made dinners, organized the calendar…
he did it all. I’d been beyond shocked. It had been something I’d never thought he was capable of.
And he continued to surprise me almost daily.
Someone thunked down on the bleachers beside me, and I turned in surprise to see Scott. Apparently, he’d walked up in time to hear what those moms had been saying to me.
“Yeah, Beth Ann. It’s a shame my wife couldn’t make the decision from her hospital bed.” Sarcasm dripped from his mouth. “You know, it just took a coma to take her out of that decision making process. So, if you have beef, take it up with me instead of a woman who almost died a few months ago.”
I was shocked. I just stared at him for a while before I remembered I wanted to see Beth Ann’s face. I whipped my head around and almost gasped.
She was practically in tears. “You’re right.” She nodded emphatically. “You really are. I’m just jealous. My Arnette wants to play volleyball in college.”
Everyone turned to stare at Arnette at once. The pale, skinny girl with dyed black hair and a nose ring, looked at us in alarm. Then she shrugged and looked back at the ball. The only reason she seemed to care if it was coming towards her was so she could duck away from it.
The coma had left me more… blunt than I’d ever been before. “Beth Ann,” I said gently, “are you sure Arnette wants to play college volleyball? Or is that just what you want her to do?”
She rolled her lips inward, again trying not to cry.
“You’re right,” she finally got out. “I wanted to play sports in college, but I wasn’t good enough.
I didn’t even get to go to college since I didn’t earn a scholarship.
I just wanted Arnette to have all the opportunities I didn’t have.
” Tears dripped over her plump cheeks and down her neck.
“We all want our kids to have it better than what we did. We just have to make sure that we know what it is they want, what they’re good at doing. Otherwise, it’s just punishment for something they don’t even understand.”
Scott rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. “Wise words,” he whispered in my ear.
One of the other moms narrowed her eyes, pointed at me, and drew a little circle in the air. “You get psychic powers from the coma, or what? ‘Cause you are way different than you were before it.”
I gave her a half grin. “No supernatural powers,” I assured her. “Just the inner strength to let the past go and realize how short life is.”
They stared at me as if I was a guru of some sort.
Not wanting to end up being some sort of cult leader, I turned back to Scott. “It’s nice to see you here.”
“Of course,” he said, munching on caramel popcorn from the concession stand. He handed me a hot pretzel with mustard sauce. It had extra salt, just like I liked it. I never knew he’d noticed that. “I just came from a parent meeting with Sophia’s teacher.”
My eyes went wide. “What? Without me?”
“You had mandatory PT during part of the scheduled time. I didn’t want to make the teacher, or you, reschedule.” He shrugged. “If that’s not okay, I’ll handle it differently next time.”
“No, that’s fine. What was the conference about?”
“He said he thought Sophia would do best at a performing arts high school.”
I sucked in a breath. “Would she have to board?” I couldn’t stand the thought of her living away from us.
He shook his head. “There’s one nearby-ish. With a little work, we should be able to handle it.”
A smile crept over my face, crinkling my eyes. I could feel it, but I couldn’t stop it or temper it a bit. “Who even are you?”
He grinned. “Someone who realized he came damn close to losing his family before he even knew how great they were.”
I grabbed his hand and held it on my lap for the rest of the volleyball game. My marriage to Scott had been far from perfect, but he was trying to show me who he could be.
And I was interested. Very interested.