Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
PAIGE
Their voices echo in my mind as I drive back to Josh’s with the two boys in tow.
“She barely has energy to get our boy settled before she’s asleep herself … It feels like she’s drifting away from me, and I don’t know how—”
Then Krista, sickeningly sweet, “What is it, Trev?”
The fact that he’s talking about our lives to this woman is bad enough, but the thing I can’t get out of my head is the intimacy in the way my husband’s name fell from her lips.
“What’s that, Mom?” Jacob asks, over the sound of a movie soundtrack he insisted I download. I tried watching the movie with him and Trevor last night, but I fell asleep, then again right after I got him to bed. I’ve been exhausted lately.
“Nothing.” “What is it, Trev?”
The limited traffic of our small town on a Tuesday afternoon makes the drive back to Josh’s house fly by, so by the time I park outside, I’m spiraling from my fifteen-minute visit to my husband.
Is this his busy lunches this summer? Is she his late nights, working?
Am I blind to him slipping away from me and toward someone else?
I consider all of the ways I could be missing something vital, as well as the ways I could be overreacting.
The view of the office flashes through my mind, and my hands tighten on the steering wheel.
The way that I felt standing at the door.
It was like I interrupted a ritual, like I was invading their shared space and time. I was an intruder.
My husband was standing and staring at Krista, his chest moving quickly with his rapid breathing.
His empty seat was directly next to hers behind his desk, the remnants of their shared meals abandoned on the desktop.
Krista was staring back at him, something in her eyes I hated seeing directed his way: ownership.
I sit there a minute before Cassian starts howling in his car seat.
My son slips out the moment the wailing begins.
“Oh, it’s just a little crying!” I call out to him.
The door shuts behind him. I shake my head at his dramatics, pick up Cassian’s seat, and go inside with the inconsolable, clearly loveless, and abandoned infant.
I pause at the truth of my throwaway sarcastic thought.
Well, damn. Now I want to cry.
Josh is waiting in the kitchen with a bottle when I enter. “Mind reader! You must be a psychic or telepathic,” I tease. His lips tip at the corners as he walks to his pitiful baby locked in his car seat.
“How did my little man do on his great big adventure?” He coos at Cassian while unbuckling him. The scene pulls me back to Trevor cooing at our baby when Jacob was in the NICU.
Trevor coos at our two-pound baby while he carefully maneuvers around the wires and tubes attached to him.
“Well, little Jacob, it looks like you had a bitty-sized preemie poo!” He takes the tiny, card-deck-sized diaper from the nearby bubbly cart and finishes the change with the tiniest of pats on Jacob’s freshly changed bum.
As I watch, he gently rests his hand on our one-week-old baby and takes a slow, deep breath.
His eyes close on the exhale, and he drops his head.
Trevor looks wrecked, defeated, but then he shakes his head before lifting it to look directly at me.
If it weren’t for the bags under his bright blues, I would never know the torment that lies beneath the calm surface he now wears like a mask.
He gives me a tired smile, reflective of the one that started this rollercoaster of our life together only months ago.
“What is it, Mrs. Whitaker?” He teases me.
I return his grin with one of my own. Trevor carefully replaces the top of the clear incubator and sits gingerly next to me, taking my hand in his.
He brings his other hand to my face, and when it comes away wet, I realize I’m crying again. “It’s going to be okay, baby.”
He kisses my brow, and I lean heavily into it. “I’m being discharged today. I won’t even be in the same building as my baby soon.” I hiccup a sob before scrunching my face up in a wasted effort to stop my tears.
“We are in this together. You can cry, baby. I have you. I will always have you.”
“Paige? Are you okay?” I blink away a tear and catch the eye of my concerned employer.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I’m just a little emotional right now.” I attempt to laugh it off, but a broken sound comes out instead.
His eyes get wide at the sound, and he immediately comes my way and pulls me into a shared hug with him and the baby he’s feeding.
I stand awkwardly rigid at first, but then I fall into the embrace.
I feel too much at this moment, and the quiet affection he offers gives me a second to be weak and gather my broken pieces.
My child’s voice breaks me away from Josh to the hallways he’s walking in from.
His face is buried in his tablet, and he’s walking and talking at the same time.
“Hey, Mom? Have you seen—”
“No tablet and walking, kid.” He looks up with his usual comeback, but his face drops into a frown.
“Are you okay, Momma?” My baby. Worry laces through his words as he moves more slowly into the kitchen, his table and whatever he was about to say now forgotten in his hand.
I sigh and open my arms to him. Surprisingly, he walks directly into them without further prompting, giving me a much-needed Jacob snuggle.
I’m shocked to realize how easily my head can rest against his. He’s getting so big.
“I’m alright, kiddo. I was remembering how glad I am that you’re my grown boy.” It’s partially true, and as close to the truth as I’ll ever get on this topic with my son. Reluctantly, I release my boy and look around to realize that Josh has quietly exited the room. A notification pops up from him.
Josh
Go ahead and head out when you’re ready. I’m going to call it a day so I can have some extra Cassian time. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.
I’m relieved and disappointed all at once. I needed the distraction. Now, I have to face everything sooner.
I hear him before I see him, as usual.
Jacob and I have been home for hours by the time the door opens, and my husband announces his presence. Today, he says, “Hello, my wonderful family! I’ve returned!” I freeze what I’m doing for a heartbeat before continuing to put away our leftovers. He missed dinner. We keep missing each other.
His steps bring him directly into the kitchen and to me.
Just like he’s always done. I feel him move to pull me into him, his warm and comforting scent wrapping around me before his arms do.
Just like he’s always done. Just the idea of the familiarity of this nightly ritual stings, and I back away before he makes contact. Like I’ve never done before.
I refused to see his expression. I don’t want to take in the confusion I’m confident is reflected there, and the thought makes me equally frustrated and hurt.
He takes a tentative step toward me, and I take another step back.
“Please, don’t.” I can’t have him touch me, but I crave the comfort of his arms. My body and mind are a mess of conflicting emotions.
“Paige?” And there’s the confusion and hurt in his voice I was trying to avoid. I can’t shoulder his pain with mine weighing me down so much. I release a sigh in an effort to loosen the tightness in my chest. I can’t continue feeling this way, so I decide to say it.
“We need to talk, Trevor.” His expression remains confused, and my frustration at this lack is infuriating.
“Okay, what’s going on, baby?” I tense at the term of endearment, but I turn away from him and continue putting everything away.
He steps in to help me, but I put my hand out.
“No.” I’m already struggling with untangling my riotous thoughts.
I have no idea where to start. As if sensing my confusion, he asks a different question. “Where’s our boy?”
Easy answer. “Bed. He went up early.”
A beat of silence. Then, “Okay.”
More unusual awkward silence passes between us, and I hate every second of it. Yet, I take my time wiping down the counters and the stovetop while Trevor leans against the counters opposite me and fidgets. Finally, I let it out.
“I heard you. Today at the office.” I face away from him, hands braced on the side of the sink. He exhales, the sound loud in the sudden silence.
“I’m sorry, Paige, but I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” Amazing how his stutter from earlier in the day has been forgotten.
“I mean, I heard you talking to Krista in your office with the door closed.”
I spin around to see Trevor standing with a furrowed brow. “You were eavesdropping? Seriously, Paige? It could have been a private meeting with a client.”
The audacity of this deflection. My calm disintegrates.
“Oh, no, Trevor. Don’t you dare.” I hiss at him, now actively stalking him.
“Don’t you fucking dare try to turn this on me.
” He opens his mouth as if to object or say something equally as stupid.
“There was one person disrespecting privacy at that moment, and it sure as hell was not me!”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” His voice drops. Trevor does not raise his voice.
“Of course you do! “Oh, woe is me. My wife is tired and ignoring me, and instead of going to her like a grown man and decent husband, I’m telling you, my young, attractive assistant, alone, in my office, with my fucking door closed!” I’m in his space now, my finger solidly stabbing him directly in the chest. I watch his face closely, but don’t see a flash of guilt I expected. Instead, I see humor.
“No. Baby, no. You got it all wrong.” He shakes his head and chuckles. Chuckles. Trevor must see the violence flowing through me and shooting out of my eyeballs because he reaches out and grasps my shoulders. “Paige, no. I swear to you, it wasn’t what it seemed.”