If We Could Go Back, page 18
“Okay, everyone say ‘Happy Halloween,’” Maggie sang.
“Happy Halloween!”
“What is she doing?” Brianna asked, baffled.
“She’s…trying.” I winced as I watched Allison throw the basketball to Jess, who almost flew away when he caught it with his stomach.
“It’s painful to watch,” my sister said.
We were standing at the kitchen window looking out over the driveway where I’d put a basketball hoop above the garage door last weekend. Kieran and I thought it’d be fun to shoot some hoops together with the kids, but I hoped we did a better job than my wife.
I was beginning to feel sorry for her. Nate was right. She was trying. She was trying so fucking hard, but she wasn’t listening, and therefore, her attempts failed miserably. She didn’t hear me when I told her that it didn’t matter what she did with the kids or where, just that she was there with them.
The holidays had given me hope, until I remembered she’d always handled those well. When Nate and Jess were home from school, we put more energy into fun activities, and the everyday routine wasn’t as important. Then the new year began, the boys were back in school, and Allison floundered.
Next week was going to be easy for her, at least. Nate and Jess would be home for Easter, and Allison had taken the week off work because her parents were coming to visit.
“Can you imagine her being alone with the boys every other week?” I asked.
Brianna sighed and shook her head. “That’s an excuse, Bennett. You’d make it work somehow. You just don’t want to have the talk with her.” She turned and looked up at me. “You’re hurting them. Going behind her back will come back and hurt the boys too.”
I tensed my jaw and looked out the window.
“You can’t justify infidelity,” she continued firmly. “I’m serious.” She hugged my arm, maybe to cushion the blow. “There’s Kieran’s wife too. What has she done to deserve this?”
Absolutely nothing.
“What’s the alternative, Bennett? You stay married and act as the translator between Allison and the boys?”
“You’re the psychiatrist. I was hoping you’d tell me.”
She snorted.
She didn’t have to tell me that I knew what I had to do. I did know, and time was running out.
“Anyway,” I said, needing a new subject. “We talk about me too much. How’s it going with that bloke you were seeing?”
Judging by the faint blush that bled across her cheeks, things were going well.
“That good, huh?” I smirked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She got snippy and returned to her seat at the table. I followed suit after refilling our tea. “Okay, fine, he’s been asking why I’m not introducing him to my family.”
I pretended to gasp. “Are you hiding us?”
“No! I’m just…” She released a breath, visibly frustrated. “How do I know it’s worth it? I’m not used to serious relationships.”
I knew she wasn’t. The story of her life was that she overanalyzed the men she dated, and it got to the point where they ended things with her. Occupational hazard, she joked sometimes, though I knew she was hurt.
“Do you like him?” I asked plainly.
She nodded and took a sip of her tea.
“Then you need to stuff the shrink who analyzes behaviors into a closet and trust that a twitch doesn’t mean someone’s lying,” I told her. “If a guy wants to meet the family of the woman he’s dating, chances are he’s serious.”
“I know,” she bemoaned. Next, she flashed me a look. “For the record, I haven’t had regular patients in years.”
Yeah, yeah, semantics. She was all about research and clinical trials or whatever she called it. She met with focus groups and ran test studies with other teams of doctors.
Brianna and I heard a scream coming from outside, and the topic was forgotten as we rushed outside to see Jess on the ground.
“I’m sorry, baby!” Allison cried out.
I squatted down next to Jess and inspected his knees. Both had received scrapes, and he had blood trickling down his legs. Poor boy could barely breathe, he was crying so hard.
“It’ll feel better soon, sweetheart. I promise.” I gathered him to sit on one of my knees so I could carefully brush off the tiny pebbles. “Let me see your hands?”
He showed me his palms, where he had some minor scrapes too. “Oww, D-Daddy!”
Glancing over at Allison, I could see her own hurt plain as day, and it ran much deeper than the cuts and scrapes Jess ended up with one way or another several times every year.
Sensing that I wanted to talk to Allison, Brianna squatted down next to Jess too.
“Darling, how about you and I go inside? You know I never come up here without my bag.”
Jess let out a sob and nodded pitifully.
“That sounds great, doesn’t it, buddy?” I brushed some tears from his cheeks. “I bet she has some new Band-Aids.”
It was sort of her thing.
“I do!” Her eyes lit up for Jess’s sake. “All kinds of cool colors.” She poked his belly. “Just for you.”
That calmed him down some, and he grabbed her extended hand so they could go inside.
One down, one to go.
I walked over to Allison just as she broke down in tears, and I wrapped my arms around her.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” she cried. “My own sons hate me.”
“They don’t hate you, hon.” I stifled a smile and kissed the top of her head. “Jess will forget this in ten minutes.”
She wept harder, hugging my middle, and I sighed, having no fucking clue how to get through to her.
In my periphery, I saw Kieran and Maggie returning home from breakfast in the city with her parents. Jaylin looked like she was in a bad mood. Actually, so did Kieran.
“Just…remember that he’s our Jess, not Magic Johnson.”
Allison smacked my chest, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Then she looked up at me and tried to hold her scowl.
“You have to listen to them,” I murmured. I cupped her face and wiped away her tears. “I’m not telling you to be interested in astronomy. I’m telling you to be interested in Nate’s interest in astronomy. He just wants to share his excitement and teach us what he reads.”
“I’ll try…” She reached up and kissed me, and I cringed inwardly, knowing full well that Kieran saw it.
A door slammed.
We’d been through this before and would go through it again and again and again.
We got jealous every time we had to be husbands to our wives.
“I’m trying!”
“No, you’re not!” I yelled. “It’s getting worse, Allison!” How could she not fucking see it? “You’ve just wasted two months of the summer to work overtime when you could’ve spent that time with Nate and Jess!” I got heated and couldn’t sit down any longer, so I started pacing in the living room while I ranted and got out the shit I’d kept bottled up for months and months. “Nate once told me you act like a babysitter, and I couldn’t find a more apt description. For chrissakes, you’ve been home over a year now, and not only have you drifted further apart from Nathan, but you’re disconnecting from Jess too. And he loves everybody!” I threw my arms out in frustration. “You haven’t been to a single game since he started playing soccer, and you missed Nate’s play at school.”
“I was working!” she screamed.
“Then don’t fucking complain when the boys don’t want to spend Saturday with you!”
She flinched as if she’d been slapped, but she was back to seething in no time. “This wouldn’t have happened if we’d had kids the way we’d planned—”
“Bring that up one more time, and I walk out that door,” I growled furiously. “I’m dead fucking serious, Allison. It was the last time you used that against me.”
She gnashed her teeth and glared.
She wasn’t happy. It was clear as day. I wasn’t happy either. The difference was my unhappiness lay with her. She was miserable because family life didn’t live up to her expectations.
This fight had been brewing all throughout August, so I’d asked Kieran and Maggie to keep the boys tonight. And now… Fuck, I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t be married to someone who’d made me feel like a single parent—and continued doing so when she was home.
“This isn’t working.” Saying it out loud, and the acceptance hitting me instantly, was such a relief.
Allison paled and stood stock-still.
I shook my head and scrubbed at my face, exasperated. “I work full-time, I shoulder the biggest responsibility with the kids, I take care of the house, I help them with homework—”
“So do I! I help them with homework too!”
“You give them the answers,” I snapped. “Are you bloody serious? You give them the answers and don’t explain shit! You treat everything like it’s a chore, and the faster you can get it over with, the better. Because now that you’re done with school, you wanna play catch-up in your career too. But I gotta ask, Allison—when will you put your family first?”
She had no response.
When numbness took over, I slouched back in a chair and stared at the ceiling.
Allison was stewing on the couch. Every now and then, she’d defend herself and once again say she’d tried. She was doing her best, but it wasn’t easy to work full-time and be a mother too.
That one gave me a chuckle.
The absurdity of it all was that she didn’t understand. She didn’t hear herself. Christ, what had I been doing the past five years? Oh, right, working full-time and being a parent.
We were both too bitter to ever make this work. Even if we’d wanted to, there wasn’t a chance in hell.
“I’ve been having an affair,” I said at the ceiling.
And so that cat was out of the bag too.
I felt nothing. No jitters, no fear, no worry…no guilt.
“What?” Allison choked out.
“For the past…” I puffed out a breath and squinted, tapping my fingers together to count. “Damn. Two years.”
Two fucking years.
“Are you—oh my God, I can’t believe you.” She fell apart and sobbed. “You act so high and mighty—”
“I certainly don’t,” I replied calmly.
“—and you have the nerve to preach about good parenting, all while you’re fucking around—”
“Parenting has absolutely nothing to do with how I’ve been as a husband,” I said. “You want to ignore the years I tried to reconnect with you? Fine. You want to pretend I haven’t done everything in my power to make us work? Be my guest. Call me a shitty husband, let this one thing erase everything I’ve done—I don’t bloody care anymore.”
I was so tired. In the end, I was always going to be the bad guy. I’d knocked Allison up, and intentions hadn’t mattered. To this day, she liked to throw that in my face. Now she knew I’d cheated on her too, so I saw no reason to defend myself. I’d given up. I didn’t care.
She was never going to understand what I had been through.
The cheater was the villain in every story.
So why the fuck bother.
“Who is she?”
Good Christ. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Is it Ashley from work? Or Maggie?”
My head shot up, and I stared at her incredulously. “Have you completely lost touch with reality?”
“Then who is she?” she yelled.
I didn’t reply.
Chapter 18
Kieran had just woken up the morning after when I knocked on their door.
The sheer hotness he displayed put a rock of want in my gut—from the low-riding sweats and his ink and piercing, to his messy hair and sleepy eyes—until I felt the need to remind myself that he’d shared a bed with his wife.
I’d slept on the couch.
“Morning,” he yawned. “A little early for our run, isn’t it?”
“I’m not going today,” I said, clearing my throat. “Are the boys up?”
“Not sure about Nate. Jess and Jaylin are watching cartoons in her room.” He took a step closer and frowned, and he touched my hand briefly. “Everything okay?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t know. Maybe. Allison and I broke up last night.”
That sure woke him up. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Are you—I mean… Shit.” He ran a hand through his hair, then hauled me inside his hallway and closed the door. “What can I do?” He hugged me to him and pressed a kiss to my neck.
Leave your wife and be with me.
“Nothing.” I eased out of the hug. It was too much right now. “We’re, uh, we’re gonna tell the boys right away.”
“Okay.” He nodded and stuck his hands down in his pockets. “Will you tell me everything later?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to be irritated with him. I really didn’t. “You have nothing to worry about.” I assumed that was why he was eager to know the details. “I told her I’d had an affair, and she asked who the woman was.”
He frowned. “That’s not why I asked. I’m worried about you. I wanna be there for you.”
“But you can’t,” I whispered. “You have your own family.”
He flinched.
“Please go get Nate and Jess for me,” I said.
I spent the day putting out fires.
Nate had been dead silent when Allison and I told them we were getting divorced. We went through all the clichéd lines we’d found online. Mum and Dad getting divorced didn’t mean we didn’t love each other; we just loved each other in another way. We were still a family, and we would make this work. The boys would get two Christmases, two rooms, two birthdays—all that shit.
Jess was upset. He was angry. He was sad. He threw a crapload of toys down the stairs and screamed at us.
I took care of it because Allison said she was too upset to do it.
Nate wasn’t as easy to get through to, though eventually he opened up and asked if it was his fault we were getting divorced.
“Definitely not, Nathan.” I hugged him as he let go of the emotions he’d bottled up. “Don’t ever think that. Christ—my sweet boy, this could never be your fault.”
“But I have had issues with her,” he croaked.
I felt my eyes well up at the same time as I smiled at his adult manners. “Still not your fault,” I whispered, brushing my thumbs under his eyes. “When you struggle with something, the rule is you come to us. Right? You did the right thing, and that isn’t why Mum and I can’t live together. We’ve… Feelings change between grown-ups sometimes.”
“I know,” he mumbled. “Linda and Peter have divorced parents too.”
I nodded, remembering when Linda’s mother called to tell us. She and Nate were fairly close, so Linda’s mother had wanted to give us a heads-up. Peter was another friend of Nate’s, and his parents had lived separately for years.
“We’ll make this work for us, Nate,” I murmured. “Do you trust me?”
He nodded. “You will live here, right?”
That question led to the next couple of fires I had to put out. Allison and I had agreed that it would be better for her to stay at the house, because it would be the one place our sons were the most comfortable already. It was their home. But unlike her, I had a wonderful relationship with both Nate and Jess, and I could create a new home easier than she could. My financial situation was also much better.
Over the next few days, Allison and I stayed home from work, and I didn’t speak to Kieran much. He understood I needed space to deal with all this, though I could tell he was anxious about what this meant for us. For him and me.
Truth was, I didn’t know. I couldn’t think about that.
“Jess is asleep.” Allison joined me at the kitchen table one night and slumped down, looking as exhausted as I felt. “Nate’s…quieter than usual. He wanted to be left alone and watch TV.”
“He’ll come around.” I finished my coffee and then leaned back in my chair.
Allison took a breath and looked out the window. “I could have cheated on you in Chicago. I didn’t, but…there was a guy. We talked a little. He was into me, and when he asked me out, I considered it.”
I gave her a dry look, wondering why she was telling me this now. Did she honestly believe I cared?
“But I could never betray you, Bennett.”
“Jesus.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Do you think infidelity is the only way to betray someone? You’re not seriously that daft.”
She shot me a glare. “Did you just call me stupid?”
Well, that was the definition of daft.
“Let’s review our marriage once and for all, shall we?” I sat forward and ticked each thing off my fingers. “In college, I accidentally got you pregnant when we were both three sheets to the wind. It was a mistake that gave us our son, by the way. But it was a rough pregnancy, and you had to drop out early. I worked, went to school, and took care of you. I didn’t go to parties and have fun with friends. You gave birth and stayed at home. I worked, finished school, got started on my career, and took care of you and Nathan.” Did she see it yet? No? “You mentioned a second baby, and we agreed to have one more so you could go to school later. I kept working, I kept taking care of you and now two boys. And then…you finally got to resume your studies. You picked a school that was halfway across the country, leaving me alone with two young boys, a full-time job, and the house. And you bitched and you moaned and you complained about every fucking thing, and I didn’t understand because I don’t know what it’s like to miss out on life and have a kid.”
“Are you done?” she asked irritably.
“I’m not, actually.” I kept ticking shit off. “While you were away at college, you had zero responsibilities. You lived with your parents, you went out on the weekends, and your daily calls home to check in with us became weekly calls and sporadic text messages. And it was like this for four years, Allison. For four years, I singlehandedly raised our children, all while managing my career and a house we bought together when we were happy.” I leveled her with a serious look. “I met someone who could see how lonely I was. Someone who understood me. We started an affair. I have no excuses, but you know what? I have no remorse either, because you haven’t given a flying fuck about us for years.”
