more magnanimous. Or not. Where in the rulebook of life did it require an ex-wife to forgive her husband’s mistress? “Well, that freaking sucked. I need cake and some Kleenex. Tell me there’s a cake around here somewhere.” I burst into tears. “I need to call Jake.”
“I know, sweet pea.” My mother guided me back to my office. “Get her some cake, Cade,” she bossed.
“Yup, coming.” I turned to see him slicing into a huge chocolate cake. I knew cake wouldn’t really make me feel better, but the fact that I was surrounded by my family and friends when I felt this down about myself and my choices did lift my spirits a bit.
I slid into my chair behind my desk to call Jake. It went straight to voicemail and my heart dropped. I tried again, same thing, but that time I left a message. “There’s no answer, Mom. What should I do?”
“Let it go for tonight. Call him in the morning. But I bet he’ll call you first.”
“You’re right. I should let him have some space. He was pretty upset with me.”
“Upset with you? Or upset at the situation? Be careful about taking everything so personally, darling.”
“I’ll try. But it’s so hard.”
She sat on the edge of my desk and leaned forward to hug me. “I know it is. I believe that this will work out for you though. Try to be patient.”
“I’m pretty sure he told me he loved me yesterday, Mom, and I didn’t say it back. I’m going to send a text.” I texted him three words. Three words that had been ingrained in my mind from the second he first kissed me. Clear and obvious, they’d been stuffed deep in my subconscious. Until now, those words had quietly guided me through the disaster my life had become, and up to this morning, they’d kept me close to him.
I love you.
I got no response.
24
Jake
“One day I realized that ‘sadness’ is just another word for ‘not enough coffee’.”
I’m not proud of it, but I spent yesterday drunk on my couch, consuming whisky like it was water. I couldn’t think of a way to get through to her and the pain was unbearable. Yesterday morning I lost it all. Everything I’d ever wanted had slipped right out of my grasp like it never existed. She had me completely undone. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe without her. The only way I could cope was to get numb. Without the whisky coursing through my system, I saw nothing but her, what we could have had, what we hopefully still did have and could maybe get back. We made a baby and I wanted my family—her, the boys, the baby—together. Whole. We needed each other.
I told her I loved her yesterday, and it hadn’t penetrated the depth of fear that Tom had her stuck in. I don’t think she even heard the words. Then, like an unthinking fool, I proposed, exposing everything she hated about our situation to the daylight without intending to. It may go down as the worst mistake I had ever made.
When I got home yesterday morning all I wanted to do was go back out and find her again. Or pick up my phone and call her over and over until I made her understand, made her listen, made her irrevocably mine in a way that no one could ever touch. But it would have driven her ever further away. I couldn’t risk it, so I remained here at home, quiet and alone with nothing but the fear that I’d lost her to keep me company.
Now, here I stood, about to knock on her door as if I were knocking on the door that led to my future. In a way I was, because everything I wanted in the world was on the other side of it.
I rang the bell and jumped when, with violent force, the door swung open.
The Finn and Nick I saw standing on the other side were not the boys who I was used to seeing. These were two almost grown men acting as sentries for their mother and even though they were clearly angry with me, I could not be prouder of them.
Finn glared at me, but the hint of disappointment in his eyes gave me a sliver of hope that I could get through to him. “We don’t know what’s going on and we don’t fucking care. She cried all night in her room with all the aunts. All three