Land when I first saw this place, and when he gave me the keys and a black card with no limit and orders to fit the place out as I’d like, I’d almost died on the spot. It was like everything I’d ever wished for handed to me at once. As if he’d reached into my heart and mind and found the best of what I kept hidden there and given it to me without question.
I didn’t want the help of a professional. I’d known almost all my life what period pieces I’d want in my home, what fixtures for the bathrooms etc. The fact that my new home was almost three times the size of my imaginary abode didn’t throw me off one bit. In fact, I accepted the new challenge with vigor and jumped right in while my new husband went back to work.
I remember the many hours spent choosing just the right colors and materials, the best furnishings even down to the fourteen-carat gold cutlery that had been imported from Italy as a surprise for me. There wasn’t one spot in the whole place that hadn’t felt my touch hadn’t been taken over by us because as much as the place looked like a showpiece, I wanted it to feel like our home, and it had.
Now it looked as if he’d gutted it and replaced everything that held any semblance of my touch, any reminders of me ever having been here. We reached the great room where Calen walked over to a chair near the unlit fireplace. He glanced my way once before turning his head to look down at our son. If he noticed my distress, he didn’t mention it and didn’t seem to care.
I stood just inside the doorway, feeling out of my depth. I was embarrassed at the way he was treating me and blaming myself because I knew I deserved it. He’ll never know how much I regret my decision at least ten times a day. Or how I wish daily for a miracle that would erase the past and take us back. Back to the day before the day, I made the biggest mistake of my life.
I snapped myself out of my daydream just as I saw the luxury car with the driver at the wheel pull in beside me. I didn’t let my eyes go to the backseat, where Calen was no doubt seated. It has only been a day and a half since he met his son for the first time, and here we are already.
Last night I’d had to beg him to let me take the baby back home with me since he didn’t have a nursery set up or anything that was suitable for baby Calen to safely sleep on. I wasn’t very surprised when he insisted on coming home with us and didn’t put up much of a fight even though the thought of him in my now seemingly tiny apartment filled me with anticipation and dread. Not that it would’ve mattered had I done so.
His behavior, cold as it was made it very clear that he didn’t care what I thought and had no interest in my opinion. He’d driven on my tail back to the apartment as if he were afraid that I’d drive off into the night, and he’d never see his son again.
Once back at the apartment, he was back to pretending I didn’t exist, and I was just a little jealous at the ease with which my son accepted him. My little one seemed starved for male attention, something he’s never had, and something I honestly never really gave much thought to until I watched him laugh and play with his dad.
I felt like a stranger looking in at the two of them, and nothing had ever felt so lonely. Once the baby had fallen asleep on his daddy’s chest, Calen had put him to bed in his crib. I grew increasingly nervous now that the buffer of our child was gone, but I need not have worried. He was there for his son, and no one else, and my presence was pretty much superfluous.
I felt like I was in the way, and wasn’t even allowed to perform my nightly ritual of holding my son for a just a little while longer while he slept before putting him to bed for the night. Calen hadn’t put him down since he took him from the car, except for the drive here, and then