“It’s a good idea,” Ella concedes. “But what if she fosters and doesn’t do a great job? Are you prepared to tell her she can’t have her own puppy?”
Christ, probably not.
But I shore up my dad spine. “If she’s not ready, she’s not ready. We can try again when she’s fourteen.”
“She’ll be heartbroken,” Ella murmurs sadly, but she doesn’t disagree.
“Yeah, well, I think she won’t. Our Lucy is mature and loyal to her commitments. I think she’ll succeed.”
“And then, at that point, we just hope the allergies don’t kill you,” Ella snickers.
God, I love her snicker. It makes me laugh, and that feels good… sitting here in the dark, laughing with my wife.
We make a plan—Ella will look into local agencies, give me a list, and I’ll make calls. We decide to keep it as a surprise to Lucy.
It’s when Ella yawns that I know it’s time to leave. I spread my legs, then push up off the chaise. “I should get going.”
Ella swings her legs the opposite way, crossing her arms as she faces me.
I don’t know what to say, so I ask something I already know. “Lucy’s debate team match is still this Wednesday, right? Six PM?”
She can’t hide it, but Ella jerks in surprise. I never remember anything. Have a pattern of not keeping things straight even when she put items on a shared Google calendar. It’s been a problem, and it has caused me to miss some of Lucy’s stuff throughout the years.
I don’t need the shadows to lift off her face to know she’s gaping at me in complete bafflement.
“Um… yeah,” she finally says.
“Great.” I smile, wondering if she can see it in the slivers of moonlight sifting through the neighbor’s acacia tree. “I’ll see you both there.”
After I step off the gazebo, I wait for Ella to exit and walk beside her toward the house to make sure she gets in safely.
Her hand goes to the wooden handle on the sliding glass door, but she hesitates, finally shifting toward me. “I was irritated you came here tonight, but I’m not now. This was a good talk. A nice time.”
“I’m glad you think so.” I give her a slight tip of my head.
I pivot, take one step away from her, but then stop. I can’t let a moment where we’re getting along go to waste.
“Ella,” I call. Stopping with the door partially open, she swivels. “I know when you said I needed to leave, I asked you a million times why you were doing this, and I know you told me the answer just as many times. I’m not sure I was ever really listening to you, and that’s my bad. But can you tell me, one more time and in as few words as possible, why you wanted to separate?”
I can see her face clearly now from the patio light, and her brows knit slightly. “As few words as possible?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Because I want to figure the rest out on my own.”
She inhales sharply at my bold proclamation, then lets out a long exhale. “Exactly as you just said, Jim. You didn’t listen to me when I was trying to tell you things were getting bad. Boiled down… I was invisible to you.”
I want to deny that statement—want to yell it’s not true. That every time I looked at her from the moment we met until the day she kicked me out, I was dazzled by her. But I know we’re speaking about two entirely different things.
I just nod. “Thank you for telling me that.”
Ella gives a soft smile, a little bit sad, a little bit perplexed. “Good night, Jim. See you Wednesday at the debate.”
“Goodnight, Ella,” I murmur, watching as she disappears inside. I have a lot of ruminating to do—a hard analysis of how I treated my wife and how that led me to losing her.
CHAPTER 5
Steele
Coach Perron is at the locker room entrance, slapping us on the back as we shuffle in. We pulled off another win tonight—2-1 against the Vancouver Flash. It was a stalemate-type battle, as the score was 2-1 at the end of the first period, but we held our ground and didn’t let them score again to tie it up.
Of course, we didn’t score either after the first period, but their goalie was on point tonight after he let those first two biscuits slip in.
Once again, I offered Lucy tickets to the game, and she declined. I can’t figure out if she has truly decided