“Which clearly didn’t work.”
“No, clearly not.” He takes a sip of his wine. “So, by the way, all this was taking place more than two years ago. The school here wanted to have someone lined up and ready to go, wanted to give Mr. Mackey plenty of time to tie up loose ends, you know? He’d told them he was ready to start the process, and so they started looking for a replacement, and it took them a while to find me, and then even after I’d told them yes, Mr. Mackey wanted to finish that year, and then my divorce was taking a long time to settle…”
“Not amicable, then?”
“How many divorces are ever actually, truly amicable?” he asks. “No, it wasn’t amicable at all. It was slow, and painful. We separated, sold our house, split most of our belongings fairly evenly, but it just…she was just…” He sighs, shakes his head. “It was insanely hard, and I’ll leave it at that.”
“So…if you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been actually divorced?”
“A year and a half.”
“What were you doing in the time between the divorce finalizing and moving out here?”
He shrugs. “Teaching, and trying to prepare myself for being a principal as best I could. Living with my best friend out there, Marc. He’s one of those childhood friends I was telling you about. We text a lot, and exchange these long, rambling emails. He’s been threatening to come visit me for a while now, but his workload hasn’t allowed it yet.” He waves. “So, that’s the gist of my story.”
“Well, I’m sorry you went through that.”
“Yeah, thanks. I mean, it brought me here, though, and I’m really coming to love this little town.” His eyes fix on mine, and I hear what he’s not saying—that it’s not the town, it’s the people. Me. Aiden.
He swirls his wine—we’re barely even drinking our wine. Sipping for appearances now and then, but not really drinking. “So. I showed you mine.”
I blush, and then realize he means his divorce story. “Oh. Um.” I inhale, hold it, and let it out slowly. “Well…Daniel and I were high school sweethearts. We grew up here together, flirted a lot in middle school, started hanging out freshman year, started dating sophomore year…went to the same college in Baltimore, moved back here afterward, got married, had Aiden.” I hesitate again. “Um. Things were…well, pretty good. Not great, but not bad. Just…average. I was—and still am—a guidance counselor at the high school, and he was the gym teacher. We had the house with the fenced-in yard, decent jobs, a baby…I wasn’t unhappy. I always wanted to be a wife and a mother. Cora and I used to play house as little girls, and I was always the mom, and she was either the dad or the kid, depending on what we were pretending. Daniel…god, I really don’t want to go too deep into it. Um. The salient points of the story are that I got pregnant again. I was happy. I loved being a mom, and even though I knew another baby would definitely make things even harder as we weren’t exactly raking in the money, as I’m sure you know…I was happy about being pregnant again.”
“He wasn’t?” Jamie guesses.
“He was worried about money, about me needing time off, about how we were going to take care of two when it was all we could do to keep up with Aiden as twenty-somethings just starting out in life and marriage and careers.” I’m struggling. I don’t want to talk about this. Not with him, especially.
He listens sympathetically, his eyes radiating warmth and compassion and interest. “He couldn’t hack it?”
I shake my head. “I wish it was that simple, honestly.” I swallow hard, several times. “I…I lost it—I lost the baby. Fourteen weeks. A late miscarriage. It was…well, it was a nightmare. There’s no other way to put it.”
“God, Elyse. I’m so sorry.”
I shrug. “Yeah. Um. So, really, that was it. I didn’t…I didn’t handle it well. I went into a really bad depression, and Daniel didn’t know how to help, how to handle me like that. We stopped…um…connecting, I guess you could say, if you know what I mean. I just couldn’t cope, and he was clueless. In retrospect, I really needed to get help. And, I mean, I talked to my parents and I talked to my doctor, and I even tried some various medications. So it’s not like I pretended I was fine or refused to get help, but…the medication really only made me worse, what with the various side effects and all. So, I think we needed help. He needed someone to…” I shake my head. “I’m not going to make this about him or try to put it all on him. It was a big tangled nasty mess, and neither of us coped well, and he ended up leaving.”
“He just…left?” Jamie seems puzzled.
“Yep.”
“You had a miscarriage and suffered a depression, you two have a son together, and he just…left?”
“Yep. He came back a few times to see Aiden, and then it was just phone calls and cards and gifts for Aiden, and then that trickled off, and then I got papers giving me pretty much everything—legal and physical custody, the house and the car, and in return leaving him free of alimony or child support. I signed and that was that.” I shrug. “That was three years ago, and we haven’t heard from him beyond a random birthday card for Aiden last year.”
“I don’t understand that at all.”
I laugh bitterly. “That makes two of us.”
“He just left you, his wife, and Aiden, his…what? Five-year-old son? Where did he go? What is he doing? Do you even know?”
I shake my head. “Not really. Cora did some online stalking a few months ago, and he’s living in Branson, Missouri, dating somebody named Anne, and is, somewhat enigmatically, self-employed.” I shrug. “But that’s about all I know, and I don’t really care to know anymore.”
“I wonder if he’s pretending he doesn’t have an ex-wife and eight-year-old son,” Jamie muses.
“Probably. I guess he’s going by ‘Dan’ these days. All growing up, our whole lives, he was always Daniel. He was adamant about it.” I rotate my wineglass, staring at the ruby liquid I’m not drinking. “If he’s going by Dan and is self-employed, my best guess is he’s ‘reinvented’ himself.” I use air quotes around the word. “Whatever. Not my business anymore.”
Jamie shakes his head. “I guess I just can’t comprehend walking out on Aiden. He’s such a great kid. He’s funny, he’s athletic, he’s smart. His teacher, Mrs. Crenshaw, told me just yesterday that he’s the sweetest and most helpful student she’s ever had.” Jamie shakes his head again, frowning. “How do you just walk away from your own kid?”
I fight tears. “I wish I knew, Jamie.”
He winces. “I’m sorry. I’m bringing up a lot of painful stuff, aren’t I?”
I laugh, a bitter, mournful huff. “It is what it is, right? We all have our stuff.”
His eyes bore into mine. “I can see more clearly why you don’t want to get involved in anything.”
I close my eyes. “Jamie…”
He holds up his hands. “I’m only saying that I get it. You have a good reason for it.”
“Aiden didn’t take Daniel leaving well at all. He was just confused at first, thought Daddy would be coming back, like he was on a trip. And I had no idea if Daniel was coming back myself, so I wasn’t sure what to tell him. And then when it became clear he wasn’t coming back, I had to tell Aiden, and…” I blink hard. “He acted out for a long time. He was angry and confused, you know? He had every right to be, and all I could do was…just be everything I could for him.”
“Elyse, I—”
“And he’s just now starting to be really okay, and not just okay, but happy again. He loves football, he loves third grade, he loves spending time with his grandparents—”
“What about his father’s parents?”
I wave a hand. “They moved down to Florida years ago, before Aiden was even born. They send him birthday and Christmas gifts, but he doesn’t really know them.” I shrug. “Daniel never got along with my parents, and I never really got along with his, so there’s not really been much love lost along the way in that regard.”
“Gotcha. That’
s rough, too.”
“Not really. He doesn’t know them and never did, so he doesn’t miss them, because they never factored in his life. My parents love him to pieces. I think they’re trying to love him enough to make up for him not knowing Daniel’s parents.” I smile, then. “And they succeed, I’m pretty sure.”
“Well, they raised you, so I can imagine how amazing they must be.” His smile is so warm it threatens to melt me into a puddle.
I blush so hard my cheeks are hot. “Jamie, come on.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “What? I’m not going to stop thinking you’re an amazing person just because…” he trails off.
I frown. “What?” I ask. “Just because what?”
He shakes his head. “I like you, Elyse. I admire you as a mother, I’m attracted to you as a woman, and I just flat out like who you are as a person. I would like to spend more time with you. It can be casual, and it can be whatever you want it to be or not be. I truly get where you’re coming from, why you’re resistant to starting anything. I’m not going to lie—I’d really love an opportunity to explore us being something more than friends, but if all we can be is friends, I’ll take that too.”
My heart flips. “Dammit, Jamie.” I’m blinking hard. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?” He leans forward, into my personal space. “I’m not asking for anything but a chance to just…talk, sometimes. Spend a little time together now and then, even as just friends. What’s complicated about that?”
“Because I like you too, Jamie. But…you know Aiden pretty well by now—you know as well as I do that if you and I started seeing more of each other, he’d sniff it out in a heartbeat.”
“And you wouldn’t want him to know?”
“Just because there’s never been anyone but Daniel, and I don’t know how he’d take it.” I hesitate. “And he’s already attached enough to you as it is.”
He smiles. “Heck, I’m attached to him, too. As a principal and coach I’m not supposed to have favorites, but I admit I’m a little partial to Aiden, and not just because he’s your son.”
My heart is pounding. I want…I don’t know. So many conflicting things.
But I keep seeing Aiden’s face when I told him his father wasn’t coming back. I keep hearing him crying at night because he thought he’d done something wrong. I keep…I keep seeing my hand, holding a blue ballpoint pen, scribbling my name on a document that made it legally clear Daniel didn’t want anything to do with me or Aiden ever again. I keep seeing Aiden holding an envelope with his name on it—no return address—and pulling out the cliché robot birthday card with the twenty-dollar bill in it, and a single scrawled sentence:
* * *
Happy birthday Aiden.
—Dan
* * *
Aiden had stared at the card, flipped the cover over to look at the front again. “I’ve never been into robots. And what am I supposed to do with this?” He had handed me the money, threw the card in the trash, and went outside to play basketball with the neighbors. When I asked him about it, he said he didn’t really care, and asked if we could get ice cream. That flat, expressionless look he’d given me when he handed me the money had been heartbreaking.
How could I bring anyone else into his life?
If he got attached to Jamie, started to develop a deeper relationship with him—love him, in something like a father-son sort of way, and then Jamie and I ended up not working out…
His stability was still…fragile. Aiden would never recover from that.
And neither would I.
I already suffered enough Mom guilt for everything Aiden has been through—neither of us can handle putting Aiden through any more heartache.
And honestly, I’m not sure I can take any more myself.
“Elyse?” Jamie’s voice snaps me out of my meandering thoughts and back to the present: a back booth at Vinnie’s, with Jamie across from me, his deep, piercing brown eyes on mine.
“Hi,” I breathe.
“I lost you there for a second,” he says.
I swallow hard, holding Jamie’s gaze. “I’m sorry.” I slide out of the booth. “I just…I can’t.”
He breathes out a gentle sigh of frustration. “Okay…okay. I get it.” His eyes betray hurt, however.
I turn away from that hurt, walk away from him. Out the back door. Out into the alley behind Vinnie’s, ignoring Matty’s voice calling after me. I don’t know where I’m going, only that I’m walking fast, eyes blurring.
“ELYSE!” Cora’s voice does break through and halt me.
I stop, clinging to the chain-link fence, which rattles noisily. I turn to rest my back against the fence, and the diamonds press into my flesh.
“Where are you going?” Cora asks, catching up to me.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. “I just…I’m so confused.”
She rakes a hand through her long black hair. “Tell me.”
“Jamie. He’s persistent.”
“That’s a good thing, yes?”
I shake my head. “I can’t go there with him, Cora. I just can’t. If it didn’t work, Aiden wouldn’t ever recover. I can’t do it to him.”
“But?”
“I like him,” I whisper. “A lot.”
“Aiden is stronger than you’re giving him credit for, Elyse.” Cora twists her hair in her hands; coiling it into a knot at the back of her head and then letting it go to bounce around her shoulders.
“He’s not,” I say. “He’s fragile. Daniel abandoned him, and Aiden spent years wondering what he did wrong to make Daniel leave him. He still wonders about that, I think. He probably always will. How can I bring Jamie into his life when there’s no guarantee it would ever be anything but…” I shrug, lifting my palms up and then dropping them to slap against my thighs. “But what it was: good sex for one night.”
Cora groans. “You don’t know that’s all it was.”
“No, I don’t!” I say, a little loudly. “That’s the problem! I don’t know! If there was some way I could have a guarantee it would work out, that it would last…? I’d jump in and not look back. But there are no guarantees in life, and I can’t risk Aiden’s well-being for my own benefit.”
“So you’re just going to be alone the rest of your life because you’re afraid Aiden can’t handle a breakup you don’t even know would happen?”
“I mean, maybe when he’s older? I don’t know.” I push away from the fence. “I want to go home. You can stay—I’ll walk.”
Cora snorts. “Don’t be dumb. Stay here, let me grab my purse and we’ll go.”
“You’re having a good time, Cora. You don’t have to leave just because I’m lame.” I offer her a tiny smile.
She whacks me on the arm. “Duh, yes I do. That’s what best friends for life do.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re supposed to say I’m not lame.”
“Well, you kind of are.” She grins at me. “Love you!”
I shake my head. “You suck.”
“And quite well, I’m told.”
I groan. “You’re so nasty.”
“No, I just have the libido of a teenage boy and I’m a woman in her sexual prime.” She pokes me in my chest. “And I know you, Elyse Thomas. Your libido is just as strong as mine—you’re denying yourself. It’s not healthy.”
“Yeah, you may be right, but I have other considerations. I can’t just do whatever I want. I wish I could, but I have a responsibility to Aiden, and that has to come first.”
She sighs. “You have a point, which I grant you. But I think you’re also hiding behind Aiden because you’re scared of being hurt again. I think what happened between you and Daniel hurt you a lot deeper than you even realize yourself.”
I huff. “Can we just go home?”
She grins mischievously, pulling me by the arm back toward Vinnie’s. “One more drink first.”
I pull back. “I’m not going back
in there.”
“He left, Elyse. I watched him go out the front door and walk toward Oak Junction.” She hesitates. “He didn’t look happy, either.”
“Well, no. I keep rejecting him.”
Cora breathes out slowly, pressing her palms together. “I’ve said my piece, and I shall say no more. You know how I feel, I know how you feel, and we don’t need to keep having the same conversation.”
I let her drag me back inside, and I let her buy me a drink even though I never even finished the glass of wine Jamie bought me—it’s still sitting on the table at the booth, actually, next to Jamie’s equally untouched drink. I sit at the bar with Cora and listen to her exchange entertainingly witty banter with Abe and Grady—she’s the only one who can ever get them to crack a grin, and she does it through a salty, ear-curling variety of vulgar insults and bawdy jokes.
My heart’s not here, though. Not in this bar, and not in the conversation.
It’s on Jamie. On that hurt look in his eyes, the resignation in his voice.
I wish I could soothe it. I wish I could take away the hurt, take away the resignation. I wish I could take back my rejections. I wish I could go back and be in bed with him again. Wake up with him, wrapped around him. Wrapped up in him.
But I can’t.
I just can’t.
10
I manage a week without significant contact with Jamie. Which is a good thing.
Only…it sucks.
And I hate it.
I see him in the pickup and drop-off lines, and when I pick Aiden up from football, and that’s it. We’re well into the school year now, and Cora and I are buried in work, so we barely have time to see each other, let alone spend any time outside of work.
Jamie is everywhere, however, and that makes it hard. He’s really thrown himself into the community, working hard to make his presence known and felt, to establish roots. He’s helping coach the youth football league, and he’s joined the poker group at Vinnie’s on Tuesday nights, and he attends community forum meetings—this being the boring small town it is, there’s a community forum about something pretty much every week—and he’s informally joined the school board. He even goes to Al’s gym with Matty and a few of the other younger guys in town.
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