Now? I was not. I cheated once and would always, to Natalie anyway, be a cheater. I lean my head against the cool glass. I allowed legitimate concerns and problems between us to exist without dealing with them. In ignoring them, anger and resentment began to grow. A wall of total separation soon came between us, isolating both of us. Feeling alone made me even angrier. It made it easy when another woman grabbed my dick and I thought it was okay to have gratuitous sex with her. I did it to punish Natalie. I realize that as I stand here. I didn’t know it at the time. I could not understand what provoked me to do such a thing. Now I think I do. Hearing even now how she won’t listen to the possibility that my opinion could be valid, or even my POV about her condition and not having kids, makes my anger pulsate and burn.
“I got a call that night.”
Her voice startles me. I turn toward her. She’s a shadowy figure in the apartment. I’m shocked she’s gotten up. I settle my shoulders back to lean against the window and cross my arms over my chest. “From whom?”
“Jayden. He said I should go to your office. That you were working too long, and he was worried about your stress level. He said he knew how hard things were for us at home and he just wanted to make sure you took care of yourself. So I came as soon as I got off my shift. I was thinking maybe we should talk. I had no idea how you felt about anything in months, and I didn’t know you were feeling so stressed.”
I let my shoulders fall and snorted. That bastard. “He set it up. He hired Chantal to come onto me. Apparently, she does that kind of thing. She gets paid sometimes for screwing the guys in the company.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“You still did it with her though?” Her voice is full of reproach.
“No. I mean, yes, I did it, but I didn’t know Jayden hired her then. He told me later. He really called you?”
She nods. Of course! It makes sense. Why she came there in the first place, and why her timing was so epically bad. But it still doesn’t change the fact that I did it.
“I told you he was a sociopathic, psychotic asshole who wants to destroy us.”
I nod. She did tell me that. If only I’d listened. “I didn’t see it. Not until now. But it doesn’t change the fact that I did it. He might have set us up, but I took the bait. I did the foul deed. I let you catch me doing something wrong.”
“Yes, you quite easily took his bait.”
“Why are you up?” I ask finally when she just stands there, glaring at me.
“Because I can’t sleep. I think about it all the time.”
“I do too,” I agree, my tone defeated.
She stares at me from across the room. “Do you hate me? Is that why you did it?”
I slump as I cross the room and flop onto a chair. “No. I wouldn’t be here if that were the case. I have been so angry, but I never told you. I just sucked it all in, and it turned me sour and awful. I acted bitter and angry about your job. That’s why I was blaming it for all our problems, and why we didn’t have kids, why you didn’t care, why you didn’t ever accompany me anywhere. But I think I’m starting to see the truth now. I did it because I wanted to hurt you, only I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t set out that night to hurt you. I was presented with an opportunity and I used it to hurt you. I took advantage of it. I don’t know what that says about me. I was thinking maybe I should just go. Maybe you are right. We are done. I can’t undo this. I can’t undo what I want.”
“What is it you want? If I asked you what your ideal outcome would be for your life and your spouse, what would you say?”
“A kid. I want to have a child at some point. And I’d like to have a wife I can talk to. But after what I did? I see and understand now why you can’t forgive me or trust me again. Duh. I get that. Clearly. But I came anyway.”
She is different now. The anger isn’t percolating beneath her skin, threatening to burst out of her. She is quieter, and more subdued. Now she seems almost willing to actually talk to me. She steps forward and leans on the back of the couch. “I was thinking about everything we said. I wonder, Sam, did you come here because it seemed the right thing to do, since that’s the kind of guy you usually are? You’re the guy who doesn’t do stuff like that. The guy that everyone likes and respects, and now you have to try and fix this mess?”
I rub the ache between my eyes. There is some truth to what she says. “I came because I was so ashamed by what I did. Because I’m that sorry, and I was panicked to tell you. I know I love you. I just don’t know how living with you went so wrong.”
“Do you think there’s a chance we shouldn’t be living together?”
I suck in a breath. Her statement is so soft. So sincere. Not spoken out of anger. I finally glance up and hold her gaze. “Yes,” I say simply. Honestly. “I think there is a valid chance that we shouldn’t be living together. We want different things. But knowing that, I also find so many things I want in you. You challenge me. You make me think more clearly. I used to consider your obstinacy, and your ability to do things no other woman I knew could do or handle, to be the hottest foreplay ever.”
“When did that change?”
I stare back at my hands. “I guess when I realized that talking to you would make me a pussy in your eyes. Except, I really needed to. The anger built. The resentment and I—”
“Can’t admit you feel those things about anything, especially me, so you never really told me. We just started to argue and continued to do that.”
“Yes. Strangely, I just came to that deduction in the last hour too. But it doesn’t change anything; you can’t un-see what you saw. No matter that Jayden’s an asswipe, and what he did sucked, it still worked, and that’s only because of me.”
“I can’t stop thinking about it. I see you in the daylight, and yet, my brain keeps flipping back to that moment and nothing can excuse it.”
“No, you’re right,” I concede, my tone as flat and heavy as my heart feels. There really is no excusing it. I see the hopeless endeavor our marriage has become. Perhaps no real answer exists. This might be the final act for which we’ve been leading up to in the past year.
Silence stretches on and on. There is still so much left unresolved and more to be said. But we both relish a moment of peace right now, and I’m afraid to shatter it. I don’t want to fight with her. Or hurt her.
“Your sisters are very nice girls.”
She nods. “Yes, they are.”
“Doing this? Being here? It’s huge for you, I know. I think it’s good. Really good.”
Silence again. “Will you do anything about Jayden? Or will you just keep on with him as if he hadn’t set this all in motion?”
“It’s fair to say he’ll never speak to me again. I quit, Nat. That night, I walked out and I never intend to go back. I called in finally while drunk and formally quit. Didn’t go over too well.”
“You quit?” Her tone is shocked. She stands up straight and her jaw drops.
“What else could I do? I knew what I did. I lost everything in that one bad decision. You. My self–respect. My job. The woman works there. I didn’t know at the time that she was for hire, of course, and therefore not likely to sue me for sexual harassment. But looking back, it didn’t matter. I had to quit.”
“But Jayden set you up. You can go back now. The woman is neutral in all of this. You worked for so long and so hard. You can’t just quit.”
“I can and I did. Do you think I can look at myself and be proud of what I am? What I’ve done? But life goes on, and I can’t undo it all. All I can do is change what got me there. That job was half of it. So I started there. I quit because I should have long ago.”
“What will you do now?”
I shake my head. “I have no idea. Hence, why I lay awake most nights. Thinking of you. Of when we go home. Of what I’ll do for work.”
“When you talk like this? You sound like the Sam I remember. The Sam I see now, I haven’t heard from in a ver
y long time.”
I shrug my shoulders loosely. “Yeah, you haven’t. I haven’t either. I lost track of myself, my values, and you. I mostly lost track of you.”
“What led us here—?”
“I don’t expect you to forgive me because I was lonely or hurt over the original issue.”
“I don’t. But there are times, I don’t totally hate you.”
My smile feels old and tired, like it doesn’t know how to work. It stretches my lips as if they might split. “But there are times you do.”
“Yes.”
“I want to stay. I think it’s important you see this through with Jessie and your sisters. But after we go home, I’ll move. You won’t have to deal with me again.”
“We’ll both have to move. The company won’t let us stay in that awful Victorian.”
“Fair enough. But I won’t fight you. You can have whatever you want.”
She stares at me. I feel defeated as my gaze falls to my bare feet on the floor. I don’t see any other choice. She might have done things wrong, but what I did was much worse.
“Sam—” she whispers and her eyes look huge across the distance.
I let a small, tentative smile curl my lips. “Maybe someday, you’ll find a way to look me in the eye again and not hate me. Maybe… maybe that can happen… someday.”
Reality is something I’ve avoided for far too long. Starting with the baby I wanted, and ending with the job I put ahead of everything else. This is my marriage and its logical conclusion. It’s time I accept it. My heart seems to have a knife stuck inside it, projecting from my chest. Or at least, the sharp pain I feel right there seems like it.
Natalie
I scurry back to bed. Sam’s defeated posture speaks more to me than any of his apologies could. There is no way I can sleep. This subdued version of Sam is not one I recognize. I’ve never known him to admit defeat; and that’s what this last discussion, or maybe we should call it our first discussion about what happened, was. I lie on my side, staring at the window as daylight barely starts to break through the closed mini–blinds. Sam said a lot of things. New things I’ve never heard from him before. Or if he did tell me before, I didn’t understand what he meant. But I probably didn’t hear it from him before now.
The baby thing. It was a shock at first. I mean, what healthy, physically fit woman wouldn’t just assume she could have a baby? Yes, I assumed that. I remember distinctly sitting in the high–backed green chair in the office of my OB/GYN as she started to explain ovulation. She used such a gentle voice, as if preparing me for death. I was taken aback. But no, I wasn’t devastated to the extreme by the news, not like I now think Sam was. I felt weird. Like my body had betrayed me just because I am so physically fit. I can run miles, and pretty fast. I lift weights. I’ve more than once caught up to male suspects running away from me on foot. For a girl, and later a woman, I’m strong and healthy. Learning I can’t perform one of the basic functions of a woman, something even a fourteen–year–old girl can do, was totally disconcerting. I admit that. I didn’t like hearing it. It’s not like I left there doing somersaults, or cartwheels with glee. Of course, I prefer having the choice of conceiving our own baby. But that day, we learned my body has no choice. My body said a resounding no.
And yes, I call that a sign. I don’t really want to take extraordinary measures to have a baby. I don’t want to be poked, or prodded, or put on miscellaneous medications. The little I read about fertility options was expensive, complicated and time–consuming. So no, I don’t feel too passionately about pursuing it.
I flip over onto my back. Did I ever ask Sam how he felt? I remember a few conversations, but we talked about me, and how I felt. He was pretty damn good at convincing me it wasn’t my fault, and telling me I had nothing to feel guilty about. But did I ever once ask him how he felt? He brought up adoption. And other options, but I was adamant I wanted neither. I found the irony of being adopted and then being unable to have kids cruel, and it struck me hard. All I wanted for so many years since my mom died was to have a family. I wanted to feel connected to someone. Now I find out I can’t even have my own children who share my blood? It completely shocks me. I always assumed I would someday have my own kids. So, no, I didn’t want to adopt. I wanted my own kids. Biological. I wanted to freaking belong to someone, which is so strange because I did belong to the parents who raised me. I really did. I didn’t grow up lacking things, or feeling like I was a guest in their home. We were a real family. As I lie here now, thinking over what Sam asked me, I wonder why I didn’t think of adopting a kid like me, one who wasn’t wanted. Why don’t I think that’s a good idea? Why wouldn’t that be the only thing I want to do? I honestly don’t know.
We both went back to work after that. We didn’t tell anyone, per my request, and we started working harder, and spending less time together. I don’t think I comprehended how much Sam was hurt and that changed how he treated me. Sure, I realized we weren’t getting along or talking… but it shames me now, and almost makes my body burn up with rage to realize that I just didn’t see it. Not to the extent Sam expressed. I had no idea he resented me so much, or how thoroughly I ignored him.
Oh, my God! He thought I would consider him a pussy if he talked to me?
Could I be that bad? Is that how I’ve become? So focused on my own insecurities and making all the decisions that I won’t even allow Sam to talk to me?
It rings true. I groan as I bury my head in the pillow. He did grow increasingly angry and rude towards me. He started to pick and nag at stupid, pointless things. They were always small things we fought about. I blamed it on his wanting a girlie-girl. A woman who wasn’t a cop.
A woman who could easily bear him children.
I sit up in the bed. For God’s sake, is that why I let it go on and on? I never once initiated a conversation, or invited him to talk to me. I was so afraid he’d reject me because I could not give him the one thing I did and do know he wants: kids. I’m not all wet in that notion, nor am I wrong. Sam wants a society wife with lots of kids at home to take care of, or a high–powered corporate wife with no time for kids. I was neither, and therefore, was an annoyance to him. A hindrance, as that asswipe, Jayden, so eloquently referred to me as.
Now here I am, surrounded by at least four women who share my blood, and I still have no idea what that means. And Sam is here, although he’s almost given up on us, and I have no idea where I stand now in any of it. Or how my life reached this point. But what’s scarier to me in this moment is how little I realized. I didn’t think that anything was wrong with my life. How clueless and removed I was from Sam, myself and our life together.
Chapter Thirteen
Natalie
I get up finally and slip on my clothes and go into the house. Sam doesn’t stir on the couch. I don’t think he’s asleep, but I completely understand him wanting to pretend to be. In many ways, it’s too painful to talk. Or even look at each other. I don’t want to contemplate what he said last night.
Jessie is already there, eating breakfast. We greet each other and I move around the kitchen, almost feeling confident and comfortable. I pause as I start to pour coffee. I’m having coffee in my mother’s house. I grip the countertop. I never foresaw this in all my wild imaginings.
“Natalie? Is everything okay?” she asks me quietly. Jessie has a soothing tone. A calm tone. A good mom tone. I sigh and tears fill up my eyes. I turn to hide my blurry eyes while pretending to scrounge around for a spoon to go with the cereal I’ve just selected.
“Fine. Why?”
She lets the quiet stand before saying softly, “Because you’re tearing up. I might not know you well, but I’ve experienced enough of you to know you don’t just tear up. You don’t get sentimental at sappy commercials, or feel–good movies, or songs. I think, or at least, I’m willing to surmise, that you only get upset when something is actually wrong.”
I keep my back to her, but reply with a single, precise nod of affirm
ation. I hear the tap of her setting her coffee cup on the table. Then, the slide of the chair, and her clothes shuffling as she stands and her hand touches my shoulder. “What is it? You can talk to me. You could look at me as a stranger who doesn’t know about your life, and whether or not you ever see me again is all your choosing; so why not talk to me? You look exhausted and pale. Your face is drawn and your eyes are puffy; that tells me you have been crying and haven’t slept. Is it you and Sam? I know you just might tell me to go to hell, but I sensed something the first day he was here. Your face, for just a split second, when you realized he was standing in this living room, was total shock and almost awe, and I deduced then that you did not tell him to come here. In fact, I daresay you didn’t expect him to even know you came here. So that makes me wonder. I mean, under the circumstances of extreme stress and upset at finding me, who wouldn’t call and tell their spouse? Unless the spouse is someone whom you aren’t getting along with.”
I told no one what I witnessed that night at Sam’s office. I talked to no one about the person who might as well have taken a serrated knife, and cut into my chest to yank out my heart and set it before my eyes to examine. Watching Sam have sex with another woman sickened me and twisted up my insides. Since then, I’ve suffered from perpetual stomach aches, and intermittent throbbing of my temples. I came here and had to endure more emotional stress than I’ve ever felt before; and now Sam is here. The tension I feel is all exploding out of me. I expect steam to be coming out of my ears, mouth and nose. I feel so overwhelmed and I have no one to talk about it with. Granted, I’m not a touchy–feely kind of girl. I don’t have heart–to–hearts with my BFFs and I abhor a frilly girls’ night out. My friends, which yes, I do have, are basically men, or other women cops. I have several with whom I meet every Wednesday night for drinks at seven o’clock. We vent and blow off steam about what we have to deal with all week at work, or rag on some of the more pig–headed, chauvinistic guy cops we work with.
Leanne Davis - Natalie (Daughters Series #2) Page 18