Shattered

by Jennifer K Thomas

  She stands and wraps her arms around me. “How is she?”

  “She’s good. The doctor said it’s a routine procedure.”

  “Jill’s a tough lady. She’ll be fine.” Emily gives me another hug.

  “Yeah. I was worried the whole way here but seeing her was good. I’ll be a little anxious until I can get her home, though,” I say as I relax into the embrace.

  “Of course.” Emily releases me and shifts her attention to the doorway with an icy glare. “What are you doing here?” Her sudden anger surprises me and I whip my head around to see Luke wearing the same look of shock I imagine is displayed on my own face.

  “Nice to see you, Emily. I gave Jessica a ride back from Napa.” Luke tucks his hands in his pockets.

  “Why the hell would you do that?” Emily sneers.

  “Emily?” I know her well enough to know she must have a reason for the hostility, but I can’t for the life of me place where it’s coming from.

  Luke raises his hands in front of him. “I’m not here to cause any problems. Maybe it’s time for me to leave.”

  “That would be great.” Emily gives Luke a hard look. I look back and forth between them. All indications are that Emily wants to cause bodily harm to Luke and he has no idea why.

  “What’s going on?” I direct my question at Luke.

  “I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “Whatever it is can be discussed later. You deal with your mom. Try to get some rest and I’ll call you tonight.” Luke kisses me on the cheek and I hear Emily mumble next to me.

  “What?” I look at her with wide eyes.

  “I said ‘fucking asshole’.” Emily enunciates every syllable while crossing her arms across her chest.

  I glance around the waiting room. There’s only one other family in here. They don’t turn in our direction, but they had to have heard Emily’s comment. They deserve to deal with whatever they have going on without having to listen to our drama.

  “Both of you, outside, now,” I order as I push Luke back toward the door and pull Emily along with me.

  Neither of them say anything as we exit the building. It’s late spring and the temperatures in Temecula have already shot up into the high eighties. I pull off my sweatshirt layer and stare, waiting for one of them to say something.

  “Well?” I throw my hands up in front of me when they exchange more looks instead of speaking.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is doesn’t need to be hashed out while Jill’s having surgery.” Luke frowns at Emily.

  She glares at him before turning a softer look at me. “I’m sorry, Jessica. As much as I hate it, he’s right, this isn’t the right time.”

  “It’s a little late for that.” My volume raises out of frustration. I look at Emily, who continues to glare at Luke. I catch him shake his head at her, indicating he still doesn’t think this is the right time for her to bring up whatever has her so worked up.

  “You tell her, or I will.” Emily shoots more daggers his way. “You wouldn’t be here right now if you already had.”

  Recognition dawns on Luke’s face. “This really isn’t the time, Emily.”

  “No, it isn’t, but she deserves to know.”

  “And I’m going to tell her.” Luke runs a hand through his hair. “You’re making this sound like a bigger deal than it really is.”

  “Not a big deal?” Emily sucks in a quick breath and pulls out her phone. We all wait while she searches for something. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I was looking through Instagram this weekend and came across this.” She hands me her phone.

  “Jessica. I’m not sure what Emily has seen, but there is something I need to tell you.” Luke says while I stare at the picture of a woman staring out at a cityscape.

  “You, shut it.” Emily chastises. “You had all weekend to tell her.”

  It takes me a minute to take it all in. The blonde in the picture has her back to the camera and is angled in a way that I almost didn’t notice her pregnant belly. I look at the name on the account ClaireBear88.

  “Thanks Emily, I really don’t need to see another picture of her.” I try to hand the phone back to Emily, but she shakes her head.

  “Look again,” she insists as she pushes the phone in my hand back toward me.

  I sigh and reluctantly return my eyes to the image of Claire. My chest tightens, being forced to look at her, the woman who has what I want. I know Emily wouldn’t insist unless it was important, so I try to see what she’s trying to show me. Claire has her back toward the camera and is looking out over the city. She looks happy, peaceful even. My heart starts to race. I was so caught up in the sight of her I didn’t notice before.

  “Only one more month until we bring our little guy home.” I read the caption aloud. “Why is Claire in your apartment?” I question without taking my eyes from the phone screen, a surge of jealousy courses through me.

  “This was obviously not how I planned on showing this to you,” Emily says from beside me, but I don’t look at her. “Not with your mom in the hospital. Not with him here.”

  I hold the phone up to Luke. “Is Claire living with you?” The words feel rotten and cloying in my mouth.

  “She’s not living with me, she’s staying in the guest room for a few months.” He opens his mouth to continue, but I speak before he can get any other words out.

  “Are you serious?” Up until this moment I was still holding out hope that this was some sort crazy mix-up.

  “She had some plumbing problems with her apartment and with the baby being due soon, we decided her staying at my place made the most sense. She doesn’t have to stress about bringing a newborn home to a hotel room and I can help out with the baby. It seemed like a good solution.” He shrugs his shoulders as if he told me he bought a new piece of furniture.

  “Unbelievable.” Emily huffs out a breath.

  I glare at her, letting her know her work here is done. I keep the glare in place when I look back at Luke. “When did she move in?”

  “This weekend, while I was in Napa…with you.” Luke eyes me steadily.

  “And you didn’t think this was something you should tell me?” I knit my eyebrows together.

  “There never seemed to be a good time. I tried to tell you by the pool.”

  Luke mentioned we needed to talk, but I thought he wanted to rehash old issues, not introduce new ones. “I didn’t know you were going to tell me that Claire had moved in with you.” I realize I’m blinking too much and force myself to stop.

  “It really isn’t that big of a deal. She’s staying in my guestroom for a little while,” he states calmly, but his jaw tenses.

  This is the dark side of Luke’s confidence, when he can’t admit he’s wrong. “It is a big deal, Luke, don’t act like I’m the one being unreasonable here,” I raise my voice in an effort to get him to hear me.

  “It’s only a big deal if you make it one. Nothing is going on with Claire and me, end of story.” Luke’s gesture that the conversation should be done only irritates me more.

  “You don’t get it. It really doesn’t matter if you’re sleeping with her or not, she’s your priority now.” Saying the words aloud makes them hurt even more than they did when they were merely running through my head.

  “No, she’s not, but my son is.” His frustration causes his volume to rise as his eyes fix on mine. “Up until this weekend you’ve wanted nothing to do with me. If you want more say in the choices I make, you need to actually be a part of my life.”

  My entire body tenses. “You’re right, I’m not a part of your new life with Claire and the baby. Thank you for reminding me.”

  “That’s bullshit. You’re only not part of it because you don’t want to be. You’ve made it clear, it’s not worth it to you.” Luke stares at me hard, daring me to disagree with him.

 
“You’re right, it’s not worth it for me to be a part of a relationship filled with secrets and lies.”

  Luke throws his hands up. “This wasn’t a secret. For the record, I even tried to tell you again last night. You were the one that didn’t want to talk, remember?”

  “I didn’t want to repeat the same argument we’ve been having for the past four months. I was enjoying remembering the parts of you that I used to love.” My use of the past tense was meant to sting and by the look on Luke’s face he didn’t miss it.

  Luke nods slowly. “Yes, you made it very clear in the hallway what parts of me you missed. I wanted to tell you, but bringing up another woman’s name while you were grabbing my dick seemed inappropriate.”

  My mouth hangs open and I see Emily out of the corner of my eye slink away. I had forgotten she was here.

  “Well, you had your fun, now you can go home to your family.” I lift my chin and try to hide the hurt.

  “For fuck’s sake.” A humorless laugh escapes Luke’s throat and he runs a hand down his face. “I thought we made some progress this weekend.”

  “Sex isn’t progress.” I shake my head at him. “Besides, everyone knows you’re not opposed to the meaningless variety.” I throw his bachelor past back in his face even though we both know last night could never be mistaken for being meaningless.

  Luke narrows his eyes. “I’m sorry to hear you say that. Last night meant something to me, but clearly it didn’t to you.”

  Working to keep the tears in requires all my energy, so I just shrug instead of answering.

  Luke takes my silence as confirmation and his eyes tighten. “Well, you sounded like you were enjoying yourself last night, so you’re welcome.”

  “You’re such an asshole.” I turn to walk away, but Luke grabs my elbow. “Let go of me.” I yank my arm away from him.

  “You act like you hate me, until we’re in the bedroom and you’re moaning about how much you need me.”

  I take one step toward him and stop. “I admit I wanted you last night, but you will never be the man I need.”

  Luke’s arms fall to his sides as he admits what we both already know. “Last night was a mistake. You’re not ready to move past this.”

  “Move past which part, Luke? My baby dying or the part where you moved on with your new family?” My voice trembles as I near the depths of my resentment.

  “I didn’t want to move on without you. Claire is having my baby and whether we like it or not she has to be a part of my life.”

  I notice my hands are shaking as I brush loose stand of hair from my face. “You’re right, she does, but I don’t. There’s the bright side. We don’t have a baby, so we don’t have to be together. Like you said, our baby simply wasn’t meant to be.”

  Luke flinches. “I never meant it like that.” His expression reflects how I felt when he would say that to others. Maybe now he’ll finally understand.

  “It makes much more sense in hindsight. I thought when you told people you would move on and have another child, you were talking about with me, but it turns out you weren’t. I didn’t know you already had your backup baby coming from someone else.”

  Luke stares at me like he doesn’t recognize me, with a mix of sadness and disgust.

  I take a deep breath and slide my hands in my pockets in an attempt to stop the trembling. “I wondered why you didn’t care as much as I did. I wondered how you couldn’t understand my grief, how you weren’t completely gutted like I was.”

  “That’s not fair. Just because I showed it differently, doesn’t mean I wasn’t hurting, too.” Luke looks away from me.

  I ignore his comment and continue with my rant. “And you kept trying to get me to move on quicker. But it was easier for you, you weren’t as devastated as I was because you already had your recovery plan in place.” My heart races, begging me to stop, but I need to get the anger out of me before it explodes.

  “Jessica…” Luke’s voice has an edge of warning to it.

  “You said it before, everything works out how it’s supposed to. Everything always works out for you, Luke. I mean it’s probably a good thing, actually, two babies would have been too much. Luckily you only have to be a dad to one now.” I don’t know why I expected to feel better after releasing such ugliness. I should have known I would only feel worse.

  “That’s enough,” Luke says sharply, and I flinch. He clamps his eyes shut and I feel like I’m going to throw up. “I’m going to say this as calmly and as kindly as I can.” He takes a deep breath and fixes his eyes on mine. “Don’t you ever suggest that us losing our baby was in any way a good thing for me. There is no bright side to it and I sure as hell don’t think I can replace one child with another.”

  Luke appears to have run out of words. His stormy blue eyes search mine. I don’t know what he’s looking for, a glimmer of hope, a sign of regret maybe, but I give him nothing. I have nothing left to give.

  Luke looks confused. “I kept hoping that if I loved you hard enough, you’d come back to me.”

  “You don’t love me. You love the idea of me, the idea of us.” I look down at the concrete.

  “How can you say that?”

  I can’t look at him, but I can hear the hurt in his voice. “I knew we would never work.”

  “You knew we would never work? Why were you going to marry me, then?” The hurt in his voice is replaced by a flash of anger.

  When I don’t answer, Luke makes his own assumptions.

  “I didn’t ask you to marry me because you were pregnant, but maybe you said yes because of it.”

  It’s not true, but too much damage has already been done, this is merely a symbolic nail in the coffin. “It doesn’t matter now anyway.”

  When I look up at Luke, he looks at me with an expression that gives me chills. “I thought you could never do or say anything to me that would make me not want to be with you, anything that would make me not believe in us, but I was wrong. I loved the woman you became even more than the girl I first loved in high school, but I don’t see her anymore. She’s gone, and I’m done.”

  Luke turns from me and walks back to his waiting car, not stopping once to look back as I crumple on a nearby bench and allow the tears to flow.

  Chapter 12

  My mom’s procedure, to have cardiac stents inserted, went well and the doctor only kept her in the hospital for one additional day before sending her home. The next week revolves around hospital visits, paperwork and conversations about after-care. She isn’t exactly excited about her new diet and exercise requirements, but she promises she’ll try her best.

  Despite the stress and over-tiredness, I enjoy focusing on my mom for a change. It’s an added bonus when I’m too worn out at the end of each day to beat myself up too much over my fight with Luke.

  With my mom settled in at home and her slow adjustment to her forced reduction in activities in effect, it’s time for me to return to work. Mrs. Bianchi suggested I take the entire week off, but I insisted that working on Friday will make for an easier Monday next week.

  “Good morning Linda,” I say as I juggle my purse, laptop bag, lunch cooler and an extra-large coffee.

  “Good morning. Let me help you.” Linda rises from her chair.

  “I got it, but thanks. Anything urgent I need to know about?”

  “No, but Mrs. Bianchi did ask me to have you call her when you got in. How’s your mom?”

  I give a small laugh. “She’s good. She’s already complaining about not working. It’s going to be a long two weeks.”

  “Well, I hope her being antsy is a sign that she’s feeling better.”

  “I think it is.”

  “Ryan said the trip to Napa was successful and fun. Did you have a good time? I mean before you got the call about your mom.”

  “Did I have a good time in Napa?” I repeat
the question, giving myself time to think. “I did, then I returned to Temecula and reality and the bubble burst.”

  Linda gives a sympathetic frown. “Are you referring to something with Luke?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m sorry. Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really, maybe later.” The truth is I’m embarrassed by a lot of what happened. Our fight at the hospital was disgusting and in hindsight, I shouldn’t have slept with Luke, not without any real resolution to our issues. I let myself get swept up in the moment and will now have to pay the price for my lapse in judgement.

  “I’m here if you need an ear.”

  “Thanks.” I continue my walk to my office while talking. “I should make that call to Mrs. Bianchi.”

  I unload my arms and turn on my computer. Once everything is up and running, I dial her number.

  “Hi, Jessica.” She sounds weary.

  “Hi, Mrs. Bianchi. Linda mentioned you wanted to speak with me?”

  “Yes. Can you come by my office please?”

  “Of course. I’ll be right there.”

  I grab a pen and notepad and head to her office. When I arrive, the door is shut. I knock, and Mrs. Bianchi calls out, “come in.”

  When I enter the large office, I find her sitting at her desk. She looks like maybe she’s coming down with something, pale and fatigued. “Hi, Jessica. Have a seat.”

  I sit and smile, even though my gut is telling me I should be prepared for bad news.

  “I hate that this has to be a rushed conversation, but things are moving quickly and I’m making a big announcement at the management meeting this afternoon. I didn’t want you to walk in unprepared.”

  “What’s going on?” She averts her eyes for a moment. Her nervousness is making me uncomfortable.