That was never happening. I looked over at the girls and watched as Ashley tried to help Emmy learn how to serve a volleyball. “I see you added a net to the pool,” I commented.
Easton looked at his daughters. “Ashley asked for some help, and I don’t really have a lot of yard space so I thought the pool might work.”
“That was kind of you.”
He looked back my way. I could tell he was a tad irritated. “It’s what dads do. It’s out of love, not kindness.”
I sat up straighter at his rebuke. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to this.”
His features softened. “Don’t apologize. I’m to blame. I know I should have made more of an effort over the years. This shouldn’t be a surprise to you. But you know I love her, right? That I always have. That not a day went by that I didn’t think about her.” He almost sounded like he was pleading.
I looked between the love of my life and the old love of my life. “I know, Easton.”
He smiled in relief. “I noticed our daughter was wearing some new jewelry today.”
I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I figured she should have it.”
“I’m surprised you kept it.”
He didn’t know me as well as he thought then. I shrugged my shoulders.
“You know, I’m sorry I never got you that diamond ring I always promised you.”
I waved my hand. “It’s neither here nor there.”
His shoulders dropped. “It did matter. I’m realizing now how many promises I made to you and didn’t keep. Why didn’t you call me on it back then?”
“That would have taken all the romance out of it. And it was only a thing.”
He leaned forward across the round patio table. “I wish you would have told me how you really felt,” he said in hushed tones.
I leaned forward too. “It seemed so obvious, and I accused you of cheating on me. I don’t know how much clearer I could have said things weren’t going well.”
He sat back and blew out a long breath. “It seems so obvious now.”
“What’s done is done. No sense dwelling on it.” If only I could take my own advice.
“Easier said than done,” he responded.
I felt the exact same way. I decided we needed to change the subject. The girls apparently weren’t getting out of the pool anytime soon. I hated interrupting them. Emmy actually looked happy as I watched Ashley try to teach her how to do an overhand serve. Emmy looked about as athletic as me, which wasn’t saying much. Ashley got her athleticism from her dad.
“Did you know Joey is getting married?” I asked Easton.
For a split second he acted disappointed we changed the subject, but he smiled. “Caden told me. I can’t believe we have a nephew old enough to get married.”
I’m glad he still felt like Joey was my nephew. No matter my divorced status, I still considered those boys my family.
“Do you remember when you took me to meet them and Joey did everything you did? If you held my hand, he held my hand. If you put your arm around me, so did he, though he had to practically stand up on the couch to do so.”
Easton chuckled. “I do remember. I had to tell him he couldn’t sleep with us that night. I felt bad I made the poor kid cry, but a man can only share so much of his wife.”
I felt myself blush again. I used to love it when he called me his wife. “I hope whoever he’s marrying makes him happy. And what about Trent getting into Northwestern?”
Easton looked at me thoughtfully. “You know, the first time I saw you hold Trent made me change my mind about waiting until I was settled in a practice to start our family. You were a natural. You looked perfect with a baby in your arms.”
He was thwarting my every attempt to direct us away from these uncomfortable, yet beautiful memories that made me ache more than he could possibly know. I thought back to how happy I was when he changed his mind. I didn’t really want to wait until he was settled, but I knew it was wise to wait, so I agreed we should hold off. But once he changed his mind, I tossed my birth control pills in the trash and never looked back. We didn’t get pregnant right away, but we had fun trying. Again, I needed to quit thinking about it.
I didn’t respond. I hoped I was giving off let’s change the subject vibes. He did change the subject, but it was only making me hurt worse.
“I loved the way you told me you were pregnant. You and your friend, was it Jackie? I was so surprised to come out of the hospital and find our car filled up with pink and blue balloons. And that poem about conception you made up taped to my steering wheel.”
I felt my face turn bright red. “Maybe we should change the subject.”
“Are you embarrassed, Taylor?” He sounded more than delighted.
I ran my fingers through my hair. I had kept it down for the day. “It was classless and immature.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Pulitzer Prize worthy, but I thought it was pretty cool my sweet, innocent wife could talk dirty.”
I put my head down into my hands. “I think it’s time to eat.”
He laughed loudly. “I guess this means you don’t want me to recite it.”
“Do and die,” I warned. I looked up and glared at his beaming face.
“Maybe another time,” he smirked.
“Time to eat,” I called out to the girls.
Easton was getting way too much pleasure out of my discomfort. His grin never disappeared as we sat there and waited for the girls to join us.
I looked over the spread on the table. I hadn’t looked close before, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it was healthy, and even more important, looked like it tasted good. “This looks great,” I said, more to the girls than Easton. I was trying to avoid his gaze.
“Jessie helped me,” Easton admitted.
I should have known.
“But wait until you see what we made for dessert,” Ashley excitedly announced.
“We made raspberry yogurt parfaits,” Emmy said quietly.
I smiled at my little shadow as she sat close to me. “Those are my favorite,” I informed her.
“That’s what my dad said,” she said even more quietly.
I looked up to Easton, who was no longer grinning, but he looked proud that he had remembered my favorite dessert.
“Thank you,” I said to him.
“It’s the least I could do,” he replied.
I suppose it was.
Chapter Fifteen
After dinner I headed straight for the cemetery. Only the dead could know how I was feeling. I rolled down the windows. I was plenty warm and the cool night air was a relief. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that Easton stayed in his swimming trunks the whole time I was there to show me what I had been missing out on all those years. Little did he know, I already knew. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen him ever. Except that over the past fourteen years, I felt so much hate for him that any attraction I had toward him never broke through. That, and the fact he was married to that vile woman. And we always argued.
Now though, we were getting along and remembering. Our memories were not serving me well. They were becoming detrimental to my mental health.
I sat on the cool grass in front of my mother’s grave as the sun was setting. I began absentmindedly picking at the blades. I had this pent up energy that needed to be released. Or maybe it was sexual tension. I hadn’t felt it in so long, I wasn’t sure. There wasn’t another man that could make me feel like Easton, or at least I hadn’t met him yet. I supposed that was why I had never remarried or let a man get past more than a few dates. That, and I never wanted to involve a man in our lives while I had Ashley at home. She had been—and still was—my priority.
“Mom,” I said in a little voice out loud. “Things are not going how I planned. I came here to deal with my past and move on from Easton. I’m definitely dealing with the past, or at least remembering it a whole lot, but I find myself not wanting to move past him. I want the life we planned so many years ago. I feel rob
bed and cheated.” I paused and stared at my mother’s name. “Tell me what to do to get over him. Please,” I begged.
I think maybe I was talking more to God than my mom. I had to get over Easton. That was the healthy thing to do. Ashley would be moving out before I knew it, and I wanted to find love again. I didn’t want to grow old alone. I couldn’t have Easton hanging over me anymore.
In the midst of my meditation, I was interrupted by the sound of a car and headlights. I stood up to leave and brushed the grass off my shorts. The car parked near mine. I instantly recognized the driver.
Jessie climbed out of her Tahoe. We both looked at each other and grinned. I began to walk toward her and she met me halfway. It looked like she had been crying.
We met near the headstone of one Hattie Quinn. “Everything all right?”
She wiped at her eyes. “Yes. Just idiot husband problems, you know.”
I nodded. I did know. Or at least I used to. Now I had idiot ex-husband issues.
The phone in her hand rang. She looked down and rejected the call without a second thought. “I guess I better text the man and tell him I’m safe before he calls the state patrol.”
I snickered some. “Has that happened before?”
She looked up at me with an evil grin. “Almost. Give me a second.” She went to work furiously texting her husband. “He hates text messages,” she said to me, “but I should cool off before I talk to him.” She looked up again with a smile on her face. “I could use some company; do you want to join me?”
“Sure,” I said with a smile. I supposed a cemetery was as good a place to talk as any. And in this town, it may have been a safer bet. At least the dead didn’t gossip.
I followed her to her son’s grave. My heartstrings pulled as I looked at his name engraved in stone: Carter Nicholas Summers. I could almost physically feel my heart hurt as I placed my hand across my chest. I couldn’t imagine losing a baby. It is a mother’s worst nightmare.
Jessie sat down and I joined her. I watched her lovingly look at her son’s name and run her hand across it. “It’s almost been two years and I still think about him all the time.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
She smiled. “That’s what my therapist says.”
Maybe I should get one, I thought.
Jessie’s phone rang again. She sighed in exasperation. “This man! I love him, but he drives me crazy sometimes.” She answered the phone curtly. “I told you I’m safe and I would be home later.”
I heard Blake apologize on the other end.
“Good to know,” she responded. “We’ll talk when I get home.”
“I love you,” I heard her husband say.
“Uh-huh,” she responded before hanging up. She turned her phone down and looked my way with a close-lipped smile. “He is so annoying sometimes. Why can’t he admit he’s wrong in the first place?”
“That would be too easy,” I responded.
She nodded and smiled wide. “I guess there is something to say about making up.”
“Maybe that’s why then.”
“I might think that, but we’re talking about Blake. He’s so clueless sometimes. Take today, for instance. He and Maddie were supposed to meet me at my parents’ house for dinner, but he got ‘sidetracked’ at some mega sports complex in Denver. Then I come home to find Maddie hadn’t done any of her chores. She has her dad wrapped around her little finger and can get away with almost anything, so guess who the bad guy is? Me!” She sighed loudly. “Sorry, I’m just frustrated. Most of the time, I love our little family, but starting off raising a teenager isn’t exactly easy.”
“I can’t imagine, especially since the fun is only beginning. Soon some guy will be sticking his tongue down her throat and you’ll get to watch.”
She laughed so hard she snorted. She held her chest. “Better me than Blake. He would probably kill the kid, no questions asked. Maddie’s already fighting us about dating. We told her she could date when she started high school. That was last year when ninth grade was still at the junior high. The school district went and screwed that up by renovating the high school and moving ninth up to the high school. We are trying to hold firm to fifteen, but she already likes a boy.”
“Is it Abby’s son?” I asked.
“You’re observant.” She grinned.
“I have a teenage girl, so it’s easy to spot.”
“How old was Ashley when you let her start dating?”
“Sixteen.”
“Why didn’t we think of that?” she sighed. “I worry that she may have some of her mom in her. I don’t want her to get involved with boys too soon,” Jessie lamented.
I took her hand. “This is like the pot calling the kettle black, but try not to stress about it. Keep the communication lines open with her and it will all work out.”
She squeezed my hand. “The hard part is that sometimes I feel like an impostor, like I don’t count because I’m not her real mom.”
“If I didn’t know better and looked at you and her together, I wouldn’t be able to tell she wasn’t your biological child. Besides, biology doesn’t make a good mom.”
“That’s what Blake and my mom say, but now that Sabrina has passed away, I feel like Maddie has canonized her, like her mom was a saint.”
“I’m sure as time goes on and she gets older, she’ll see that isn’t true.”
“Hopefully we will all survive until then. Anyway.” She waved her hand. “I’m just throwing a pity party. Tomorrow I’ll be madly in love with both Maddie and Blake. Tell me how it’s going with you. What brings you to the cemetery late at night?”
I picked at the grass around me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be truthful with her or myself. I settled with the sugar-coated truth. “Things are not how I imagined they would be when I moved back.”
“Are you and Easton not getting along?”
“We are—that’s the part I didn’t imagine. I’m not really sure I want to get along with him, as messed up as that sounds.”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Perfect. Could you explain it to me?”
Her eyes lit up. “You resent him, but he’s charming,” she explained.
“Yes.”
“You hate that he’s a good guy.”
“Yes! Why can’t he be the jerk I’ve had in my head these past several years? The jerk that let me go? Or even the adulterer!”
Her eyes widened. “So …” she treaded lightly, “he didn’t cheat on you?”
I’m sure everyone in this town thought he had. That’s what I thought all these years. It made the most sense. “Technically, no. I guess maybe he had an emotional affair. I don’t know. I just don’t understand. Why Kathryn? And why did he let me go? And why did I leave?”
I hung my head down. I hadn’t meant to open up, but maybe that was part of my problem. I was perfect at the game face and only letting people see the best of me.
Jessie looked at me sympathetically. She touched my knee as we sat there crossed-legged, facing one another. “I don’t have all the answers, but I do know how much he regrets not going after you. He realizes it was a colossal mistake. As far as Kathryn goes, she is a master manipulator. I’m sure she saw an opportunity and used her wiles to get what she wanted. She’s like the snake in that story that convinces the man to carry it down the cliff while promising not to bite him, but once they are safely down, he strikes the man. The man asks why and the snake replies ‘you knew what I was all along.’ Kathryn knows how to be her own kind of charming, but it’s all an act. Once she had Easton, the façade went away and her true colors came out.”
I could feel the disgust on my face. Jessie apparently could see it.
“I’m not excusing him, Taylor.”
I rubbed my face in my hands. “I know I’m partially to blame. If only I would have told him the truth about how I felt, or if I would have trusted him, but dang it, he wasn’t acting trustworthy. I was grieving and I needed him. I
felt like he left me long before I actually left.”
We both sat there silent for a moment.
“Maybe,” Jessie said hesitantly. She looked at me uneasily and took a deep breath. “Maybe this is fate giving you another shot.”
I shook my head vigorously. “No,” I said firmly. “Easton and I resent each other too much for that to ever be a possibility. I’m only here for Ashley’s sake. Once she graduates, I’m going back home.”
She shrugged her shoulders, but before she could say anything her phone rang. She looked down, but this time she was only semi-annoyed. “Excuse me,” she said before she answered her husband’s call.
“I’m running a bath right now,” I could hear him say.
Even in the dark I could see Jessie blush. She bit her lip. “I’m leaving in a few minutes.”
“Hurry home. I can’t wait to see all of you. Love you,” Blake said.
“I love you,” she admitted to him through her very red cheeks. She dropped her phone in her lap. “I should go home.”
“Sounds like someone is missing you.”
She stood and I followed her lead. She hugged me tight and whispered in my ear, “Someone has been missing you, too.”
I didn’t disagree, and be that as it may, Easton and I wouldn’t be reconciling. I came here to get home over him, and I was determined to do just that.
Chapter Sixteen
I did my best to settle into Merryton, all while not settling in. Because of Ashley and my job, I couldn’t stay totally disconnected. Ashley made the varsity volleyball team and I knew that alone would make me engage more than I wanted to, but for her, I would do anything. My job was keeping me in the fray of things. I even relented to Gloria Ryan’s constant requests to have me teach a nutrition class at one of their women’s meetings in July.
We made it through June mostly unscathed. I did my best to only see Easton on the weekends when I attended the baseball games with the girls, and for church and Sunday dinners. He too seemed to try and keep his distance. He wasn’t popping in anymore to see me at the hospital. The distance, unfortunately, was not helping me to get over him. It’s not like I pined for him, but I couldn’t deny that I felt deeply for him on both the love and hate spectrum. Maybe less and less on the hate side.
Taylor Lynne: The Women of Merryton - Book Two Page 15