I had packed everything the girls might need for the journey.<\/p>\n
Extra clothes.<\/p>\n
Clean bottles.<\/p>\n
Diapers.<\/p>\n
Wipes.<\/p>\n
A small blanket for each daughter.<\/p>\n
I had even brought a spare shirt for myself in case one of them spilled milk on me.<\/p>\n
I had prepared for the ordinary problems of taking two babies away from home.<\/p>\n
I had not prepared for Ryan.<\/p>\n
He stood beside the bench with his hands in his jacket pockets.<\/p>\n
The blue fabric looked different to me now.<\/p>\n
I could still remember buying it.<\/p>\n
I had stood in the shop for nearly twenty minutes, comparing two jackets because I wanted to choose the one he would like best.<\/p>\n
I had pictured him opening the gift.<\/p>\n
I had pictured his smile.<\/p>\n
Now I couldn't look at it without remembering the woman who had stood close enough to touch it.<\/p>\n
I hated that a simple object could change so quickly.<\/p>\n
Ryan glanced toward the girls.<\/p>\n
"They've grown."<\/p>\n
The comment was so ordinary that I almost didn't understand it.<\/p>\n
He was looking at his own daughters, and the best thing he could think to say was that they had grown.<\/p>\n
Of course they had.<\/p>\n
Three months had passed.<\/p>\n
Three months of feedings and appointments and nights when I could barely remember what day it was.<\/p>\n
Three months of watching their faces change.<\/p>\n
Three months of taking pictures so he wouldn't miss every little thing.<\/p>\n
I had sent those pictures because I wanted him to feel connected to us.<\/p>\n
Now I wondered what he had been thinking when he looked at them.<\/p>\n
Whether he had smiled.<\/p>\n
Whether he had felt homesick.<\/p>\n
Whether he had been standing beside Simone while looking at photographs of the daughters I had carried and delivered.<\/p>\n
The questions came too quickly.<\/p>\n
I couldn't answer any of them.<\/p>\n
"Would you like to hold them?" I asked.<\/p>\n
Ryan looked surprised.<\/p>\n
I hadn't planned to ask.<\/p>\n
The words came out before I had decided what I wanted.<\/p>\n
He stepped toward the stroller.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
He bent down and looked at Ava first.<\/p>\n
She was awake and watching him with the solemn expression babies sometimes wore when they were trying to understand a face.<\/p>\n
Ryan smiled faintly.<\/p>\n
"Hello, sweetheart."<\/p>\n
Ava moved one hand.<\/p>\n
He reached toward her, then paused.<\/p>\n
I saw uncertainty in the way he held his arms.<\/p>\n
He had been away for so long that he didn't seem to know what to do.<\/p>\n
I wanted to help him.<\/p>\n
The instinct was immediate.<\/p>\n
I wanted to show him how to support her head, how to lift her gently, how to settle her against his chest.<\/p>\n
Then I remembered what had happened.<\/p>\n
I kept my hands at my sides.<\/p>\n
He lifted Ava carefully.<\/p>\n
For a few seconds, he simply held her.<\/p>\n
His expression softened.<\/p>\n
I watched him look at her tiny face.<\/p>\n
There was tenderness there.<\/p>\n
That made everything more confusing.<\/p>\n
I could not tell myself that he felt nothing for our family.<\/p>\n
He clearly felt something.<\/p>\n
But whatever he felt for Ava did not explain the kiss.<\/p>\n
And whatever he felt for me had not stopped him from doing it.<\/p>\n
He lowered his head and kissed the top of her hair.<\/p>\n
Ava remained quiet.<\/p>\n
Ryan swallowed.<\/p>\n
"She's beautiful."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"So is Mia."<\/p>\n
He looked toward the other daughter.<\/p>\n
I could see that he wanted to reach for her too.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I imagined the scene I had wanted so badly.<\/p>\n
Ryan holding Ava.<\/p>\n
Me lifting Mia.<\/p>\n
The four of us standing together while someone took our photograph.<\/p>\n
It was a small dream.<\/p>\n
A simple one.<\/p>\n
Yet I could no longer imagine it without Simone appearing in the background.<\/p>\n
I took Mia from the stroller and held her against my shoulder.<\/p>\n
Ryan watched us.<\/p>\n
"Claire, I know you're upset."<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
"Upset?"<\/p>\n
He seemed to realize that he had chosen the wrong word.<\/p>\n
"I know you're hurt."<\/p>\n
I said nothing.<\/p>\n
He shifted Ava slightly in his arms.<\/p>\n
"I should have handled things differently."<\/p>\n
That sentence stayed between us.<\/p>\n
I waited for the rest.<\/p>\n
He didn't offer it.<\/p>\n
"What things?"<\/p>\n
He looked away.<\/p>\n
"The situation with Simone."<\/p>\n
I felt something inside me go cold.<\/p>\n
He had given the kiss a name that made it sound like a scheduling problem.<\/p>\n
A situation.<\/p>\n
Something that had happened around him rather than something he had chosen to do.<\/p>\n
I adjusted Mia against my shoulder.<\/p>\n
"Did you kiss her because you wanted to?"<\/p>\n
Ryan looked at me.<\/p>\n
For the first time that morning, I saw genuine discomfort in his expression.<\/p>\n
He opened his mouth.<\/p>\n
Then he looked down at Ava.<\/p>\n
"Can we please talk about this later?"<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes briefly.<\/p>\n
I had spent months waiting for him to come home.<\/p>\n
Now he was home, and he was asking me to wait again.<\/p>\n
I opened my eyes.<\/p>\n
"How long have you known her?"<\/p>\n
He looked toward the harbor.<\/p>\n
"Claire."<\/p>\n
"How long?"<\/p>\n
He took a breath.<\/p>\n
"I can't answer everything right now."<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
It was not that I expected him to solve every problem in a single conversation.<\/p>\n
I knew people sometimes needed time to explain difficult things.<\/p>\n
But he had been given an opportunity to tell me something simple.<\/p>\n
He could have told me whether he knew Simone before that morning.<\/p>\n
He could have told me whether the kiss meant what it looked like.<\/p>\n
He could have told me whether I was discovering a new problem or finally seeing an old one.<\/p>\n
Instead, he kept asking for more time.<\/p>\n
I began to understand that time was the one thing he still expected me to give him freely.<\/p>\n
I had given him three months without complaint.<\/p>\n
I had given him my trust.<\/p>\n
I had given him the benefit of every doubt.<\/p>\n
I wasn't sure what else he believed he deserved.<\/p>\n
Ava began moving restlessly in his arms.<\/p>\n
Ryan looked down at her, then toward me.<\/p>\n
"Can you take her?"<\/p>\n
I reached out and accepted our daughter.<\/p>\n
He handed her over gently.<\/p>\n
For a second, our fingers touched.<\/p>\n
I felt the familiar warmth of his hand.<\/p>\n
It was such a small thing, and it hurt more than I expected.<\/p>\n
I placed Ava back in the stroller beside her sister.<\/p>\n
Then I checked their blankets again.<\/p>\n
Ryan watched me.<\/p>\n
"I missed them."<\/p>\n
I believed him.<\/p>\n
That was the difficult part.<\/p>\n
I believed that he had missed his daughters.<\/p>\n
I believed that he might have missed me too.<\/p>\n
I simply no longer knew whether those feelings meant what I had always assumed they meant.<\/p>\n
"Then why didn't you call more often?"<\/p>\n
The question surprised both of us.<\/p>\n
He frowned.<\/p>\n
"I called when I could."<\/p>\n
"Sometimes you went days without calling."<\/p>\n
"My schedule wasn't always under my control."<\/p>\n
I knew that was true.<\/p>\n
His work at sea could be demanding, and there had been times when communication was difficult.<\/p>\n
I had never expected him to call every day.<\/p>\n
I had never demanded that he abandon his responsibilities.<\/p>\n
But there had been other times when he sounded distant even when he had time to talk.<\/p>\n
There had been calls that ended abruptly.<\/p>\n
There had been evenings when he said he was exhausted and promised to speak with me the next day.<\/p>\n
I had accepted those things because I wanted to be understanding.<\/p>\n
Now every forgotten conversation seemed to carry a second meaning.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether that meaning was real.<\/p>\n
I only knew that I could no longer ignore the possibility.<\/p>\n
Ryan rubbed his forehead.<\/p>\n
"This isn't helping."<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
"What would help, Ryan?"<\/p>\n
He didn't answer.<\/p>\n
"Would it help if I pretended I hadn't seen you?"<\/p>\n
He shook his head.<\/p>\n
"That's not what I mean."<\/p>\n
"Then tell me what you mean."<\/p>\n
He glanced toward the stroller.<\/p>\n
The girls were quiet now.<\/p>\n
Ava had begun to close her eyes again, and Mia was sucking gently on her pacifier.<\/p>\n
I envied them.<\/p>\n
They had no idea that the man standing beside us had become someone I couldn't understand.<\/p>\n
They didn't know what a marriage was.<\/p>\n
They didn't know what betrayal meant.<\/p>\n
They only knew the sound of their father's voice and the warmth of someone's arms.<\/p>\n
I wanted to protect them from the uncertainty spreading through me.<\/p>\n
But I couldn't protect them by pretending nothing had happened.<\/p>\n
Ryan finally spoke.<\/p>\n
"I need you to trust me."<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I wondered whether I had heard correctly.<\/p>\n
Trust him.<\/p>\n
He was asking me for the one thing he had just given me a reason to question.<\/p>\n
I had trusted him enough to bring our daughters to the harbor without telling him.<\/p>\n
I had trusted him enough to imagine his reaction.<\/p>\n
I had trusted him enough to believe that the man who returned from the sea would still be the man I had married.<\/p>\n
And now he wanted me to trust him simply because he had asked.<\/p>\n
"I did trust you."<\/p>\n
My voice was quiet.<\/p>\n
Ryan looked at me.<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
"No, I don't think you do."<\/p>\n
He shifted his weight.<\/p>\n
I continued before I could lose my nerve.<\/p>\n
"I came here because I wanted you to see your daughters. I wanted you to have something good waiting for you when you came home."<\/p>\n
His face tightened.<\/p>\n
"I know, Claire."<\/p>\n
"I don't think you understand what that means to me."<\/p>\n
I looked down at the stroller.<\/p>\n
"I spent the last three months telling them about you. I showed them your pictures. I talked to them about the day you would come home, even though they couldn't understand a word I was saying."<\/p>\n
My throat felt tight.<\/p>\n
"I did all of that because I believed we were waiting for the same thing."<\/p>\n
Ryan didn't speak.<\/p>\n
I wished he would interrupt me.<\/p>\n
I wished he would tell me I was wrong about something.<\/p>\n
Instead, he stood there and listened.<\/p>\n
And his silence made it impossible to stop.<\/p>\n
"I wasn't expecting you to be perfect," I said. "I wasn't expecting some wonderful reunion from a movie. I just wanted to bring our girls to their father."<\/p>\n
He lowered his eyes.<\/p>\n
I looked at him for another moment.<\/p>\n
Then I asked the question I had been trying not to ask since Simone walked away.<\/p>\n
"Is she someone you've been seeing while you were gone?"<\/p>\n
Ryan's face went still.<\/p>\n
He didn't deny it.<\/p>\n
He didn't confirm it.<\/p>\n
He simply looked at me as though the question had opened a door he had hoped to keep closed.<\/p>\n
I felt my hands begin to tremble.<\/p>\n
I pressed them against the stroller handle.<\/p>\n
"Ryan."<\/p>\n
He finally looked up.<\/p>\n
"I need some time to explain."<\/p>\n
I shook my head slowly.<\/p>\n
"You keep saying that."<\/p>\n
He glanced toward the harbor entrance.<\/p>\n
"Because I don't know how to tell you everything here."<\/p>\n
Everything.<\/p>\n
The word caught my attention.<\/p>\n
He hadn't said there was nothing to tell.<\/p>\n
He hadn't said Simone was a mistake.<\/p>\n
He hadn't said I had misunderstood.<\/p>\n
He had said everything.<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
"How much is there?"<\/p>\n
He looked away again.<\/p>\n
For a few seconds, I thought he might answer.<\/p>\n
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.<\/p>\n
He checked the screen.<\/p>\n
I watched him do it.<\/p>\n
It was such an ordinary movement.<\/p>\n
Yet it reminded me that there were parts of his life I could not see.<\/p>\n
Messages I had never read.<\/p>\n
Conversations I had never heard.<\/p>\n
People he knew in places I had never been.<\/p>\n
I had always understood that marriage did not mean two people shared every moment.<\/p>\n
Ryan had his work.<\/p>\n
I had my responsibilities at home.<\/p>\n
We both had private thoughts.<\/p>\n
But I had believed that the important parts of our lives belonged to us together.<\/p>\n
I wasn't certain of that anymore.<\/p>\n
He slipped the phone back into his pocket.<\/p>\n
"Let's get the girls home."<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
The sentence sounded reasonable.<\/p>\n
The girls were tired.<\/p>\n
I was exhausted.<\/p>\n
We needed to leave the harbor.<\/p>\n
But going home with Ryan felt different from arriving there without him.<\/p>\n
The house had been the place where I waited for him.<\/p>\n
Now I didn't know whether I wanted him inside it.<\/p>\n
Still, I couldn't settle everything on the pavement.<\/p>\n
I had two babies to care for, and they needed somewhere quiet.<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
Ryan reached for the stroller handle.<\/p>\n
I held it a moment longer.<\/p>\n
Then I released it.<\/p>\n
He began pushing the girls toward the exit.<\/p>\n
I walked beside him, leaving a little space between us.<\/p>\n
Neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n
As we moved away from the harbor, I looked once over my shoulder.<\/p>\n
Simone was gone.<\/p>\n
The place where she had stood was occupied by strangers.<\/p>\n
There was nothing left to see.<\/p>\n
But I knew I would remember her face.<\/p>\n
I would remember her hand on Ryan's chest.<\/p>\n
And I would remember the way he had looked at me after the kiss, as though the most difficult part of the morning was that I had witnessed it.<\/p>\n
By the time we reached the car, I had made a decision.<\/p>\n
I would take the girls home.<\/p>\n
I would let Ryan come with us.<\/p>\n
But I would not let the subject disappear simply because he wanted it to.<\/p>\n
He had asked me to give him time.<\/p>\n
For once, I intended to decide how much.<\/p>\n
I had packed everything the girls might need for the journey. Extra clothes. Clean bottles. Diapers. Wipes. A small blanket for each daughter. I had even brought a spare shirt … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39512,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39492\/revisions\/39512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}