I woke before the twins the next morning.<\/p>\n
For a few seconds, I forgot what had happened at the harbor.<\/p>\n
Then I looked toward the bedroom door and remembered Ryan sleeping in the guest room.<\/p>\n
I lay still, listening to the quiet house.<\/p>\n
The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
A car passed outside.<\/p>\n
Somewhere down the hall, Ava made a small sound in her sleep.<\/p>\n
I got out of bed and went to check on her and Mia.<\/p>\n
They were lying in their cribs, their little hands curled beside their faces.<\/p>\n
Mia had kicked one foot free of her blanket.<\/p>\n
I tucked it back around her legs and watched her breathe.<\/p>\n
They had no idea that their father had hurt their mother.<\/p>\n
They didn't know what a promise was.<\/p>\n
They only knew the sound of our voices, the warmth of our arms, and whether someone came when they cried.<\/p>\n
I wanted to protect that small world for them.<\/p>\n
I just wasn't sure how to do it when the person who had helped build it had become the person I was afraid to trust.<\/p>\n
I changed Mia first.<\/p>\n
Then I picked up Ava and carried her into the kitchen.<\/p>\n
The morning light fell across the table where Ryan and I had eaten breakfast together countless times.<\/p>\n
There was a faint ring from his coffee mug near the edge.<\/p>\n
I rubbed it with a dishcloth, even though it had already dried.<\/p>\n
It was something ordinary to do with my hands.<\/p>\n
I was halfway through warming a bottle when I heard the guest-room door open.<\/p>\n
Ryan appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing yesterday's T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.<\/p>\n
His hair was flattened on one side.<\/p>\n
He looked tired.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I saw the man who used to walk into the kitchen after a long night and kiss the top of my head.<\/p>\n
Then I remembered the harbor.<\/p>\n
"Morning," he said.<\/p>\n
"Morning."<\/p>\n
His eyes moved toward Ava.<\/p>\n
"Can I take her?"<\/p>\n
I looked down at our daughter.<\/p>\n
Ava was awake, studying my face with the serious expression she sometimes wore when she was hungry.<\/p>\n
I handed her to him.<\/p>\n
Ryan settled her against his chest and adjusted the blanket beneath her chin.<\/p>\n
"Hey, sweetheart," he whispered.<\/p>\n
Ava made a little noise.<\/p>\n
He smiled at her.<\/p>\n
The smile was real.<\/p>\n
That was part of what made everything so difficult.<\/p>\n
I could see that he loved our daughters.<\/p>\n
I could also see that loving them had not stopped him from making choices that could break their family apart.<\/p>\n
I turned back to the bottle.<\/p>\n
"Did you sleep at all?" he asked.<\/p>\n
"Some."<\/p>\n
"Me too."<\/p>\n
I didn't answer.<\/p>\n
He stood near the counter, holding Ava while I tested the milk against my wrist.<\/p>\n
For a while, neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n
The silence was different from the one at the harbor.<\/p>\n
There were no strangers nearby.<\/p>\n
No boats moving in the distance.<\/p>\n
No Simone standing between us.<\/p>\n
There was only our kitchen and the life we had built inside it.<\/p>\n
Ryan cleared his throat.<\/p>\n
"I meant what I said yesterday."<\/p>\n
I placed the bottle on the table.<\/p>\n
"Which part?"<\/p>\n
"That I ended it with Simone."<\/p>\n
"I heard you."<\/p>\n
"I don't want to be with her."<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
"Then why were you?"<\/p>\n
He lowered his eyes to Ava.<\/p>\n
"I don't have a good answer."<\/p>\n
"That doesn't make it less of an answer."<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
"Do you?"<\/p>\n
He looked up.<\/p>\n
"I know I hurt you, Claire."<\/p>\n
I had heard those words several times since the harbor.<\/p>\n
They were true, but they had started to feel too small for what had happened.<\/p>\n
"You keep telling me that you hurt me," I said. "But I need you to understand that I don't know what to believe now."<\/p>\n
He nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
"I understand."<\/p>\n
"No, Ryan. You understand that I'm upset. That's not the same thing."<\/p>\n
He looked down again.<\/p>\n
I could see him searching for something to say.<\/p>\n
For once, I didn't help him find it.<\/p>\n
"I don't know how to fix this," he admitted.<\/p>\n
"Neither do I."<\/p>\n
Ava began to fuss.<\/p>\n
Ryan rocked her gently, moving from one foot to the other.<\/p>\n
She quieted after a few seconds.<\/p>\n
I watched his hand move across her back.<\/p>\n
I wanted to be comforted by the sight.<\/p>\n
Instead, I wondered how many times he had held her while keeping a secret from me.<\/p>\n
I hated that thought as soon as it appeared.<\/p>\n
A baby should not become evidence in an argument between her parents.<\/p>\n
Ava had done nothing wrong.<\/p>\n
Neither had Mia.<\/p>\n
I took the bottle from the table and handed it to Ryan.<\/p>\n
"Feed her while it's warm."<\/p>\n
He sat down and tucked a small cloth beneath her chin.<\/p>\n
I picked up Mia from the nursery and brought her into the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Soon, both girls were eating, and the only sounds were the soft sucking of their bottles and the occasional creak of Ryan's chair.<\/p>\n
It could have been any morning in our house.<\/p>\n
That was the strange part.<\/p>\n
The world had changed for me, but the ordinary things kept happening.<\/p>\n
The girls still needed feeding.<\/p>\n
The laundry still needed folding.<\/p>\n
The sink still held two plates from the night before.<\/p>\n
I couldn't stop life until I figured out what to do about my marriage.<\/p>\n
After the girls finished eating, Ryan burped Ava while I changed Mia.<\/p>\n
We worked around each other with the familiarity of two people who had done this hundreds of times.<\/p>\n
He knew which drawer held the clean cloths.<\/p>\n
I knew where he had put the extra diapers.<\/p>\n
Neither of us had to explain how to prepare the changing table.<\/p>\n
Our hands remembered what our hearts no longer knew how to do.<\/p>\n
When the girls were settled in their bouncer seats, Ryan brought me a mug of tea.<\/p>\n
He had made it the way I liked it.<\/p>\n
I looked at the cup before taking it.<\/p>\n
"Thank you," I said.<\/p>\n
"You're welcome."<\/p>\n
He sat across from me.<\/p>\n
"I was thinking about what you said yesterday."<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
"You said you couldn't be the only person trying to save our marriage."<\/p>\n
"That's what I said."<\/p>\n
"I don't expect you to do that."<\/p>\n
I wrapped both hands around the mug.<\/p>\n
"Then what do you expect?"<\/p>\n
He took a breath.<\/p>\n
"I want to show you that I can be different."<\/p>\n
"Different how?"<\/p>\n
"More honest. More present. Whatever you need me to be."<\/p>\n
I looked at the tea.<\/p>\n
The surface had gone still.<\/p>\n
"I don't want you to become a person you think I want," I said. "I want you to stop hiding things from me."<\/p>\n
"I can do that."<\/p>\n
"You should have been doing it already."<\/p>\n
His face tightened.<\/p>\n
"You're right."<\/p>\n
I had expected him to defend himself.<\/p>\n
Part of me had even prepared an answer for the argument I thought would follow.<\/p>\n
His agreement left me with nowhere to put my anger.<\/p>\n
I didn't feel better.<\/p>\n
I only felt tired.<\/p>\n
"I need time," I said.<\/p>\n
"I'll give you time."<\/p>\n
"And I need you to understand that giving me time doesn't mean standing around waiting for me to forgive you."<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
"I understand."<\/p>\n
I took a sip of tea.<\/p>\n
It was already cooling.<\/p>\n
"There's something else," I said.<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
"I don't want to hear that this happened because you were lonely."<\/p>\n
He opened his mouth, then closed it.<\/p>\n
"I don't want to hear that being away was difficult or that you were confused or that you weren't thinking clearly."<\/p>\n
"I wasn't going to say that."<\/p>\n
"Maybe you weren't. But I need you to know that I can't accept it as an excuse."<\/p>\n
He rested his hands on the table.<\/p>\n
"I made those choices."<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
"And you didn't deserve any of it."<\/p>\n
"No, I didn't."<\/p>\n
The words came out more sharply than I intended.<\/p>\n
Ryan didn't argue.<\/p>\n
For the first time since the harbor, I felt that he was listening without trying to move the conversation toward a conclusion.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether that would last.<\/p>\n
I only knew that I needed it to.<\/p>\n
Later that morning, he offered to take the twins while I showered.<\/p>\n
I hesitated.<\/p>\n
The hesitation was small, but he noticed it.<\/p>\n
"You can have an hour," he said. "I'll manage."<\/p>\n
"I know you can manage."<\/p>\n
He looked at me carefully.<\/p>\n
"I wasn't trying to make you feel like you had to leave them with me."<\/p>\n
I glanced toward the living room.<\/p>\n
Mia was asleep.<\/p>\n
Ava was staring at a toy hanging above her seat.<\/p>\n
"I need to shower," I said. "That's all."<\/p>\n
"Okay."<\/p>\n
I went upstairs.<\/p>\n
For the first time in months, I took a shower without listening for the sound of a crying baby through the bathroom door.<\/p>\n
I stood beneath the warm water longer than I needed to.<\/p>\n
I washed my hair twice.<\/p>\n
I let the water run down my face.<\/p>\n
And then, without warning, I began to cry.<\/p>\n
It wasn't the kind of crying that came with a single clear thought.<\/p>\n
It was the exhaustion of months spent waiting for Ryan to come home.<\/p>\n
It was the memory of the blue jacket he had worn at the harbor.<\/p>\n
It was the way Simone had looked at me when she said her name.<\/p>\n
It was the shame of standing there with my daughters while another woman knew something about my husband that I didn't.<\/p>\n
I pressed my palms against the tiled wall.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to feel ashamed.<\/p>\n
I hadn't done anything wrong.<\/p>\n
But knowing that didn't make the feeling disappear.<\/p>\n
When I finally turned off the water, I dried myself and looked at my reflection in the mirror.<\/p>\n
My eyes were red.<\/p>\n
My hair was tangled.<\/p>\n
There were faint shadows beneath my eyes from months of broken sleep.<\/p>\n
I looked like a woman who had been trying to carry too much for too long.<\/p>\n
I put on clean clothes and went downstairs.<\/p>\n
Ryan was sitting on the living-room rug with the twins.<\/p>\n
He had placed a soft toy between them.<\/p>\n
Ava was trying to grab it.<\/p>\n
Mia was watching the ceiling fan.<\/p>\n
Ryan looked up when he heard me.<\/p>\n
"Everything okay?"<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"Yeah."<\/p>\n
He didn't ask why my eyes were red.<\/p>\n
I was grateful for that.<\/p>\n
I sat on the sofa and watched him play with the girls.<\/p>\n
For a little while, the house felt peaceful.<\/p>\n
Not healed.<\/p>\n
Not safe in the way it had once felt.<\/p>\n
But peaceful enough for me to take a breath.<\/p>\n
I knew that one morning of kindness couldn't repair what had happened.<\/p>\n
I also knew I didn't have to decide the rest of my life before lunch.<\/p>\n
For now, I could sit on the sofa.<\/p>\n
I could watch my daughters.<\/p>\n
And I could let the morning pass without pretending that everything was fine.<\/p>\n
*END PART 9**<\/p>\n
I woke before the twins the next morning. For a few seconds, I forgot what had happened at the harbor. Then I looked toward the bedroom door and remembered Ryan … <\/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-39498","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\/39498","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=39498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39518,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39498\/revisions\/39518"}],"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=39498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}