“Amelia,” Bryson says. “I’ve been calling you all day.”
“I can’t talk long,” I say. “What do you want?”
I can see Harper from where I’m standing. She’s happy, but the parents of her friends keep glancing my way. They want to talk, to say hello, and I’m over here being antisocial.
I turn my back to them. Sometimes, knowing everyone in town has its downsides.
Bryson sighs. “I deserve that. I’m sorry I haven’t called in a while, but I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself, and I’m in a much better—”
“I wasn’t saying that to be rude, Bryson. I really don’t have time to talk. I’m with Harper at a party for one of her friends.”
“Oh, shit. Well, call me back when you have time, Melly. There’s no emergency situation over here.”
Not that I can imagine an emergency situation that would involve me for any reason. His parents were barely involved in his childhood. They want nothing to do with Harper. They’ve both moved on to new states and new partners. And Bryson is the kind of guy who always seems to land on his feet, no matter who he stomps on to do it.
“I’ll call you later, but I need to know what this is about. I need to know why you’re calling after four years of silence.”
There’s a long pause.
“Bryson,” I say, already losing patience. This feels so familiar, like no time has passed at all and we’re still a couple, me begging him for some sort of input, any kind of input, and getting nothing but silence. “Just spit it out.”
“Shit. Sorry. I’m not trying to freeze you out. I just needed to re-word my speech and… I want to be in Harper’s life, Melly. I know I don’t have that right, and I’m not asking for custody or even to see her on my own. I just want a place in her life.”
It’s hard to breathe suddenly. “Where are you? How far will we have to go to see you?”
“I’m moving back to Catalpa Creek. I’ve got a job with the bank. I want to be close to Harper, even if I can’t be in her life, and I thought, maybe you and I could be—”
“Absolutely not,” I hiss into the phone.
“Be friends, Melly. I was just going to say I hope we can be friends.”
“I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
I hang up before he can say anything else. I try to box breathe my way out of the weight bearing down on me. Bryson back in my life? In Harper’s life?
He’s not an evil monster. He wasn’t even a terrible husband. He just didn’t want to be a husband and father at twenty-two.
And now he’s asking to be in Harper’s life like it’s easy. Like he can just show up and make her fall for him, and it won’t tear her into a million pieces when he decides she’s not enough and leaves.
I press a hand to my chest, gasping for air.
“Amelia?” Stacey Bradshaw says, a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Stacey is not someone who’ll understand what I’m going through. She’s thirty-five and happily married. She finished college before she had kids. She waited until she was a grown-up to choose her husband.
Plus, she collects vintage tea sets and reads classic literature for fun. We are nothing alike.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I just had a call from my sister. I didn’t want to miss it, because it’s so hard for her to find time to call with her busy schedule.” Some might say damn near impossible and still be right.
“Oh, how is she? I hope everything’s okay?”
“It’s fine. Her little shih-tzu has gone missing, and it, um, upset me.” Let’s hope Stacey never talks to my sister and finds out she doesn’t own a pet.
“You are such an animal lover,” Stacey says.
“I am. Did Harper tell you about our new cat?”
I get drawn into conversation with the other parents and, for a little while, I almost forget that my ex-husband is trying to crawl back into my life.
