Work doesn’t feel like a punishment anymore.
Life still feels messy, sure, but at least it’smanageablemessy.
And sitting here in the park, watching Milo fly and Agnes sleep and Patrick exist in the periphery of my life instead of the center of it… I feel unfinished.
What Patrick did a year ago felt unforgivable. Now it just feels… unresolved. Like there’s a chapter missing between the hurt and whatever comes next.
Yesterday, Genesis said something that hit harder than I expected.
You did everything you could.
Only… did I?
Yes, he lied. Yes, he hurt me. But he was sick. Drowning in something he didn’t even know how yet. And I keep replaying that fact in my head.
He has a brutal job, one that chews people up even when they pretend it doesn’t. And more than one veteran wife warnedme about the slump, how too many bad cases pile up until something snaps. I always thought I knew what that slump looked like: distance, short tempers, going quiet.
I wasn’t prepared for drinking. Or lying. Or all the ways it warped the man I’d built a life with.
And I don’t know if that means I should’ve done more…
or if I already did far too much.
It’s not like he’s asked to try again or shown any sign he even wants that. For all I know, he’s done.
I mean,Iwas. I really, honestly was and still am. And yet… I don’t know.
I don’t know what any of this means or if it means anything at all. I don’t know if unfinished is the same as not over, or if it’s just the ghost of what we used to be tugging at loose threads.
I just don’t know.
“Hey,” Patrick says, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I look up to find him standing there, wearing a dark green shirt and black pants. He zips up his jacket and sits beside me. Up close, he looks… healthier. And the realization makes something twist painfully inside me.
Was I really so wrapped up in my own hurt that I didn’t notice when he stopped looking like this? Did I really not see what my own husband was going through?
“What?” he asks, frowning a little. “Do I have something on my face?”
“How didn’t I see it?” I blurt out.
He blinks. “See what?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head quickly, heat flooding my cheeks. “I’m babbling.”
I turn back to Agnes, fussing with her blanket even though she’s sound asleep. Anything to avoid his eyes.
“Lore,” Patrick says softly.
“Forget it,” I whisper. “Please.”
He’s quiet for a second, then he speaks in a low, steady voice, nothing like the defensive tone I’m used to.
“In AA, I’ve heard a lot of stories about people whose rock bottom was way worse than mine. Like… way worse. Things they can never undo.” He lets out a breath, looking ahead at Milo pumping his legs on the swing. “The one thing they all have in common is they can’t go back. No matter how much they want to.”
I turn to him, surprised he’s opening up like this without being prompted.
“But I don’t have to,” he adds quietly.
