“I’m married, Diana. And I intend to stay married. I love my wife.”
She crosses her arms. “You’re lying. For the past two years, you’ve belonged more to me than to Mia.”
I push out of my chair slowly. Stand tall. “Don’t confuse time with meaning.”
Her jaw ticks. “You spent holidays with me. Dinners. Business trips. You missed anniversaries, birthdays?—”
I slam my fists on the table and roar, “And now I regret every fucking one of them.”
A beat of silence.
“I don’t want you, Diana.” My voice is low, crisp. “Not now. Not ever.”
Her face flickers—hurt, maybe, or just bruised pride.
“Your wife is an albatross around your neck.”
“Don’t talk about Mia.”
“You think she can’t see how you and I are together?” she demands. “She can. And she ignores it. She ignores how Edith and Nelson talk about you and me as a team, excluding her.”
My heart thumps at her words. At the truth. That’s what my parents did at every family function, didn’t they?
Diana would be there, and Mia…ohGod!
“My wife isneverexcluded.”
It’s a lie, and I can see it now,so clearly.
When Mia mentioned it in her sweet, kind way that my parents didn’t treat her like family, I told her she was imagining things. Decided that my parents like Diana better because they’ve known her all their lives—they’re just warming up to Mia.
Does it take six years to warm up to your son’s wife?
“Please.” She scoffs. “You think I don’t have eyes? I have seen how Gianna and Betty are with Mia. They’remyfriends, not hers. Tell me, Aiden, is anyone in your family close to Mia? Do any of them even like her?”
I almost wince at the pain that strikes through me atthe clarity with which she just cracked my world wide open.
It was a year ago, after Dad and Mom’s anniversary party, on the way home, when Mia voiced her feelings…again.
“I don’t think they like me, Aiden.” Mia fidgets with the strap of her purse as we sit in the back of the sedan.
We’ve been drinking, celebrating, so I didn’t drive.
“Christ, Mia, not again. Can we not keep talking about it?” I groan.
“They…Aiden, they asked Diana to give a speech with you. I…they didn’t?—”
“They know you’re shy. They know you don’t like the spotlight. That’s why they asked Diana.” I close my eyes. “Diana is family, Mia.”
“I’m family, too.”
I flash my eyes open. “Of course, you are. Everyone treats you like family, Mia. You just…you just need to get used to the Winter ways, that’s all.”
She just smiled at me and let it go.
I rub my chest, suddenly aware that Mia never brought it up again. There’s a heaviness in my gut—a sense that everything is off-balance, like a snow globe teetering on the edge of a shelf, one careless nudge away from crashing to the floor and becoming nothing but shattered glass and scattered sparkles.
“Aiden, look—” Diana begins, but is cut off when my door swings open.
