“Look, Aiden?—”
“I’m done, Mom,” I cut her off. “I’m done with the emotional blackmail. Done trying to fix what was never mine to fix. I’m working on rebuilding my life with Mia. And you and Dad are not part of it.”
I walk to the door and hold it open.
There are tears in my mother’s eyes. I’m pretty sure they’re borne out of frustration and not sorrow that she’s lost her son. I’ve always known who my parents are; it’s just after Mia left that I accepted and acknowledged it.
As a child, I blamed myself for not liking my parents. I thought there was something wrong with me. You’re supposed to love your Mom and Dad—which I did, butI didn’t always like them. Actually, I didn’t like them most of the time.
Now I see it clearly—the fault doesn’t lie with who I am, but with the boundaries I never set. I let my family trample over me, over us—me and Mia. I opened the door and stood by while they steamrolled our marriage, letting them in where I should have drawn the line.
Knowing this—breathing it in, holding it inside me like a beacon to guide me as I mend myself and my marriage—has been liberating. Letting go of the endless pressure to please people who will never be pleased has lifted a burden I didn’t even realize I was carrying.
“Aiden—”
“Please leave.”
“You’re casting your family aside forher?” There’s venom in her eyes.
“By her, if you mean Mia, Mom, she’s more my family than you are.”
She glares at me so fiercely I’m half-surprised I don’t burst into flames. For a long moment, she just grits her teeth, locking her gaze on mine—a silent warning that I’ll live to regret this.
Whatever!
Then she strides past, her heels cracking against the hardwood like a volley of shots.
As soon as Mom’s gone, my phone beeps with a calendar alert. I grin, it’s time to pick up my wife.
I grab my car keys and head to Katya’s place.
Despite the scene with my mother earlier, I’m excited to see Mia.
We’re about to go on our second date, and the anticipation makes everything else fade. Even my mother’s tirade isn’t an ugly memory anymore; it’s justgone, dissolved into nothingness because it doesn’t matter,shedoesn’t.
CHAPTER 27
Mia
The fields stretch out like a watercolor painting—blush pink apple blossoms dotting the horizon, bees buzzing with purpose in the spring air, and the soft perfume of wildflowers floating on a light breeze.
We’re standing on the edge of the apiary property in East Montpelier, watching as a cluster of golden honeybees dance near a hive box painted a cheerful shade of robin’s egg blue.
I push back my sunglasses. “I feel like I’m about to fall into a Beatrix Potter book.”
Aiden chuckles softly. “I was there when you readThe Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkleat the children’s book festival.”
That was nearly eight years ago, in the early days of our relationship. “You remember that?” I ask, surprised and a little impressed.
His smile is quiet, reverent. “I remembereverything.”
Heat creeps up my cheeks. Forgiveness feels impossible when my anger still simmers just beneath the surface, ready to boil over at the slightest spark. But I can’t deny the truth, either—I’m thawing toward him. Isn’t that what these dates are meant to do? To see if there’s still a path back to each other, if one even exists?
Despite all my promises to let the past go, I can’t seem to shake it. Memories rise unbidden, and each one leaves me either aching with sadness or burning with fury—sometimes both at once. I’m caught in a vicious cycle: half the time I want Aiden, the other half I want to hit him.
But what I know now, what I can finally admit to myself, is that his wanting Diana—wrong as it was—wasn’t the cause of our marriage breaking. It was only a symptom of a failing relationship.
“Aiden, why did our marriage not work out?” I ask while we wait for the tour to start.
