* * *
Dylan pickedup the kids at eight o’clock sharp—devoid of all eyecontact.
“Great news,” he said, looking past me over my shoulder.Why couldn’t he look atme?
“What?” I said breathlessly, shifting in front of his line of view, forcing him to noticeme.
He moved his head, still staring at anything but me. “The kids start daycare the day after tomorrow. You could have your life back.” He brushed by me as if I wasn’t choking and drowning from his words. “How’s my little man?” he asked, scooping up Ben from his bouncy seat and unbuckling him gently. He nuzzled kisses into Ben’s cheeks and gave the top of my hair a wide grin. “You, Detective Ward, are now officially rid of me and my screwed uplife.”
It was as if someone punched me right in the chest and pulled my life out from right under myfeet.
I stood in the doorway, realizing how empty my life had been before that little girl rang my doorbell.Did Dylan realize that right at that very minute, everything I ever thought I wanted in my life, quiet, safe, solitude, was shattered from the squeal of a little giggle and the innocent giggles of hisson?
I was never going to have this formyself.
No one would ever call me “Mom”.
Dylan would never want me. I wasn’t his wife. I wasn’t anything tohim.
I had a moment. A moment of altered reality; it was neverreal.
Ryan wasright.
Suddenly, the weight of wanting it, of the profound loss of it, had grown too heavy. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to be someone’s mom. I wanted to be someone’s love, someone’s life. I wanted a family tolove.
I wanted to have a family to love meback.
Addison ran to her father, hugging his leg, squealing the bright sound of childish innocence. She was like my rainbow, both her and Ben were. Something I would see from far away and never be able tohold.
I made no sounds. I couldn’t even imagine what I looked like. What expression does one make when your soul feels like it’s being crushedand ripped out of one’s body? I didn’t want toknow.
Dylan reached out and squeezed my arm. A sweet gesture. A simple, friendly touch—a last one—that tore my flesh to pieces and left me in nothing but a pile ofdust.
“I’ll never be able to express how grateful I am for everything you did for myfamily.”
His family. His children and his wife. The words burned, contradictory to his calm, gorgeous smile.How could he not see I was bleeding out in front ofhim?
“Give Callie a big thank you hug for watching you,Addison.”
Her arms wrapped around my waist instantly, and when she let go, dancing out the door the way she always did, I felt something deep inside my chest break off, and the empty feeling it left behind almost consumed me withgrief.
All I could do was raise my hand to wavegoodbye.
I watched my fingers move as if they were someone else’s, some other woman whose heart was just shattered completely, not mine. Those hands were too old and too alive to bemine.
Never once in my life have I ever had a relationship of any kind that hasn’t left me with bruises. I felt cut open, and all the love and life seeped from my veins until I was nothing more than ahusk.
The Sanborn family walked down my front porch, Addison skipping along next to her father, and straight across the street to their own home. I watched them through blurry eyes until their front door closed and everything was back to the way it was before. Before a scared little girl in need rang my doorbell and asked for the cops. It was good to remember that's all I was in this story, the responding officer to thecall.
I pulled out my cell phone with trembling fingers and calledRyan.
“Yeah, Pop-Tart?” heanswered.
“You were right.” Isniffled.
Thirty minutes later, there was an emergency poker game at my house. Whiskey, cigars, and chips littered my small kitchen as Ryan, Dean, and their girlfriends sat around my dining table, trying to get medrunk.
They even had the decency to bring Vince from narcotics, who was hot as fuck, just not as hot asDylan.
As soon as I thought those words, I kissed Vince from narcotics. Dylan wasn’t available, and the reality was, we’d never be together and those kids would never know me as anything other than the neighbor. I would never make a difference in their lives or his.Never.
And that's the last thing I remember, because...well, whiskey neat filled the gaping hole where my heart used tobe.
