Chapter 23
Josie
What the fuck? A wife? This asshole had a wife! He didn’t even say ex-wife.
“Let me go,” I growled as I struggled to get out of his lap.
I was so pissed. There was a very good chance I’d explode any second. I’d just bared my soul to him. Exposed my deepest and darkest secrets. Let him in. Told him things I hadn’t even confessed to Mia. Fuck! He’d just had his tongue down my throat. And he was married. I wanted to slap him like I’d never wanted to slap anyone before. It hurt even more than the moment Matilda’s douchebag sperm donor told me I was a whore and he couldn’t even be sure she was his.
“No.” His voice was commanding and I felt his fingers dig into my hips.
Wife.
The word kept bouncing around inside my head. I wanted to get out of this house and away from him.
“Nate!” I returned as forcefully as I could.
“Josie, please. Hear me out. Please?”
Lifting my head to look at the asswipe, I was beyond shocked with what I saw. Gone was all the bravado, replaced by the same guy I remembered staring miserably out my car window barely an hour earlier. I wanted to run, but something was stopping me. For some reason I knew I had to hear him out. Then I’d kick him in the nuts. Yeah, that’d work too.
“Fine!” I huffed, folding my arms across my chest. I may have still been perched in his lap, it didn’t mean I had to like it. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t move, hell, I don’t remember even seeing him blink. And I was staring straight at his face.
“My wife, Alicia…”
I shuddered at the words. I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t. It was an involuntary thing.
Ignoring my physical reaction to his words, Nate’s eyes froze on something on the other side of the room as he continued, completely emotionless. “We were at home. It was a Sunday morning. Nothing exciting or memorable that day. Samuel was barely three weeks old. We’d just gotten home. It was a beautiful sunny day and Alicia wanted to get out of the house. After breakfast out, something we did almost every week pre-Samuel, we went grocery shopping. After twenty minutes in the shops, he was a nightmare. Screaming and fidgeting. Nothing we did seemed to calm him. Giving up, we abandoned the trolley in the aisle and came home. While Alicia was embarrassed, I didn’t give a shit. My son was the most important thing in the world. I’d go out later and get the crap we needed.”
I felt Nate stiffen. He didn’t have to say ‘here it comes,’ his body said it for him. His fingers dug in a little more as he shifted me in his lap, holding me even closer. For now I let him. I hadn’t forgotten about his wife, but the way his face paled meant I couldn’t pull away no matter how much I wanted to.
“We got him home and Alicia was just as frazzled as he was. I think she was just overtired. I had been back at work for the first time since he’d been born and she was doing it all alone. After changing his nappy, she settled him against the lounge and gave him a bottle. Even though I’d seen her do it before, it still broke my heart. All she wanted to do was breastfeed him, but he wouldn’t latch on, and we had no choice. After she fed him, she handed him to me to burp. It was something I did whenever I could. I wanted to be a part of his life as much as possible. It was harder now I was back at work, but any moment I could have the little guy to myself, it was something I cherished. Even if it meant changing the stinkiest nappies. Alicia went back into the lounge room and I handed him back. She settled on the lounge and watched as he wriggled around before his eyes fell closed and his breathing steadied.”
“We were chatting. We shouldn’t have been. I should have been paying attention. I should have done something. Noticed earlier. Not distracted Alicia.”
Grabbing Nate’s face between my hands, I forced him to look at me. I could feel him falling apart. Fuck, I was falling apart, and I didn’t even know how this story ended. All I knew was it wasn’t going to end with a happily ever after.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. You don’t have to keep going.”
“He was blue. I don’t remember what happened or what made me look, but he was blue. I remember Alicia screaming and tapping his back. I couldn’t find my phone. Then I couldn’t get Alicia’s to work. Everything was fucked. The ambulance arrived and my life was bundled into the back before it tore down the street, the sirens blaring. I don’t remember how long I stood there, the front door wide open. Somehow I found my way to the hospital. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to step foot inside. I knew I had to, but I didn’t want to. I knew what was waiting for me on the other side of the heavy glass doors. When someone slipped their hand into mine, I almost collapsed. My mother was there. Right beside me. I don’t even know how she found out or how she got there so fast. It was barely midday and my life was in tatters.”
“Mum led me inside and I found Alicia slumped in a chair. Her head was in her hands and she was shaking. I should have gone to her. It was my job to protect her. Protect them both. And I’d failed. In the moment it mattered the most, I’d let the most important people in my world down. When Alicia looked up and our eyes met I slumped to the floor. I remember Mum pushing me into a chair, then everything’s a blur. Samuel was gone.”
“Nate…” my voice choked out painfully.
“There are almost three hundred thousand kids born in Australia each year. Three hundred thousand. And three and a half thousand of them died from SIDS. Samuel died from SIDS. Point one percent of all those born, Samuel was taken from me. He became a statistic.”
I knew I was losing him. And he was losing it. Obviously he’d done his research since, but statistics weren’t going to help him. I really didn’t think anything could. I don’t know what I would have done if something like that happened to Matilda. I couldn’t even think about it.
“It wasn’t your fault, Nate.”
“You weren’t there.”
His words cut life a hot knife through butter. I know he didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but it stung like a motherfucker.
“I know.” I didn’t want to ask the next question, but I had to. I had to know. “Where’s…where’s Alicia now?”
He laughed a sadistic, pained laugh.
