A knife to my heart.
“Please stop talking and let me explain!”
“Stop it. There is noexplain.I don’t want to hear about how hurt you were at the end of our marriage. About how I messed it all up and you were scared or couldn’t trust me or whatever your reasons are. I’ve heard all that shit before and I’m sick of it. You know what?” He grabbed his jacket from the hook. “Screw this. I need to take a run.”
This was why our marriage had died. When things got too tough for him to handle, he left. He disappeared and hoped the problems would too.
He charged out the front door and I followed him into the night. The cold rain had picked up speed, a freezing contrast to the warm April night.
He slipped his arms into the jacket as he walked toward the road.
“You can’t just leave like this!”
“Why not? You did!”
“There is so much you don’t know. Please stay!”
He barked a haughty laugh and whipped around to glare at me. “Stay! Oh, trust me. I’m staying.” His eyes were fiery. “One thing you need to get comfortable with right now is this—I’m not goinganywhere. He’s mine, and Iwillbe a part of his life.”
Then without realizing it, he spoke my fears into existence.
“That little boy deserves to have a man in his life who actually gives a damn about him.” He zipped up the jacket. “We’ll talk custody arrangements later.”
With that, he took off at a brisk pace down the rainy street and into the dark. As he disappeared, the rain seeped into myt-shirt and hair. I stood there, lost and alone, feeling my world shrink. The walls closed in.
What have I done?
For a brief second I missed Ohio. Would almost trade the fire in Jack’s eyes for the instability of life with Chris. I shook my head at my own wandering thoughts. I couldn’t go back. My life was permanently meshed with Jack’s—for better or worse—because of Kacey.
We’ll talk custody arrangements later.
The steady rain morphed into a downpour. I turned back to the front door, trembling.
“Miranda?”
I startled and whipped around to see Richard standing on his covered porch.
My heart almost jumped out of my chest. “Richard!” I raised my voice for him to hear me over the rain. “You scared me.” As much as I loved him, I wasn’t in the mood. What was he doing up so late anyway? Had he been watching us argue?
“Weather’s looking bad.” He yelled something else, but I didn’t hear him.
“What?” I cupped my hand behind my ear.
He spoke slower, his voice barely carrying over the rising storm. It took a few tries, but I was finally able to catch it. “Too much rain will wash away your seeds!”
Too much rain?
What was I supposed to do about that? You can’t protect a garden from rain. Tears pricked my eyes. The dumb garden was one more thing I ultimately had no control over.
THIRTY-ONE
Jack
“Man, I’ve never seen you do that many reps.” Cass, a gym rat, huffed at me.
I grunted, but didn’t bother responding. I broke quite a few of my personal records tonight. I wasn’t a body builder by any stretch of the imagination, but I was strong. And tonight? Rage was my fuel.
My dad had preached about mountains and valleys to us on lots of occasions. I am not sure why he enjoyed that imagery so much, considering he wasn’t an outdoorsy guy at all. But he reminded Jules and I that life was full of valleys, but to every valley there were dozens of peaks. We could keep our heads stuck in the valley, or embrace the suck to climb the peaks.
