When I walked through his front door that morning, Jack knew before I even told him. He swept me up in his arms and kissed me, and when he pulled back to look at me, he said, “Oh no. Please tell me you aren’t.”
I shrugged. It was a terrible way to feel. As much as I had hoped and pined for another baby to love and as happy as I was about it, being pregnant with Sloane meant saying good-bye to Jack.
He sat down on the couch then and pulled me into his lap, my legs up on the cushion, our faces close together.
“I’ve thought about it so much, Ansley,” he said, a fervor in his voice I knew instinctively was reserved for me. “I know what I said all those years ago, but I want this now. I want you and Caroline and this new baby.” He paused and looked me straight in the eye when he said, “I know I said this last time, and I couldn’t convince you. But this time I think you feel what I feel, Ansley. I know you do. I know you love me and you feel like you can’t live without me. I want you to come here, with me. I want to marry you. I want to be a family.”
I was drawn into his words so completely that I could almost envision myself saying yes—until he said the wordfamily, and I remembered what I was really doing here, what this decision would cost me. Carter and I had longed to be a family and, yes, it was because of Jack, but that was what we had become. It was Carter who was there when Caroline had her first fever, who had stayed up all night with me, making sure she was breathing and checking on her every half hour to make sure the Tylenol was working. It was Carter whom I had walked down the aisle to, bought my first house with, and fought over sconces and doorknobs with.
I loved Jack. I would always love him. But I couldn’t bear the thought of breaking up my family. And what would happen if I left Carter? He’d never get to see Caroline again? She wasn’t biologically his, after all. I couldn’t break him like that. He was her father. I wouldn’t take that away from him.
I laid my head on Jack’s shoulder, my face in his neck. I knew the scent of him so well. I breathed him in, knowing it would be the last time. It had to be the last time. I steeled everything inside of me that felt like it was crumbling. I had to be strong. Strong for Caroline, strong for this new baby, strong for Carter. My husband. The man I had pledged my life to.
Jack pulled me closer to him, and I knew he could feel my tears on his neck. I knew he wanted to protect me and love me. But I would not put my children or my husband through that.
When I made love to Jack that night, I knew it was the last time. I slipped out in the middle of the night, leaving him a note.
It was fitting that it was raining that night as I drove away from Jack’s house, away from Jack, away from a man who made me feel like I was perfect, beautiful, and special all at once. I was sobbing so hard I had to pull over. Walking away from him was, without a doubt, the hardest choice I ever made, and I’m almost embarrassed to say it was one of the greatest losses I’ve ever grieved. He wasn’t dead, but he was dead to me. I had to say good-bye. I had to walk away knowing I could never talk to him, see him, feel his lips on mine again. I had to shut the door completely because I knew if I left it open even a crack, I was in danger of sacrificing the wonderful life I had for the longing for one I didn’t.
It took a year for me to start to feel like I could breathe again, a year until I could convince myself I had done the right thing in walking away. After that, I still thought of Jack, still longed to tell him something funny, and still wished I could have him in my life. But this was the life I chose, I reminded myself. So I chose to be happy in it. I hoped that, wherever he was, Jack was happy too.
I never would have let myself imagine there would come a day when I would find myself with Jack once again.
On our quiet street in Peachtree Bluff, the morning after my mother’s funeral, waking up with him for the first time in decades, I remembered that letter as well as the day I had written it.
Dear Jack,
Please don’t hate me for leaving you like this. If you do, it can’t be any more than I hate myself. Please don’t doubt how indescribably much I love you. Please don’t doubt how unfathomably difficult this decision is for me. In losing you, I feel like I am losing a part of myself, one of my very favorite parts, in fact. But to tear life apart for Caroline and this new baby is too big a responsibility for me to bear. I can’t put them through that.
I have hoped there was a way I could still have you in my life, that maybe we could talk from time to time or even visit every now and again. But I know where that would lead, and it would only end in heartbreak. For now, I have to close this door or I will not be able to follow through with my decision. And it feels intolerably selfish that I am the one to make it with no agreement from you, but I believe in my heart that you understand.
Thank you, Jack. Thank you for my children. Thank you for loving me enough to let me go. Thank you for loving me enough to let me be the mother I need to be. There will never be a day I don’t think of you. There will never be a day when the thought of your lips on mine will not cross my mind.
You will forever remain in my heart and my memory. I wish with all my might that you will find a woman who loves you as much as I do and cherishes you for all you are the way I do. While it is hard for me to imagine anyone could ever love you as much as I do, I hope that for you all the same.
All my love,
Ansley
I LOOKED UP AThim. He was smiling down on me, and I felt the tears roll down my cheeks.
“Oh, Ans, no. What’s the matter?”
“I feel so awful,” I said. “I just left you in the middle of the night.”
He smiled at me sadly.
“That was one of the worst nights of my entire life,” I continued. “I will never be able to describe to you how empty I felt writing that letter, leaving you behind. But I knew it was the only way.”
He nodded. “Reading that letter the next morning felt impossible but also, in a way, poignant.”
“Were you mad at me?” I snuggled in close to him, for once not longing for my youth but grateful we were here now.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “I was mad at you, but I understood your decision. Even when I was begging you to stay, I knew you had to leave.” He shrugged.
He was right. “Plus, the mess we had made was too big to clean up.”
He kissed me on the lips this time. “It’s a smaller mess now, Ans. It’s a mess we can manage.”
