"I don't think you truly grasp how much you have neglected this year. Not only me, butyour sonsas well. Your sons, Atlas!" she shouts those words, hammering them into my skull. The volume and fierce tone paralyzes me.
"They don't ask about their father anymore, and when they do, Liam's... Liam sounds so tired and angry. Noah learned quickly not to bother with you anymore, but Liam still mentions you, and it's not good. It's like you're a stranger to them, Atlas."
Her words make me flinch as I think of my sons. My sons. Our boys. Both so goddamn perfect, and the year that I've missed because of that fucking truth.
To hear that I've failed not only Wendy, but them, scalds somewhere deep in my chest.
I had rationalized it in my head, figuring that they would be fine; they had their mother, she was the one who ran the ship anyway.
My absence didn’t matter. I'd make money, the bank account would remain filled. They would have everything they needed.
And I would be able to stop seeing their mother dead in my arms at night.
"You can check out on me, that's fine," Wendy says, her full lips trembling. "But you checked out as a father. And that's on both of us. I allowed this to go on for too long. But you—you abandoned me, and you abandoned them."
She pauses, taking a couple of breaths, but I can't seem to catch mine. She's laying out my failures in front of me, stripping me raw and lashing me over and over again with just how much I've fucked it all up.
"So what I need to know is—why?"she says, her shoulders dropping, her voice breaking. "Why?"
"Wendy, baby—" I say, watching her face crumble at thepetname. I can't help it.She's my baby. She's always been, always will be.That's our thing; we're Wendy and Atlas. That's the truth of it. "I... I don't..."
Even now, with separation papers in my hand, with my wife in front of me begging me to speak to her, I still can't say it out loud.
I'm a goddamn pathetic piece of shit.
I think back to that night a month ago, the sound of her sobbing next to me while I pretended to be asleep. Crying because I snarled at her when she was trying to help me.
It took everything in me not to spin around, crush her to me, kiss her all over her face, and beg for forgiveness.
I wanted to tell her,"I love you, I love you, I love you..."and hold her tightly, rocking her back and forth and never letting go.
But that's what caused it in the first place.
She had gone to sleep that night, and when I knew she was under, deeply asleep, I couldn't take it anymore.
Slowly, I wrapped my arm around her, just like how we always used to sleep. I pressed myself right up against her back, locked my arm around her waist, buried my face in her sweet-smelling hair.
Everything inside of me eased into peace.
I knew I would pay for it if I wasn't careful, but at that moment, I didn't care. It had been too long without holding my girl in my arms. I had planned to give myself an hour—just an hour—of holding her.
But I had fallen asleep.
And it happened again.
???
I open my eyes slowly and see that I'm in our bedroom.
The early morning light gently peeks through the windows. It catches my beautiful wife's hair, turning the red locks to fire. She's facing away from me, covers pulled down to her waist,showing me her gorgeous naked back.
My wife isn't short, she's long-limbed and lithe and so damn stunning it always knocks the breath from my lungs whenever I see her, even after all these years.
Her naked back catches my attention, and I try to remember how we got here, my mind sluggish and foggy from sleep.
Did we have sex last night? Must have, not exactly uncommon since we have a healthy sex life, but we stopped sleeping naked when we had the boys... unless they're at a sleepover.
Maybe they're with their grandparents and we can have a slow morning. My mouth already waters with the thought of eating Wendy, my favorite meal.
