“I’m just warning you.”
“Baby, if I can do things half as well as you’ve been doing them, I think I’m going to be just fine.”
Another compliment. Another wave of pleasure.
I kiss his jaw, feel the stubble of his beard against my lips. “Thank you, Rhys.”
“Don’t say that, baby. Don’t thank me for showing up like I should’ve been doing all along.”
We hold each other for a while, enough for the tea to get cold. He goes upstairs to take a shower, and I heat his dinner. Then, I sit with him while he eats.
It’s like the days before we were married, before we had kids, before our lives became busy and complicated.
That night, when we make love, it feels new because we both now have hope that our marriagewon’t just be a bed of compromises where one of us gets bitter and the other drowns in guilt.
“I love you,” he murmurs as we slide into sleep, wrapped in each other.
“I love you, too,” I reply, my heart beating strong and steady.
CHAPTER 22
Rhys
It’s strange to sleep in.
When you usually wake up at five every morning, and then you don’t have to until seven, it’s like being on vacation.
Yesterday, I put my ‘out of office' message on my hospital email, left my work phone in my drawer, said goodbye to my team, and came home to a celebratory dinner.
“I know you don’t feel like celebrating,” Jayne whispered. “But the kids wanted to do something.”
“I do feel like celebrating,” I replied. And I was telling the truth.
When we told the kids that I was going to be home for six months, Mikaela shrieked and gave me a hug, while Finn looked at me with suspicion. When I went to say goodnight, we talked.
“Is this for real?” he asked.
“Yeah, bud.”
“You’re doing this to help Mom?”
“I’m doing this to help myself.”
“And it’s real?”
“Yeah, son, it’s real.”
Did it hurt that my kid doesn’t believe me? Unbearably so. But I caused this. I am the reason my family thinks I’m some cross between an absentee and a benevolent father, and they’re never sure who they're going to get.
It also tells me that there is a lot of damage to fix, not just with Jayne but also with my children. Especially Finn. I hope that spending more time with him, which includes picking him up, dropping him off, and getting him ready to get his driver’s license, will allow us to reconnect in a healthier way.
I don’t want my son to protect his mother from me. I want him to trust me.
“I can do lunches,” Jayne insists when I ask her to tell me what to do.
“No. I want to do it.”
She makes a face. “Rhys, you don’t have to do everything at home. We can?—”
