Claire warned me this would happen. That once the exhaustion drained out of my system and I finally slipped into a rhythm, the part of me that’s built for high stakes would kick in.
But when I look at Jayne, I know that whatever I miss doesn’t even come close to what I almost lost.
When she’s done, I take her plate before she can stand. I don’t let her lift a finger. I want to take care of my wife, even if it’s something small, something mundane. I want to shoulder a fraction of what she’s carried for me, for us, for years.
If I’d opened my eyes earlier….
God. What would our life have been like? What would we have spared ourselves?
But thinking like that only leads backward, and backward isn’t where we’re going.
Claire’s right, I’ve been looking at myself through a lens where I’m the villain in my own family story. Like I’ve been a shitty husband and father forever. But that isn’t true.
This is just a season where I needed to step up. And I took too long to do it. I wasn’t absent because I didn’t love them. I wasn’t dismissive because I didn’t value my wife. I was drowning, and I didn’t even know it.
But I’m here now, and I’m trying to give myself grace.
After a few minutes, Jayne says quietly, “I’m scared.”
My heart lurches. “Of what?”
“That this…us…won’t last. That we’ll go back to what we were. You busy at work, me suffocating at home.”
I reach across the table and take her hand.
“I’m scared too,” I admit. The truth is raw. “Every time I forget a permission slip or burn dinner, I think, ‘This is it. This is where she loses faith in me again.’ I keep waiting to fuck up and lose you.”
She gapes at me, stunned. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I shrug helplessly. “I don’t want to go back there, Jayne. I won’t.”
“I won’t lose faith in you, Rhys. Not again. I don’t want you to live with that.”
She walks around the table, and slips her arms around my neck. I pull her into my lap because I need her close, need the grounding weight of her more than I need air.
“I can’t help how I feel, but I’m working on it.”
“We’ll figure it out,” she whispers.
I bury my face in her neck. “No more pretending we’re fine if we’re not. Deal?”
“Deal.”
We stay like that in the quiet kitchen, holding each other, not as the broken versions of ourselves we were, but as the people we’re becoming.
“I won’t ever let you down if I can help it, Jayne.”
“I know.”
“I will make mistakes,” I warn her.
“So will I.”
“We’ll give each other grace,” I say, remembering Clare’s advice.
“Yes, Rhys.”
CHAPTER 27
