“Which thing?”
“Oh, about how I hadn’t thought any of this through, that maybe I was having a midlife crisis.”
Maybe?
I didn’t say anything.
He turned to lock eyes with me. “I think I’ve made a mistake.”
“Which is?” I wasn’t about to make things easy for him. Making life difficult for him should’ve felt more gratifying than it actually did, but it went against years of training. I really just wanted him to go away.
Anger flashed behind his eyes, but he tamped it down quickly. “Well, I’ve made a lot of mistakes recently—”
Tell me about it.
“But the biggest one was leaving you.”
I waited for my heart to melt, for my world to go back to rights. Instead, I found myself saying, “And?”
“And I shouldn’t have said any of those mean things.”
My eyebrow went up just another millimeter.
“And I’m sorry.”
He looked at me expectantly, even jerked his chin slightly in a “come on, now it’s your turn” gesture.
I rolled my shoulders back. “I would say apology accepted, but I think we both know it won’t be that easy. I will say that I am attempting to accept your apology.”
“And?”
“And I’m sorry about the video and any grief it might have caused you, but I’m mainly sorry because I put our business out on Front Street where our son could see it.”
There. There was some relief, some closure.
“And?”
This time, all I could feel was confusion. “And what?”
“You’ll take me back, right?”
There it was, a solution to all my problems. All I had to do was tell Mitch we were back together, and the divorce would go away. The pricey lawyers would go away. My need for a job would go away. My son would be happy. I wouldn’t have to move. I would never have to make another video again, and I wouldn’t have to beg for a seasonal job from the Target manager, something I was about to do.
“No.”
“No?” He looked as confused as I felt, but I still knew the answer was no. It was the first sure thing I’d felt in a very long time, because our perfect marriage had been nothing more than an illusion. The reality was something else entirely.
“I guess I’m not saying never if ... no, I think I’m saying never. What we had is broken, Mitch. You broke it.”
He walked over to the couch and got down on his knees, taking both my hands in his. “We can fix it. I’ll go to counseling. I’ll let you keep doing those videos you like—”
“You’llletme?”
Anger flickered in his eyes before fizzling once again. “Bad choice of words. You know what I mean.”
I thought about it. I squeezed his hands and thought about how different they felt from Parker’s. Not a single bit of electricity surged up my arm.
I leaned forward to kiss him. He took it as an encouraging sign as I gauged my own reaction.
