“We can.” Solo squeezed her hands. “We’re already doing it. Last night proved that.”
Last night. Janie’s confession, the tears, the relief of finally having everything out in the open: God, she was glad she’d asked Janie to come over. If she hadn’t, how much longer would Janie have kept her secret? And at what cost? Most likely the custody of their children.
Solo had held Janie until she fell asleep on the couch, then gently woken her when it had gotten late. Janie had taken the master, and despite her desperation to join her, Solo had gone to the guest bedroom. She’d been sleeping there for a while now, breathing in the fading scent of Fenty mixed with Janie’s on the pillowcases she hadn’t washed. The last thing she wanted to do was push and have Janie think Solo wasn’t respecting her vulnerability.
Solo didn’t miss the relief on Janie’s face when she stoppedat the guest room. Clearly, she needed space to process everything, to believe that Solo really had meant it when she said Janie’s confession didn’t change how she felt. She had lain awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, thinking about everything Janie had told her. The accident. The guilt. The crushing weight of shame that had driven Janie from their home. Whyhadn’tshe just told Solo about it? She wasn’t just saying that all parents made mistakes just to make Janie feel better. And Chloe hadn’t even been a little bit sick.
Underneath it all, a small, complicated knot of anger resided in her gut, and Solo wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. But that was why they were here. Analyzing her feelings had never been her top priority, but she was smart enough to realize her marriage depended on her doing exactly that now. Like it or not.
The door to Rae’s office opened, and Rae appeared with her usual calm smile. “Hannah. Janie. Come on in.”
They got up and headed into the space that was decorated to promote comfort and safety, but sometimes it felt anything but.
“It’s good to see you together,” Rae said.
Solo closed the door behind them and hovered, waiting for Janie to choose her seat without pressuring her. Solo could’ve whooped and jumped in the air when Janie sat on the three-seater sofa they’d shared in their other joint sessions. “Is it okay to join you?” She didn’t drop down beside her, wanting to respect her boundaries. Solo was tentatively hopeful about their reconciliation, but she remembered Rae saying that she should no longer expect to be welcome in Janie’s personal space.
Janie gave her a small smile. “Of course.”
She could tell from Janie’s expression that she was both amused and impressed, and Solo chalked up the wife point.
“How have things been for you both?”
Solo glanced at Janie with a silent question:Do you want to start, or should I?
“We had a breakthrough last night.” Janie touched Solo’sthigh all too briefly. “I told Hannah about...about what happened. The real reason I left.”
Rae inclined her head. “Which was?”
Janie briefly explained the ER incident, all the while twisting her hands in her lap. “I finally told her everything.”
“And how did that feel?” Rae asked.
“Terrifying. But necessary. It lifted the weight of shame enough so that I could finally breathe.” Janie looked at Solo then back to Rae. “She didn’t react the way I thought she would.”
Solo screwed up her toes in her boots and tried not to react visibly. When had she become so unapproachable?
Rae nodded slowly. “How did you think she would react?”
“I expected her to blow up.” Janie sighed deeply. “The girls are everything to her, and I thought she’d kick me out of the house. I expected her to take my mother’s side and realize that I was right: I’m unfit to be a parent, and I’m a danger to our children.” Her voice cracked slightly, and she placed her hand over Solo’s. “But she didn’t. She said I was human, and that all parents make mistakes.”
Solo closed her eyes against the vivid memory of her near-miss at the grocery store just days ago. “Because it’s true. Last Tuesday, I was at Jewel-Osco with all three girls. I turned around for literally two seconds to grab something off the shelf, and when I turned back, Tia was climbing over the side of the cart and was halfway out of it. She was going to fall headfirst onto the concrete floor.”
Rae leaned forward slightly. “And what happened?”
“I caught her. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I was going to have a heart attack right there in the pasta aisle. And I thought—” Solo’s throat tightened. “If I’d been one second slower, if I’d been looking at my phone or distracted by something else, my daughter would’ve cracked her skull open. Because I wasn’t paying attention fortwo seconds.”
“Did you tell anyone about it?” Rae asked.
“Not until last night, no. I just put Tia back in the cart, finishedshopping, and went home. My dad asked if everything went okay, and I said I was fine.” Solo looked at Rae. “Because that’s what we do, right? We have near-misses and moments of terror, and then we just...move on and pretend they didn’t happen. Act like we’ve got everything under control.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Solo had been thinking about that since last night, lying awake in her bed while Janie slept down the hall. “Because dealing with emotions is harder than dealing with logistics. If I opened that door and told my dad how terrified I was, then I might have to face how overwhelmed I was. How much I’ve been struggling without Janie, and how badly I’ve failed as a partner.”
“You haven’t failed,” Janie said quietly.
“I have though.” Solo turned to look at Janie. “I made you invisible. I was so consumed by trying to be a perfect mother that I forgot to be your wife. And when you needed me most, when you’d just had the most terrifying experience of your parenting life, you couldn’t talk to me.”
