He pulls me in, both arms, tight, and we stay like that for awhile. I press my face into Walker's neck and breathe him in. Warm and spicy and all man. Allmyman.
My heart is aching. He’s telling me all the things I’ve wanted for myself for a long time now. Except now, after I’ve spent this summer at Wild Rose, I don’t think I want those things anymore.
What does a long, empty weekend compare to one filled with laughter and the people I love? What does some overpriced brunch compare to slow mornings making pancakes at home with my boys? Department stores and art galleries are nice, I’m sure, but they’re not trail rides along the creek and loud family dinners at Rosemont.
And nightlife? I don’t need to dance at the glitziest clubs in the city, fending off the advances of predatory men who don’t care about me, when I could spend the night in the arms of my brooding, beautiful cowboy.
But he’s made up his mind. And I’m not going to beg him to change it.
Then Jonah comes sprinting across the yard with his jar held over his head.
“Seven!” he announces. “I got seven.”
Walker's arms loosen. His gaze on me is tender and private, everything we just said still sitting between us, and then he turns to his son.
“Let me see those seven,” he says.
And then my phone pings with a reminder to check in for my flight, and I go through all the necessary steps with none of the joy I ought to feel at the culmination of a lifelong dream, the beginning of a great adventure.
It just feels like an ending.
This is my last night tucking Jonah in. The last night doing the bedtime routine, all three of us.
Walker is in the bathroom running the toothbrush under the water, and Jonah’s pulling pajamas out of the drawer to select between dinosaurs and spaceships, and everything’s exactly the same as every other night this summer.
Except it isn't. Because it’s the last one.
I go in and crouch down beside him and start helping him sort through the options.
“How about trucks tonight?” I ask, handing a pair to him.
He takes them.
Then he says, in the careful, serious voice I rarely hear these days, “Sadie.”
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Do you think…” He swallows. His small throat works. “Would you ever want to be my mom?”
Looking at his little face, staring up at me with such honest, sincere yearning, I can scarcely speak through the tightness in my throat. “Of course I would,” I whisper.
“Then why are you leaving?” He gazes up at me. “Why can't you stay forever?”
Kids have a way of getting right to the heart of the matter.
There are answers that come to mind. Because of a promise I made to myself. Because it’s complicated. Because your father hasn’t asked me to stay.Because because because.
They all feel utterly toothless in the face of a child’s pure love and longing for a mother.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I breathe.
My eyes are burning. I pull him in before he can see, wrapping both arms around him, pressing my face into his hair. He squeezes back immediately, both arms around my neck, his small hands gripping the back of my shirt. I sit with it until I have it under control.
Then I pull back.
I put both hands on his cheeks and look at him straight so I can make sure he sees that I mean every word.
“Let me tell you something,” I say. “Anyone who gets to call you their kid is the luckiest person in the world.”
