“Just like that.”
“You didn’t fight her on it?”
“How could I?” He scoffed. “It’s not my body. I couldn’t force her to carry my child. And she was never interested in the idea of adoption or surrogacy. I wasn’t about to bring a child into a home where they weren’t wanted. She told me that she’d been too young to have the discussion before she even knew what she wanted.”
“But— That’s so misleading! She baited and switched you!”
He shrugged. “Maybe so, but I stayed for the same reason I stayed when she quit working. When she ran up my cards without a care in the world. When she failed to contribute to her own store. When she was cruel to my grandmother. I stayed because my father believed in love and honor and promises, and I’d sworn before God to love her forever.”
Milo’s eyes returned, searing into Eliana’s. “He passed when I was eight, and yet, I stayed married to Bea for a decade because I was scared to disappoint thememoryof my father.”
“The point is that I understand the fear, Eliana. But,” his voice gentled, “I think you’re doing both your audience and your daughters a disservice with your fear. I’d be willing to bet that all they want is the best for you. Same as Clem. And me. You don’t have to have all the answers right now.” Milo smiled. “Just the next step. So are we sticking with the plan?”
Eliana nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah. I’m putting it in motion as soon as he gets home. But I hear you. I may need a reminder if it comes to that point—but I hear you.”
She had a plan, and she would stick to it. To take on her husband face-to-face for the wrongs he’d committed. To force him into taking accountability. But if he refused . . . If he forced her hand . . . If all else failed—Eliana would do what needed to be done, even if it made her the villain in the eyes of those she loved most.
25
IMPATIENCE
Milo
The chirping of the work phone on his desk finally quieted, then began again with another rapid onslaught of messages, only stopping when it began to ring. Milo didn’t move to check it, his mind lingering back at the picnic table with Eliana. Thinking about her story.
He’d noted the platform and the pen name when she’d shown him the comments, and he’d found her easily enough. She certainly hadn’t been lying about the fanbase. There was even fan art.Graphicfan art.
Reading through the story from Eliana’s perspective was enlightening. And it certainly didn’t hurt his ego any to see that his character, Mitch, developed his own fanbase amongst her readers. Though he did note that she never responded to the questions asking about him. Never confirming that something deeper existed in their friendship.
He wished he could skip to the end to see what happened. To see where she wanted things to go. He felt surprisingly nervous at the idea. There was an unfamiliar anxiety pressing at him, urging him toact, and it took him a long while to put a name to the emotion—impatience. At the realization, a flash of his father’s stern face popped to mind.
Milo had very few memories of his parents, but the ones he retained were startling in their clarity. It was odd how the brain worked. He was eight when he’d lost his parents, and if he could’ve chosen a way to remember them, he would’ve held tight to every mundane second of their time together. Even if some of the memories were a bit faded and a tad rough around the edges.
Instead, he’d been left with a small selection of crystal clear visions that lingered in his mind’s eye as vivid as the day he’d lived them. The disappointment in his mother’s eye when she caught him in a lie about his homework. The stoic stare of his father on the back of his head when Milo laughed at a kid who’d been struck out of a game of baseball. But the worst was the heartrending fear he’d felt the day they’d left him behind. It hadn’t been sorrow or anger or confusion making his body shake that day. Onlyfearof a life without them.
Ironically, he couldn’t seem to remember a lifewiththem. He knew there’d been a million moments of quiet love. Even if he couldn’t remember the specifics, he knew his childhood was one to envy. He knew it by the love in his heart when he thought of them, and the warmth that filled him—even when facing the chilliest of memories.
But what he wouldn’t give for one quick peek at a shared laugh or a car ride, or just sitting down at the dinner table as a family. Just a glimpse of them smiling at him, rather thanthe relentless flashes of his parents working double time to keep him from becoming the youngest delinquent to ever grace the halls of a juvenile detention facility.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t fault his brain for its selectiveness, as the lessons often arrived right when he needed them. And in this particular flashback, he found himself sitting in the desk chair of his father’s old computer desk, his eyes on his knees as he listened to his old man describe all the things he was grounded from.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you, son? No bike. No soccer. No Nintendo. No Sega. If I catch you on either of those, I’ll be dropping the pair of them at Goodwill.”
“I understand,” eight-year-old Milo muttered, scratching at a loose piece of leather on the seat by his knee while resisting the urge to pout. He’d just talked his friend into lending him his copy of ToeJam and Earl, and he’d only been in such a hurry in the first place because he was excited to play it. Now he was grounded, and he’d surely have to give the game back before he was allowed back on the Sega. A full week of trading away his pudding—for nothing.
“Do you understand why you’re being punished?”
“Because I ran through the bushes after you said not to.”
“No,” his father barked, shaking his head and pulling Milo to his feet. He marched him to the window to point at where Milo’s mother stood in the backyard, a hand over her mouth as she stared down at the scattered remains of her tulips.
“You’re being punished because you destroyed something precious to your mother. Because you were careless. Because you were too impatient to walk through the gate.”
He paused, laying a hand upon the boy’s shoulder and taking a deep breath. “Impatience always has a price, Milo. Make sure you’re willing to pay it next time.”
His father left the room with those parting words, but Miloremained, watching his mother through the dusty panes of the window. Remembering how much time she’d spent preparing and planting the flowers that were now destroyed.
Milo watched as she brushed away an errant tear, and the guilt swelled within him, making his own eyes cloud. It wasn’t the loss of freedom that weighed so heavily upon his tiny shoulders—but the pain that he’d inflicted on another.
