It had been like they’d stopped breathing when Kent left. Still moved forward because time pushed them on. But no matter how hard she tried, her life seemed stalled in his betrayal.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Tight.
Her heart stuck like peanut butter in her throat.
She started up the stairs, backward. Unable to pull her eyes from the view, but also not able to jump in and be part of it.
She thought, somewhere in the recesses of her mind, that Jack said her name. Certainly that was an illusion, though. He was in the middle of the peace while she stood outside in the free-for-all.
At the top of the stairs, she stepped into her room and turned her back to the wall by the door. She tried to catch a breath, but the peanut butter wouldn’t let the air through.
“April?” Jack asked with his butterscotch warmth. “What just happened?”
Eyes shut tight, she was mid-hyperventilation. Thus she wasn’t in the best place to deal with his honeyed voice.
“One second.” She held up her one second fingertip.
“Give me a hint because I’m getting worried,” he said.
She drew a huge gulp of air. “I’m in the middle of an internal crisis.” She waved her hands at her chest because that seemed to be where the crisis focused.
“Um.” She sensed his movement closer. There in the air around her. Comforting there.
“I’m here when you’re ready to tell me what happened,” he said, close but not touching.
“Give me a sec,” she whispered, blinking her eyes open and staring into his.
And, goodness bless the man, he waited.
He didn’t move, didn’t come closer, didn’t leave. Who knew how he kept the kids from crashing into the room? He just…waited for her to finish with the peanut-butter-flavored chaos.
When it finally ebbed, she said, “Jack?”
“I’m right here.” Hewasright there, like a boulder of a rock just waiting for her to grab on instead of rushing by in the river.
She opened her eyes and fell headfirst into the crystal blue depths of his. The kids weren’t fussing for her. No one was demanding her attention. There were only the two of them there in her bedroom.
That’s when she realized.
Realized what she’d missed this whole time.
“I’m ready for you to help me,” she said, the last word cracking on her vocal cords.
He captured that acknowledgment with a flicker in his eyes.
“That’s why I’m here.” He tilted his forehead a little so their gazes met at the same level.
“I think…”
What was it she thought?
How could she even hope that maybe she might be enough to be just April and also…everything they’d built for her as The Calm Mom? She was April. And he was Jack. And he was there to help her be who she dreamed she could be.
“If I agree toPractical Parenting…” She ran her teeth along her lip gloss.
“When you agree…” he countered with a grin.
“I think…” She was generally so much better with words than this.
