I shook my head. “There’s my Gavin.”
GAVIN AND FRANKleft about twenty minutes before Lance showed up. I tried to take a mental picture of Lance’s face the moment he laid eyes on Milo. He was so proud and excited to see him; I almost faded into the background once he took Milo into his arms.
“What do you think? Can you believe I did it without any medication?”
Lance didn’t look at me. His eyes were glued to Milo. “I’m just glad this little guy came into the world safely.”
I wanted the credit, of course, but Lance wasn’t getting the hint.
“Well, it was terrifying.”
Finally, he looked down at me. “But you seem fine now. Are you in pain?”
“Strangely, no. Just sore.” But I was sad. I was sad that he had missed the birth of our child. That he had missed the grueling car ride, and the fear I felt when I thought I was going to give birth on the side of the road. I knew he couldn’t help it, that he had arrived as soon as he could, but Milo’s birth was the first of many moments when I felt let down by Lance.
33.Two Months Ago
PENNY
Over the fourteen years of my marriage, I learned how easily Lance could distance himself when things got hard for our family.
In the first few weeks after Milo’s birth, Lance took on more hours at work and more clients in the name of furthering his career, but I knew it was so he could get out of the house. My mom, Kiki, and even Frank had helped me out, but I needed my husband. Meanwhile, Gavin kept his distance in Denver, looking for the next girl to focus his energy on. We kept in touch by phone, but it took him a long time to adjust to the fact that I was married with a child.
At home, Lance couldn’t handle hearing Milo cry all day, which is what he did almost constantly for the first three months of his life. Once, in the middle of the night, I had asked him to go to the nursery to change Milo and rock him back to sleep. I was exhausted from staying up with him all day and night. Instead, Lance brought Milo into our room, laid him next to my head, and changed his diaper. I had asked why he did it and he blew up at me. I had told him I needed to sleep and he had said, “But I have to go to work tomorrow and you don’t.” He always wanted me to be awake if he had to be. I never asked him to get up with Milo again after that night.
There weren’t many options for me in the years after I had Milo. Sure, I could have left Lance and gotten a job, but there was more to it. I did love Lance, and I knew he loved me. He was also extremely levelheaded about our future. He worked hard and made investments and planned vacations—he was so reliable in that way. He was romantic, too. He’d bring me flowers, chocolates, and lingerie for no reason at all. He’d write beautiful messages in greeting cards. After a few years, I got comfortable in my relationship with him. I even became more like him. I took on his sense of humor and his OCD about germs. He insisted that we keep an immaculate house, and I complied. Gavin had predicted I’d change to suit Lance’s needs, and he was right.
Every so often, though, Gavin would pop into our lives and disrupt the image Lance was trying to create. Before Gavin found out his father was sick, he was completely untethered. He’d had a slew of girlfriends over the years, the longest relationship being his most recent one, with Jenn. Three years they spent together, never committing to more than a casual relationship, though I know she wanted more, which is why he eventually broke up with her. Before Jenn, every time Gavin broke up with a girlfriend, he’d show up in Fort Collins and want to hang out with me and Milo. This irked Lance. He kept quiet about it out of respect for me, so I tried to return the favor by telling him everything we did together. But I hid my true feelings. I made Lance believe Gavin was my brother, and not a man I held so dear to my heart.
Gavin had built a successful mechanic’s garage from the ground up. Other than his work, he lived like a typical bachelor, traveling with friends all over Europe, taking off to Hollywood to see his mom anytime he felt like it. I called it running. He called it freedom. Either way, it was something I envied fervently. He went to concerts constantly, always inviting me, though he knew I could rarely go. He did what he wanted.
But every now and then, he’d call and say, “Penny, I’m lost. I want what Lance has. I’m tired of my life.”
I had tried to convince him that there was nothing to envy about Lance’s life. “You want to work sixty hours a week selling pharmaceuticals?”
Gavin would always just reply, “You know what I mean.”
Now Lance and I were in counseling.
ON MY WAYto the counselor’s office, I knew I had to make a decision. In the month we had spent apart, I danced a lot in my home studio and dove into Milo’s activities, but mostly I stayed at home, soul searching. Gavin was swept up in Briel, not atypical for him in the beginning of a relationship. I knew it would end in a month or two when she went back to France, but at least he was giving me the space I needed.
I thought a lot about Lance and our marriage. He had been trying so hard in therapy to prove to me that we could work it out. And I believed him.
In the parking lot after last week’s counseling session, I had let Lance kiss me good-bye. It was a passionate kiss. I missed his hands on me, the way he always smelled like the cologne he had worn for years, which had became a source of comfort to me, of marital ease and unselfconsciousness. He had put his strong arms on my hips and in return I had gripped his forearms. He had been wearing a gray dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His skin was warm. When I had left the parking lot last week, after our intimate moment, I was sure I knew the decision I was going to make.
Pulling out of my driveway, I waved to Milo, who was playing Ping-Pong in the garage with his friend Kale. Heading down the street, I noticed a For Rent sign in Frank’s yard. Gavin had told me he was going to wait awhile, fix up the house, and then sell it. I wondered why he wanted to rent it out now.
A week later in the parking lot of the counselor’s office, I texted Gavin.
Me: I thought you were selling your dad’s house? Why is there a For Rent sign?
Gavin: Change of plans. I’ll explain everything to you later. I gotta go.
That was abrupt.
Once inside Dr. Lake’s office, I gave Lance a quick peck on the cheek and sat down next to him.
“Did you meet with her before I got here?” I said to him.
