“What about you?” Oakley asked after a while.
“What about me?” Anne echoed.
“How’s your love life?”
She let out a quiet huff of a laugh. “We don’t need to talk about me.”
“Distract me,” Oakley said. “Please?”
“It’s complicated,” Anne said quietly, looking out past the edge of the cliffs. The ocean shone sapphire blue, glinting in the sunlight.
“I’m listening,” Oakley pressed, picking her head up to look at her.
“We’re taking things slow. It would be easy to jump right into a relationship, with our history… and if it was just the two of us, I’m sure we would have.”
“But?”
“I’ve barely started to patch things up with Zoe.”
Oakley let out a huff of frustration. “Zoe’s a grown woman. You’ve got to stop tiptoeing around her eventually.”
“It’s not just her. It’s my other kids too. They’ve been through a lot this year. And Noah’s. Did you know that he had two kids living at his house?”
“I knew that he fostered sometimes.”
“These kids have been with him for a while already, and I don’t think they’re going anywhere. The girl – Jasmine – is the first friend that Claire’s made here. She and her brother have both been through a lot. More than mine, for sure. I don’t want to add any extra chaos to anyone’s life by trying to blend our families too soon.”
“That makes sense,” Oakley conceded, “but what doyouwant?”
Anne shrugged. “I’m happy with things the way they are. We spend time alone when we can. A lot of lunch dates now that the kids are in school. And I like it better this way. Our time together feels like a respite from everything else, instead of one more thing to juggle. I’m not ready to mix that together with parenting yet. I don’t want to complicate things.”
“And Noah? Where does he stand on all that?”
“The same as me, I think. He understands. And he’s… cautious of trusting me, maybe, after everything I put him through.”
“You were just kids,” Oakley said, immediately coming to her defense. “He can’t hold that against you.”
“He doesn’t. The man’s a saint, I swear. It’s more like… he’s taking his time to get to know me. The woman I am now. And I’m doing the same.”
“I suppose that’s sensible.” Oakley’s expression turned moody, and she looked out into the distance. “I’m not sure Trent and I know each other anymore, and we’ve been living together this whole time.”
“People change,” Anne said gently.
“I wish I could blame him…” Oakley’s mouth twisted. “But I think I’m the one who changed. I put my whole heart into raising the girls, and I… I don’t know. I guess I lost sight of him. He’s still the same as he ever was. There’s just such a disconnect. There’s this gap that I can’t bridge.”
“It sounds like your growth outpaced his.”
“Maybe.” The sour expression on Oakley’s face didn’t change.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“I know how hard you try. I know that you didn’t let him go without a fight.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve tried so hard to fight for us… but I don’t think that fighting was the right approach. I just wish I knew what the right approachwas.”
“It takes two people to save a marriage,” Anne said quietly.
