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I shrug and nod. “Her attorney put that very same argument across in court. She postulated that I had been a neglectful husband. That, had I been there more often and cared for my wife the way a husband ought to, her client would not have been forced, in her despair,” I snort at the very thought of Claire’s manipulations back then, “to find comfort in the arms of another man.”
Bree’s eyes are wide again. “So, she cheated on you, and got a settlement.” Her tone conveys incredulousness.
“That’s the justice system for you.”
We stay silent for another moment. I can’t know what is going through Bree’s head, but too much of my past is whirling around in mine. I had tried to avoid confronting it all for so long. Drowning myself in work, I had pretended that none of it had affected me so deeply. The idea of getting into a relationship again scared the living daylights out of me. And so, instead of dealing with my wounds, wounds that had clearly not healed as well as I had convinced myself they had, I had simply ignored them. It was ridiculous, when I now think about it. It was like ignoring a gaping gash and hoping, that by not looking at it, I could avoid infection or sepsis.
But why had it taken three long years for all this stuff to come to the surface? I suppose, not seeing Claire had helped.
It’s more than that and you know it.
Of course, I knew it.
Somehow, Bree had caught me in some sort of spell. She had reached under my skin, without me noticing it, and forced me to process my emotions. Perhaps all the emotion I had felt after seeing Claire was not just anger. It was fear, too. Fear that, once I start to feel something for someone again, I could get hurt again. I just don’t know whether I can take another heartbreak.
“It makes sense now,” Bree says, her voice cutting through the silence between us.
I glance at her and raise my eyebrows. “What makes sense?”
“What you told me when we were driving into town. You said I wouldn’t want the whole town knowing about my business. I noticed the change in your tone when you said it, but I didn’t understand why at the time. But it makes sense now.”
“You can hide in a city the size of New York. There’s no hiding here,” I offer. Then I start the engine. “We should get back. Dad might get worried.”
“How you holding up?” Dad asks, when I finally drop down onto the sofa later that evening.
As usual, he had been reading. Upon hearing me come in, he had put the book aside and turned his lounging chair to face me.
I’m a little confused at the question, and I’m trying to think why he would ask me that. When we got back to the house with his order, I had acted like nothing had happened. Almost as though she knew I didn’t want it spoken about, Bree had done the same without me having to ask her. Amongst her many other talents, she was also a very intuitive woman. The day had gone on pretty normally after that. I had headed down to the barn and Bree had gone on to finish her housekeeping duties.
I hadn’t been around when she left, and she hadn’t come to say goodbye. Not that she normally does. Maybe I thought she might, after the day we’d had. In the end, I decided it was better that things remained as normal as possible. That way, Dad wouldn’t start asking questions. As placid a man as he was, he was far from stupid. Bree suddenly cooing all over me would have certainly piqued his curiosity.
I’m now on the sofa, still wondering about his question, when a realization suddenly hits me. “Mr. Shilliday,” I say.
It’s a statement not an enquiry, and Dad inclines his head in acknowledgement. “John rung me right after you pulled away from the store.”
Mr. Shilliday was a longtime friend of Dad’s.
“He told me she had arrived on the scene, just as you and Bree were leaving. He also told me you were not in the greatest of moods when you left.”
I shrug.
Maybe if I hadn’t gone through my entire history with Bree earlier, I might have had the energy to tell Dad what was going on in my head. But as I discovered afterwards, dealing with my pent-up feelings had been pretty exhausting. It had been kind of therapeutic, I suppose.
I had never actually been to therapy, much to the chagrin of Phil, who reminds me how it’s helped him every chance he gets. My business partner is a good guy. We’ve known each other since university. He could not have been more supportive when the proverbial crap hit the fan. But even after all his persuading, I had not felt I needed therapy. Maybe I had been wrong.
“What happened?” Dad presses, clearly not satisfied with my silence.
“She came, she talked, she left,” I reply plainly.
Dad looks at me intently for a long minute. He seems to be weighing a few things up. Maybe how seeing her might have affected me, maybe wondering how I’m feeling. I don’t really know. I can’t read his mind.
“Were you angrier that you saw her, or angrier that you were with Bree when you saw her?” he asks.
How does he do it? How does he know you better than you know yourself?
“You’re my firstborn son, Jackson. Of course, I know.”
My eyes fly wide. “Get out of my head!” I blurt.
