AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Palmer
I sit on Hudson’s bed and blow out a breath.
Why would he think he should propose? Everything with us has been great. I haven’t been holding back, I’ve been giving him everything, but marriage? We always agreed that marriage wasn’t necessary for either of us.
The ring shines on the ceiling, and I roll over, grabbing it. It’s gorgeous. He couldn’t pick one more suited to me. The urge to slide it on my finger is strong, but I deny myself. If you don’t want a marriage, you don’t get the ring.
I shove it in the drawer of the dresser, get up, make the bed, and grab my bag. His second story is small, just his room, Adley’s room, and a bathroom. I peek into her room, which he recently redid for her with a ladybug theme. She has as much stuff in here as she does at my house. Even though we’ve lived separately all this time, there’s still a divide. Days when she’s not with me. Which would be fine if I wasn’t in love with her father.
I sit on her stool and grab one of her stuffed ladybugs, hugging it to my chest. What is wrong with me? Sure, I don’t believe in the whole marriage thing, but the panic that arose when I saw that ring shouldn’t have caused the knee-jerk reaction it did.
Hudson loves me and wants to announce it to everyone we know and people we don’t. That’s not a bad thing. It’s something most women dream of.
Shaking my head, I put the ladybug stuffed animal on Adley’s bed and walk out of the room and down the stairs. My hand brushes the hanging pictures of Adley and Hudson. I’m in a few, but it’s mostly just them. Our daughter looks so happy in each one. We’ve given her a good life so far, and all I’ve done is worry that I’m messing up. But she’s well-adjusted and happy most of the time. She’ll deal with her dad and me coming out as a couple, and she’ll deal with it if we don’t work out. Have I been using her as an excuse this entire time?
There’s so much to process. I figure I’ll bury myself in my work and deal with it later. I open the back door to return home and freeze.
Theresa stands there with a box in her hands. Her eyes widen. “I’m sorry. I was just…these are his things. I was just returning them.”
I stare at the box. His things, stuff he left at her house while they were together. The thought that he had a drawer at her place brings bile up my throat. I want to grab the box and burn everything in it, destroying the evidence that he was ever with another woman.
“Can you give it to him? I didn’t see his truck, so I was just going to leave it at the door. I thought it was safe.” She hands me the box and walks back to her SUV.
“Theresa!” I call, dropping the box on the step and walking toward her.
She stops and turns around, seeming surprised that I’m speaking directly to her, because I never did when she was with Hudson. “You don’t have to soften the blow. I think I’ve always known.”
I tilt my head and try to decipher what she’s talking about. “I just wanted to apologize.”
A condescending laugh erupts out of her, echoing around us. “Apologize? You know what? The two of you need to get your shit together. You’re hurting people because you don’t want to admit what you feel for each other. I always saw it. I was just stupid enough to think I could change it.”
“What?” I ask, baffled because we were just co-parents. It’s not as if Hudson was sleeping with me while he was seeing her.
“The way he looked at you. I knew I’d never compare, but…” Her shoulders rise and fall. “I’m competitive by nature, so I probably thought I could win him. That one day he’d look at me like I was his entire life.”
I don’t know what to say, so I stand there like an idiot. “I?—”
“I’m fine. I don’t need your pity or his or anyone else’s. But I’ll give you one piece of advice. I’m not sure why the two of you play this game you do. I can only think it’s because of Adley. But kids are resilient, and the happier their parents are, the happier they’ll be. Whether her parents are together or not. I admire you guys for trying the co-parenting thing and intermingling your lives, but there’s doing it for the child and doing it for yourselves. I think you both should take the time to decipher who liked this arrangement you came up with more, you or Adley?” She opens her SUV door, and I stand there watching her drive away.
I pick up the box, take it inside, and place it on Hudson’s kitchen table. There’s a T-shirt, a razor, a bottle of his cologne, and some other random stuff. I stare at it and chew the inside of my cheek. He doesn’t need any of this, not anymore.
I pick up the box, walk out to the garbage cans, and toss it in. That was his past, and I’m his future.
I head inside my house to write the ending of my book. The ending that should have happened earlier today, but I was too stupid to realize I wanted the same thing he did.
I write the end of the book, send it off to the editor, and a weight lifts from my shoulders. Sure, she’ll come back with edits, and I’ll be revisiting that manuscript, but the first draft is complete.
I slide my laptop into my case and spot Great-Grandma Dori’s letter where I’ve been carrying it around since it was given to me. I never did read it. Maybe I should have. Maybe I wouldn’t have ruined all this with Hudson.Sitting on the couch, I slowly open the letter, still not ready to read her last advice to me, but it’s time, I know it is.
My Dearest Palmer,
You remind me so much of myself. Your resilience, your fight, your stubbornness. All great traits, and if anyone tells you differently, tell them to go to hell.
I understand how upset you got with your parents when you were younger. How badly it hurt that they’d lied to you and made you believe love was easy because of the example you saw growing up. But kids aren’t supposed to see the struggles of their parents. They made amends when you were eighteen months old and put that part of their lives in the past where it belonged.
So what if your mom left your dad because he couldn’t stop drinking? It sobered him up. Your dad should have sought out help before letting it get that far, but he lost a career that was his passion and was what would feed you and your mother. He came to Lake Starlight and won your mother back because he wasn’t afraid to admit to his mistakes, and he put in the hard work to fix them. That’s all that matters.
One day, you’re going to find a man and the two of you will have your struggles. Everyone does. But you’ll get through them—together. Your parents’ struggle was just one small part of their love story, not the whole thing.
