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“At some point, she decided she wanted more. I'm not sure what triggered it, but we…grew apart in England. She didn’t physically want me anymore, and I honestly didn’t really want her, either.”
He ran his hand through his hair, sighing.
“I honestly don’t blame her for falling out of love. We weren’t the same people who’d met in college. My degree and job teaching became more important to me than watching volleyball games on the couch with her in the evening. I think she’d released me from those duties while I was in school, but once I was done, I think she expected me to turn all my attention to her, rather than to just be the partner I had always been, if that makes any sense. After we had our boys, it just kept getting worse because time was even more scarce for me. That's why she…found someone else.”
“That sounds like a tough place to be in, for both of you,” I murmured, hoping he’d go on.
Owen looked at me and smiled.
“Well, what’s done is done. No point in dwelling in the past.”
“Yeah, but things like that leave scars.”
He shrugged, but didn’t say anything more.
I reached for something to fill the silence between us.
Anything.
“What about you, Mia? You’ll graduate with your Master's soon. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of heartbreaking stories of love to share by your age.”
I shrugged.
“Not particularly. I grew up in a regular old household. My parents and my gran are Methodist, and they have a particular way of looking at life. I’m just in the place now where I’m trying things out and I’m deciding if their way is my way, or if maybe now is the time where we part paths a little.”
“Talk about a difficult place to be,” he said, watching my face.
I shrugged.
“Life’s an adventure, right?”
“Right,” he agreed with a snort. “So that’s what we’re calling it now?”
I grinned back at him, then looked around the garden again.
“Ah, there’s lunch,” Owen said, getting up from his chair with a grunt.
The sound made me smile. It almost sounded like the noise my dad made when I was a kid when Mom asked him to do something after he’d just settled into his favorite recliner.
Owen came back with a paper bag dangling from his fingers.
“Lunch is served!” he chirped, putting the bag between us before he dug for his sandwich and sat down to eat.
Sharing lunch with him had become almost habitual. We’d spent more afternoons together than apart lately, so breaking bread with him felt normal. Natural.
“Thanks for lunch,” I told him, grabbing my own Subway sandwich before taking a big bite.
“It’s the least I can do,” he told me. “But hopefully you notice the stark absence of alcohol, you lightweight.”
I burst out laughing while Owen grinned over at me with his lips closed, mid-chew.
“You suck,” I told him.
He shrugged and took another massive bite.
Holy cow! How was he halfway done already?
I hurried with my own sandwich, not sure if we were going to work any more before I left.
