Page 7 of Second Chance Summer

“We do, and I don’t sleep well at all, which is probably the reason I’m so cranky all the time.”

“This is very interesting to me. I’ve never heard this one before in all the years I’ve been practicing. He was your real-life sound machine,” Dr. Makalua says, smiling.

Lanai grins in a reminiscent way. “Yes, he was. And get this—I bought an actual sound machine, hoping it would help me sleep, and it doesn’t. Do you know how messed up it is to have to go to the doctor to get a prescription for sleeping pills because I can’t sleep without him?” she asks, then stares at the water with tears in her eyes that don’t fall. She blinks them away.

My heart aches because I can alleviate all of that, but I just don’t know what she wants from me anymore. How can you make something right when you don’t know how?

“Tell me how it feels,” the doctor presses.

“It feels horrible. Feels like I’ve given too much of myself to him, and now I don’t know how to be alone.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re not supposed to be. This is the man you chose. The man you were in love with. That you married and wanted to live happily ever after with. Are you really ready to give that up?”

Lanai’s eyes drifted to the water again, but this time a tear escaped and rolled down her face. It struck me in the chest and made me realize that all that pain, the contempt in her eyes when she looked at me, is a mask for the real, raw feeling that she keeps from me but can’t quite explain. She doesn’t know how to tell me that I’m not the man she thought she was getting, and that hurts to say, but I know it’s what she feels. Now I understand what my father meant when he told me that women don’t leave a relationship because they want to. They leave when they feel they have no other choice but to.

Lanai wipes the tear away and says, “He used to make me feel like I was an integral part of his life. Things mattered to him, yes, like his job, his own well-being, his lil’ hobbies and whatnot, but at the end of the day, I was most important. The world could be on fire, and as long as I was okay, he was okay.”

“What changed?”

She shrugs. “Everything eventually became more important than us. He got busy working, climbing the ladder, missing important things in my life. He answered emails during dinner. He would cancel date nights because he had to meet with somebody. And he didn’t seem to mind how all those corporate women fawned over him, touched his arm and pretty much made it clear that they were open for business, if you know what I mean. Shoot, I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually slept with one of them.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yeah, I do.”

And now I know why she’s really angry at me. She thinks I cheated on her.

“Has he ever been unfaithful to you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then what makes you think that he may have been?”

“It’s just that…he stopped seeing me. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great provider, but you shouldn’t have to beg a man who says he loves you to text you or call during the day to check on you. I shouldn’t be the only one planning anniversary dates and vacations. And I’m so tired of hearing ‘after I close this deal we’ll do this or that’. It never happens. I was lonely sitting right next to him while he’s all in his phone, feeling like everything else is important. I’m not a priority to him anymore, Dr. Makalua, so who is?”

Even the doctor couldn’t come up with anything philosophical to say. She just sat there, scribbling notes while Lanai dropped her head into her palms, looking like she was in distress.

Meanwhile, I’m hiding in the bushes like a coward, silently taking blow after blow while listening to what she thinks of me. Lanai didn’t hit me physically, but her words sure beat the heck out of me. And still, I want so badly to go over there and console her, but how can I when I’m not supposed to be here? Plus, I have some things I need to work through right now, too. I spent so much time trying to build a future for us that I stopped being present in the life I already had. I’m not the victim in this marriage falling apart. I’m trying to save it, yes, but I’m also the reason why it started crumbling in the first place.

“One thing I know about marriages is, it takes both parties to make it work. So what I want you to focus on at this retreat is what you can do to get along with Hendrick for the rest of the week. I’m not asking you to salvage anything. Just try to focus on getting along. Can you do that?”

“I suppose.”

“Okay. That’s your assignment. We’ll reconvene at our next session to see how it’s going.”

“Okay.”

She stands and hugs her. It’s my cue to get out of there.

Chapter 3

I’m supposed to try according to the doc, so when Hendrick invited me to dinner at one of the resort’s restaurants, I accepted. I wasn’t dressed on time, typical for me, so he went ahead to get our table while I put the finishing touches on my makeup. I don’t do too much—a little powder foundation, a dusting of blush on the cheeks, and my favorite red lipstick – yeah, that’s enough. I’m not going full diva for him.

I put on a black lace dress – one of the ones that gives the illusion of being see-through, though my goodies are safely tucked away. And after sliding into black sandals, I ride the elevator to the ground floor and take my sweet lil’ time walking to the restaurant, because I don’t want to go – I really don’t – but I’m trying.

“You look beautiful.”

“Oh. You thought this was for you?” I ask as I sit down, thinking about how good he looks. He’s wearing black too, like we planned this. That fitted button-down almost shows his pecs, and I already know it’s hiding abs of steel. The sleeves are rolled to his forearms, exposing tattoos that remind me he still got a lil’ rah rah in him though he rolls with the higher-ups in corporate. I remember those muscular arms being around me when we laid on the sofa watching movies together. Movie-watching usually turned into love-making sessions because it was one of the rare occasions when he wasn’t focused on his phone or work. His hands were free to roam my body, and so were his eyes. Don’t know why we fooled ourselves into thinking we were actually going to watch something.