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“She wanted to apologize,” I say a little softer. “For everything. She…said she’s been in rehab and when you’re in rehab, they make you apologize to people, so she’s apologizing.”
Sarah stands there, studying me. Trying to figure out what I’m feeling. “You don’t want to accept it, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“So…you don’t believe her?”
“No, I do. It’s just that I…” I stop, really thinking about what I was feeling. I take in a deeper breath. This one is more calming. “I’m used to being angry at her. I like being angry at her. This is going to sound really shitty, but I hate the idea that she’s getting her life together.”
Sarah walks up to me and hugs me warmly. All the turmoil just drains out of me. “You don’t have to accept her apology,” she says. “It’s perfectly alright if you don’t, you know.”
We stand there in each other’s arms for a long time until I say what I’m really afraid of. What’s always been under the surface. “What if she wants to take him back?”
Sarah sighs. “Is that what she said she wants?”
“No.”“Okay…then that’s not on the table.”
“But it might be.”
“But it’s not.” She lifts her head and looks into my eyes. Beautiful jewels looking up at me. “Honey, you are in a different place than you were before we got together. You’ve got a family and your own home…No one in their right mind is going to take a child out of this situation. And if they try, then we’ll handle it.”
She reaches up and touches my cheek gently. “You’re not alone this time, Jack. I’m here. I’ve got your back.”
An old feeling bubbles up inside of me. That feeling of abandonment that’s haunted me my whole life. “Yeah,” I say, stepping out of her embrace, “For now, anyway.”
Sarah sighs and says, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sarah, everything’s great between us right now, but…what’s to stop you from falling out of love with me? It’s happened before. Why couldn’t it happen again?”
She looks at me incredulously. “What are you talking about, Jack?”
“In college. When you left me without a word. You just…cut me off and never spoke to me again. I never even knew why.”
Her face splits into a smile…and now she’s laughing. “Oh, my God. Jack, you can’t be serious.”
“I am and I don’t see what’s so funny.”
She shook her head. “The night that you came home and I was gone, where were you before that?”
I frowned, thinking back to that night and how I looked through the apartment, and all her things were gone. There wasn’t even a note. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Only everything,” she says and crosses her arms. “Think back. Where were you before you came home?”
“I…I was at a party.”
“I know,” she says. “I went to that party too because I was tired of waiting for you to come home so we could go out to dinner.”
I scowl at her, my memory clearly not processing that. “What? We didn’t have a date that night.”
“We did,” she says. “Remember, I’d just aced that economics exam. I came and sat with you in the cafeteria and I was really excited about it. Your two buddies Ted and Harris were there because it was Taco Tuesday. After I told you about my class, you said that we should celebrate and go to—”
“Montecellos.” The memory came back to me in a flash and all of a sudden, everything else fell into place. I put my hand to my head in shock.
“You forgot me that night,” said Sarah, “for like the hundredth time at that point.”
“Oh, jeez,” I say. I walk over to the corner of the couch in the den and shake my head. I couldn’t believe it. Six years lost over a misunderstanding.
I start laughing. It stars like a chuckle, then builds to a maddening roar until tears stream down my face. Sarah is looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
