AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ve been clean for three months, Caleb,” she says, cutting me off. “I know I fucked up and I shouldn’t have left rehab in the first place, but I went back. For you. For us. I want us to start over.”
A chasm opens in my stomach. I don’t want to hurt her sobriety, and I’m so sorry that I didn’t do a better job of helping her when she fell apart, but…it’s far, far too late. In some ways, it was too late even before she left. We weren’t necessarily wrong together, but that’s very different from being with therightperson, the person you were meant for. Something I didn’t understand until Lucie reentered my life.
“Kate, you were gone for a year,” I reply. “I had no idea where you were or if you werealiveuntil a few weeks ago. I had to move on. Ididmove on. I’ll help however I can, but anything between us is over.”
Her eyes widen, as if it never occurred to her that I mightfind someone else. “Look, I know I need to re-earn your trust,” she begins. “I’d feel the same way if I were you. So if you want me to take a urine test every hour on the hour, I’ll—”
“Kate, stop,” I whisper. She’s a born negotiator. I don’t want to hurt her, but she never thinks the door is closed and she’ll keep right on asking to be let in unless I give her the entire truth. “I'm with someone now. Lucie. I wasn’t looking to move on, but we share the dock and it’s just—”
“Her?” Kate demands, her face bleached of color. “You’re withher?”
My stomach tightens. “You saw her?” My voice is flat, utterly emotionless, the opposite of how I actually feel.
“She came out here about twenty minutes ago and took off. You can’t be serious. What could you and that girl possibly have in common?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can see it all from Lucie’s perspective: I tell her I need to talk, and she discovers Kate here, lying out on the dock as if I invited her. “We have everything in common. Fucking everything that matters. What did you tell her?”
Kate wraps her arms around herself as if she’s been hit. Her mouth opens, then closes, and I’ll probably wish I’d been more diplomatic later on, but I really need to know how much damage was done so I can fix it.
“Nothing. I just told her who I was and she took off. Is it serious?” Her voice is so muted it’s barely intelligible.
No one has asked me this question. Not even Lucie. We danced around it because I was scared where the conversation would lead, but the answer comes easily now, clear as day:
Lucie and the kids come first. I failed Hannah and I failed my wife. I’m beginning to understand why it happened, and I’m also beginning to understand that there’s something worse, more unbearable, than responsibility and risk. It’s the idea that someone you love is in pain, and you’re its cause. Even the vaguest possibility that Lucie thinks I chose Kate over her hasme ready to give up everything in order to set the record straight.
Iwantthe responsibility, and I want the risk. I want everything that comes with having them in my life, the good and the bad.
“Yeah,” I reply. “As soon as this is done, I’m going to marry her.” I hate that I’ve been so blunt, but I’ve spent too long not quite committing to the things that matter.
I’m ready for that change. But first I have to find Lucie.
“I’m so sorry, but I’ve got to go,” I tell her. “I think we’ll need to file the divorce paperwork differently now that you’re back, but I’ll give you a call?”
“Sure,” she says. “I’ll be around.”
I hesitate. “You’re not staying with that dealer, are you?”
She shakes her head. “No. Don’t worry about me.”
I take her at her word, mostly because I’m too freaked out about Lucie to do anything else.
I call Mark on the way back to my truck. “Can you tell Caldwell I can’t make it this weekend?” I ask.
“Can’t make it? Are you insane? This weekend means everything!”
Yeah, I thought so too, but I was wrong.
It turns out what means everything was sitting next door, waiting for me. And I don’t want them to wait even a minute more.
39
LUCIE
I’ve just gotten a seat near the front of the school auditorium when Mrs. Kroesinger comes to find me. “We have a little problem,” she whispers. “Henry isn’t sure he wants to go on.”
I expected as much, but I follow her to the left of the stage where Henry sits on an overturned milk crate with his chin in his hands, a truculent set to his face. He isn’tunsure, as his teacher suggested—he’s already decided. I kneel in front of him. He won’t admit he’s scared, but it’s there in his wide, lost eyes. “What’s going on, buddy?” I ask, pulling his hands into mine.
“I don’t want to do this.”
