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“Is something the matter?” He sat on the bed in his clothes, something he hardly ever does. When he pulled me into his arms, my heart almost beat me to death because I was so scared. “You’re not leaving me and the babies.” I couldn’t keep the tears from my voice.
“What the heck are you talking about, baby?”
“Isn’t that what you’re going to say? That it’s too hard taking care of all of us?”
“Please, you’ve met more than half my team. Compared to that bunch you and the munchkins are a walk in the park.”
“So why do you look so upset?” It took him a minute to answer, and I started getting nervous again. I got even more nervous when his arms tightened around me, and he kissed my forehead before saying anything more.
“I’m upset because I have to do something that’s going to hurt you, and I never want to do that.”
“Just tell me what it is because you’re freaking me out.”
“Dan passed away.”
For a few seconds, I didn’t think I heard him right. “What did you say?”
“You knew he was attacked, my Deidre, right? Well, he passed a week ago. I didn’t tell you then because you’d just given birth. Not because I didn’t think you needed to know, I made a judgment call because you’d just given birth, and I thought it might’ve been too much.”
My eyes were wide as saucers, and I didn’t know what to feel or even if I was supposed to feel anything. As if reading my mind, he pulled me in closer and kissed my forehead. “Baby, it’s okay to cry. You can cry for the boy you once knew, for the person you married.”
As if all I’d needed was permission, that’s just what I did. My heart broke for the mess we’d become and for all the broken dreams and promises. In my mind, I didn’t see the man who’d betrayed me, but the goofy kid who I’d spent the best part of my childhood with.
Throughout all this, Thunder did not say a word. He just sat there and held me until I realized what I’d just done. “I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to get carried away.”
“Sorry about what? Do you think I’m jealous that you’re crying over your dead ex-husband? I seem that weak to you?”
“No, it’s just. I’ve never been in this situation before, and I don’t know how to react.”
“You’re doing fine. You’re allowed to cry. Look, you had a whole life before you met me, and so did I. I’d have killed you both if you still wanted to hang out and be best friends and all that bullshit, but this is different.”
“You’d kill us both?”
“Well, yeah.” He said it so blasé that I couldn’t help but laugh, which eased the pain in my chest. I felt so much better by the time my eldest son started screaming down the house to be fed. It’s not that I think I won’t think about Dan again; I’m sure I will. But I think I’d cried all I was going to over him.
I wasn’t happy that he’d died or the way that he’d died, and I doubt we would’ve ever become friends, but it was sad that our lives had become what they had and that that person was no longer here. It felt surreal to me that someone who had been such an integral part of my life was gone just like that.
After feeding the baby, Thunder and I sat and talked. He’d taken me out to the rooftop to get some air, leaving the doors open so we could hear the kids if they woke up. Thunder does not trust monitors alone, even though their nursery, which I doubt they’d ever use, had more surveillance than NASA.
We sat in one of the lounges together. The one that he liked to joke was where our kids were conceived, and we talked about Dan and life in general. If it wasn’t for him, the news probably would’ve hit different.
But because of his care and patience, I was able to handle it a lot better. “What about his son? What’s going to happen to him with his father gone and his mother in jail? That poor baby.” Having my own kids has changed my perspective on a lot of things and I realize that once you have a kid, you have to put them first always.
Now, this was one less thing for me to hate Dan over, the fact that he’d chosen his son over me. I won’t forgive him for the affair; that’s a separate issue. But I know that I would do anything to hold onto my kids and keep them in my life, so I can see why he allowed her to get away with so much back then.
* * *
CECILE
* * *
The funeral was a disaster,at least from my point of view. There was hardly anyone there from his friends’ side and I got to learn about another fallout from his divorce. I hadn’t known that he’d lost most of the people in his circle because of the affair or that most of them still held grudges against him even in death.
What’s worse is the ones who did show up kept mentioning Amanda and her new family. That’s when I learned that she’d had triplets the days Dan died. Triplets, the news burned a hole in my gut, and I raged in the car all the way home, alone, since my husband, the heartless bastard, had left the cemetery with his mistress, and my daughters were together somewhere.
She had a girl and two boys, and my Dan was in the ground. How is that fair? There must be a way I could find out if she was taking birth control while married to my son and stringing him along; that way, I could fight for my rights to her kids. There must be some kind of law.
I won’t let that bitch be happy while my son is dead because of her. No matter how my family blames me for encouraging Dan to give in to Deidre after she became pregnant, I won’t see it as my fault. Didn’t my son deserve to have a family like he'd always wanted?
