Second Chances Page 4

  “Some kids aren’t good at talking about their feelings,” she said while I pulled plates from the cabinet to serve the lasagna on. “If you’re worried, I can give you the name of the therapist I took my kids to after the divorce.”

  “Do you think therapy helped them?”

  “It’s hard to say. After Steve and I split up, my kids were like yours are now. Mostly quiet. I swore they were fine until their report cards came home. That’s when I started taking them to counseling. But things might be different with Jakey and Lydia. It hasn’t been that long since Ryan died. Maybe they’re just not ready to open up yet.”

  Later that evening, after Lydia fell asleep, I went into Jacob’s bedroom. He was busy playing with his Legos and didn’t even look up when I came in.

  “Hey, honey, is it okay if we talk for a bit?”

  “Sure.”

  I sat on his bed and patted the empty spot beside me. “Come sit.”

  He put down his Legos and joined me on his bed.

  “Earlier, when you said you hoped Daddy was happy, what did you mean by that?”

  Jacob shrugged. “He was always so mad or sad all the time. I felt sorry for him.”

  I put my hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “But you do know that wasn’t your fault, right?”

  For a moment he looked doubtful. “I guess,” he finally said.

  There were words at the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t say them. I worried that they’d come out wrong, that it would sound like I was criticizing Ryan. The kids didn’t need to hear that. They needed encouragement. I kissed the top of Jacob’s head. “You know Mommy loves you, right?”

  He looked up at me. “Yeah.”

  After I left Jacob’s room, I thought about what Marla had said earlier. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was too soon for the kids to talk about their feelings. Which meant there was nothing I could do but wait for them to come to me whenever they were ready.

  6

  For the first two weeks after Ryan died, it almost felt like he was just away, camping with friends or visiting family, which was weird, because he didn’t actually do those types of things. Still, I half expected him to walk in the door and tell me how happy he was to finally be home.

  Hours later, or days, if I was lucky, his mood would turn. He’d bark at me that he knew I wasn’t happy he was home, that me and the kids never wanted him around anyway, so he might as well just turn right back around and leave again.

  I’d sigh and plead with him to stay, and of course he would, since Ryan almost never actually made good on his threats. Still, the whole thing was just so tiring.

  But as more weeks passed, it finally hit me that Ryan was really and truly gone. I went through his belongings, emptying out his half of the closet and dresser and filling boxes with clothes to take to Goodwill. I came across a stack of pictures from when the two of us had just started dating. We’d done so much together back then. Like spent weekends exploring the beach in Monterey or sledding in Tahoe. Ryan had piles of those pictures in one of his dresser drawers. In each one, I’d had a smile on my face. How had we gone from that to being so miserably unhappy with each other?

  A part of me wanted to cry, to mourn my broken heart and crushed spirit, but I had no tears left. In my own way, I’d mourned Ryan years ago when I realized he’d never change. Every insult and accusation left my heart so wounded that I finally had no choice but to harden it, letting it freeze inside my chest to stop the pain. With a shake of my head, I brushed those thoughts away. I refused to let myself become consumed with anger and bitterness.

  I looked through Ryan’s letters and pictures one more time and came to the realization that they were of no use to me. I had no reason to hold on to them, so despite the echo of Ryan’s voice in my head telling me what an awful person I was for doing it, I threw them in the trash.

  Life as a single mother should’ve felt stranger, and harder, but Ryan hadn’t been a particularly helpful husband. He barely washed dishes. Occasionally, he put clothes in the washing machine, but he never folded them or put them away. His income as an X-ray tech was his main contribution to the household. If he wasn’t at work or sleeping, he was either in front of the TV, playing a game on his phone, or complaining to me about one thing or another. I knew so many women who grumbled that their husbands were never home, but for me, life was actually easier when Ryan wasn’t around. That hadn’t changed with his death. And I felt horrible for thinking that way.

  Guilt gnawed at me all the time. I was supposed to miss my husband, not be relieved that he was gone. I couldn’t help but wonder what the kids would think of me if they knew. They’d probably hate me, and how could I blame them? So I kept my thoughts to myself, bottling them up and tucking them away.

  I went back to full-time work, fitting in a few hours of phone calls and catching up with emails while the kids were in school and then a few hours of paperwork after picking them up. I’d never really fallen in love with my job, but it was a good escape from the rollercoaster ride of emotions I cycled through on a daily basis.

  Days turned into weeks then weeks into months. Somehow, two of them passed after Ryan’s death. I struggled to cut back on expenses and even thought about putting our house on the market, but moving to a cheaper neighborhood meant the kids would have to change schools, and I didn’t want them to have to go through that. Losing their father was a big enough life-changing event. Asking them to adjust to a new house and a new school so soon after was too much.

  Ryan and I had talked about upgrading to a bigger house. At just over twelve hundred square feet, our extremely outdated three-bedroom, single-story ranch-style house had felt tiny when it had been the four of us. With Ryan gone, it didn’t feel so small. Our house needed to be remodeled, but with only one income, my dreams of hardwood floors and granite countertops would have to wait.

  One afternoon, just after I’d scarfed down a quick lunch, Marla texted me.

  Want to go to the gym?

  I hadn’t been since Ryan died.

  Can’t. I’ve got too much to do. :(

  I’m not taking no for an answer. Be ready in ten minutes.

  I sighed. Though life had fallen back into somewhat of a routine, there was no denying that things had changed. Sorting through household finances ate up more time than I wanted it to. I avoided the mom crew at the kids’ school and soccer practices because I’d grown tired of answering questions about Ryan. I never got out of the car anymore when I dropped the kids off at school or picked them up, choosing instead to wait in my car for them rather than deal with a bunch of nosy moms who normally wouldn’t pay me an ounce of attention. And I found myself spending more time with the kids in an effort to make up for their dad being gone. It left very little me time. Marla worried that I wasn’t taking care of myself, which was probably why she was trying to lure me to the gym.

  Maybe a workout would do me some good, help me clear my head a bit. Exercise had been my stress reliever in the past. Before Ryan died, I went to the gym every morning right after dropping the kids off at school. Once I finished my workout, I felt energized and ready to tackle the pile of work waiting for me at home. Marla was right. Not taking care of myself wasn’t going to solve my problems.

  True to her word, Marla showed up ten minutes later. I’d just finished putting my socks on when the doorbell rang.

  “Come in,” I shouted from my bedroom.

  “Good, you’re dressed,” she said as I walked into the family room moments later.

  “We’ve got kids that need picking up in less than two hours,” I said, looking at my phone to check the time, “so we better get going.” I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and swung my gym bag over my shoulder.

  The gym was only a five-minute drive from my house. When we got there, Marla and I deposited our belongings into a locker and headed toward the cardio room. On the way there, as I glanced down at my phone to search for my favorite music app, I heard someone call my name.

 
I lifted my head and found myself face-to-face with a man it took me a few moments to recognize. “Alex?” I asked, my eyes widening. “Alex Brooks?”

  “You remember,” he said.

  “Of course I do.” I was practically bubbling over with excitement, but I didn’t want him to know that. “What are you doing here?”

  I hadn’t seen him since junior year of high school. He and his family had up and moved to Pollock Pines halfway through the year. I remembered how upset I’d been when he told me they were leaving. It wasn’t even that far away, but in high school, an hour’s drive seemed like an eternity. We’d kept in touch for a little while but eventually drifted apart. That was way before Facebook was a thing.

  “I moved back down this way,” he said.

  I realized I was staring at him and quickly turned my head to look at Marla. “Marla, this is Alex. Alex, Marla.” She gave him a quick handshake.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “We went to high school together,” I explained.

  “Cool,” Marla said, glancing down at her watch.

  I picked up on Marla’s hint. Even though I wanted to stick around and talk to him some more, I couldn’t really think of anything to say. “It was nice seeing you, Alex,” I said. “But if Marla and I don’t get started now, we’ll be late picking our kids up from school.”

  “It was nice seeing you too.” He leaned in for a hug, and I flashed back to another time, when the two of us had been close. I missed those days. My heart did a funny little thud in my chest. “Hopefully, I’ll see you around,” he said.

  “He’s cute,” Marla said as I followed her over to the treadmills.

  I looked them over tentatively. “You know what? It’s been a while since I’ve ran. I think I’m going to start out on the elliptical instead.”

  I walked away and found an empty machine. Then I popped earbuds into my ears and started pumping away. A few minutes into my workout, I was so zoned out that I didn’t notice Alex standing right next to me until he tapped my shoulder.

  I pulled my earbuds out.

  “Hey,” he said. “I know you’re in a rush, but I was sort of hoping we could exchange numbers. I’d really like to catch up with you. Maybe we could grab a cup of coffee sometime?”

  I hadn’t expected an invitation to hang out, so I just stared at him instead of replying.

  He looked embarrassed. “Just as friends. I know you’re married and all. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was asking you out.”

  I glanced down at my hand. It had never occurred to me to take off my wedding ring.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I teased, reaching for my phone. “I honestly didn’t think you were hitting on me.”

  His expression softened. I added his name to my contact list and handed him my phone so he could punch in his number.

  “I’ll text you so you can have my number,” I said after he gave it back to me.

  “Okay, well I guess I’ll let you get back to it.”

  I looked over my shoulder as he walked away. It had been almost twenty years since I’d seen Alex Brooks. The crazy thing was, he looked just as good now as he had in high school. A few things had changed. His shoulders had broadened quite a bit—it was obvious he was a regular at the gym. And he had a few lines around his periwinkle-blue eyes. In every other way, he looked the same. He still had thick dark-brown hair that showed no sign of thinning or graying, but it was his smile that I remembered the most. It hadn’t changed a bit. It lit up his face and made his eyes sparkle. Half the girls in high school had a huge crush on him, including me. I’d never told him, though. I liked having him as a friend and didn’t want to screw that up by telling him how I felt.

  As I pedaled away, I couldn’t help but wonder what his story was. Was he married? I hadn’t bothered to look at his hand for a ring. Did he have kids?

  Twenty minutes later, I finished with the elliptical and hopped onto a stationary bike. Marla walked over and took the empty machine beside me.

  “So what did he want?” she asked, her brows raised.

  “Just to see if I wanted to catch up sometime.”

  She grinned. “You want to know what I think?”

  “Sure.”

  “I say go for it. He’s really handsome.”

  I frowned. “He wasn’t asking me out on date.” Even if he had been, I would’ve definitely said no. I had no room in my life for a relationship. High school was a long time ago. I might have had a crush on him back in those days, but a lot had changed since then.

  “What’s his story anyway?”

  “We were friends in high school, but then he moved, and we lost touch. I haven’t seen him in years.” I paused to think about what a strange coincidence it was. “It’s so weird that I ran into him here of all places.”

  We pedaled for a few more minutes without talking. Marla slowed her pace and glanced at me. “So how are you holding up?”

  “Me? I’m fine.”

  She asked me that same question at least a few times a week, and every time I gave her the same answer.

  “You don’t seem fine,” she replied.

  I furrowed my brows. “What do you mean by that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just that you seem kind of … lost.”

  “Lost?” At first the description seemed strange, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the word fit. It was how Lydia and Jacob seemed half the time. I’d been asking them almost on a daily basis how they were, and their answers were always the same. They were fine.

  I didn’t believe them any more than Marla believed me.

  “You know me,” she said. “I’m not one to sugarcoat things.”

  I sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been easier to go through all this if Ryan and I had a better relationship.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I’m supposed to be missing my dead husband, but the truth is, mostly I don’t. Sometimes I’m even kind of glad he’s gone. And I feel like a terrible person for thinking that way.” There I’d said it. Getting the words out felt like cutting out the rotten flesh of an infected appendage. Those thoughts had been eating at me for the past two months. Along with what Ryan had said to me the day before he died. But that was a conversation I couldn’t bring myself to share with anyone. Some days I could barely look at myself in the mirror. But despite the guilt that gnawed at me almost constantly, I had no choice but to keep myself together for the kids. It was a delicate balancing act.

  “I was so waiting for you to finally say that.” Marla put her hand on my arm. “You need to stop feeling terrible for being human. Let’s just face it. Ryan was kind of an asshole. No one would blame you for feeling the way you do.”

  A part of me knew she was right, but I couldn’t shake the voice in my head that kept whispering that I was a toxic person and that everything that had gone wrong between Ryan and me was actually my fault. On some level, I knew it wasn’t, but it was hard to get the things Ryan had said to me over the past few years out of my head. “Asshole or not, he’s my children’s father. I can tell they miss him. And if they knew what I was thinking, they’d probably hate me for it.”

  “There’s no reason for them to know how you felt about their dad. I hate Steve, but I’d never tell my kids that.”

  “That’s different. Steve isn’t dead.”

  “It’s not your fault that Ryan got into a car accident.”

  “But what if it is? What if he was so upset over our last argument that he was too distracted to drive safely?”

  Ironically, it was Marla we’d been fighting over.

  “You spend too much time with her,” he’d said to me only hours before he’d left for work.

  “She’s my friend, and her kids are friends with ours. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “You’re trying to cut me out of your life.”

  “No, I’m not,” I insisted.

  “If you don’t want me a
round, I’ll just leave. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He was shouting so loudly I was worried the kids would overhear. They hated when the two of us argued.

  I stared into Ryan’s angry eyes, trying to keep my temper in check. “I’m not going to argue with you.” I walked away, angry and annoyed because this wasn’t the first time Ryan complained about me spending time with my friends instead of him. I didn’t have the nerve to tell him that I’d rather spend time with just about anyone else but him. He wouldn’t take that well.

  Instead of backing off, Ryan had followed me. He wasn’t ready to stop yelling. Now, I sighed, trying to push his words and my reply to them out of my head.

  Marla gave me a stern look. “Don’t do that to yourself. That accident was not your fault.”

  “I should have insisted he switch to the day shift,” I said, even though I doubted that would’ve made a difference.

  “Didn’t you tell me he liked working nights?”

  “He didn’t like working at all. If he had his way, we’d be on vacation every day.”

  “With what money?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I said that to him at least a hundred times.” Not that it had done much good. Ryan lived in a fantasy world where people took expensive vacations whenever they wanted, husbands and wives had sex every day, children always obeyed their parents, and people got to buy every damn thing they wanted. Reality left him bitter and angry and caused more arguments between us than I cared to remember.

  More than once I’d asked Ryan to stop working nights. The lack of sleep made his anger worse and him impossible to be around, but he refused. He kept saying that he made more money working nights and there were less people to deal with overnight than during the day. But my attempts to get him to switch to day shift were half-hearted at best. A part of me liked that he worked night shifts because it meant I got the bed to myself for a few days every week. I loved not having to wake up to him pressing his morning boner into me, hopeful that somehow it was enough to get me so turned on that I’d rip my clothes off and make crazy passionate love to him. It didn’t matter to him if the kids were awake or even knocking on the door. “They can wait,” he’d whisper in my ear. Ugh.