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“Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t call about the ventilator thing.” I’m trying something new and coming straight out with an apology.
Jake doesn’t respond until we exit the building. Don’t ask me why he wants to walk outside in the stinking middle of winter in Seattle. I swear I’ll never understand that boy.
We cross the street. I have to pump my arms to keep up with him. What’s he think this is? A speed-walking competition?
“You should have let me know,” he broods.
I want to remind him about my stupid cell phone battery. I want to explain how much stress I’ve been under, how close I came to watching my daughter die last night. Does he have any idea what that’s like? If his mom hadn’t taken the car to the wrong hotel and then stuck around those few extra days, I might not have had to make a decision like that on my own. He could have come to Seattle earlier. When it boils down to it, this is all Patricia’s fault. From the beginning, she did nothing but jinx our relationship. I’m so glad she’s gone. Out of our lives, hopefully forever.
I still can’t forget how concerned she sounded on the phone, but I lived with her long enough to realize she’s the master of manipulation. Not just the people around her but her own emotions as well. I’m convinced that at this moment, she thinks she and I were like long-lost BFFs the whole time she lived with us. I want to pick her out of my brain like a bad case of head lice. An hour under the bright lamp, some medicated shampoo treatments, and she’s gone. Never to bother us again.
I should be so lucky.
“Your mom called,” I tell him. Anything so we can get past this awkward, angry silence that’s literally killing me. “She said she made it to Abby’s.”
“I know.”
If all he wanted to do was mope, I wonder what he needs me out here for, but he takes a deep breath like he’s working up his courage to say something and finally tells me, “This isn’t working out.”
My heart drops, but only a little. In my soul, I know he’s right. I’ve known it all along. It goes back to that stupid women’s clinic in Spokane. I should have never brought my daughter there. If it weren’t for that, none of this would have happened. The hospital stays. The medevac flights. The arguments with Jake. Ok, so maybe we still would have had our fights, but it wouldn’t be this bad. We’ve been under so much stinking stress. How is any relationship supposed to survive something like what we’ve gone through?
And the secrets are killing me. Jake sleeping with Charlene. Me taking our daughter to an abortion clinic. I hate to say it, but part of me’s relieved to hear Jake talking like this. The pretense was too much. Pretending we’re a happy couple, that I have what it takes to become a perfect, doting mother.
It will be better this way. Like getting a tooth pulled, painful at first, but so much more comfortable, so much healthier after that.
I’ve suspected this conversation was coming, and I’m ready for it.
“You know what?” I tell him. “You’re absolutely right.”