EXHAUSTION BURNED BEHIND Aidan’s eyes. It had been a difficult drive here, and even though he knew he would have to explain so many things to Grace, he hadn’t expected her to be so hostile. Sure she was angry and hurt, but she had to know he was telling the truth. He’d always told her the truth, shared everything with her—until his involvement with Deidre. Shame had forced him to hide what he did. Shame and the belief that nothing would come of the two days he’d spent with Deidre. That his secret would never harm the one woman he loved.
He reached out for Grace’s hand, entwining his fingers with hers. “I’m so sorry about all this. But I’ve always been honest with you.”
“Not about this,” Grace said, pulling her hand away.
The loss of her touch chilled him to his core. What could he say that would convince Grace of his sincerity? “I made a mistake, and it will never happen again. We will find a way through all of this if we put aside our feelings for a little bit and concentrate on Emma. We need to make plans for how we will manage to take Emma back with us.” He touched her cheek. She turned away. “Grace, I know we can work this out,” he pleaded, his stomach aching with dread.
She moved away from him, distrust clear in her eyes. “How can we? Deidre chose you to be the custodial parent for Emma, even though she didn’t discuss it with you beforehand. But Emma represents your lies and the way you broke your vows. Aidan, there are two of us in this marriage. We are not supposed to have secrets, hidden lives.”
“We don’t!”
“That’s what you want me to believe,” she said, and Aidan couldn’t miss the harsh tone in her voice, so unlike his wife.
Feeling at a complete loss as to what to say or do, he slumped in the chair. “How can I convince you that I had nothing to do with Deidre these past five years?”
She sighed as she stared around the room as if looking for a way out. “I—I wish there was a way you could convince me.”
He wanted to reach out to her, to take her in his arms, but the look on her face told him his touch would not be welcome. “Grace, I wish there was, too. But there are other considerations. There is a child who will be here soon, who has no idea why you and I are in her home. Don’t you think we need to concentrate on her and what she’ll need?”
“I’m not responsible for what happened here, and I’m not responsible for your daughter. You are, and you have to do whatever you need to do,” Grace said, her voice low and controlled, her eyes dark pools in stark contrast to her pale skin.
Despite his sorrow over Grace’s behavior, Aidan wanted to soothe his wife but had no idea how to do it. She’d always been his mainstay, the one person he could rely upon. “Grace, I don’t want to do this without you. You’re my wife and I love you. I have to figure out how to handle this. I have to find a way to be a father to Emma when I don’t even know her. I will have to decide how we should live, whether she comes home with us right now or I stay here for a while to see what arrangements need to be made about Deidre’s estate, the dissolution of assets and what I’m expected to do.”
He scrubbed his hands together as his mind worked through the possible issues surrounding Deidre’s death and estate. Interspersed were thoughts of Emma, of what the next few hours and days would be like for his daughter. “I’ve never been a parent. It was always just an idea to me, not something with a practical application.”
“Said like a true computer engineer,” Grace said, her tone furious.
Shocked he turned to her. “Grace, what’s the matter? We’re in an emergency situation and have a lot to think about in a very short time. I need your help.”
Grace stood, her hands clenched at her sides as she stared at him. “Did you hear yourself? Did you hear how selfish you sound?”
“What? I’m trying to figure out what to do. I can’t do that without your help. I need you, Grace.”
She glared at him. “You never once talked about me, about how I feel, about what this will do to our lives together. All you can think about is doing what Deidre wants. She’s dead. She’s not coming back. And yet you didn’t, for one minute, stop and consider what I’m going through, did you? All you want from me is my help. You want me to make this better for you.”
She scraped her hair off her face and blotted her cheeks with her fingers, her voice shaking. “I’m just as important in this situation as you are, as Emma is. You need to consider my feelings, talk things out with me. But instead of that, you go on and on about what you’re going to do.”
He stared at her face, at the anger in her eyes. How had he gotten this so wrong? “Grace, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m so used to assessing a situation and deciding the best course of action to solve the problem. It’s how I think.”
Grace picked up her purse and slung it over her shoulder. “This is not a situation, Aidan. This is real life, where people you claim to love are in pain. Emma is going to miss her mother for a very long time. You are not going to have your lovely well-ordered life where every problem has a solution anymore. You will have to face each issue with your daughter with your heart not your head. But most of all, I will not have you making decisions without me having a say in how we do things. This is my life, my marriage, and I will no longer be told what decision you’ve made and simply go along with it.”
Shocked and suddenly terrified, by her words, her accusations of his selfishness ringing in his ears, Aidan jumped up. “What have I done? I’m as upset about all this as you are. I deal with it differently, mostly by focusing on what can be done, but that in no way means I don’t want your input on this.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?” he asked, confused and really, really scared in a way he hadn’t experienced since he got the news that Deidre had passed away.
“You and I need to go home and talk this over between the two of us before we make a decision that will change our lives forever. Lisa is clearly concerned for Emma. She will look after her as long as needed. A few weeks or a few months won’t make any difference. There’s no rush to sell the house. Emma may need to be left in her kindergarten to give her a chance to get over the loss of her mother before she faces any other changes.”
“Children adapt,” he said defensively.
“I’m sure she will, given time, love and caring. Meanwhile, if this is to work out for everyone involved, we need to go home, talk this all over and decide how we will cope with having a child dropped into the middle of our lives.”
“Dropped into the middle of our lives? Is that how you see this, as somehow something done to us? It may have been, but we’re the adults here. We understand what’s at stake.” How could Grace even consider leaving a little girl who had just lost her mother alone? This wasn’t like her, not at all. “Grace, I can’t leave Emma here without her family. We are her family now. I can’t do it, and neither can you. You love children. And this little girl lost her mother. We may have to move in here for a while, but in the end, she will be coming home with us.”
Grace’s eyes radiated a mix of anxiety and anger. “You’re not listening to me. This is too fast, way too fast. My life has been destroyed. I’m barely able to cope as it is. I need time to work this out. We both do if we are to stay together. It’s too much too soon. I need to…” She eased away from him. “I can’t stay here and watch you decide things based on what you want. There are three of us in this, three people’s feelings to consider. Ignoring what I want, my opinion and ideas, isn’t right. Life doesn’t work that way, Aidan.”
“But I want you to be with me when I meet her.” Was she suggesting that they simply walk away? Where had all of this gone so wrong? “When we got in the car this morning, I never imagined that we’d be coming here only to leave again.”
“I’m supposed to do what you want while you ignore what your behavior did to me, is that it?” Grace said, the disbelief in her voice tearing at him.
“But there is so much that has to be done as soon as possible,” he protested.
“Not until we talk about this. I mean it, Aidan.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, exasperated by her attitude. “This is my child. You can’t really want me to walk away. It’s just that right now you’re hurt and upset. You’ll feel differently when you see Emma.”
She focused her gaze on him with a look he knew so well—desperation and hope mixed together. “Okay. Before she gets back here let’s run through the possibilities.”
“Which are?” he asked, suddenly aware that he had never considered that there might be a different answer than the one he’d constructed from Deidre’s request.
“Emma is a little girl who has only known the life she’s living right now. How can we assume that moving her to our place, taking her away from everything that is familiar is going to make her life better? What if she has family here who could take her? An aunt and uncle, maybe? I have to believe that Deidre chose you because she believed you’d do what was best for her daughter. And that’s what you and I have to consider. Have you considered that if we decide not to take her, there will have to be other options for her care?”
Shock sparked through him. “Grace, not for a minute have I considered not taking her. I thought you understood that. We’ve waited all our married lives for a chance to have children. Now we have that chance.”
Grace closed her eyes for a few moments, her body trembling. “Aidan, there is more than one answer here. There has to be. I’m not ready to take on the care of that little girl so soon. There has to be a way to work this out so that we have time to adjust to what all of this means.” She looked straight at him, her expression one of determination. “If you’re not willing to do that, I have no other option but to leave you here to work things out on your own.”
“Leaving? You can’t. I mean you wouldn’t leave a child who needed you.” He struggled to accept that Grace might leave. “Grace, I’ll make a reservation for us at a hotel where we can stay while we work out how to do this. If you like, we’ll wait to meet Emma later. I’ll leave a note for Lisa, and that way she’ll know how to find us. I’m sure that if you think about this, you’ll come to realize that being with us in our home is the best answer for Emma.”
The look in Grace’s eyes was one of deep regret as she spoke slowly. “I can’t do this right now because what I feel matters. I need time to come to grips with what has happened to you and to me, to our marriage. Yes, Emma’s care is important, but so is the state of our marriage and my feelings. I will not make a snap decision about something that will affect the rest of my life. If you won’t see things my way, try to understand how much I need time to think about this… I’m going home.” She looked into his eyes, holding his gaze. “I want you to come with me, but that’s up to you.”
“No. Grace, please don’t.”
“Aidan,” she whispered, her voice thick. “It’s better this way. I don’t want to fight with you, but I can’t decide to take custody of this child this quickly.”
By her resolute expression, he knew he’d lost. “Grace, I wish you’d stay. We could get to know Emma a little, see how much she needs us to care for her, to give her love and stability in her life,” he said, making one last attempt to convince her.
“I wish I could, too. But I can’t do this, not this way.” She held out her hands for the car keys. “I’m sure you can rent a vehicle if you need one.”
He watched her walk toward the door, his heart pounding in his chest, his eyes filling with tears. Loss, desperation cascaded over him as he followed her, intending to reach out to her one last time.
As Grace opened the door, she turned to him, her eyes meeting his. “I guess it’s too late to ask you to see things my way.”
He swallowed, feeling haggard and worn-out. His gaze shifted from hers while his jumbled thoughts sought a response that would make Grace stay.
Yet it was clear from the expression on her face that Grace’s mind was made up. He touched her shoulder, wanting to pull her into his arms, but knew the warning signs—the stiff set of her shoulders, the fingers clenched on the strap of her purse. Grace would not allow him to embrace her. “You have a safe drive, and call me when you get home, will you?” he asked, feeling awkward and out of place.
“Of course.” As she fumbled with the strap of her purse, her eyes remained fixed on the far corner of the room. Without another word, she left the house.