Chapter Twelve
My little sister stormed over to stand in front of me, while Eric pulling Henry on a child’s sled slowly caught up.
“What the hell are you doing?” She glared at Jesse. “And you! You should be ashamed of yourself. She’s a married woman.”
In a move I didn’t expect, Jesse tightened his grip around my waist. I expected him to drop and hightail it out of there. I’ve seen Lily’s explosions before; they weren’t pretty. She was more like a grenade taking everyone around her out.
“Lil, I think we need to talk.” I swallowed down a bite of bile which had risen fairly quickly. Long gone were the flutters of excitement and anticipation, now the adrenaline surging through me was ready for a fight.
Lily glanced back to her fiancé and son. “I’ll be right back.”
She turned her angry eyes in my direction. Having seen this expression in her many times, mostly when I was dragging her back home, I wasn’t too worried. Especially since I’d long given up on my sister actually liking me.
“Let’s go.”
“Somewhere more private.” If I was going to explain the failings in my life, I didn’t want witnesses.
She marched over to an area between the skate shack and the tree, no one was in ear shot. “What the hell?”
“Lily, there’s something you need to know.” I sighed and dug my boot under the snow. Best to spit it out, pick up the pieces, and fill in any blanks. “Charlie and I… We’ve been having problems.”
“So?” Her eyes narrowed, and if I didn’t know better, the daggers were being lined up, readying for launch. “That gives you no right to kiss another man. That’s adultery.”
I nodded, as I didn’t disagree.
“The thing is…” I inhaled a sharp bite of cooled air. “Charlie and I split up.” Oh my god, I actually said it to her. The relief was overwhelming, and I no longer shouldered the burden of keeping it secret.
The daggers lowered and her voice softened. “What? When?”
“A year ago, last December, just after Christmas. He moved out shortly thereafter and let me stay in the house while it was being listed, until it sold. Three days ago, I moved into my own apartment after signing the divorce papers. It’s over.”
She stood unmoving like a stone statue, with only her lips forming the barest of syllables. “Divorce?”
“We had to. We couldn’t make it work. Charlie always wanted kids, and well…” I stared at the flakes gathering on Lily’s shoulders and arms. “I’m broken, Lily. I can’t ever have children.”
The words stung like an arrow through the heart. Broken was the only word for it. Not only was my uterus inhospitable, but my ovaries functioned like a person twenty years older. Egg production was sporadic at best with weak to non-existent LH levels. At one appointment well over two years ago, just before things dried up between Charlie and me, my ob-gyn was pretty sure early onset menopause was less than two years away. Sadly, he had been correct.
“But adoption? Or other plans?”
I checked the grounds and spied Jesse standing chatting with Eric. He was looking in my direction.
“It wasn’t just that, and it would be easy to say, yeah that’s what drove us apart, but it was so much more. We weren’t the best versions of ourselves with each other. He didn’t make me happy, and I know I didn’t make him happy. Sex was a chore, and we both hoped a baby would turn things around for us.”
Her eyes blurred, and she stepped closer. “Oh, Mo.”
“It’s okay. I’ve come to peace with it.” I lifted my shoulders and let them fall with a hearty sigh. “I’m okay being me. Being Mona Baker.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before? Why did I have to find out this way?” There it was – the hurt in her voice at being one of the last to know.
I didn’t know how to answer her without inflicting pain. “We’ve never been close, you know that. I’m not even your Maid of Honour.”
“Are you upset about that?” Her words twisted like her lips as she spoke.
“Honestly? Not at all. Beth deserves the honour.” It was true, and never once did I begrudge that. Beth had been Lily’s best friend for several years. “Besides, I’m happier being in the background.”
“You’re not in the background, you’re giving me away.” She cocked an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean.”
But the scrunched nose and questioning eyes said otherwise.
“I’m your biggest pain in the ass, and you know it.” The words came out with a gust of a laugh.
“Yes, you are.” She playfully punched me in the shoulder. “But seriously, if it wasn’t for you, I’d likely be dead.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“I do. I know I don’t say it much, because it’s hard for me, but I really do love you, Mona.”
My head tipped to the side unexpectedly. “You do?”
“Why are you so surprised?”
“Because I always believed you hated me.”
She had the gall to laugh. “I’ve never hated you. You were a mini mom for me. When she got sick, you sort of took over.”
“It was never my plan.”
Jesse and Eric had stopped chatting, as Jesse turned away to answer a call.
Lily shifted on her boots and tugged at the scarf around her collar. “Maybe not, but I got you away from the sadness that always seems to take up residence. God, it was awful.” Her gaze turned up toward the falling snowflakes.
“What?”
“You don’t remember? She was sick from the chemo-” She squared her shoulders and stood up to her full height.
“I know what the sadness and sickness was all about. I cleaned it up.” More often than I thought was necessary.
“I hated being around that, and I know you did too. I knew if I snuck out, you’d be forced to come and find me, so in a way, I felt as if I was helping you too. It got you out of the house for a bit too.”
“It was never fun. Some nights I had to hunt you down for hours.”
“But it was hours you weren’t spending listening to her throwing up and gagging and whimpering.”
It was more than that. “You cost me time with her.”
“Really? You wanted to sit there with her as she vomited.” Her face took on a greenish hue as if recalling the memories soured her own stomach. “No, thank you.”
“Don’t you regret it?”
“Seeing her that ill?” She planted her foot firmly on the ground and thrust her hands into her pockets. “Not for a single moment. That wasn’t Mom. The disease had taken over and killed who she was.”
A gasp escaped me and hung in the air between us.
She reached out a hand and squeezed my arm. “I will always remember the good times, and the fun we used to have, but I don’t want to remember her when she was at her worst. That’s why I was never home. And a good thing too because look at what it did to you.” She stabbed me in the chest with a long finger. “You used to be so strong, and strong willed. You never gave up on anything and you fought the good fight. Now, you’ve walked away from your marriage and given up on having a family…”
I thrust my hand in front of her face. “Stop. You know nothing about my marriage to Charlie. Nothing.” My voice rose. “And happiness isn’t about just having kids and being in a marriage, it’s about finding someone who respects you and cares for you. Look at Mom and Dad; he loved her more than anything else on the planet, and she loved him the same way. Charlie and me? We were never like that, and looking back now, I can see that. It was as if we settled for each other. Charlie wasn’t a risk taker, and I wasn’t much of a risk.”
“Don’t talk about yourself that way.”
“I was never you. I couldn’t go to a party and be this beacon of light and energy, the popular gal everyone wanted to hang with.”
“Were you jealous?”
I nodded, despite my unwillingness to do so. “So much. You were everything I wanted to be.”
“Oh wow.”
“You got everything you ever wanted.”
“As did you.”
“No, I didn’t.” I shook my head and stared in Jesse’s direction as he paced back and forth. “But that’s okay. I’m working on it. I’m working on being me and, most important, liking me. I’m trying new things, and I’m stepping outside my comfort zone.”
“Like being back here?”
“Yeah.” A smile leaked from the edges of my lips. “I came here because of you. Regardless of what things are like between us, you’re still my little sister. I promised Dad I would take care of you.”
“Did he know about your issues with Charlie?”
I shook my head. “I’ve barely told anyone. Work knows, as I had to amend all sorts of paperwork, and well, Jesse knows. It fell out of me the first night here.”
“Your marriage is truly over?”
“Well before we split up.” I squared my shoulders, the pressure lifted. “Charlie’s getting married in the summer.”
“No shit!” Lily’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “That didn’t take long. About Jesse, what’s going on with that?” She asked like a little sister would ask a big sister, with wide eyed curiosity, before she flipped her gaze over to where his pacing was picking up speed.
“Not sure yet, but I wouldn’t mind finding out.”
“What’s holding you back?”
“Fear.” A burden I’d been carrying around for years shattered all around me as I said the word. “What if I’m not good enough?”
“What if you are?” Her eyes lit up. “Go find out!”