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“It means I’m giving you all the space you need,” he said, and he opened the door and walked out without another word.
*
For the nextfew weeks Zack gave Laurel plenty of space. He called. To talk to the kids. He even came over. To see the kids. But he wouldn’t talk to her beyond the bare minimum necessary for him to see Cody and Katrina. Which sucked because the kids loved him. She wasn’t going to make them unhappy by not letting them see Zack just because he was being unreasonable.
She had plenty of time to regret her part in the fight she and Zack had. It wasn’t all her fault. After all, Zack had been ridiculous. Oversensitive. A jerk.
But hell, so had she.
The kids were driving her nuts. They wanted to see Zack more. They didn’t understand why he couldn’t come over every night. “Where’s Uncle Zack?” and “Why can’t Uncle Zack come over tonight?” and “We want Uncle Zack to read us a story/help us with homework/play a game with us.” She was running out of excuses, so after a week of their whining, she finally told them the truth. Or as much of it as she thought they could handle.
After work one day she sat them down on the couch and said, “I want to talk to you about Uncle Zack.”
“Yay! Is he coming over?” Both children were looking at her hopefully.
“Not today. Zack and I aren’t going to see each other for a while.”
Both kids looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language. “Why?” Cody asked.
“Sometimes grown-ups have misunderstandings, and they need time to think about things. So he can’t come over every night like he did before.”
“What’s a mis-in-stooding?” Katrina asked.
“It’s when you get mad at somebody,” Cody told her. “Why are you mad at Uncle Zack, Mommy?”
“I’m not mad. Exactly. We’re just… I’m… I need…” she floundered, wishing she’d never started this conversation.
“Is Uncle Zack mad at you?” her far-too-observant son asked.
Laurel gave up. “Yes. A little.”
“But you aren’t ’zactly mad at him?”
“I’m…yes, I guess I am a little mad at him too.”
“So if you’re just a little mad why can’t you ’pologize to each other? And then Uncle Zack can come over all the time, like he did before,” Cody said with unerring logic.
Katrina had been silent through that conversation but she spoke up now. “I want Uncle Zack to be my daddy. I love him,” Katrina announced.
“Me too,” Cody said. “And Uncle Zack loves us.”
Wonderful. He loved her kids. Her children loved him. And damn it, so did she. But even though she loved him, she wasn’t ready to marry him. And moving in with him was almost the same.
But that house he’d bought…it could be her dream house. Why did the man have to pick a house that she loved? How was she supposed to turn down the answer to her dreams?
You managed to do that quite well. And for what seems to him to be no good reason.
Oh, shut up.
She should call him. ’Pologize to him, she thought with a smile. It wasn’t fair to her children to make it hard on them to see someone they loved. Zack was going to be in their lives. She owed it to all of them to try to mend fences with him.
Mend fences, ha! You miss him like crazy.
She fed the kids dinner but didn’t eat much herself because she felt a little nauseated. That wasn’t unusual for her at this stage of pregnancy. After bathing the kids and getting them ready for bed she read to them and ignored their comments about “that’s not how Uncle Zack reads it.”
Finally, the kids were taken care of and she needed to do some work for the airport. But she was tired and nauseated and couldn’t face the idea of work, so she lay down on the couch and turned on the TV, resolving to get up early and work.
An hour later Katrina came in. “Mommy, I don’t feel good.”
