Page 69 of Just Like the Brontë Sisters

Mitch took in my face, my tone, my desperation. “Fine,” he said, “then I’ll stay with your parents. But I think some distance between you and me would be healthy.”

“No!” I really needed something to push, so I chose the office chair. I sent its wheels spinning, slamming it into the desk. If my action shocked Mitch, he didn’t let on and he didn’t pull away when I grasped his forearm. “Look, I don’t hate you. I doubt I even know you.”

“But you thought you did. You thought you knew me just from Jo Beth’s descriptions.”

“So what?” I squeezed his wrist, liking how thick and sturdy it felt in my grasp. “I was eager to believe anything she had to say about you, especially if it was bad.”

“Why?”

“Because I was jealous.” My confession seemed to pull us closer together, though all at once I was aware of how tall Mitch stood over me, how his chest was almost twice the width of my torso. I released him and stepped away. “I wanted Jo Beth to myself and even though I should have been happy when she found you, I was eaten up inside.”

Mitch’s laugh was gloomy yet forgiving. “Wow. That’s ironic, because I’ve always been jealous of you.”

My raised eyebrows urged him to continue, which he did. “It was clear from the start that she’d never be as close to me as she was to you.” His chin dropped and he was suddenly consumed with picking at what had to be a crusty spot of baby spit-up on the hem of his flannel shirt. “There were times when she scared me, when I knew I didn’t understand and I didn’t know how to make things better, and I thought, if only Skylar was here, and then I’d sort of hate you for being the one person who could help her.”

“But in the end, I failed her.”

“If that’s true, then we both failed her.”

We were silent then, and from downstairs came the sound of Bijou crying. “How long do you think she’s been awake?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But we should go down.”

Mitch started for the stairs first and I followed. Once in her nursery we worked together: changing Bijou’s diaper, giving her a bottle, and coaxing out a burp as she cried for over an hour. Then we ate dinner and watched TV, exhausted from the drama of the afternoon.

Mitch didn’t mention leaving again.