Page 80 of My Girlfriend is Not the Father

She didn’t want to push her dad too much for more info, but now that he’d cracked open a fraction, he seemed less reluctant to share. Maybe all these years it really was his terrible way of trying to protect her from feeling sad.

He sat back down and stared at a hummingbird nestling itself on the branch. Chucky plunked himself at her dad’s feet, exhausted from playing. ‘Remember the table saw I had in the shed? That’s what her snores sounded like …’

For twenty minutes, her father opened the memory floodgates. He talked about going on a wild goose chase looking for ‘shea butter’ for her itchy belly, checking the dairy section of all the grocery stores in town until some nice woman told him it was lotion. He chuckled, talking about how cranky she got when their window air-conditioner had broken down and he put wet blankets in their deep freezer to give her some relief. He said he thought he never gripped the steering wheel as tight as he did when he brought her to the hospital, but he was wrong, because he damn near busted a knuckle driving home with tiny Lucy in the backseat.

For every word, every syllable, Lucy felt like he was wrapping her in a warm blanket. For so many years, she’d needed to know more about her mom, terrified that the memory of her would fade. This conversation was everything she needed right now.

Her dad patted the front of his jeans and stood. ‘You know she’s watching you from wherever she is. She’s got her soap operas on one channel and you on the other.’

The soap operas! Lucy grinned, remembering the only thing that could distract her hyper-involved mom. ‘You think they have Days of Our Lives on rotation in heaven?’

He snorted. ‘You remember that?’

Lucy followed him into the house and held the door open for a panting Chucky. ‘I mean, Marlena was the devil. Any idea how much that sears itself into a young kid’s brain?’

She filled Chucky’s water bowl and grabbed a pop for her dad for the road.

‘Well, kid, I better take off here.’ He reached into his pockets and pulled out a treat for Chucky, who greedily gobbled it up. ‘Don’t be giving him any more treats tonight. I don’t know what in the world you’re feeding this dog.’

She threw her hands around her dad. ‘I love you. Thank you for today.’

He gave her one small squeeze and left.

The clock showed Lucy had about ten more minutes to close her eyes and replay every word her father had said before Jade arrived. Tonight, after she left, Lucy was going to write the stories down in her journal so she didn’t forget a single word.

Chapter 31

Jade

On the bench outside the salon, Jade blinked at Elizabeth. There was no way Jade had heard Elizabeth right. Did she really just utter those words? ‘I miss you and should have never let you go.’ She just lobbed those out into the universe without a care in the word, like those words didn’t have the power to shatter everything that Jade had worked for the last two years.

Elizabeth wants me back. Two years ago, Jade had begged to hear these words. When she slept on the couch, when she packed her belongings, after she moved, she ached to hear her wife say any variation of this. ‘What do you expect me to do with that information?’

Elizabeth pulled the corner of her lip between her teeth. ‘When I look back at my life, you were the constant. The rock. And I think it’s taken me until now, and having Amber, and seeing what really matters in this world, to know I should have never let you go. I don’t want to do this without you. Listen to me, though. I can do this without you. I’m perfectly capable. But I don’t want to and that’s the difference.’

Jade snapped her jean fabric against her leg. She wished she could take in Elizabeth’s words and feel flattered, or happy, or healed. Instead, she felt nothing. And Jade’s lack of emotional response told her everything she needed to know. ‘I guess I appreciate that?’ Those weren’t the right words. She didn’t even know if she appreciated the declaration, or if this would mess with her mind later tonight when she’d recovered from the shock. ‘But my life is here now. I’m happy in my new world. I have a successful business, and new friends, and an amazing girlfriend.’

‘I heard.’

When I lifted a brow, Elizabeth added, ‘I ran into your sister a while ago. She told me.’ Elizabeth locked her gaze with mine. ‘Pregnant, huh?’

The words dropped like a block, and a flash of white heat shot through Jade’s veins. She wanted to yell that the baby wasn’t hers, they weren’t raising it, and it was a totally different situation than what had happened in their marriage. But Elizabeth had not earned the right to know anything about Jade and Lucy’s relationship. ‘You are not trying to make me feel guilty.’

‘No one can make you feel guilty.’ Elizabeth plunked the dropped pacifier back into the baby’s mouth. ‘Your feelings are your own and I’m not responsible for your emotional response to my words.’

In an instant, Jade was back in her marriage. The two years she spent deprogramming from their relationship ickiness was undone. A smattering of pedestrians walking around them, and the occasional car honk, did little to stop her from sinking into the swirling memories – eating dinner alone, ignored calls, failed resolutions because Elizabeth didn’t have time to discuss their problems. ‘You never needed me.’

Elizabeth stopped bouncing her knee and her mouth twisted. ‘What?’

Trying to offset the rising sickness, Jade filled her lungs. ‘Our whole marriage, I was nothing more than a prop, someone in the background to elevate you, someone you could tell your dreams to. You never needed me.’

A stillness filled the air. Several moments passed. Elizabeth’s slightly open mouth twitched, but no words came out. ‘Well,’ Elizabeth finally said. ‘I need you now.’

Like a bolt had just struck her in the chest, Jade hopped off the bench and paced. Such simple words tossed at her so easily. God, the tears she shed, begging to hear these words. Begging to hear a fraction of these words. The nights she sobbed into her pillow, the days she couldn’t get out of bed … Jade should either say ‘thanks for sharing’ or ‘too late now’ or ‘fuck off’ but none seemed like the appropriate response. Black spots invaded her peripheral vision, and Jade’s stomach turned queasy. She eased herself back to sitting and inhaled several shaky breaths to fight off the nausea.

‘It may not sound like it,’ Elizabeth said, ‘but I really respect that you have a girlfriend and am not trying to be that other person. But, you know me. I know you. We were together for over a decade. We saw the worst in each other, but we also saw the best.’ Her fingers played with the baby’s feet. ‘If you gave me a second chance, so many things would change. Amber showed me what love and family is all about, and I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t grasp that when we were together. I have spent so many months replaying things over and over in my head, and I know exactly what I did wrong. I promise you that I can be the wife you need. I know the love between us isn’t lost forever. It’s simply … buried right now. But with a little bit of time, and me proving myself to you, I know we can uncover it. Together.’

Nope. No, no, no. Jade needed to put a fat, hot stop to this conversation immediately. Everything about this felt disloyal to Lucy. Sure, it might be cathartic for Elizabeth to get this off her chest, lighten her internal load, the verbal equivalent of chopping off waist-long hair to a pixie. But Elizabeth had a kid and was being more vulnerable than she’d ever been during their entire marriage, and Jade wanted nothing to do with it.