Page 59 of Letting Go at 40

Chapter 21

1 Year Ago

August

Third Reunion

[Anna]

Going line-dancing as a group was a disaster. As a party of eight, it was evident who should be paired with whom, but I didn’t want anyone suspecting anything about Mason and me. Attraction wavers between us but I just don’t know how to act in front of our friends. It feels sacrilegious to publicly hint I have feelings for Mason as we mark the anniversary of Ben’s passing. Maybe merely loneliness is attracting me to him. Maybe it’s something more.

Our phone sex interlude was a montage on replay in my head, especially when I used the pink present he gave me on my birthday.

Then he kissed me, soft and sweet, wishing me more years ahead.

When he showed up on the night of Ben’s anniversary, we crossed a new line—friends.

Only I don’t know what that friendship should look like with others present. He’d been flirting with Jenna, and there’d been endless references to Mason’s past. Two different women approached him when we were at the bar, rubbing in my face how easily Mason attracts women. Typically, he easily disappears with one as well.

Am I only another woman to him? One of Mason’s multitudes? Was phone sex something he’s done before? Does he gift other women vibrators? How often? To whom? My thoughts have been spinning in a way they have no business spiraling.

Then he laid out another nugget of his upbringing and a confession about his desire. How could Mason buy into the terrible things his father said to him? People always want to say teens are impressionable, but kids in their early twenties, fresh out of college and in their first real jobs, are just as persuadable. Especially a son worshipping a father, hoping to learn the family business and take it over one day, only to be told he’s cut from the same cloth as his dad, which implies negative behavior toward women and lacking ideals about love.

When Mila and Lorna interrupted us, I was crushed. I needed to address Mason’s angry tone and heightened emotions but Mila’s comment about me never marrying again rocked me to the core. No one has spoken of marriage.

I simply panicked at the country bar.

Maybe because a part of me did want to dance with Mason. I wanted to laugh like Autumn did with Logan. And revel in a closeness River shared with Zack. Maybe I wanted to enjoy myself like Jenna did with Archer when they danced before we left the bar. Ben was dead but parts of me were tingling back to life.

And I just wanted to let go a little.

The thought still feels selfish.

I can’t bring Ben back, but I don’t know how to move forward.

I don’t know how to be me.

One thing I knew without a doubt was I couldn’t be another random woman to Mason. I couldn’t be a mistake or a fling or a one-night stand. And for Mason, I was certain I was still a commitment he’d promised Ben. An obligation. I’ve convinced myself his birthday kiss was only empathy for a lonely woman turning forty-two. He was looking after me, but what did that mean? For how long? Eventually, he’d grow tired of watching over my family. He had his own to collect. Lynlee needed him.

He’d told me he wanted her here these two weeks, but Samantha refused such a long visit. Mason didn’t even have overnight rights. He’d admitted this agreement was, in part, his fault. He didn’t think he could take care of a baby. He didn’t want to mess up.

While I might have agreed almost five years ago that Mason Becker could not handle the care and responsibility of a child, after his year with Ben, I see I’m wrong. Mason’s doubts were unwarranted, but he’d fallen victim to them because he wasn’t given a chance to be a father to an infant.

In addition to Mason’s concerns about baby time, Samantha argued that Mason had an extensive nightlife of random hookups and one-night stands, and she didn’t want her child exposed to such behavior. Despite the counterargument that Samantha had been a one-time decision, the mediator agreed. They’d revisit overnight stays when Lynlee was six.

I didn’t want to believe Mason’s behavior was still reckless but there was so much I didn’t know about him outside of what he told me and his occasional presence in Lakeside. Did he date? He didn’t mention anyone. If he hooked up with someone, he never said. There was countless opportunity for him to do as he pleased, though.

And he could do as he pleased.

He wasn’t beholden to me. I didn’t have dibs on him.

Still, the thought of him with another woman made me a little sick. And a lot jealous.

I was envious of everyone during these two weeks. Their love lives blossoming. Their independence blooming.

Ben believed in a life cycle for people, like the perennial life of plants. People live, love, lose, and learn. Sometimes several cycles happen at the same time. You learn as you develop love. Or you live through learning. He even believed we went through losses that also taught us lessons.

For me, I was stuck in the loss cycle, like a washing machine in perpetual spin. I didn’t know how to stop the current swirling. I was angry that Ben wasn’t present. I was upset by the friendship between the guys. I was covetous of their new business venture. They were living and loving and learning, and I was just . . . spiraling.