Page 76 of Hearts on the Mend

“Then I’m not saying a fucking thing.”

“You want custody of Ruby, and for what? We already have an agreement, and you can’t ever show up like you say you will. I just caught you getting coffee after you canceled⁠—”

“And where’s our daughter now? With him?”

“No, with his parents.”

“And you trust them?”

“I do. And Ruby does too. That’s the whole point, Matt. You have to decide if you want Ruby in your life or not, but you can’t move out here and expect our world to revolve around yours when you can’t bother to show up unless it’s a good time for you.”

“You’re fucking insane, Cassie. No idea why I stayed with you as long as I did. You’re always bitching about something. I was never good enough for you.”

It’s not sadness that hits me, it’s numbness. And as strange as it is to feel like I’ve cut the last tie I had to the one man I wasted years with, there’s a creeping sense of liberation stirring underneath.

“Are you still going to make me meet with lawyers about Ruby or not?”

“Fucking unbelievable.” His jaw ticks as he adjusts his hat. “You’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you?”

“I’ve known for a while not to trust your promises. I’m just tired of trying to shield our daughter from that same truth.”

“I need to get inside⁠—”

“Yes or no, Matt? It’s a fair question.”

“You going to let me go and get that phone out of my face?”

I nod, my hands shaking.

“No, we don’t need to meet about custody of Ruby. Go play house if it makes you happy, but it’s still not going to matter. He’s going to leave too.”

Matt turns his back to me, but before he steps too far away, I say one more thing. “And Matt, stop dragging your feet. I want the fucking divorce finalized. Now.”

I arrive home after my shift to Richie on the couch reading with Ruby. She’s tucked beside him, her head resting against his arm as she bobs her finger from word to word. There’s snow on her boots by the front door, and her snowsuit is wet. Explains the rosy cheeks and the hot cocoa on the coffee table in front of her.

Ember rolls from her belly to her back beside Ruby, demanding pets, before she spots me and jumps down to weave around my feet, dashing down the hallway to the kitchen. The soft clanking of dishes being washed greets my ears, and the most heavenly scent wafts toward me.

My stomach rumbles. I’m starving. I wolfed down a protein bar about five hours ago.

“There she is,” Richie says, greeting me with a big smile. He adjusts his readers, his nose just as red as Ruby’s cheeks.

She pauses to grin up at me. “Hi, Mom. Richie says I can finish reading to him before he goes home.”

“Hi, sweetheart. How did today go, Richie?”

“Oh, we had a blast. Didn’t we, honey? Went sledding for a bit, had dinner, and just getting ready for bed.”

She nods, her eyes heavy with sleep.

“Don’t let me interrupt. Keep reading. You’re doing a great job.”

I hang up my bag on the new coat tree I thrifted by the front door and slip off my sneakers. A vanilla candle flickers on the table by the stairs from the drafty hallway. Everything looks picked up, the floors vacuumed.

That overwhelming emptiness that numbed me most of the day melts. There’s so much that’s not perfect, but I can’t lie to myself anymore. This all feels right, no matter how scary.

I pad down the hallway, avoiding the squeaky board, and rest in the doorway as Nolan washes up after dinner. His hat is spun backward, the navy brim frayed on one side. His wide shoulders are hunched over the small metal sink.

“There’s some leftover stew if you want some,” he says, his back still turned to me. His work boots and jeans are covered in splatters from different house projects—plaster, primer, the pale blue I picked out for the upstairs bathroom.