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“Mom!” She comes barreling in, her hair all over the place and dirt streaking her cheeks. “Daddy said there’s a huge storm coming, and he used a bad word.”
My eyes shoot to Lucas, who’s standing at the entrance, a sheepish grin on his face. “I didn’t realize she was listening to me and Eric talk.”
“What storm?” I can’t disguise my anger at the thought that he might be careless enough to talk about our divorce where Lizzy can overhear. He hasn’t said anything about the divorce papers to me, so I have no idea what he’s planning. Is he going to drag it out and make it hard? Even worse, is he planning to fight for custody? Is that the storm he was referring to?
She tugs on my shirt to get my attention. “One with lots and lots of rain, and then he called the wind a really bad word.”
I release the tension in my body with a long breath. So he was talking about an actual storm. The mistrust I carry towards him now, trying to pick apart every word he says to find hidden meaning in it, is exhausting. I need to get my head out of the sand and have an actual grown-up conversation with him about the divorce.
“They mentioned in the news that there’s a storm brewing in the Caribbean, and it’s potentially a big one. No need to worry about it, sweetheart. It’s still early days, so it can go anywhere,” He rushes to assure me when he sees the concern on my face. The endearment rolls so easily off his tongue, making my stomach twist.
I nod and turn my attention back to Lizzy. “Okay, I think it’s time for your bath. It looks like you lost a fight with a mud monster.”
“There’s no such thing, Mommy,” she giggles, swiping at her cheek.
“Run upstairs and get your pj’s ready. I’ll come run it for you in a moment.”
“Do you mind if I do it?”
I wait for her to leave before turning to Lucas. “You’re pushing it.”
“Wanting to give my daughter a bath is pushing it?”
“No, wanting to spend time with her here is pushing it. We’re getting a divorce, and you don’t live here anymore.”
Our eyes lock and I see the sadness in his. It makes my anger bubble back up to the surface. He doesn’t get to feel sadness when he’s the one that caused it.
“I’m so sorry, Alexis.”
A painful jab stabs my heart, and I bite back the tears stinging my eyes. They’re born of both sorrow and anger, and I don’t want him to see it. I want to mourn the death of my love in the darkness, in the privacy of my bedroom, where he can’t witness the destruction he caused me.
“Yeah, well, being sorry doesn’t change anything, does it?” I mutter, turning my back on him.
I feel him before I hear him, and I spin around, taking a step back from his hand that was reaching for me. I can’t have the hands that touched another woman touching me. He drops it in defeat, but his eyes stay intense.
“I know it doesn’t, but I’ll keep saying it till you believe me. I messed up. I caused you hurt. This is all on me, and I’m going to fix this.”
“I don’t see how you can. There’s no fixing us, Lucas. What’s done is done. Please don’t make this harder than it is and sign the divorce papers.”
He’s shaking his head before I’ve even stopped talking. “No. We’ll never be done. I refuse to accept that.”
I feel like I’m going crazy with frustration. “You keep saying you want to fix this, but you won’t tell me why you did it. How can you expect to try to fix anything when you can’t be honest? Of all the things we lost, that’s one of the things that hurt the most. I didn’t even realize we had a problem!” I take a deep breath, trying to get my emotions under control for Lizzy’s sake. “Instead of trying to fix whatever was wrong, you ran to another woman.”
“Believe me, it’s not that I won’t tell you why I did it. It’s because I don’t know how.”
“How what? How can you not know? It’s easy. Just open your mouth and spit out the words.”
“I’m working on it.” His gaze, intense only moments before, leaves me and roams around the kitchen, not lingering on anything. “I’ve started seeing a therapist.” His words come out low and hoarse, as if it pains him to admit it, and it brings me up short. Lucas seeing a therapist is huge. He has nothing against it, but he once admitted that he just didn’t have it in him to make himself so vulnerable in front of a stranger.
“There are things…things about me, about my past that you don’t know about, and if I want to be a better man for you and Lizzy, I need to work through it. Figure things out.”
This raises so many questions that I desperately want answers to, but before I can ask any of them, his eyes shutter and he turns away.
“Lucas…”
His shoulders shudder on a big inhale.
“I’m going to get going. Tell Lizzy I’ll see her on Wednesday. Where are your car keys?”
“My keys?”
“I booked your car in for a service tomorrow. I know you hate doing it, so I’ll take it in and bring it back when it’s done.” He shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “You can use my car till you get yours back.”
Melancholy fills me over another thing I haven’t even realized yet that I’ve lost. Things we used to do as a team and we’ll have to do separately from now on. “It’s not your place to do that for me anymore.”
He shakes his head. “I’ll never stop caring for you and Lizzy. Don’t ask me to.”
I want to argue, but he walks away before I get the chance.
