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For the last week, I’d been able to go to work and not have to worry that my son wasn’t being cared for properly.
In fact, I was beginning to feel extremely lucky.
Then, last night happened. There was so much that made me feel a variety of conflicting emotions.
At first, it was the way Lamise had casually shared about having a video chat with my mom, so my mom could see Rhys.
I hadn’t intended to remain silent, but I was so caught off guard by Lamise’s actions. The woman was a miracle. She proved that further when she started to panic, thinking I wanted to fire her, and she wouldn’t be able to see Rhys.
At that point, even if I knew what to say to her, after seeing her get so emotional about the possibility of never seeing my son again, there wasn’t a chance I could open my mouth to speak.
She adored my son, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more in the woman who spent her days looking after him.
But then, I foolishly remained silent for so long, and Lamise got the wrong impression. Obviously, she’d had the thought at some point before that conversation, because she’d indicated as much.
I hadn’t considered it at all.
I didn’t know why, but I never told Lamise about Violet. I guess it was only natural she’d make assumptions about what was going on. I still wore my wedding band, and there were pictures of Violet throughout the house.
No matter that I could look at it now and see how foolish it had been, it didn’t change what happened in the moment last night.
After Lamise brought Violet up, along with what she believed the situation was between my wife and me, I could only manage to get angry. And while I knew it didn’t seem that way in the moment, I wasn’t necessarily angry with Lamise.
I was angry with myself.
Because it wasn’t until Lamise said something about my wife that I realized what had just happened.
Only minutes earlier, I’d gotten comfortable, and for the first time since my wife died, I’d comforted another woman in an embrace.
Guilty.
God, so much guilt.
I didn’t get any sleep last night, and that had nothing todo with Rhys. In fact, my son had been sleeping through the night since he was three months old.
My lack of sleep was all attributed to what had transpired before I’d all but kicked Lamise out of my house last night.
It was about feeling like I’d betrayed Violet.
It was about knowing how heartbroken Lamise was.
And now that she was standing in front of me, it was evident Lamise was just as forlorn as she’d been seconds before she walked out of my house, maybe even more now than then.
Despite that, and knowing what I needed to do, I asked, “What are you doing here?”
There wasn’t a chance I could miss the hesitancy and trepidation written all over Lamise’s expression. Whatever she was feeling, she didn’t share. Instead, she answered, “I was at the dog park.”
My brows knit together as my eyes dropped down toward her feet. There was no dog standing beside her. “But you don’t have a dog with you.”
She dropped her gaze from mine, bit her lip, and inhaled deeply through her nose. When she returned her attention to my face again, she replied, “No, I don’t anymore.”
Fuck.
With those four words, I understood what was going on.
If there was one thing I could grasp, it was loss. And now that I realized Lamise was suffering through it, everything else started to make sense. The way she was terrified I’d fire her or that she wouldn’t see Rhys again. She got attached to him in such a short time.
I hated myself for how I treated her last night, and Ineeded to make this right. “I’m really sorry, Lamise. About your dog, and about what happened last night.”
