I had barely settled her into her high chair for dinner when the front door opened, and Joey walked in. He’d made it home earlier than I’d expected. I looked up at him, wondering if he might greet me like a normal husband or not. If I’d expected a hug or a kiss or even a smile, I was sorely disappointed.

He walked straight to the box of pizza on the table and grabbed a slice. “I need to talk to you,” he said.

“I’m listening,” I said as I helped Amelia eat her dinner of chicken-flavored baby food.

“They want to transfer all the guys in this area out of town. Construction jobs around here have been slow lately, and other areas need more guys. They’ve offered to pay for our lodging and gas to get to and from the locations. We’ll work Monday to Friday out of town and come home for the weekends.”

“Are you asking me if it’s okay, or are you telling me what you’re going to do?” I asked.

“I’m telling you. I can’t not take their proposal, or I’ll lose my job, Caley.”

“You’re going to be gone almost all the time though,” I said.

“I know, but it can’t be helped. It’s not like we’re losing that much time together anyway. We both work, so we only have evenings together. Half the time, one of us isn’t home.”

“What about Amelia?” I demanded. “She’s going to miss you, Joey. You’re her father after all.”

He frowned. “I know she will, but there’s nothing I can do to change any of this.”

“You could look for another job!” I said, growing angry. “Things are bad enough as it is between us now. What do you think will happen if you’re gone ninety percent of the time?”

“In this economy? You know nothing else out there will pay the way construction does. And I think we’ll do better apart. If we don’t see each other, we won’t fight,” Joey said.

It alarmed me how his explanation actually made sense even if I didn’t like it.

“Well, it sounds like your mind is already made up,” I said, clenching my hands at my sides to keep from tossing something at him.

“It is. I have tomorrow off, but I leave tomorrow evening to drive back to the hotel they’ve put me in while we work on the job site. I’ll be gone by the time you get home. I should be back here on Saturday morning.”

I looked over at his bag. “Well, I guess I’d better go wash all your clothes for you. Finish feeding Amelia for me.”

“It can wait until after we’re done,” he said.

“No, it really can’t. I need to get out of this kitchen before I say something I’ll regret.” I handed the baby food to him and grabbed his bag. I walked out of the room without bothering to look back at him.

Once I was in our laundry room, I tossed the bag onto the floor with more force than necessary. I dumped his clothes out in front of the washer and started separating them into piles, keeping my mind carefully blank. Once that was done, I threw the first load in and started the washer. I rested my elbows on top of it and put my head in my hands.

I was so unbelievably angry with him. He was leaving me—no, leaving us, and he didn’t seem to care at all. I despised him most of the time, but the thought of him leaving us for a whole week, every week, made me sad. I would miss him. How I could miss someone I despised, I had no clue, but I would.

Despite our less than stellar relationship, I did care about him. Part of me even hoped that things would get better between us and stay that way. I knew without a doubt that things would not improve between us if he were gone all the time. We would only grow further apart.

On top of that, I would be raising Amelia on my own, almost as if I really were a single parent. She was old enough that she’d realize Joey wasn’t around much. A huge part of the reason I stayed with him was for her, so she would have a single-family unit. With him leaving us for work, it would be almost the same as if we weren’t married at all.

It seemed like life was continuing to throw curveball after curveball in my direction. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take until I broke.

My anger took over, and I knew I couldn’t stand to be in the same apartment with him right now. If I did, I would do something I’d regret. I stormed out of the laundry room, past the kitchen where Joey and Amelia were, and to the living room. I grabbed my keys and purse off the coffee table and headed straight for the front door.

“Where are you going?” Joey asked from behind me.

I turned to see that he had followed me into the living room. Amelia was in his arms, her gaze focused on him and only him. It broke my heart a little to think about how much she adored him and how little she would be seeing him.

“Out.” I turned away and opened the door. “I’ll be back tonight. Don’t ask me what time because I honestly have no idea.”

With that, I slammed the door behind me, not giving him a chance to say anything else.

My entire body was humming with suppressed rage as I drove. My anger was a living, breathing thing. All I wanted to do was go back to the apartment and slap Joey. I wanted to make him hurt the way he’d hurt me so many times.

I slammed my hand against the steering wheel in frustration. Why the fuck was everything so hard? It seemed like our lives were constantly in disarray, one tidal wave of problems after another. I knew deep down that Joey didn’t deserve all of my anger, but it didn’t diminish the way I felt.

I wished I could go back in time to a younger version of myself with the knowledge I had now. I would change so much. My timidness and my lack of self-esteem were the root of all my problems. I’d fallen for Joey simply because he’d seemed to care about me when I expected no one else to ever care. If I had known then what my life would be like now, I would’ve walked away. No, I would have run away in the opposite direction as fast as I possibly could.

Back then, I’d thought the worst possible outcome to my life would be being alone forever. I knew better now. I would have much rather been alone all these years instead of dealing with the constant back and forth that surrounded my life and my relationship with my husband.

The only problem was, if I had run away from Joey, I never would have had Amelia. That realization alone made me wonder if I really would have changed things if I’d had the chance to do it all over again.

I was surprised when I found myself pulling up in front of Ethan’s house. I’d never meant to come here. I’d only wanted to escape Joey and all our problems. Somehow, my mind had taken me here.

I stared at Ethan’s house, wondering if I should knock on his door. Ethan had been my rock lately, allowing me to dump all my problems onto him without a single complaint. Even though he hadn’t seemed to mind, I felt bad. He didn’t deserve to hear every sordid part of my life. If I went in there now, he would have to hear more.

I remembered what he’d said to me the day we’d gone fishing.

“If you ever need to get away or…to breathe, come find me, okay? Bring Amelia if you have to, but don’t just run off. Come to me.”

That made my mind up for me. If Ethan hadn’t wanted to deal with my problems, he never would have said that to me.

I climbed out of my car and walked to his front door. I knocked timidly, suddenly worried that I had shown up at a bad time.

Before I could worry for too long, the door swung open, and there he stood.

Ethan gave me a confused look before stepping out onto his porch. “Caley, what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice guarded.

“You told me to come to you if I ever needed to get away, so here I am.” I paused. “I hope it’s okay for me to be here. Maybe I should have called or something first.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I just finished eating dinner.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “And I was headed outside to smoke when I heard you knock.”