I steadied out my breathing and tried not to move. I couldn’t let him know I was awake. I couldn’t let him know I didn’t want to confront him about this.

I was a coward.

I was weak.

I was so frustratingly confused.

He shifted on the couch and I faked a sleepy stretch. His body stiffened beneath mine and I couldn’t tell if it was because he knew I was faking or he was embarrassed at getting caught.

I kept my eyes closed and refused to open them. I would claim to be asleep until the end of my life. This was something I was willing to commit perjury over in front of a jury of my peers. You know, if I ever had to swear to this in court. I would never let him know I woke up.

Finally, after endless moments, after I realized the TV wasn’t on anymore and we were sitting in the complete dark, he gently lifted me and stood up. I felt his presence as he hovered over me. I couldn’t have guessed what he was thinking or doing or not doing.

He was, maybe for the first time since we first met, a complete and complex mystery to me.

Just when I thought he would finally leave, he bent over and pressed a warm, familiar kiss to my temple.

A whimper escaped my lips and my eyes squeezed tighter, giving me away, but still I refused to look at him, refused to acknowledge what had just happened between us.

He left a moment later. I heard his bare feet on the wood floor, his movements as he slipped into his shoes and gathered up his clothes, I heard the front door open, then close and his key as he locked the door behind him.

I didn’t move the entire time.

I didn’t move from the couch for the rest of the night.

Chapter Ten

17. We’re broken.

I spent the rest of the weekend in a funk. I couldn’t concentrate on grading papers and when I tried to clean my house, I spontaneously burst into an uncontrollable sob fest that lasted until my voice was hoarse, I felt sick to my stomach and I had no more tears to cry.

Officially, I was sick of myself.

By the time I walked into my mom’s house Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t wait to start school on Monday so I could get away from me.

That’s how desperate I was.

I actually wanted to go back to work.

I was tired of thinking. Tired of overanalyzing everything. Tired of blaming my heartbreak and failed marriage on Nick.

I needed to take responsibility too.

But I also hoped he never found out. I would take responsibility silently. I would take it and never tell him about it.

Hopefully, one day, we would move on in separate directions. Hopefully, we could find the opportunity to heal.

Until then… I just needed to get this over with as quickly as possible.

I was early for Sunday luncheon. I hadn’t been able to take another breath in the suffocating memories of my house, so I escaped to a different sort of hell- my family.

Josh and Emily weren’t here yet. In the living room, my dad was watching a football game, not the Bears, though, feet up and laid back in his worn recliner. He was far too relaxed for a Bears game to be on. The sight of him like that made me smile. It was so familiar… so home-like that I couldn’t help but pause in the doorway and grin at him.

He looked up at me with heavily lidded eyes, as if he were just on the brink of falling asleep. “Hey, Kiddo.”

“Hi, Daddy.”

“You’re early.”

“I thought I’d help out today.”

He smiled lazily and turned his attention back to the TV, “Your Ma will appreciate it.”

“Need anything? Iced tea? Beer?”

“Beer,” he grunted. “But don’t let your mother see.”

I walked through the living room to the kitchen feeling more like myself than I had in months. Most of the time I couldn’t stand my family, but it was irritation born from love. I loved them fiercely. I just also got irritated with them fiercely.

“Hi, Mom,” I said softly. I walked straight to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of beer and the pitcher of iced tea, hiding one behind the other. I put the iced tea on the counter and walked back into the living room to hand the beer to my dad. I let my purse drop on the couch and returned to the kitchen.

Beer successfully delivered.

Mission accomplished.

“I saw that.” My mother didn’t lift her eyes from the sweet potatoes she was mashing.

“Saw what?”

She made a noise in the back of her throat but didn’t argue further. My dad opened his can and the click of metal and his subsequent, “Ah,” echoed through the house.

My mother made another disgruntled snort.

I couldn’t help but smile.

“If it bothers you, you should say something,” I teased her.

She threw me a look over her shoulder. “If I made it known every time your father did something that bothered me, we wouldn’t have made it through our first year of marriage.”

“But if you said something now, he would listen to you.” For some reason, I couldn’t let it go. I had to make her see that she needed to stand up for herself. My dad wasn’t completely unreasonable. He would do what it took to keep the peace.

“Katherine, your father has known who he is and what he’s wanted since the very first day I met him. If he wants to have a beer before lunch, by god, he is going to have one.” I opened my mouth to argue, but she held up her spatula and silenced me. “I respect that. I respect him. I don’t have to like it, but I do have to trust him. And I trust him to take care of me, this family, and himself. That’s all I need.”

Sufficiently chastised, all I could come up with was a soft, “Oh.”

“But it would help if my children weren’t accomplices to his every heathen whim.”

This time I laughed. “I thought I was sneaky enough to get away with it.”

She gave me a pointed look over her shoulder, “Child, I see all. I know all.” My smile broke into a wide grin and I laughed until she said, “Now get over here and melt the butter so I can mix it with the marshmallows.”

“Yes, ma’am.” But inside I was doing a happy dance because we were having sweet potatoes.

Nick would have been so disappointed if he knew he missed my mother’s famous sweet potato casserole. It was his absolute favorite and she made it for him at least once a month.

It was the only way we could convince him to keep coming back here for Sunday lunch.

I shook my head of thoughts of Nick. Clearly I was having issues letting go of my marriage.

Which was to be expected, right? We had been together for a long time. He had been engrained in my thoughts, tattooed on my soul, etched into my bones. Our relationship was the only adult relationship I knew. I was not used to making decisions without him. I had never spent so much time alone. And it had been a very long time since I had to deal with my family by myself.

He had been by my side through so much that I physically couldn’t imagine my life without him.

At the same time, I couldn’t imagine continuing to live with him or be with him or fight with him over every little thing.

I was doing the right thing, it just took adjustment.

I needed adjustment.

A few minutes later Josh and Emily arrived with the girls and it felt like a hundred more people had shown up. The girls were everywhere, running around to say hi to everyone, asking for bites of food and in general, just being their cute, crazy selves.

“Why don’t you take them in the back yard, Kate,” my mom suggested. “They’ve been dying to see you and that way I can get lunch on the table without stepping on them.”

“Sure,” I said. I had officially been kicked out of the kitchen. It was no secret that Emily was better at the domesticated woman stuff than me and I suspected my mother was tired of hovering over my shoulder to make sure I did everything just right.

“Laney, Addy! Come outside with me!”