by Portia Moore
“Alive,” she answers with a bitter chuckle.
I nod. “If it helps, I feel like the worst person in the world. You may not believe this, but I looked up to you. I thought you were the greatest mom, that Chris was so lucky.”
She raises her hand for me to stop, and tears slide down both our faces.
“Will said that you two had only been . . .” She sighs as if it pains her to continue. “Seeing each other for a couple of months.”
I nod.
“And it stopped right after Chris saw you together.”
I nod again.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Your daughter. She’s how old?”
“She just turned seven,” I say.
She smiles, biting her lip. She starts to say something but pauses. “There was a night. When you came over and”—she laughs bitterly—“I thought you were looking for Chris, and I told you I was expecting.”
I know it’s difficult for her to say these words, and I know my answer will be difficult for her to hear if she asks what I think she will.
“Were you pregnant then?” she says quickly and breathlessly.
I nod, and she does the same. She rests her face in her hands, and I hear her whimpering. She raises her face and wipes her tears.
“Do you have any idea how lucky you are, Lisa?” she says through her tears and whimpers. “I would have given anything for my child to be here. For my little girl or little boy to have made it into this world.”
I can literally feel both our hearts breaking into a thousand pieces. She’s trembling, and I know she’s trying to gather her bearings.
“Where is your—where is your daughter?” she asks.
I feel like scum, embarrassed, worthless, and I choke up as well. “She’s not here. I don’t know if I’m ready for that right now.”
She shakes her head and holds her hand to her chest, her expression pained. She stands and looks at me, and I can see the fury she’s holding back, and I know it’s not because Will—it’s because of what I just said. She lets out one last breath and walks to the door. I follow her.
“Will made a mistake with me a long time ago. I know he loves you. A part of me hated you for it because even as good as I made him feel, he could never really be happy with me because of you,” I say, and I hope it’s some consolation.
“Good-bye, Lisa,” she says quietly. Before she turns to go, she grabs my hand, and with tears in her eyes, she smiles. “I forgive you.”
With that, she walks out the door. I watch her leave as tears spill down my cheeks.
IT’S BEEN THREE weeks since it all happened—when I looked into my wife’s eyes and realized that she would never look at me the same way again, when my worst nightmare came true, when a truth so ugly that it had repercussions past my home was found out. I knew if Gwen ever found out, there would be no going back.
Living with her now is just that—we live together. We exist, but that’s all. She has a wall around herself keeping me at a distance, but I take it because at least she’s here. It could be a whole lot worse. She could be gone. I could be alone. My son could stop speaking to me again. Things aren’t great, they aren’t even good, but I thank God every day because I know they could be so much worse.
Still, it’s hard to be in the same house with her and feel her anger, her disappointment, her hurt radiating off her. There are some moments when I can make her smile, when she forgets for a fragment of a second that she hates me, then she hates herself for it. The only time I get to see her not so weighed down and heavy is when she talks to the kids in Chicago. She’s so happy when she does. Chris is renewing his vows. The date is set, and Gwen has thrown herself into those plans. They make her happy. I think they distract her and make her forget.
I’m in the yard pulling weeds when the car pulls up. It’s Lisa’s. I swallow my anger. I can’t be mad at her anymore for not keeping our secret, for telling it when everything in my life was just making sense. But I am furious with her for after telling me I have a child, not answering my calls or answering the door when I went over there.
She climbs out of the car and walks toward me. She’s still beautiful, but she’s still as impulsive and immature as the day we started all those years ago. How could I not see that then?
“It’s good to see you,” I say sarcastically, standing.
She looks at me, and I see tears in her eyes. I sigh. Her eyes can still make me feel like a cruel jerk.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been answering your calls. It was immature and stupid,” she says.
I feel my expression soften. I look toward the house, hoping Gwen doesn’t look out and see us and get the wrong idea.
“I won’t be here long,” she says quickly, “and I’m not here to purposely cause trouble.”
I look at her a little skeptically. Purposely.
“My aunt Dani passed away last week,” she says.
“I’m sorry, Lisa. She was a great person.” Danielle was always a really cool girl when we were younger, and it seemed as though nothing had changed the last time I saw her.
“Uh, she’s who Willa was living with. Dani’s husband never really wanted kids, and my grandparents are too old, and Evie’s completely out of the question,” she says with a bitter laugh.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“I can’t do this, Will,” she blurts, tears streaming from her eyes.
“Do what? Be a mother?” I ask, and she nods. “But you’re a teacher.”
She sighs and laughs. “Guess why I chose that profession.”
I shake my head. “Lisa . . .”
She chuckles. “No worries, I turned out to be pretty good at it, but I’m taking a break. I’m going to stay with a friend in San Francisco and just find myself. The new me, the person I make—not Evie’s daughter or the woman I chose to be for you.”
“You’re taking a seven-year-old with you to live with your roommate in San Francisco?” I ask, my anger about to choke me.
She huffs and smiles at me and shakes her head. She walks away, and I follow her.
“You can’t be that selfish or self-absorbed. What the hell is wrong with you?” I say angrily.
She whips back around, and her eyes shoot daggers at me. “Can you just shut up and stand right here and try to look like the man I fell in love with instead of his pissed-off cousin?”
I’m floored. She walks to her car and opens the back door, revealing a beautiful little blond girl holding a pink teddy bear. The girl gets out, her eyes on her feet. Lisa squats in front of her.
“Remember the prince I told you about in all of those stories?” Lisa says in a sweet, quiet voice. “This is him—Prince William.” Lisa smiles at me, her eyes full of tears.
“Hi,” the girl says quietly, and my heart starts to beat out of my chest.
“Hi, beautiful.” I feel my throat burn.
“This is who your mommy wants to take care of you,” Lisa says, rubbing the girl’s hair.
She looks at me, her eyes bright like her mother’s, but they’re my color. She has my nose, my dimples. She has Lisa’s long white-blond hair.
“You knew my mommy?” she asks me shyly.
My eyes cut to Lisa, and she smiles tightly.
“Yeah, I did,” I say, giving the girl a warm smile.
Lisa reaches into the car and pulls out a big purple duffle bag with stars on it, and she drops it near my feet. “I had so much fun growing up here. When I was here, it always felt like home. Remember all the stories I told you?” Lisa picks up the girl, and she nods. “Things are going to be so great.”
The little girl smiles, and I have to stop tears from coming to my eyes.
“Will, this is Willa,” Lisa says, putting the girl down and scooching her forward.
“You’re going to call and come visit?” Willa asks.
“We’ll see, princess,” Lisa says, standing. Her eyes find mine.
I want to say so much to her. Why wouldn’t sh
e talk to me about this? Why didn’t she give me any time to prepare? But then again, this is Lisa.
“I love you, Willa bear,” she says before kissing her cheek and giving her a hug. Lisa walks over to me, and we stare into each other’s eyes. She leans over to my ear. “I-I wish I could tell you her favorite food and bedtime story and color and all the things I should know, but I can’t, and it will mean more if you find them out on your own anyway.” She pulls back. “I hope she understands.”
Then Lisa gets back in her car. This doesn’t seem real. Is this really happening? When Lisa pulls away with a little wave and Willa starts to cry, I realize that it is.
“Hey, sweetheart, don’t cry,” I tell Willa. I want to hold her hand, but mine has dirt all over it. “Do you like animals?”
She nods.
“Oh well, you’re in the right place. I have horses and pigs and chickens,” I say.
“Really?” she asks, giving a heart-breaking smile.
“Yup. Are you hungry?” I ask, and she nods. “Well, let’s get you something to eat, and then we can go see all of them, okay?”
She takes my hand, smudged dirt and all, and I wonder if this could be my happiness now.
I CAN’T BE here anymore. My heart hurts too much.
Today is the day I’m going to do it. I’m going to tell Will I can’t do this anymore, can’t be around him anymore. The only person I’ve been able talk to about this is Chris’s wife, Lauren. She told me to keep the divorce papers for six months and if I still wanted to do it, to go ahead, but I can’t wait any longer.
It all hurts too much. It hurts because I still love him, and I hate myself for that. I know I have to forgive, then things will be so much better for me, but it’s hard. I feel slapped in the face all over again sometimes when I look at him. I hate myself for waking up and still wanting him. Each morning, I wake up in our bed and wish he was next to me. How can I still feel this way after everything he’s done? Why? Last night I promised myself I’d stop loving him. Today I woke up and saw him and knew I’d lied. I’m tired of lying to myself.
I don’t want to hate him, but it’s killing me to still love him.
I walk in the front door, the papers in my purse and tears in my eyes. I hear laughter though, and it throws me off. I haven’t heard him laugh like that in so long that it almost takes my breath away. I quickly head to the dining room, and my heart almost stops when I see him and a beautiful little girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and his smile. He looks at me, and his smile softens, but it’s still there.
“Hi,” the little girl says before she takes a bite of a cookie I baked earlier.
She’s wearing a milk mustache, and she warms my heart. I know it’s her because she looks just like him. I was always afraid that when I saw her, I’d hate her. It’s crazy to think you can hate a child, and I never wanted to be that person, but I thought I would. The product of their love, their affair, his betrayal—but she’s sitting there, and she’s none of that. She’s just a cute little girl who looks like the man I love, and I feel sick. I’m confused, and Will sees it.
He stands quickly. “Willa, you finish off these cookies and your pictures, and when I come back, we can go see the horses,” he says in a voice reserved for children.
It’s soft and kind, and I want to block it from my ears. He ushers me into the living room, and I pull away from him as soon as we’re there.
“What is this? Is Lisa here? Are you working things out with her? Why didn’t you say anything?” I say frantically.
“Lisa’s gone.”
I look at him skeptically. “What do you mean gone? Like she’s gone while you spend time with your daughter?”
“No, like gone and she’s not coming back for her,” he says, looking me in the eye.
I can only swallow hard. “That doesn’t make sense.”
He gets me to sit on the couch, and he explains that Lisa left for San Francisco, that she feels as though she can’t be a mother. She left Willa’s birth certificate, medical records, and a box of other documents.
“Is she serious?” I ask, rubbing my temples. This is so much at one time. I don’t know how to process it.
“She also left you this,” he says. He hands me an envelope that says “For Gwen.” “Before you open it, I want you to know how much I love you. I want you to know how much I hope you’ll forgive me, but I know this could be a lot, even for you, and I don’t want to guilt you into doing anything you don’t want to.”
With tears in his eyes, he takes my hand and kisses me on the forehead before getting up and heading back into the kitchen. My head is pounding, and I hear blood coursing through my ears. My hands are shaking. I stare at the envelope for so long. I don’t know how long exactly, but I know Will and Willa have finished their cookies and gone out to the barn by the time I let out a deep sigh and open the envelope. There’re three pieces of paper, one of which says, “Read first.” It’s folded, so I open it and see that it’s handwritten.
I know you said you’ve forgiven me. I wonder how that’s possible after everything I did and all the pain I caused you and your family. You only ever treated me with kindness. It hurt to see in your eyes that you meant it, that it wasn’t some bullshit you spouted to feel better about yourself but you really meant it. I was angry that day. I wished you did hate me. It would have made me feel that much better because in that moment, I realized the difference between a girl and a woman. As much as I liked to believe that I was this forward-thinking, beautiful, adventurous woman so many men desired, I realized I was still just my mother’s little girl . . . You showed me how a real woman should be, how a good woman is, and I aspire to be that one day. Right now, I’m not, and I know me and Will have taken so much from you already. My selfishness, my needs always came first, and I’m going to do my best to work on that. I promise. But before I do, I have one last selfish request to ask of you. I ask that you don’t hate my daughter, that you love her like you would have loved your own, that you give her what she needs to not become another me. That you help Will raise her, guide her, love her. She’s the best of both of us, and I don’t want either of us to ruin her. I hope that you consider this. If it’s too much, I think that Lauren, Chris’s wife, would be the next best thing, but you are my first choice.
With sorrow and a plea for forgiveness,
Lisa
I open the other stapled letter. My hear drops when I see it includes the adoption papers she’s already signed. Next to the line marked Adoptee is not just Will’s name but my own.
ONE YEAR AGO, I’d never thought I’d have my granddaughter asleep on my chest, my husband asleep by my side, and his daughter between us with her arm over me. I never thought I’d consider his daughter my own. A year ago, I hadn’t even known he had a daughter. I hadn’t known the pain I’d face. The betrayals I’d discover. Going through that pain was worse than anything I’ve ever faced.
Six months ago, I’d thought I’d be divorcing my husband as his daughter with my son’s best friend was the flower girl in my son’s vow renewal. Six months ago, I never thought Lisa, the woman my husband betrayed me with, would be in my prayers, that when she called and checked in briefly and infrequently, I’d smile when I heard her voice, that I’d be grateful for the gift she gave me.
I’d always imagined my house full of laughter and children, but I never imagined it’d happen this way. A year ago, I thought I was losing my son, that my dream of having children run around was lost. But today, with my little granddaughter Caylen; a daughter I call my own, Willa; and my son’s wife, Lauren, expecting twins, I know that my dream, though nothing like I’d imagined, has come true.
Some people would never be able to see this as a happy ending. They’d think I was desperate and foolish to forgive. To them, I say that when you’re hurt, you want to hold on to that pain as though it’s a life jacket. You think that by letting go of that pain, you’re saying its cause isn’t important. What you don’t realize is that pain weighs you do
wn. The hurt suffocates you, wraps around everything good about you.
Animosity is a weapon, and it’s not used against the person you can’t forgive—it’s used against yourself. Your bitterness doesn’t hurt them. If they love you, it will hurt them for a while, but it doesn’t stop them from living their life. Your anger doesn’t make them carry their pain or their hurt any longer. I realized that when Gia told me she hated me and she’d never forgive me. It hurt like hell for a while, but each day it hurt less and less, and there were some days I never even thought about it.
I could have left my husband and been brokenhearted. I’m sure I could have found someone else to love. I don’t know what could have happened if I’d chosen differently, but I realized you don’t get to choose what happens to you. You do get to choose what happens after though, and the best thing to choose is whatever makes you happy, and I never thought in my wildest dreams happiness would be this way, but life has a way of surprising us all.
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I'M OBSESSED WITH blowing kisses. I guess that makes me a romantic. I love books and cute boys and reading about cute boys in books. I'm infatuated with the glamour girls of the past: Audrey, Dorthy, Marilyn, Elizabeth.
I'm a self confessed girly girl, book nerd, food enthusiast, and comic book fan. Odd combination huh, you have no idea . . .
THE IF I BREAK SERIES
