“When are we going to talk about us, Willow? You said we’d do so after the trip.” He lifted his shoulders. “Well, it’s after the trip.”
“You want to do this now?”
“If not now, when? What’s the excuse for putting it off? The kids are out, so we don’t have to worry about them overhearing us. Now is as good a time as any.”
Harrison watched her jaw constrict as she swallowed. After another moment’s hesitation, she said, “Okay.” She looked up at him. “I guess we’re doing this.”
The gravity in her voice sent a surge of apprehension up his spine. For the barest second, he almost suggested putting it off until they’d both had a chance to rest. But postponing this discussion wouldn’t make it any easier.
He motioned for her to walk ahead of him as they left the laundry room and went into the kitchen. He’d been in this room less than five minutes ago, but somehow the air felt different. Heavier.
Harrison tried to ignore the ominous cloud suddenly cloaking the room as he rested his backside against the edge of the kitchen island and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Well?” He lifted his shoulders. “What happened to us, Wills? How did we go from being a happily married couple to two people who can go an entire week barely saying a word to each other?”
“That’s not true, Harrison. It isn’t that severe.”
“Yes, it is,” he said. “At least it has been in the past, and you know it.”
She dropped her head back and released an exasperated sigh. “You’re going to bring up that week this past summer, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I will. Because we went three solid days without speaking more than ten words to each other. And when I pointed it out, you gave me all these excuses and said I was being irrational.”
“Do you remember everything that was going on that week, Harrison? You were working crazy hours at the office and not getting home until late in the evening. Lily’s drill team was preparing for their performance at the Saints opening season game, and had practice every single day.” She threw her hands up. “And Athens had some kind of Scouts thing that I can’t even remember right now. I just remember that it was chaos.”
“Three days, Willow. Three. Days.”
“Well, I’m sorry if life gets so hectic sometimes that I barely have time to tell you good morning. I’ll tell it to stop.”
Her brackish, sarcastic response was exactly why Harrison had avoided this conversation for so many months. He refused to back away from it this time.
“You know there’s more to it than that. Something broke between us, Willow. I want to know what.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose before looking over at him. “We talked about this in Italy. It’s normal for couples to go through rough patches. We’re lucky that we were able to go seventeen years without hitting any of those rough patches, but it was inevitable, Harrison.”
“No. Something happened.” Harrison pushed away from the island and walked over to where she stood next to the refrigerator, stopping a couple of feet from her. “I get that things can get a little out of control with the kids’ schedules and the hours I sometimes put in at the office, but there was a distinct shift. It happened the week I went to Philly for that conference.”
Her shoulders stiffened. He pounced, knowing he’d hit the nail on the head.
“What is it?” he asked. “Talk to me, dammit.”
She tucked her arms in close, wrapping them around her upper body. “Let’s not do this right now, Harrison.”
“No. Something happened that week. Or, at least I think you think something happened.” He paused for a moment before asking the question he didn’t want to know the answer to. “Do you think I cheated on you while I was away at that conference, Willow?”
Her eyes shot to his. The wariness staring back at him tore a hole in Harrison’s heart.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” The depth of his hurt was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. How could she consider, even for a moment, that he would be unfaithful to her?
Yet, Harrison had known it had to be something like this. He’d thought back to that week, when he’d called several times to talk to her only to find his calls going to voicemail. He’d taken to calling Lily’s cellphone, but she too had an excuse as to why her mother couldn’t speak. He tried to remember if maybe he’d taken pictures with a colleague that ended up on Facebook, or something else that could have put such a ridiculous idea in her head, but he could never pinpoint exactly what had caused her unfounded suspicions.
It was time he laid them to rest.
Harrison grasped her shoulders and leaned forward, capturing her gaze. Staring into her tear-laden eyes, he said, “From the first day I met you, there has never been a single woman in this world who has been able to take my attention away from you. I have never wanted—never even thought about being with another woman.”
A single tear streamed down her cheek and the pain in his heart intensified.
“How, Willow?” Harrison asked in a harsh whisper. “How could you ever think I’d be unfaithful to you?”
She sniffed and brushed at the tear running down her cheek.
“I’ve never questioned your faithfulness,” she said, her voice shallow and raw. “I know you have never been unfaithful, Harrison.” She lifted her head and looked up at him, her eyes brimming with hurt and guilt. “But I have.”
Willow flinched at the quickness in which Harrison dropped his hands from her shoulders and backed away. A solid ten seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness as he just stood there staring at her, his brow marred with confusion. He blinked several times before asking in a raspy voice thick with disbelief, “I…what?”
She put her hands up. “I didn’t cheat in the traditional sense of the word.”
“The traditional sense—” He took an abrupt step back and turned away. A second later, he turned back to her, his eyes wide with confusion and something akin to panic. “Willow, what are you saying?”
“Just hear me out.” She pushed her fingers through her hair and sucked in a deep, fortifying breath. It felt as if a million pins were dancing underneath her skin, pricking at her frayed nerve-endings. She’d dreaded this moment for months. Now that it was finally time to confront it, Willow wasn’t sure she could.
But she had to. She owed him an explanation.
“Do you remember that dinner we had at Drago’s about a year ago with the old gang from Xavier? It was to celebrate Marcus Ewing receiving the President’s Award?” Harrison’s head dipped in a curt nod. “Well, a few months later, Marcus came back to town on business. We went out to dinner.”
Willow caught the moment realization dawned. His eyes widened, then narrowed in suspicion. “A few months later? Was this…?”
She nodded. “It was while you were in Philly.”
His stoic facade crumbled. “My God, Willow.” The words came out in a tortured whisper. He dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling as he paced in the tight space between the pantry and island. When he returned his attention to her, his eyes were filled with accusation. “What did you do? Did you fuck him?”
“No! Goodness, Harrison! It was nothing like that.” She held her hands out, pleading for understanding. “It was only dinner. Other than a peck on the cheek when I arrived at the restaurant and another when I left, there wasn’t even any real contact between us.”
“So why did you say you cheated?”
“I didn’t physically cheat on you,” she said. “But I did emotionally.”
He shook his head. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means that it wasn’t about Marcus, or any man for that matter. It was about me.” She slapped her hand to her chest. “It’s about the way I felt that night. I wasn’t a mother, or a wife, or the person the Ladies Auxiliary can count on to bring coconut macaroons for the church bake sale. I was Willow. I was the Willow who was the first in her class to successfully separate proteins using
electrophoresis. The Willow who organized a sit-in at the university president’s office when the school tried to cut student aid. It had been so long since I’d felt that way that I barely recognized that old person I used to be.”
“I never asked you to change,” Harrison said. “Did I tell you your only job was to take care of the kids and bake cookies? Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe I’m the one who encouraged you to apply to graduate school. More than once, Willow. I knew how much you loved your field and I didn’t want you to let it go if you truly wanted to work in science.”
“I know that, Harrison.” She covered her face in her hands. “That’s what’s so confusing about all of this.” She brought her clenched hands to her chest. “I love being a mother to my children and I love being your wife. I wouldn’t change that for anything in this world, baby.” He flinched at the endearment, and Willow’s heart broke in two.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you asked what happened and this is it. The night we all went to dinner together, everyone had all this amazing news to share. There was Cheryl going on and on about her new promotion at the lab where she works, and Tameka with her announcement that she planned to run for attorney general in Nevada, and Marcus receiving the top honor from our old university, and you making partner at your law firm.
“What was my big news? I was named Parent of the Month for Athens’s scouts troop.” She held up a finger. “And don’t you dare say that I should be proud of that. Don’t patronize me. I don’t begrudge a single minute that I get to spend taking care of my children, but that night—” She shook her head. “Something happened that night. For a few hours I was reminded of the Willow that wanted to change the world. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed her.
“And that’s why when Marcus called to invite us both to dinner a few months later, I decided to go even though you weren’t there. I wanted to recapture that feeling. I wanted to have just a glimpse of what life could have been like if I’d chosen differently.”
“If you’d chosen not to marry me?”
“No! If I’d chosen to be something other than a housewife!” Willow held on to her patience by the thinnest thread. “You know how I grew up, Harrison. You know I watched my mom struggle to make ends meet while also trying to better herself. And you know what it cost her.
“To this day, if you asked my mother what she considers to be her biggest regret, she’ll tell you it’s the four nights my sisters and I spent in that foster care home after the police found us sleeping in that old car. Those four nights are forever etched into my mind, and I vowed I would never put my children in a position to experience anything like that.”
“Willow, you know there is no way in hell I’d ever let that happen.”
“Yes, I know that, but it doesn’t lessen the fear. It doesn’t erase those memories of sitting in that pay-by-the-week motel, wishing that my mom was there to help me with homework instead of having to be at her second job. It doesn’t take away the shame of being the only kid at my kindergarten graduation who didn’t have a parent in the audience to clap for me when I walked across the stage clutching my little rolled up diploma.
“I promised myself that my children would never know that feeling, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I’d pursued other dreams.”
He hunched his shoulders, a blank, impassive look in his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to make of that, Willow. Because it sounds as if you’re not happy with your life.”
“That is not what I’m saying!”
“That’s sure as hell how it sounds. If you were happy you wouldn’t be going out to dinner with some other man so you can dream about how great your life would be if you didn’t have a husband and kids at home.”
“You know what, screw you, Harrison!” She stomped up to him and pushed at his unmovable chest. “Screw! You! You don’t get to stand there and make me out to be the bad guy because I wanted to indulge, just for a moment, in thoughts of what my life would have been like if I’d chosen to work outside the home.
“What if you hadn’t gone to law school? What if, for some reason, life sent you in another direction? Or if that camp counselor hadn’t steered you away from playing baseball? You mean to tell me you’ve never thought about how it would feel to play in the major leagues?”
“This isn’t the same thing.”
“The hell it isn’t! We all have things we could have done differently, different paths we could have chosen. It doesn’t mean we regret the things we have done, or wish that our lives were different.” She folded her arms over her chest. “But, given how I grew up, I guess you think I should just be grateful for this life you’ve provided for me, right?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is it fair to accuse me of being unhappy just because I wanted to dream a little, Harrison.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. The exhaustion in his eyes reflecting what she felt.
“Can you understand why I’m upset, Willow? Think about it. You’ve been keeping this from me for nearly a year. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out how I messed up, because this entire time I thought it was something I did. And then because, I don’t know, maybe you thought I wasn’t hurting enough, you tell me that having dinner with some other man made you feel things I haven’t been able to make you feel.”
“This had nothing to do with me wanting to hurt you, Harrison. How could you say that?”
“How? You went out with Marcus Ewing! Just the two of you. How—”
“This is not about Marcus! Why are you so damn determined to make it about something it’s not?”
“You went out with your old boyfriend, Willow! The same motherfucker who took your virginity. I’m supposed to treat that as if it’s no big deal?”
“So, that’s why you’re upset? Because twenty years ago I slept with Marcus before I ever even met you?”
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep, measured breath. When he opened them again, the hurt staring back at her crushed Willow’s soul.
“I’m upset because my wife didn’t think she could trust me enough to tell me how she really feels.” A breadth of tortured emotions played across his face. In a voice thick with anguish, he said, “You’re breaking my heart, Willow. That’s something I never thought you’d do.”
Agony ripped through her chest at the desolate look in his eyes. She pulled her quivering lip between her teeth.
“I never intended to hurt you,” she managed to speak past the raw pain in her throat.
His gruff laugh didn’t hold an ounce of humor. “That’s the thing about intentions, they don’t mean a damn thing when it’s time to face reality.”
Willow knew there was nothing she could say right now to ease the pain she’d inflicted upon him, but neither could she allow either of them to walk away from this discussion with so much up in the air.
She cleared the emotion clogging her throat before speaking. “So, where do we go from here? Now that you know everything.”
“Is this everything?”
“Yes, Harrison. It is.” She hunched her shoulders. “What do we do now?”
He closed his eyes again, and the skin over his jaw grew taut, an outward manifestation of his internal struggle. Finally, he opened his eyes, and said, “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to process this.” He appealed to her with eyes brimming with sadness and pain. “Tell me how I’m supposed to process this, Willow.”
There had been so many times during her life that she thought she knew what it felt like to have a broken heart, but Willow now understood nothing she’d experienced before could hold a candle to the pain slicing through her at this very moment. Seeing the agony he was in, knowing she’d caused it, made hers even greater.
She started to reach for him, but jerked her hand back. She had to give him space. She’d spent the past year worki
ng her way through these feelings. He was entitled to at least a few days. Although, if she had to go days without knowing how much damage her revelation had done to their marriage she would go insane.
No. Your marriage will survive this.
Willow knew her husband. She knew he wouldn’t allow this to permanently come between them. He couldn’t. She wouldn’t allow it.
She loved him too much.
Eventually, he would realize he felt the same way. She just had to be patient and wait for him to come back to her.
Chapter Eleven
“No, no, no. This is all wrong.”
As Harrison reached for a red pen in the ceramic pen holder Lily made for him at camp eight summers ago, his elbow connected with his NCBL travel mug, knocking it over and spilling leftover coffee on his desk.
“Son of a bitch!”
He shot back in his chair to avoid getting splashed. Grabbing a fistful of Kleenex, he tried to staunch the flow of the tepid liquid before it reached the files on his desk. Half a box of Kleenex later, he tossed the soiled tissues in the trash, propped his elbows on the desk, and covered his face in his hands.
Maybe coming down to the office this morning wasn’t the best idea.
In the past, he could always count on work to provide an escape when there was some kind of unpleasantness he was trying to avoid in his personal life. Hell, he’d single-handily negotiated four separate multi-corporation acquisitions in those final weeks before his mom passed. But there was no escaping the misery he’d been going through since leaving his house last night. It was too raw, too potent to do anything but breathe his way through it. And try his best to survive it.
Call her!
That voice in his head had been nagging at him to pick up the phone and call Willow for the past sixteen hours, but every time Harrison even thought about heeding its demand, something stopped him. He wasn’t ready. There were still too many emotions he needed to work through before he could face his wife again.
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