“I don’t want to talk,” she said forcefully. “Talk about what? Do you have new information for me, Ethan? Do I not have all the facts at this point?”
It was too easy to get defensive, so he paused and drew in a calming breath. “We obviously still have a lot of baggage to unpack here, Amanda. I know it isn’t comfortable, I know—maybe you hate me. But it’s been half a year, and it doesn’t seem like we’re going anywhere. Is that… I mean, is that okay with you?”
“Okay with me? Of course it’s not okay, Ethan. But I’m not sure what you expect from me. I don’t know what to tell you. I’m still hurt. I’m still pissed. I’m still angry as hell at you, Ethan. I’m angry at you every day.”
“And you have every right to be,” he acknowledged.
“Damn right,” she said, nodding her head. “You gave me your permission to be pissed at you when you betrayed me; I don’t need your permission to be angry.”
Since he wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t dig the hole deeper, he kept his mouth shut and merely nodded.
She was just getting started, too. “I honestly don’t know what our future holds at this point. Regardless of how things started… You threw everything away for that girl, Ethan. You cared more about her or righting your wrong, or… whatever you’re telling yourself your reason was these days, you cared more about that than me—than us. You kept me in the dark—that is why I can’t trust you anymore. Don’t you get that? You betrayed me, and you hid it from me and I had to find out in the most horrible way imaginable. I was blind-sided, Ethan. You were the one person I was always supposed to be able to count on, and you blind-sided me.”
As if he didn’t live with regret over that every damned day. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. I didn’t know what to do, Amanda,” he answered lowly.
Shrugging a bit helplessly, she said, “What do I do with that? How is that supposed to fix anything? How do I trust you when I know that if you decide something is above my pay-grade in the future, you just won’t tell me about it?”
“I don’t… That was a mistake. I would never, ever keep anything from you again, but I don’t know how to make you believe that. I don’t know if I can. I’m sorry.”
Amanda shook her head, grabbing an empty bowl the kids had pretzels in before bed. “Yeah, well, regardless of what they say about how it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission, sorry doesn’t put our family back together.”
Nodding solemnly, he said, “I know that.”
“Why are you asking me this?” she asked sharply. “Why, out of the blue, do you want a progress report?”
“I don’t—I was… It seemed like—I don’t know, I’m sorry. Forget it, we can just… put it on the shelf, I guess.”
“Are you seeing someone?” she asked, looking down at the empty bowl instead of at him.
Sighing, he said, “No. It isn’t about that, I just… I’m not sure what to tell our daughter when she asks when she’s going to see me again, Amanda. They don’t know what’s going on, and you don’t even let them see me regularly. I’m not asking for an overnight visit, just… like, one day every week or two where I can take them out and spend the day with them.”
Not looking at him, she shook her head. “I don’t know, Ethan.”
“That’s bullshit, Amanda,” he stated, more strongly than he tended to anymore. “You have them every single day. You could give me one day. It would give you a little time to yourself, too.”
“I have plenty of time to myself every single night,” she stated, meeting his gaze with an unforgiving glint in her eye.
“You know I am not a danger to those kids,” he stated.
“Do I?” she challenged.
“Willow’s dad is not in the picture anymore. He is not coming back.”
She nodded jerkily, paying special attention to his expression, she asked, “How do you know that? Have you talked to that girl?”
He drew in a breath, shaking his head as he looked away from her. “I don’t know… how to answer that.”
“With that truth,” she answered instantly. “Remember the truth? I’ll take that as a yes, but I want to hear you say it.”
“She—Yes, I spoke to her once. She graduated, asked how things were… She assured me that her father was no longer an issue.”
“Well, as long as she says so; I guess that’s good enough to stake our children’s lives on, right?”
Ethan ran a hand over his face and through his thick, dark hair. “I can never adequately apologize for what happened, Amanda, I know that, but we have to figure out a way to move past it, one way or another.”
Shaking her head, her lip curling up in disgust, she said, “Just get the hell out of here, Ethan. I can’t deal with this shit right now.”
“I wasn’t asking because of her,” he insisted. “I still want—”