Family For Beginners

“Not sure. At least six months. You didn’t know that part?”

“No. Not until the end. And you stayed together?”

“I’m not one to give up on things, you know that. It’s a flaw.”

“Loyalty—and sticking with something—isn’t a flaw, Jack. It’s a quality. One of your many qualities.”

“Maybe if it had been just me—” He shrugged. “Who knows? But it wasn’t me. I had the girls.”

The girls. Those two beautiful girls. Clare thought about Aiden, about Todd and their happy, settled family life.

“I’m so mad at her right now.” She stepped away from him and closed her hands over the rail. A family of ducks skittered away, perhaps sensing danger. “She made some crazy decisions in her life, but this—”

“You know Becca. She needed to win, whether that was in business or in love. She needed more, bigger, better.”

“They don’t come better than you, Jack.”

“But she already had me. That was probably why it collapsed. I should have kept her uncertain, unsure, but that isn’t who I am. I admired her strength and her focus. I loved the wildness and the restlessness. I understood it. But all qualities have a dark side, don’t they? In the end, that wildness and restlessness drove her to leave.”

“Did you—” Was she going to make it worse by talking about it? “Did you try to stop her? Did you see someone? Get therapy?”

“No.” He pulled off the towel and draped it over the rail. “I wanted her to go, Clare. The children weren’t aware, but I knew that probably wouldn’t last. I didn’t want them growing up with that. I wanted them to have stability. They deserved that. And I made a rule for myself after the first time. That was it for me. I set boundaries, and she knew what they were.”

“The first time?”

“She left me before.” He turned to look at her. “The first time was when Izzy was three months old.”

“That can’t be true. She would have told me.”

“She told no one. She came back. I don’t know why. There was Izzy, of course, but I like to think it was because she loved me.”

“She did. Oh God, Jack, she did love you.” I met a man. “I know she did.”

“I think she did, too, in her own way. But it wasn’t enough. The other part of her, that damaged insecure part, was s

tronger. Always pulling at her, pushing her away from the safe and secure. Maybe she didn’t know how to be if she didn’t have to fight and strive. It was easier when she was dancing because she threw everything into that, but after the injury things went downhill. We had a brief time when things seemed stable— Molly was a result of that time.”

“I always wondered why you didn’t have children right away.”

“I wanted that, but she didn’t. It scared her, the sense of responsibility. She didn’t feel she was a good mother. She talked about you constantly, Clare would know how to do this, I wish I was more like Clare, you should have married someone like Clare.”

Tears stung her eyes. Never once had Becca said those things to her. “There is no one version of a good mother.”

“I told her that. But after she came back I think she was a little shocked herself that she’d left her child. No one even knew, but she couldn’t forget that she’d done it. She didn’t trust herself. And it was tough on me, too. I wondered if it was possible for her to settle with one man and a home, but she assured me she could. And for a while it worked. Then she started seeing a man she’d met through her work.” He turned away again, so that all she could see was dark hair and strong shoulders.

“And she was going to leave again.”

“I told her to leave. I didn’t want to draw it out, and have the kids suffer. I wasn’t going to chase after her again. No more trying to glue something that just couldn’t be stuck back together. We were going to tell the children together, but then she—well, it was all taken out of our hands and in the end I was telling the children their mother was dead. They didn’t need to know the rest. I decided it was better to leave them with the memories they had.”

Clare felt the sun on her face and a faint breath of wind lift her hair. He thought the conversation was over, but she knew the hardest part was yet to come.

She wished she didn’t have to say it, but she had no choice.

“Izzy knew, Jack.”

“What?” His voice was harsh. “What are you saying?”

“Not all the stuff you just told me. But she knew Becca was leaving you. She knew about the affair. She didn’t know you knew. It’s the reason she’s been feeling so insecure I think. Her mother was leaving you, and the only home she’d ever known. Izzy couldn’t figure out what that meant for her. She didn’t know what her future was. Was Becca going alone or taking her and Molly? Just Izzy? She was going crazy with it, and then Becca died and she couldn’t ask her.”