Hadn’t she heard this a million times? “He wasn’t in my way. I was going to defer. I was going to give us time to find a better way than him going into the Army. A year wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“It would have,” Angie insisted. “You wouldn’t have made it to Yale. You would have found another excuse and another until you were stuck here and you married him and had babies and didn’t use those extraordinary talents you were given. And one day you would have resented him for it. You would have resented all of us. Do you love what you do, Madeline? Would you change places with me? I love my life, but it’s mine. It’s right for me. I don’t think it would have been right for you. Tell me something, and you be brutally honest with me. Would you give up your job to be home with a couple of kids in rural California? Would you change places with me?”
Maddie felt a tear slip onto her cheek. She wanted to argue, to tell Angie that she had no idea what her life was like and what it would have been, but all she could think about was the fact that Deke screamed in the night and she’d wanted him to be miserable. So honesty took over. “No, I wouldn’t. I want a family but not now. I don’t hate this town. I have fond memories of it, but it’s not my home anymore. I don’t want a husband or kids right now. It would be very difficult to balance that life against my career. Now I want to see how far I can go. I want this chance.”
She was on the cusp of an exciting life, of a life she’d dreamed about.
The one she’d wanted to share with Deke, but now she had to consider the fact that it wouldn’t have been possible if she’d stayed here.
“Then don’t do this to him.”
Her heart ached. Maybe it always had. Maybe it hadn’t stopped aching since the day he’d left her, but she’d buried the hurt under layers of arrogance. She felt it now, felt the keening hurt that had become a part of her. “He wouldn’t want to see me?”
Angie’s gaze softened. “I think he wouldn’t want you to see him like this.”
He was a proud man, and it would hurt him to have her see him so low. If she was in his life, she could insist on it, but they weren’t together. They were miles and miles apart despite the fact that he was right behind those doors. “Is he talking to someone?”
“Who is he going to talk to out here?” Angie asked with a sigh. “He sits. Sometimes he watches TV with Dad, but mostly he just sits, and we try our hardest to take care of him but nothing seems to make a difference.”
Shame washed through her. Deke was going through something horrible and she couldn’t be around him, couldn’t try to help because she’d shunned him for years. Once he’d broken up with her, she’d cut off their friendship, and now that seemed like such a terrible thing to do.
Oddly, even over the years she’d felt close to him. She’d made him the bad guy in her world, and that had been a way to keep him in her life without giving up an ounce of her pride.
But she remembered who he was. “He has trouble asking for help. Do you remember how he was when he broke his leg junior year? He was the biggest bear. He hated feeling helpless.”
Angie nodded. “He gave my mom such hell because he wouldn’t stay down. That’s what scares me now. He’s here but he’s not here. I think he’s back there, and I don’t know how to reach him. And these stupid enchiladas are his favorite, and he’s not going to eat them. He barely eats at all. But I don’t know what to do so I bake enchiladas and muffins.”
Deke was a man who needed to do something. He needed to feel like he was contributing.
He was a man who needed to be needed in order to feel centered.
“You can’t treat him like an invalid. I know you want to take care of him, but that might mean something different with Deke. You need to give him something to do. Make him responsible for something,” Maddie said. “Even if it’s dumb. He needs a task to focus on, the more important the better.”
“He’s recovering from a couple of injuries. He needs rest,” Angie replied.
And then it hit her. Deke loved kids. He’d been the teenaged boy who genuinely didn’t mind watching younger kids. He would have them playing football or having tea parties with teddy bears. They lived in a small, working-class town. The older kids were always watching the younger ones, and Deke never resented it. “Make him feed the baby. Babies. Didn’t Sharon have one six months ago?”