“I agree. It’s important to remember who we are to the people we love first and foremost.”
Did Tristan think of me as his wife in anything but name? Did he love me like I was beginning to realize I loved him?
“Exactly,” he said as sadness swept over his face. “My granddaughter means everything to me. She’s suffering, but we’re lucky that we can pay for the best possible medical care. I want to give something to your charity so that other families get the same opportunities we have.” He blinked back tears.
I clasped a hand over his. “I’m so sorry. It’s a terrible time.”
He nodded and I took away my hand as he regained his composure. “I keep telling my son that he must hold his wife and children close. And he tries. But it’s so much pressure on him and on them as a family.”
I nodded, wanting to listen to his pain, hoping it would lessen if he had someone to talk to. “I worry about my grandson too. He’s not having the childhood he should. Everyone is so focused on illness and hospitals. It’s just awful.”
I thought back to how Tristan must have felt as a helpless child when his sister was getting treatment and then died. He must have felt powerless. And then when his parents split, his world fell apart.
The urge to drop everything and run to him was almost overwhelming. I wanted him to feel better. I knew he carried that pain with him still.
“I just hope they push through together as a family. As a unit. They’re stronger together.”
Mr. Fisher kept talking but I couldn’t hear a word he was saying. All I could think about was Tristan, and how his family unit had disintegrated when he needed them most. He must live in fear of people abandoning him when he needed them the most. Had I been guilty of that? Tristan should have told me about my dad knowing about our arrangement, and he shouldn’t have been monitoring my emails without my permission, but did that mean he wasn’t the man I thought he was?
Did it mean I couldn’t trust him?
Thirty-Four
Parker
I’d spent last night on speakerphone to Sutton while I sat in my cow-print pajamas and a face mask, snacking on chocolate-covered raisins just like I’d done on Friday nights for years. Sutton was definitely of the view I needed to give Tristan a second chance. If we’d just been facing the issue of him not telling me what my father knew about us, I might be able to get past it. I understood he was in a difficult position and was being loyal to my father. Monitoring my emails without me knowing was proving more difficult for me to get over. I didn’t know how to reconcile what he’d done with the trust I thought we’d built. Now, I was facing Saturday night at my parents’ place, just like so many lonely weekends in my past. In many ways life had gone back to what it was before Tristan. Except it hadn’t. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about him and wondering if things would have been different if we’d have met under easier circumstances.
I padded downstairs as the clock struck quarter past seven.
My mother glanced at me. I’d reached for the mascara before I’d come down, wanting to distract from my blotchy face. She grinned. “Are you expecting anyone?” she asked. My mother was firmly on Team Tristan. She’d tried to send me back to his place the day I arrived.
“Nope. I’m wearing mascara for me. I told you, Tristan and I agreed on ninety days.” It’s not that we weren’t ever together. We had been. At some point what was pretend had become real and then had faded to nothing.
Mum made a tutting sound and told me I was ridiculous. “He was a lovely boy. I hoped things would last between the two of you.”
“He was a thirty-four-year-old man, Mum.”
“Men are always boys at heart. You’d do well to remember that.”
I did my best not to roll my eyes. Luckily, Dad came out in a butcher’s apron and interrupted our to-and-fro. “Can you help us into the dining room with some of these plates?” If only the thousands of people who worked for my dad could see him now, in an apron, being told by my mum he was still a boy at heart.
I took the stack of plates Dad pointed out with his spatula and ferried them into the dining room. “Mum,” I called as I followed her back into the kitchen.
She turned. “Yes, my love.”
“I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.”
She gave me a look that I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager—a mixture of worry and suspicion.
I scooped my arm around her waist. “I’m not on drugs, Mum. Don’t worry. I just don’t tell you enough.”