Wife by Design

“I couldn’t sleep.” She didn’t sound drunk. Or even particularly upset.

Maybe if he’d had more sleep, Grant would have held his tongue. He doubted it. His life had come unglued and he went right along with it.

“What’s with you?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the couch, a good foot away from her, his elbows on his knees.

“What do you mean?” Her gaze was steady as she looked at him.

“You are the most controlled individual I have ever met. Nothing fazes you. Not even your daughter’s disappearance.” Once he started, he couldn’t stop, as weeks of pent-up tension erupted inside of him. “Oh, you were concerned, I’ll give you that, but you stood there completely engaged at all times.”

“If I wasn’t how would I help find her?”

“That’s just it, Lynn. You were thinking about helping to find her at a time when most mothers would be catatonic with fear and grief. But not you. You just stay right there in your mind, keeping control of everything, moving forward and solving the world’s problems.”

The words were unfair. He knew it. He wasn’t as good as her. He’d tried to maintain control and lost it completely.

“Don’t you ever just feel? So much that it drowns out all rational thought and you do something crazy?” Like ranting at the woman you loved when all you really wanted to do was take her to bed and lose yourself in her arms.

“Crazy like drinking at eight in the morning?” she asked, calm as ever.

“I’m sure you had a rational reason for doing so.”

“Rational?” Lynn jumped up so fast she spilled wine down the front of herself. And did nothing to clean it up.

It was going to stain.

“You think I’m rational?” She wasn’t screaming, but her voice was raised louder than he’d ever heard it. “I was ironing clothes at three in the morning. Socks, Grant. I ironed socks! The elastic melted. I think I ruined my iron.”

Pacing the room, her nearly empty wineglass still in her hand, she turned her back to him.

If he hadn’t been so upset, he might have grinned.

“The first thing I did after I got Kara to bed and said good-night to Maddie was run to my bathroom, curl up in the corner and sob.” She turned around.

And the tears in her eyes stabbed him to his core.

“If you want to know the truth, I’m scared to death most days of my life,” she said, standing in the middle of the room, crying openly. “I’m scared to death that if I don’t stay focused, stay calm, I’m going to fall apart so badly I’ll never get myself back together.”

He stood. And she held out her hand—sloshing the remaining wine over her wrist—holding him off.

“And then who would look after Kara? She’s just a little girl, Grant.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” She gestured with the glass again, and he watched to make sure that none of it got on the carpet.

“Do you also know that I’m jealous of Darin and Maddie?” she asked, her tone accusatory, wild and hitting him in the heart. “They made love and they’re having a baby!” Her voice raised another octave. “Do you know that’s all I’ve ever wanted? To be in love, make love and have babies with the man I love?”

He knew he wanted to be that man. And to run out the door and disappear at the thought.

“Do you know that you’re that man, Grant? The one I dream about and make love with every single night when I close my eyes?”

His throat dried up on him.

“And do you have any idea…” Her voice broke. She sniffed. And then, very softly she finished. “How incredibly scared I am of the power my intense and illogical love for you gives you?”

He moved forward a step.

She took a step back.

“Because someday, you could be just like Brandon, changing your mind about who you are and what you need out of life, and there wouldn’t be a single damn thing I could do about it.”

She sipped from her empty glass. Didn’t seem to notice that there was no wine left and continued to hold on to the glass.

“If you were even still in my life, that is,” she amended, frowning as she backed into the wall. And stood there, leaning against it.