“That would be refreshing.” He crossed his arms and waited for her to continue.
Kerry squared her shoulders. “The only reason Isaac’s returned to this dim little town is because you all invited him to help celebrate your sesquicentennial. So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring up our unfortunate past to the press.”
He fought to find his voice. “‘Our unfortunate past’?”
Kerry expelled a breath. “You know what I mean.”
“You’re talking about our daughter’s death.”
“She wasn’t our biological daughter. She was adopted.”
“Does telling yourself that make you feel better about what you did?”
“It’s the truth.”
“She was my best friend’s daughter and you were my wife. After he and his wife died, we raised Zoey practically from birth.”
“I didn’t realize she was sick.” Kerry’s words were sharp and strained.
“So you just left her, left us?” Jack’s muscles were frozen with remembered anger. “She wasn’t the perfect daughter you wanted, so you abandoned her?”
His ex-wife’s makeup was expertly applied. Her hair was professionally styled. Her maternity dress was fashionably fitted. She was perfect. It had taken him a long time to realize that perfection was what she craved in every facet of her life.
Kerry shook her head, looking away. “I didn’t abandon her.”
“What would you call it?” Jack struggled to keep his voice level.
“I was scared.”
“So were we.”
“I didn’t know what to do.”
“Neither did we.”
Kerry threw up her hands. “What do you want me to say? It’s in the past.”
“It’s not the past to me. To me, it feels like this morning.” Blood rushed through his veins. A pulse pounded in his ears.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
Jack lowered his arms. How could he make her understand the hurt she’d caused? How could he make her see the selfishness of her behavior?
In a moment of clarity, he remembered Audra’s insistence that he get in touch with his feelings: “The only way you’ll heal from Zoey’s death is to stop running from your emotions. You have to deal with them.”
He took an unsteady breath. “We were scared, too, Kerry. But we would’ve been stronger as a fa
mily, facing the uncertainty together. Being scared together. Praying together. Instead, I had to help our daughter understand why she was in so much pain. I had to do that by myself. I also had to explain why her mother wasn’t with us.”
Kerry’s throat muscles flexed as she swallowed. “What did you say to her?”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “Is that the only thing that matters to you?”
“I want to know what you told her.” Kerry pushed her chin forward.
Jack saw defiance in her eyes, but there were other emotions as well: fear, uncertainty. Shame? “Do you want to know what she told me?”
Kerry hesitated, then nodded.