Forbidden: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance

Of course, that was all when the chair was still inside the house. It was nestled in the corner beside the fireplace during the late fall and winter months, then moved over to a sunny spot in the bay window during the spring and summer.

When she died, looking at it became too painful. Her death was so sudden, it was like my brain never caught up. It didn’t realize what was going on or that I’d actually lost her. There were plenty of moments in those first few weeks and even months when I briefly forgot she was gone.

I would have a long day at work or hear a story I knew she would like, and for those few moments, I didn’t remember what happened. I would go into the living room to find her, only to see her chair sitting there empty and it all came rushing back.

It was worse when the seasons changed, and I didn’t know if I should move her chair or not. That was the first time I noticed that half of it had faded in the sunlight. It wasn’t as saturated by color as the other side anymore. Something about that hit me hard. Of all the reminders, all the memories that constantly surrounded me, seeing that fabric slightly paler from sitting in the sun through the far too brief years of our marriage made looking at the chair unbearable.

I found myself sitting in it far more often once I moved it into the garage. Now it was my place to go if I needed to think something through. There was no time in my life when that was more appropriate than it was that afternoon.

I sat in the chair, my car keys still in my hand, and lost myself in my thoughts.

22

Ally

I stood there in the courtyard for a long time, stunned by what just unfolded.

That definitely wasn’t how this was supposed to go down. When Holly told me I needed to tell Noah about the baby, obviously I knew she was right. It might not have been the first thing that popped into my head, and I might have dreaded the entire thing, but I knew telling him was the next logical step in this whole process. After all, he was a part of this too. While the bulk of the decision-making would stay with me, I had always believed that the fathers’ rights were important.

But all the logic in the world didn’t make the idea of actually having that conversation with Noah any easier. This wasn’t one of those pregnancy announcements that necessitated a long stroll through Pinterest. I didn’t need to come up with a cute scavenger hunt or put on a T-shirt with a clever phrase. There was no need for a custom-designed baby onesie.

This was all about straight-up facts and cold reality. He needed to know I was pregnant, and we needed to talk about what that meant. I knew how important that conversation was going to be. How incredibly impactful and potentially unpleasant. I wanted to take my time to decide how to approach it and when. I definitely had no intention of it being out in the open at the vineyard. And I most certainly wanted to be able to have some control over the conversation. I needed some sort of prep.

But that wasn’t an option. Everything was happening so fast, and his reaction had me feeling like I ran into a brick wall. I wasn’t expecting him to be happy or excited. I knew it was going to come as a shock, and he would probably need some time of his own to process it. But I wasn’t expecting him to just walk away. He didn’t even say anything. There was no promise of a conversation later; there was no plan to meet up for a discussion. He just stared me down, turned his back on me, and left.

I had no idea how to take that.

Was he angry? Did he not believe me? Was that just his way of reacting to news that clicked off his brain and put it back to a factory reset?

I didn’t know what he was thinking or feeling, or if this meant I was completely on my own. Maybe him turning away without saying anything was Noah’s way of disconnecting himself completely from the situation. He was sending the message that he had no intention of being a part of this and didn’t even want to acknowledge it. If he acknowledged it, then it was real. Then he had to face it and be a part of it.

There were too many thoughts, too many possibilities going through my head. The only thing I knew in that moment was that I needed to get away from the vineyard. I couldn’t face the rest of the day with Derek, and I knew I would be too distracted to get any sort of valuable work done. I couldn’t be expected to have my mind on anything else. Not right now. I thought I would be able to handle it, to swallow it down and keep it all locked up inside until I came to some sort of decision. But that was not how it had gone down.