The Good Father

Today’s response was completely expected. Normal. For present day.

But he’d asked for this time. This walk. Not talking wasn’t fair to her.

“So what’s up?” she asked when, in the past, she’d have remained silent in an effort to give him whatever it was he needed.

“The plan.”

“What plan?” She knew the ocean was there, off to her left. Was aware that there were people around them. But Brett, his steps, his breathing, his scent, was her only focus.

Just like always.

“You asked for my help.”

“I know. And I’m incredibly grateful that you’re being so good about it. Thank you, Brett. I was...nervous about asking you...”

“Nervous? Why?”

She shrugged, instantly uncomfortable. A simple thank-you. That was all that had been called for. It hadn’t been meant to turn personal.

But she wasn’t going to subjugate herself to his needs anymore. They weren’t a couple, and she had no reason to hide.

“I was afraid you’d be angry.”

“Angry at you? For asking for my help?”

His surprise astounded her. “Pretty much everything I did in the last months of our marriage pissed you off,” she reminded him with a half chuckle. They said that when you got to the point that you could laugh about things, they no longer had the power to hurt you.

They were wrong.

“You almost never pissed me off, Ella.” His tone was stern. As though if he spoke firmly enough, he could make what he said true.

His memory was skewed, but correcting him wasn’t worth dredging up old pains.

“I was tense with you, I know that. But it wasn’t because of anything you did. It was all me. I should never have let myself believe that I could live a normal life as though my childhood hadn’t happened.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. Afraid.

“Why?” she asked, understanding neither his sudden openness, nor her fear.

“Because I knew I couldn’t be the husband you needed me to be. The husband you deserved. And then, when the baby was there, a part of you, but coming from me...I realized what I was doing to him. Or risking doing to him...”

“Maybe you should have spent less time judging yourself and trusting me to be the judge of what I needed.” She didn’t mention the baby.

His rejection of their child, after all those years of trying, had been her breaking point.

“You deny that you were hurt by my...reticence?”

She supposed, if they were going to work together to help Jeff and Chloe, they had to do this. Now that enough time had passed and they could discuss things rationally. Without letting emotion get in the way. Because the heat between them was long gone.

“I don’t deny that.”

They walked. Passed people along the way. She couldn’t have identified a single one of them.

“You needed something from me emotionally that I don’t have in me to give.”

“You had it when we met in college. And during the first few years of our marriage. Through all of the disappointments...”

Those first few times they’d tried to get pregnant and hadn’t been able to.