My Better Life

Jamie, the boys, all of them really love to pay people back for their wrongs. That’s all this was.

I duck my head to slide into the car when Shay throws herself against my legs and wraps her arms around me.

“You can’t go.” Her cheeks are bright red and her eyes are glassy.

I shake my head and try to force myself to remember that whatever I felt for her wasn’t real. “Let go, Shay.”

She grasps my legs harder. “No. You promised. You promised you wouldn’t leave. I said some dads leave and you said you never would. You promised.”

My eyes burn hot and I clench my jaw. “Shay, let go.”

“No. I won’t. You promised.”

I can’t look at Shay. A promise isn’t a promise if you don’t know who you are. Isn’t that right? I finally look at Jamie, and I can’t reconcile the woman I thought was my wife with the woman that made me the wave sculpture. I promised her I’d love her, that I’d never leave.

She bends down, crouches next to Shay and carefully pulls her arms from my legs.

“Come on, Shay. He has to go. You knew it wasn’t forever, remember? You knew eventually he’d have to go.”

Jamie’s head tilts away from me, so I can’t see her expression. Even so, she sounds wrecked. I harden myself against her.

Shay’s hands slide from my legs. She buries her face into Jamie’s shoulder. “But I made sure. I made him promise. I couldn’t make Daddy promise, but I made him.”

Jamie shakes her head, still not looking at me. “It doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”

She’s right.

It is.

While Jamie pulls Shay into her arms, I climb into the car and shut the door. Will and Jessie climb in the front.

Will quirks an eyebrow at me and I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Jessie frowns, points at Jamie then at me, then back at Jamie.

“I’m not talking about it. Let’s go. Get me off this godforsaken mountain.”

Will shrugs. “If that’s what you want.”

He puts the car in reverse and backs out. That’s when Tanner and Elijah realize that I’m really leaving. As Will pulls down the drive they sprint after me. For a moment, they’re able to keep pace, and I think they’re trying to stop me from leaving.

We had a lot to do. There’s the camping trip. The contraptions we were going to build. The treehouse Elijah and I were going to make together. I was going to help Tanner study for his math test coming next week.

I don’t look. I can’t look.

Will keeps driving and eventually they can’t keep up.

In the rearview mirror, I can see the boys falling back, Jamie standing in the drive, Shay in her arms, watching me go, then all of them disappear when we round the bend.

Somehow it feels like leaving them behind is the same as leaving myself behind.

“You alright?” Will frowns at me in the mirror.

I shake my head. “No.”

And that, I think, is all there is to be said. I thought this was the happiest day of my life. In reality, it was the worst.