Page 96 of The Trouble with Wanting

I hear a knock at the door and drop my phone to the cushion, crossing the small space and yanking the door open with a smile.

A smile that falls when I see Ken standing on the other side.

I can’t imagine what he could possibly want from me, not after he brought me here and allowed me to get chewed up and spat out by his wife, not when he threw a wrench into my carefully crafted picture of the world I grew up in—one where my father left behind me and my mother, not one where my mother is a homewrecker who lied to me about what things with Ken actually looked like.

That thought physically hurts as it rushes through my mind, but I push it aside, unwilling to dissect it in this moment when I’m standing in front of the one man who seems to be responsible for all the bullshit.

“What do you want?” I ask, crossing my arms and giving him the unhappiest expression I have.

He puts both hands up, as if to promise he means no harm. It makes me want to laugh. All he’s ever done is harm me, even with his inaction.

“I just want to talk,” he says.

“You had your chance when I came over for dinner,” I say, the residual anger coming back into my body in a tsunami. “Why should I talk to you now?”

He drops his hands and his shoulders, looking every bit the wounded man when he says, “At the very least, because I have answers for the questions you probably have, but also because I know I messed up, and I’m here to see how I can fix it.”

It feels too easy, too transparent.

But this new Ruby who’s giving people trust isn’t able to give Ken the narrow-eyed inspection without seeing how serious he looks.

So I let out a sigh and stand back, waving him in. He takes a minute or two to look around, his eyes examining the space the same way I took in his home when I was in it.

That’s when I realize something.

He’s nervous.

He’s as nervous right now, standing in front of me, as I was standing in that massive living room looking at his family picture. Maybe he was even nervous then, too.

As much as I want to say something bitchy like You don’t get to be nervous when you’re supposed to be the adult, it feels incredibly hypocritical to even think it.

Yes, Ken should have done a lot of things different.

Yes, Ken is one of the parties responsible for the shitty circumstances of my life.

And yes, Ken can be blamed for a lot of the bullshit I’ve dealt with, both from him and from Linda.

But it doesn’t feel fair to place the blame solely at his feet.

Even though I don’t have the mental capacity to examine how I feel about my mother lying to me right now, I know she and I will be having a long and probably painful conversation when I get home.

The reality is that Ken is a human, too, an imperfect one who has fucked up a lot when it comes to me, and he should take responsibility for that.

But he isn’t an evil person.

He’s just a man.

A fallible one, but a man all the same.

So instead of ripping into him with how I’m feeling about what happened at his house, I ask if he’d like a glass of water, which he declines. Then the two of us take a seat, me returning to the loveseat and Ken perching on the edge of an older recliner that’s seen better days.

If either of us are going to get anywhere, I can give him one last chance to say whatever he thinks will make a difference. I can at least give him that if he’s making the effort.

“I want to start off with an apology—with multiple apologies. I’m sorry for not being here when you got here and for not fully sorting things out with Linda before you arrived. I’m sorry for not being completely honest with you about…anything.”

Ken scratches the back of his neck then the front before leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees.

“And I’m sorry for not being there for you. I’m sure you can understand why, what with the way things were between me and your mother, and between me and Linda. My relationship with Michelle was a mistake, one that hurt many people, and you were an unintended casualty.”

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