Page 50 of His Bittersweet Regret

“I don’t think she had time to be surprised since her Uber driver, who happens to be friends with Jimmy, asked her out on a date.”

Ryker couldn’t hold back his laughter, even as our mother smacked him in the back of the head. It was mostly a playful slap.

“What? It’s not like he didn’t deserve to see her with someone else after what she had to witness him doing while she was alone, heartbroken, and pregnant with his kid.”

“Thanks for summing up just how stupid I’ve been, Ry.”

“You’re welcome,” he tossed back.

“Anyway,” I continued. “After that, I had to wait in the waiting room while Opal did a bunch of things and got into one of those paper-thin gown thingies.”

“Of course, you did.”

“I got her pregnant. I’ve obviously seen her naked before.”

“That was before,” my mother said as she waved off my observations.

“That’s what she said.” Again, Ry thought my statement was hilarious for his own juvenile reasons.

“Mom, we need to be prepared, because the doctor said Opal is already dilated to three centimeters and she can basically go into labor any time.”

“Oh, she’s a bit early.”

“He didn’t seem too concerned. Said she’s in range at almost thirty-seven weeks.”

My mom did some kind of calculation in her head, or at least that’s what it looked like. “I suppose the doctor is right about that. I had the twins at thirty-five weeks and they only spent two days in the NICU.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t use the twins as an example of perfect health,” I muttered.

“Oh hush. Your brothers might have led you down the wrong path, but you followed them, and you were born at forty-two weeks.” She gave me the look she always did that said she still wasn’t over the fact that I was too stubborn to come out on my due date.

“Mom, why did you hang those pictures at the house?”

My mom beamed such a beautiful smile at me that I couldn’t really be mad at her. I knew she had the best of intentions. Plus, she couldn’t possibly know that my moronic behavior far exceeded what any of us previously thought.

“Oh! You took her to the house? How does she like it? Is she settling in? Wait! What on earth are you doing here? You said she could go into labor at any moment. You should be there with her, just in case.”

“Mom, take a breath,” Ryker admonished. “It doesn’t seem as though it went that well.”

For the first time in months, I think my brother actually felt bad for me and the situation I’d gotten myself into.

“What happened?” My mother asked as she quickly wiped her hands on a towel before coming to wrap her arms around me. That was when I broke, and for the second time, I fucking lost control of my emotions and sobbed into my mother’s hair.

“Oh! My baby.” Mom cooed as she rubbed her hands up and down my back in an effort to comfort me. “What happened?”

“She wasn’t too keen on seeing the house to begin with. Refused to even acknowledge that I got it for her, but when we went inside and she saw the picture hanging there, she lost it on me.”

“Why?”

I told them about how I took all the pictures and anything that wasn’t bolted down or furniture that had a memory attached.

“Oh, Marshall, if I had known…” my mom started to say, but couldn’t finish her thought because my brother broke in with his.

“That was cruel,” Ryker added.

“I didn’t do it on purpose. It never even… I didn’t realize… Fuck! How did I go from living a happy life with her to this?”

No one bothered to answer because they didn’t have to. We all knew how everything went down. We sat there silently staring at nothing until the timer on the oven beeped.

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