Page 78 of His Bittersweet Regret

“Well, she basically bullied and assaulted our son. Did you hear her telling him to stop whining about it? I almost jabbed her with that needle and asked how it felt.”

Marsh laughed and then slipped his fingers free of my waist and down into my hand. He then guided me out of our son’s nursery and back to the living room so we wouldn’t wake Austin with our spirited debate over wanting to hurt the nurse who so callously hurt our son.

“Seriously, I get that it was her job, and he needed it to protect him from something worse, but I’ve never been so angry with someone, so quickly, in all my life.”

“No, I get it. I was right there with you. He’s still so tiny. It’s not okay that we’re expected to just sit through someone poking him like that.”

“It wasn’t that bad the first time,” I admitted. “I’m not sure if it was because he was younger or what, but the last time he needed shots, there were only a couple of tears and a bottle right after worked to calm him immediately.”

Marsh grew serious then. “I don’t want to miss those things, Opal. I already missed so much with your pregnancy. There’s a part of me that absolutely hates my brother because he got to be there to find out that I was having a son before I even knew you were pregnant.” He held up his hand, to stifle any reaction I might have.

“I’m not blaming you for that. I know that falls on the twins and what they did. You thought I knew and didn’t care. Not going to lie, the fact that you thought I would ever react that way about my own child angers me a bit.”

“Put yourself in my shoes, Marsh. You didn’t even talk to me about our relationship, problems you thought we were having, what was going on with your parents. Nothing. I just came home to find the apartment cleaned out and you telling me that we were separating for six months, so that you could date other people. None of that sounded like the man I thought was going to propose to me. I was completely blindsided and questioned everything after that.”

Marsh took a deep breath and then let it out at length before responding. “I know. I’m sorry. No matter what, everything that happened is on me. Opal, you didn’t do a damn thing wrong. There was never anything wrong with our relationship, except that maybe we’d grown a little stagnant in our interactions. That is on me. We both got busy being adults and I think it was a bit of a rough adjustment for me to go from our teen years, and even our college years, where we went out and had fun and explored new things. Instead, we were both working a lot and bringing work home as well.”

I nodded because I understood. Where he was missing the action of all our dates, I only missed the closeness we once had before we sat around working until we were too tired for conversation with one another. He missed the excitement. I missed the intimacy. Somewhere in the middle, we simply didn’t think to communicate about what we were each missing in our relationship. Why would we? It was a first for us, and neither of us understood how to handle it.

“We should have talked more,” I mumbled.

“Everything seems easier in hindsight.”

I chuckled. “That’s the truth.”

“Moving forward, I want us to be able to communicate more effectively. If something’s going on with Austin, I want to know. I’d tell you if he was here with me and needed to go get shots or had a diaper rash, or a snotty nose.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Truthfully, I’ve been on autopilot a lot lately, especially with work about to start and being stressed about what to do with Austin.”

“We talked about that, but I wish you would have mentioned it sooner. It’s not something you should worry about alone. I’m not some deadbeat dad who just left you swinging in the wind.”

I was saved from further chastising by the doorbell. Marsh got up to go get the food he’d ordered while I thought things out. If only we’d talked like this sooner, maybe… No. I had to stop living in the past and thinking about scenarios that never happened. It wasn’t healthy.

“Food’s here,” Marsh declared as he brought the bag full of containers to the kitchen table. I joined him before realizing there were no drinks.

“I’ll grab some water. Do you want some too, or something else?”

“I’ll take water too. There’s filtered in the fridge.”

“I remember.” Once we were settled, and had our food laid out before us, curiosity finally got the better of me. “Are you still working?”

“Of course. What made you ask that?”

I shrugged. “You said you got some money and no matter what’s happening, you seem to be able to take time off work.”

“I can take time off because my boss understands the situation I’m in right now. He’s a single parent, and respects the fact that I share custody with you, so when I say something came up with Austin, he’s pretty good about sending me on my way. I make it up to him by working different hours when necessary, and when you have our son.”

“I see.”

“What about you?”

“You already know. I had the summer off, for obvious reasons, but I need to go back, now that the school year is in full gear, and my maternity time has run out.”

“I meant that we always discussed you staying home for the first few years once we had kids. How do you feel about the change?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, Marsh, what can I say about that? In a perfect world, that’s what I wanted to do so that our children would have one hundred percent of my focus instead of splitting it with a career. I’m not in a position to be able to do that now, so I’ve had to adapt. At least, I’m trying to. It’s going to be hard to leave my boy with a stranger – whether at a daycare or with a nanny – no doubt about it. But that is the hand I was dealt.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said quietly.

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