Page 45 of The Regrettable Mistake

Despite feeling as though I needed to go drown myself in a shallow, muddy puddle, I stuck it out at the house all day to make sure anything that wasn’t purchased could be hauled away. Steph had managed the impossible, and maybe it was the one thing helped out by our very public situation, because she had been able to sell the house only two weeks into it being listed on the market.

I couldn’t believe our family home would be someone else’s. It felt wrong to be there without Steph and Denmark, but it also didn’t feel like our home anymore. It stopped feeling that way the day I found our family photos trashed all over the place. It really no longer felt that way after all of Steph’s things disappeared from the house. Then, slowly, my son’s things began to disappear too.

She had instructed Steve to leave things for my boy behind so that I would have them, but when I walked in on him boxing shit up, I told him to take it all to wherever Steph was staying. I thought she was with her brother, but I didn’t think he had the space in his condo for all their things.

I didn’t bother asking for details then because I knew he wouldn’t offer up any hint into his sister’s life as she moved on without me. I couldn’t fathom her moving on without me – not completely. She was more than half way through her pregnancy already, and I’d only seen her a few times since I found out. My hands ached to touch her growing belly, to feel him or her kick. I wanted to know if the baby was a girl or a boy. Did she know and just didn’t tell me? There were so many things I missed out on already and I knew that it was my own damn fault, but that didn’t stop my heart from aching every time I wondered if she had cravings and who delivered things to her in the middle of the night.

I thought about the first three months of her pregnancy, when we were still together, but I was never home. Did she get sick in the mornings? How did she find out she was pregnant? What in the hell had I been thinking? I should have just come clean immediately about the one-night stand with Jia, but there was the video and I wasn’t sure when my vile ex had started to record us.

It wasn’t even the sex I’d been worried about. It had been the things that were said before that, the very things that sent my wife into a tailspin when Jia sent her that video. That was why I’d gone along with the blackmail for months, why I’d spent so much time away from my family. It was because I knew exactly what I’d said, and why. I agreed with Jia that night and fed into her bullshit because I knew it would be easier. She didn’t deserve to know that my feelings for my wife had grown to something genuine or that I was sick to my stomach as I spoke about her, and the plan I originally had to keep her at arm’s length.

“Excuse me, is this for sale?” I was drawn out of my thoughts and glanced down at the woman who had spoken to me.

She held a box that I’d never noticed in our house before. I took it from her and looked inside to find all sorts of trinkets and what looked like receipts or something. I shook my head and wandered over to my Land Rover and opened the back door. There, I took a little time to go over each thing inside the box. These were Steph’s memories. Each item, every receipt or note, had been from a date we went on. There were things from family outings, and a few keepsakes that had been given as gifts over the years we had known one another.

Each one tugged at my heart because it was something I might have just tossed aside at the time, but Steph boxed it all away as if it was a sacred memory.

I glanced back up toward the mostly-empty shell of a house that remained. The box had been left there. She might have forgotten about it, but I wouldn’t. One day, I’d have to remind her about who we were as a family. I’d have to prove to her that my feelings were real.

CHAPTER 17

Steph

“You have a package.”

I glanced up at my twin as he marched up the three steps to the wraparound porch where I sat watching the grass grow. Not really, but that’s what it felt like, considering I wasn’t able to get a job until after the baby came along.

“It came to your house?” There was no reason for anything I ordered to show up at my brother’s place, since I’d purchased my own home on the outskirts of town. I only had to live with him for five weeks while all the closing stuff happened with the new house.

Mom had stayed for three weeks, which was long enough for my dad who told her to get her ass back home, even if she had to bring me with her. It was said lovingly, but they both knew that I couldn’t leave. They lived near Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Denmark was here. It was too far to go and I still didn’t have legal rights to take Denmark anywhere. Not that I would take him from his father if that ever happened.

“I’m guessing it’s something from Ollie, since it showed up at my house.”

“Then I don’t want it. You can keep it or send it back.”

“What if it’s something for the baby? Don’t you at least want to take a look?”

I glared hate-filled daggers at my brother. He knew I couldn’t resist if there was a chance it was something for the baby.

“Fine, give it here.” I held my hand out but Steve turned around and went back to his truck. “Where are you going?”

“To get your package.”

For some strange reason, the thought that Ollie was the package, and Steve had brought him here, made me giddy with excitement. It only took a couple seconds for me to tamp that down. The pregnancy hormones had been doing a number on me. I rubbed my burgeoning belly and wished, for about the millionth time, that Ollie hadn’t been a lying cheater. In all my dreams of having a family, I never envisioned having to go through my whole pregnancy without someone there to be excited for all the little milestones. He was supposed to be there to rub my swollen feet, feel the baby kick, hear the heartbeat with me, see our little one waving their hand at us in the ultrasound.

I figured he had done those things with Jia when she had been pregnant with Denmark since he was so gung-ho about the woman. Thinking about him doting on her pregnancy made me angry all over again because he had been there for none of mine so far.

“You know he’d be here, if you’d let him.” I startled, having been so lost in thought that I didn’t hear my brother approach.

“You say that every time you’re here. Why do you have to keep reminding me?”

“Because you’re miserable. He’s miserable. Mostly because you’re missing out on the things you’ve always wanted and dreamed of.”

“He took those dreams from me the day he cheated, Steve.”

“Here,” He offered and held out a tiny little box.

I giggled. “What the hell, Steve? I thought you went back to get some giant thing. You could have brought this up the first time.”

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