Page 26 of Perfect Imperfections

Maybe not everything her heart desired. Ellie knew no one’s life was perfect, no matter how it looked from the outside.

“Ellie?” Charlotte asked sleepily as she brought the covers up in the white princess bed and tucked them around the child.

“Yes?”

“Do you want to come to my birthday party next week?”

She glanced at Sullivan, who simply smiled, nodding his head.

“Sure, sweetie. I’d love to.”

“Yay...”

The word trailed off into soft little snores. Ellie knelt there next to the bed, gazing at the sweet sleeping girl who truly looked like the angel her father so often called her. Sullivan leaned over to place a kiss on his daughter’s head. He rose and held out a hand to her. She placed her palm against his and was stunned by the shock that ran down her arm. Not an electric shock, like from static electricity, but a shock of awareness. One that went straight to all her core, awakening something inside her she’d never felt before.

The moment they were out of the room, Ellie dropped her hand. Sullivan glanced down but said nothing. Instead, he put a finger over his lips then indicated with a nod of his head they should head back downstairs.

“Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?”

More caffeine was definitely not what her nerves needed right now, but for some strange reason, she was hesitant to leave. “Tea sounds lovely.”

“Come on. I have a whole stash. You can take your pick.”

They headed back down to the kitchen, where Ellie realized he wasn’t kidding. Sullivan had every type of tea under the sun. With all the weirdness going on in her body right now, she settled on a nice, calming cup of chamomile. While waiting for the water to boil, she tried to fill the silence with something. She didn’t do silence well.

“So, what happened to Charlotte’s mother?” Crap! She didn’t do talking well either. Why the hell had that come out of her mouth?

Because you’re starting to care about these two and you want to know more about them.

Sullivan paused in his reach for a mug.

“I’m sorry. That was rude of me. You don’t have to answer.”

He let out a weary sigh, grabbing two mugs and turning to face her. “No. It’s fine. My ex-wife…she had some problems. We met in college, and I think she liked the idea of me being a doctor, but when I started my residency and my shifts at the hospital, she realized the life of a doctor’s wife wasn’t all prestige and yachts.”

Wait, he had a yacht? She’d never even been on a rowboat.

“I was away a lot in the beginning of our marriage. Long shifts, late nights, emergency calls. We drifted apart. I thought having Charlotte would bring us back together, but after her birth…”

Sullivan’s grip on the mugs tightened. Pain radiated off him, so potent she couldn’t help herself. Ellie hurried over to his side, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. He didn’t look at her, but she felt some of the tension leave his body.

“She didn’t seem to enjoy being a mother. I thought perhaps it was postpartum depression, but she never talked about it. I was so busy, so wrapped up in my own things, I didn’t push. At that point, our marriage…well, she didn’t seem to enjoy being a wife either. I thought if I was patient, she’d come around.”

“But she didn’t?” Ellie asked when he didn’t continue.

“No. She left. Packed up one day while I was on shift, dropped Charlotte off with my brother, and left town. I got the divorce papers in the mail two months later, complete with the paperwork to sever her parental rights to Charlotte.”

Whoa. She knew people got divorced for various reasons, but it was rare for a parent to give up rights to their own children. She wondered what the woman could have been going through to abandon her baby like that. Her heart ached for all of them. There was no winner here, no happy ending. Everyone had suffered.

“I’m so sorry, Sullivan.”

The water in the electric kettle clicked. Sullivan moved to pour the boiling liquid in the mugs, dumping the tea bags in the steaming water.

“She made her choice.”

He sighed. A heavy sound Elli could practically feel weigh down the air in the room.

“Thankfully, my brother stepped up helping with Charlotte until I could figure things out.”

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