Page 5 of Kiss From A Rose

"You need to buy a new car, Mama. This is a piece of shit," Jude had said more than once.

"It's fine for me," I told him.

I'd heard him snicker with his sister behind my back. "Old and beaten. It probablyisfine for her."

How had I gone so wrong with my babies? Why had I not raised them better—so they'd respect their mother like they respected their father?

"They learn to treat you based on how your husband does," my therapist had told me.

Oh yeah, I started seeing Dr. Mercer a year ago, after waking up one morning and wishing I never would again. I had started to look longingly at the Ambien that my primary doctor had prescribed when I told him I was having trouble sleeping. Whenever I drove, I wondered why I couldn't be in an accident like the ones I saw where it was clear that someone died. Why couldn't I take Malou's cancer so she could live because I didn't really want to anymore? One day, I counted fifteen pills of Ambien, put them in front of me next to a glass of water, and contemplated taking them. I didn't ultimately, but that's when I knew that things had gotten out of hand.

My therapist told me I was depressed. I was prescribed anti-depressants, which I took stealthily, which wasn't hard to do when I all but lived alone.

The medication had helped stabilize me and given me clarity to reach this life-changing decision: to end my previous life and embark on a new one, one that wasfor me, where I wasn't always doing something for someone else. I would be able to and intended to do whatever mademehappy. I'd be independent and live the best life I could.

I'd run my friend Malou's Angel's Rest Bed & Breakfast on Angel Island, one of the Golden Isles of Georgia's barrier islands. It was a small community—only around five hundred people in the off-season, providing plenty of peace and quiet. During peak season, though, tourists flocked to Angel's Rest, tucked near the stunning Driftwood Beach, one of the island's true gems.

I'd tried to bring Gray along the times I'd gone to be with my friend when she was battling cancer.

"Come with me, Gray. It's beautiful there." I stood outside his study because I knew he disliked being disturbed while he worked.

Gray didn't even look up from his computer. "I told you already, babe, I can't get away. You go and have a good time."

Good time? I was going to watch my friend get chemo. I wanted to tell him that I needed him because it was hard to see my only friend in the entire world wither away. But Gray had never liked Malou. No, that was wrong. He had never bothered to even get to know her. I doubted he had her phone number or even knew the name of her bed-and-breakfast. I doubted he knew the town she lived in, where I'd live now, except that it was on a beach.

In any case, I wasn't expecting him to chase me. Maybe that's why I'd left him with no way to contact me. This way, I wouldn't feel bad when he didn't reach out. Now, I could pretend he wanted to, but I left him no choice.

I listened to my favorite playlist on Spotify and sighed. I'd have to get my own subscription to Spotify soon. I'd have to get everything on my own. I didn't want Gray to feel like I'd taken anything from him and his family. His mother had been explicit about that while she trained me to be the best wife I could bedespite my unfortunate roots and circumstances. And let's face it, my circumstances had not been great. I grew up in a trailer park with an alcoholic mother. My father hadlong left. I'd promised myself that I'd work hard at school, first attend community college and then university. I'd be the first in my family to get a degree and a job like the women I saw on television. I'd wear a suit. Cut my hair into a sleek bob. Be independent.

I'd never thought I'd get married at the age of eighteen because I was knocked up. I hadn't been careless. No, sir. It may have been my first time, but I'd insisted Gray wear a condom, which he always had, except that one time when we snuck into the woods. And God knew that was all it took to get pregnant.

Gray hadn't been happy.

"I don't understand why you're not on birth control pills like every normal girl your age."

"I just started taking them, Gray, and the lady at Planned Parenthood said it takes a month for them to start working properly," I apologized like it was my fault, like he hadn't been the one who'd left me unprotected.

Gray had looked like he'd been given a death sentence. His first reaction was to leave me, but then he came back and said the magic words,"We'll get married."

I was so happy and relieved. I had been ready to go it alone and would have found a way if Gray wanted nothing to do with us. But he had done the right thing. He always did the right thing.

His parents had not been happy. His brother hated me on sight. His brother's girlfriend, now wife, had called me a gold digger. I'd borne it all because I was eighteen years old, pregnant, scared, andmadly in love.

I became the best Mrs. Gray Rutherford that I could.

Gray had become the best father anyone could ever ask for.

He loved the twins, but I wondered if maybe he'd never forgiven me for getting pregnant, taking his choices away.

"It's what it is, Rose," he snapped when I asked him about it on our tenth wedding anniversary when I got a babysitter andplanned a romantic evening in a fancy restaurant and a night at the St. Regis.

"Are you happy with me, Gray?"

Something had flickered in his eyes—something unpleasant when he replied, "As happy as possible."

I didn't know what that meant, but I worried that it meant he was unhappy. I never brought it up again. He never explained himself, either. Instead, I applied myself to becoming an even better wife to make him happy.

Well, Rose May, that wasn't how it worked out, did it?

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