Page 29 of Until I Have You

“With stripes!”

I brush her nutty hair off her forehead.

She takes after me in separate ways.The same hair color.Eye color.Nose shape.Except when you put all the parts together, she favors Esme.Her mother is a beautiful woman.Of face, of course.Heart, I’m not so sure.

Sometimes, I wonder, though.How things would be.

It would have ended eventually.The marriage was destined for a divorce at some point.But so soon?So early?When Bonnie needs two parents, not one?

“Why are you frowning, Daddy?”

I let my forehead soften.“Am I frowning?”

“Yes.”Bonnie reaches up and touches my forehead, stroking it softly.“You need to go to bed.I think you’re tired.”

I smile.“I am, love.I am.”

Bonnie tugs on my shirt, pulling me into a hug.

I squeeze her back, kiss the side of her head.“Sweet dreams, Bonbon.”

“Sweet dreams, Daddy.”

After a little bit of cuddling, I turn out the lights, leave Bonnie’s door cracked just a bit, and retreat to my own room just down the hall.

If Bonnie’s room feels empty, mine feels like a void.A bed with a white duvet and a nightstand.I’m still living out of a suitcase, waiting for various pieces of furniture to be shipped.

Every movement I make seems to echo in the large room, reminding me just how alone I am.

And the floors creak.

That’s what I get for buying a practically antique co-op apartment.

It was the right size for us, though, and straight across central park from Edwin’s Upper East Side penthouse.

I already feel so alone in the world, I didn’t want to isolate myself further by annexing myself to Park Slope.

I climb into bed, turn out the lights, and do the doom scroll.I feel like I’m too old for such a term or such a practice, but not even I am immune to the smart phone addiction.

Tonight, though, it is worse than a doom scroll.It is a complete and utter K.O.Because, despite my adamance of not wanting any information about my ex or my traitorous brother, I’ve been sent an article from someone who used to work at Wallington before we folded, our former chief marketing officer, Archie.

I can’t tell if this is a passive aggressive maneuver or an aggressive aggressive one because Archie’s only sent the link without any sort of lead up or comment afterward.

Archie and I still talk, but I think he’s still embittered about how everything went down.Which I suppose is why he’s just sent me an article from some sort of lifestyle website detailing the wedding between my ex-wife and my twin brother.

The article opens with a picture of the disastrous couple in front of a dripping sunset.Thank god my brother and I aren’t identical, or else this might push me to a psychotic break.

But he’s my brother.And he’s got my ex-wife, a woman I loved for far too long, wrapped up in his arms.

She’s got an expression of abject bliss on her face.Not sure why when my brother’s fortune is made up of loans and broken promises, but whatever helps her sleep at night I suppose.

“A Match Made in Wallington,” the headline reads.

“Stupid headline,” I grumble to myself.

And to hurt my own feelings, I go through the whole bloody article.I readevery.Single.Word.

Apparently, they married in Ibiza with three hundred of their closest friends and the dress was designed by Vera fucking Wang and the reception closed out with a million-dollar fireworks display.

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