Page 20 of With You

“That’s not at all what this is, and you know it.” My voice is low but stern as I continue. “But this is exactly my point. There’s nothing about the mere mention of her that doesn’t bring you anguish, and I think it’s okay for me not to want that for you and our daughter.”

“You still should’ve told me,” he says, his jaw clenched.

I know he’s right, but my instinct to protect our family only has me seeing red. I know there is a middle ground, I know there is a space for us to talk about this rationally, but I’m not the same person I was the last time we spoke to Elaine. I’m not the same person I was when we got married. I am both of those men and so much more.

I’m full, with more love and more loyalty, and there is no way this woman is getting to them without going through me. If that means fighting with Deacon to protect them both, then I’ll do it. In every lifetime they will come first, and I know despite his confusion and anger, he knows that.

He knowsme.

A small, melodic sounding whine leaves Reese’s mouth, interrupting us and effectively putting our conversation on pause.

“I’ll get her a bottle,” I tell Deacon as I rise up off the couch.

With the bottle already prepared and in the fridge, it only takes me a few minutes to heat it up and check the temperature on the inside of my wrist. When it’s ready for Reese to eat, I stride back into the living room, the sight of Deacon smiling playfully at our daughter as he changes her diaper, stopping me in my tracks.

This is what I want to keep, selfish or not. I want to live in this bubble with him and her and have nothing else taint that. My eyes land on the uneaten sandwiches, and I tell myself this can wait.

Elaine Sutton can fucking wait.

Handing Deacon the bottle, I gesture to our food. “Can we at least eat lunch first and finish this conversation later? I don’t want it to go to waste.”

Seeming a little bit calmer, he nods, and I take it as my cue to head back into the kitchen and grab us both a soda. Sitting side by side, I eat my sandwich first while he feeds Reese. Besidesher cute little suckling sounds, we sit in complete silence. It’s not awkward or tense, but it’s that moment of quiet that speaks the loudest. Our anger and hostility isn’t at one another, it’s at finding ourselves in another impossible situation, all these years later, at the hands of Deacon’s mother.

It takes about the same time for me to finish my sub as it does for Reese to finish her bottle.

“Let me burp her,” I offer. “And you can eat.”

When he hands me Reese, I put her over my shoulder and begin rubbing circles in the center of her back while Deacon takes his turn to have lunch. Just as we settle back into the silence, a loud belch breaks through the invisible, mesh-like wall between us, making us lock eyes and laugh.

“Are we okay?”

Reaching for me, he skates his fingers down the length of my jaw.

“I love you,” he says, and the anxiety in my chest loosens ever so slightly. “We’re always going to be okay,” he assures me. “Nobody gets to rock our boat. Nobody gets to have that power over us.”

Especially not her.

Leaning into his touch, I hear what he doesn’t say, and wholeheartedly agree. “I should’ve told you about it,” I admit. “I just don’t know what this means for us, and I was scared.”

When Deacon remains silent, I push and try to bring up something he said earlier. “You mentioned wanting to speak to her again. Does that still stand?”

Blowing out a long breath, he bends over and places his empty plate on the coffee table. He delays the conversation by reaching for his soda, and I watch him take small sips and stare into the empty space directly in front of him.

Giving him the time he so obviously needs, I mosey through the usual steps after a feed, checking Reese’s diaper and thenputting her down on her play mat. Instead of sitting beside her and reading to her or playing with her, I decide that she’ll be okay while I wait for Deacon to tell me what’s going on in that head of his.

“Daddy will be back,” I say to Reese as I kiss her on the forehead.

Content with the way she’s waving her arms and her legs, I head back over to Deacon and try to get to the bottom of what we’re both feeling. Squeezing between the table and the couch, I kneel in front of him and intertwine my fingers with his. I bring them to my lips, kissing each of his knuckles. “Talk to me.”

For the first time since he saw his mother’s name on my cell phone screen, it feels like the fog hanging over him might have finally lifted.

“Tell me,” I urge. “Where do we go from here?”

I catch him glancing at Reese before darting his gaze back to mine, that paternal instinct now ingrained in every moment.

“I think of how much I love her.” He pauses, his throat bobbing, and I watch the struggle of what he wants to say next play out on his face. “And how much it wouldkillme if I existed in a world where she did not.

“And I have to give credit where credit is due, because how my mother lived through it is beyond me. But…” He closes his eyes and shakes his head vehemently, almost like he’s trying to rid himself of something. “But then I think of how much I love that little girl and how I would rather die than make her feel a sliver of the way my mother made me feel.”

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