Page 73 of Dream with Me

“Hey, no. Don’t do that. Don’t feel bad. It’s on me that I wasn’t more open with you about the effect my dad leaving had on me. Or that I was having trouble struggling to focus sometimes when we talked. But that’s all okay because now we’ve talked about it, and we can work through all of our challenges together.” A look of pain flashes across his face, and his gaze turns downward before he looks back up at me. “I’m ashamed to admit that I thought you were depressed, and I didn’t know what to do about it. How to help. But my inaction not only didn’t help, I also think it hurt you. I saw you but didn’t take care of you. I promise you I’ll not let that happen again. And I’ll never let you forget how amazing you are. I’ll remind you when you have trouble remembering.”

I lean in and kiss him, lingering at his lips longer than usual. When we break apart, our foreheads rest against one another’s. I whisper, “I want to cancel our court date. Undo the separation and stop the petition for divorce. However that’s done.”

“A-are you sure? I don’t want you to feel pressured. We can ask for another delay if you’d rather do that.”

It occurs to me then that I could be wrong about what Troy wants. Maybehe’snot sure. “Is that what you want? A delay?” I ask, my voice trembling.

Troy’s hands immediately cup my face, and he leans away from me. Then he pierces me with the most intense gaze I’ve seen in a long time. “Absolutely not. I want to burn every piece of paper in existence that mentions us not staying together. This—you and me—is what I’vealwayswanted, Shannon. Just you, me, and our kids together for the rest of our lives. We can have all of our dreams. We’ll figure out how to make that happen... together.”

“Does this mean you’ll come home now?”

Something in his eyes changes. A flash of regret, maybe. “This will be the hardest thing I ever say, but no. No, I’m not coming home. Not yet.”

CHAPTER38

SHANNON

The drive back to Elladine was slightly tenuous in some spots where the snow hadn’t been cleared well, but overall, it was much less harrowing than driving in it yesterday.

Troy and I spent the entire drive home on the phone. When he told me he wasn’t coming home, I was immediately filled with hurt and embarrassment. I desperately tried to scramble off his lap, but he held me there long enough to explain his reasoning. It makes sense that we should pace this in a way that gives us the most chance of success, especially considering we don’t want to confuse our children more.

Troy asked me if we could work on a plan to integrate him back into the home when we’re ready. We decided to see if Dr. Linden would take us on for couples counseling and help us navigate transitioning Troy back home.

That’s not all we talked about, though. The drive provided us with an opportunity to say things we needed to say without the intensity of being face-to-face after such an emotional twenty-four hours. Troy told me about his counseling and about how overhearing his dad that day not only made him change how he communicated with people over time but resulted in a deep-rooted fear that people he loved would leave him because of something he did. My heart ached when he told me this. I never had any idea that he was afraid I would leave him. It’s not something he dwelt on, but he said he never felt a complete sense of being safe and secure. Deep down he worried that he would drive me away with something he did. When we separated, it reinforced that mindset, giving it some backbone, and strengthened those fears.

Troy worked on that with his counselor, but he also worked on his communication quite a bit. I cried in the car as I listened to him tell me about how he wasn’t willing to give up hope that we could find ourselves again, how he asked the counselor to help him learn to communicate more openly but also to listen and tune out the extraneous things around him that make it hard for him to focus because of his ADHD. That’s what was happening that day at the restaurant when I saw him with her. They picked a busy time with lots of people around to practice how to have a conversation in that setting and let him use some of the listening skills he’s been working on. But all I saw was a gorgeous woman smiling at my husband and him smiling back.

Right after that lunch yesterday, Troy called Doug’s partner, Annette, and found out that Doug was near the end of his life. That set in motion all the events that happened yesterday.

It’s unusually quiet when I walk into the house with the kids gone and Scrappy at Shayna and Finn’s. I put down my bags, start a pot of coffee, and head upstairs to change into more comfortable clothes. When I get back down to the kitchen, I reach into the cupboard and pull down the special mugs Troy and I only use when we meet for drinks. The coffee still has a couple of minutes, so I place one mug on the counter and hold the other in my hand. I rub my thumb along the smooth surface, admiring the beautiful cobalt blue glaze. I smile when I turn to look at the bottom. “STW” is carved into it: each of our first initials and our last name. We made it identical on the bottom of both cups because we wanted us both to drink out of either, saying something cheesy about how we didn’t need to have assigned cups since we’d be sharing everything from then on.

Back then, as newlyweds, we didn’t have much extra money, but that pottery class ended up being so much fun. Making these cups we’ve used all these years was one of the best things about our honeymoon. Over the years, we’ve used them for everything from coffee to orange juice to wine. Anything we drank on our drink dates, we drank out of these.

When the coffeemaker dings behind me, I place the cup back on the kitchen island and turn to grab the pot of coffee. As I do, my elbow hits the mug, and it flies off the island. The cracking sound when it hits the tile floor stabs me right in the chest. Forgetting everything else, I take a few steps to where the cup landed, and I stare at it lying in scattered, broken pieces on our kitchen floor. I kneel down and pick up a piece as tears once again fall from my eyes. I swear I’ve never cried more in a twenty-four-hour period than I have this weekend.

I know it’s just a mug, but it represented such an important part of our marriage and now it’s ruined. I can’t bring myself to do anything but cry and stare at the broken pieces.

A minute or two later, I hear noise, and then Troy’s voice calls out, “I smell the coffee, thank God. Oh, Shannon?—”

I look up at Troy, and he stares down at the broken mug. Our fifteen-year-old broken mug. He kneels next to me and pulls me over to him, kissing me on the top of my head. “It’s okay. The mug meant something to us, but what’s important isus. It’s okay. Look at me.”

I turn my tear-stained face to his, and his thumb wipes away my tears.

“I-I hit it with my elbow when I turned to get the coffee pot. I broke our mug. I broke our mug for meeting for drinks. What if that’s a sign? What if I’m going to mess us all up again?”

Troy repositions himself so he’s fully seated on the floor and pulls me onto his lap, holding me in his arms.

“No, babe. It’s a mug. Yes, we loved it, but it’s just a mug. We’re not going to mess this up. We’re going to figure out a plan to put us all back together, and we’re going to do it together. We’ll be stronger because of it. We’ll help each other with the things that we struggle with so we can each grow. It’s only a mug, babe.” He holds me for a couple more minutes, and then when we get up, I walk over and grab the broom and dustpan before crossing to the pile of brokenness.

“Go ahead and pull down a different mug for me. You use our other mug. How about you make our coffee, and I’ll clean this up?” I nod at him and hand him the broom and dustpan.

A few minutes later, we’re sitting at the kitchen table, and Troy teases me, “You know we could share one mug for coffee if you didn’t drink yours so sugary sweet.”

“Well, yours tastes like ashes, and I can’t drink that,” I tell him. I smile over at him and reach across to take his hand that’s resting on the table. Troy lifts his mug with his other hand in prep for our toast.

“All right, Shannon, this is the first of our new drink dates. I vote we stay with the same toast, okay?”

“Of course. It’s a perfect toast.”

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