Page 18 of Wanting Happily Ever After

She looked so sad and broken in that moment, but Brody had the instinct not to touch her. Whatever it was that she was saying to him was taking her a lot of courage. She needed to stand on her own. It took her a moment, but Sarah finally spoke.

“He had no intention to go swimming that day. It was too cold.” She shook her head. “It was only June. The ice was barely even off the water. In fact, we were only at the lake because I’d suggested going for a picnic. I needed to get out of town and have a change of scenery. I was hoping that it would…” Her fingers floated to her lips and she squeezed her eyes shut for a second before opening them again. “I was hoping that what I had to tell him would be easier if we weren’t at home.” She shook her head. “I was wrong. Maybe it was even harder. And then…”

“Hey.” He reached out then and took her hand. “Whatever it was you had to say to him, it wasn’t your fault. What happened to Josh, it was an accident, Sarah. You know that.”

“No.” She took a breath. “He was upset. He ran off before I could stop him and then…the next thing I knew, he was in the lake. He was swimming and swimming. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t a strong swimmer,” she continued. “Because he was. He was a great swimmer. But the water was cold and he just kept going. The investigators think that maybe he went out too far and couldn’t get back, or maybe it was a cramp because of the water temperature.” She took a deep breath. “But I’m not sure they’re right.”

“What are you saying?”

She looked him straight in the eyes, and he could see how much it was costing her to tell him what had obviously been weighing on her for so long. “I can’t be sure if he meant to come back or not.”

He absorbed what she’d just said. “Do you think maybe he…”

“Kept swimming on purpose.” She answered his unfinished question and nodded slightly. “I’ve always wondered. And I just can’t be sure.”

Brody looked at her and for the first time saw the toll that her past had taken on her. She looked exhausted, as if she were only being held up by sheer will. She was too special, too kind and loving and giving to have to concern herself with such thoughts. He couldn’t even imagine her back then. A young woman, only barely married and with a new baby in her arms, she had her whole life ahead of her. She should never have had to think for one second that her husband might have killed himself. Because of something she had said.

“Sarah,” his voice was soft and he squeezed her hand to give her strength, “I can’t imagine anything you could have said would have driven him to hurt himself or to intentionally put himself in danger. It just doesn’t—”

“I told him I wanted a divorce.”

Silence filled the space around them, making the air in the kitchen feel thick and heavy. A tear slipped down her cheek, and Brody longed to reach forward and wipe it away. Instead, he took her other hand in his. Gently, and wordlessly, he led her out of the kitchen and onto the living room couch.

“I’ve never told anyone that before,” she said once they were settled. “No one knew I was unhappy. No one knew that our marriage was loveless.” She chuckled a little, but there was no humor in it. “And really, that’s not totally fair.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t loveless.”

Sarah blinked hard and Brody could see the struggle on her face as she tried to make sense of what she was saying. He waited patiently for her to continue.

“I loved Josh very much,” she said after a few moments. “And I miss him every day.” She blew out a deep breath. “But there was something missing from our relationship. There always had been. It wasn’t…” She stopped herself and shook her head again before looking at him. “Do you ever find that sometimes you can look at a couple and you can just see, by the way they look at each other and the way they touch each other, how in love they are?”

“Absolutely.” He knew exactly what she was talking about because it described almost every single couple he knew in Glacier Falls.

She pressed her lips together and nodded once.

“Ah, I see. And you didn’t have that.”

It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway. “I think we were just together so long that a love grew between us, but it wasn’t the same kind ofcan’t keep your hands off each other, desperately passionatelove that I saw around me. It was the easy companionship type of love. A deep friendship with absolutely none of the other stuff. In fact, we’d barely even kissed since Rory was born. Let alone had sex.” She shrugged. “And maybe I was being selfish and terrible and all the things, but I wanted more.” She closed her eyes and tipped her head back.

In that moment, Brody could see how much the truth had weighed on her. Sarah had been a young woman, her whole life ahead of her, and all she’d wanted was a little passion. She wasn’t terrible or horrible but completely normal. But she couldn’t seem to see that.

Brody reached out and put his hand on her thigh. He squeezed gently, a move that was meant to be supportive, but she scooted away just slightly and kept talking.

“When I told him that we were best friends and I valued that more than anything, but that we both deserved to be with someone who made us feel all the things, he wouldn’t hear it. He got so upset and said that it was a mistake and we couldn’t break up our family and that he loved me.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “He yelled and told me I was making a huge, irreparable mistake and if I insisted on leaving him, I’d lose him completely. That I couldn’t have it both ways.”

Brody swallowed hard, knowing what was coming next.

“I insisted it was the right thing,” Sarah said. “I’d thought about it for years. Before Rory was even born. And I wasn’t going to change my mind.” She lifted her head and looked at him. “I’ll never forget the look on his face when he realized my mind was made up. But I couldn’t take it back, Brody. Iknewit was the right thing for both of us, and the crazy thing is, I’m absolutely sure he knew it too. He just needed time. He would have come to agree with me, Iknowit. And we would have been the best co-parents around. Best friends, doing the best thing for Rory, and each other.” She smiled a little at the idea, but it was short-lived. “But I didn’t get that chance, because he took off, and before I could even get Rory into the stroller and follow him, he was already in the lake. I yelled at him. But he either didn’t hear me or ignored me. I thought he’d come back, Brody.” More tears slipped down her face.

He handed her the box of tissues and she blew her nose.

“I never thought he wouldn’t come back. I mean, he was such a strong swimmer and…well. It doesn’t matter, because he didn’t come back.” Her shoulders sagged. “And I’ll never know what could have been with us. And worse, I’ll never know if he meant to or not.”

She completely crumpled then and Brody couldn’t hold off any longer; he moved so he could pull her into his arms and he held her tight while she cried. In all the time he’d known Sarah, he’d barely seen her shed a tear. She was a strong woman and she held herself together without barely a crack, but even knowing that, it didn’t surprise him to watch the outpouring of emotion. There was only so much one woman could take, strong or not, and Sarah had more than her fair share.

He didn’t know how long they sat like that, but it didn’t matter. Brody would have stayed that way, holding her tight against him, his T-shirt soaked through from her tears, as long as it took if it meant he could take away even a little bit of the pain that she’d been holding for so long.

He rubbed a small circle on her back. “Sarah, it’s not your fault. You can’t know what happened out there, but I can’t imagine he would have…well, I didn’t know Josh, but there’s no way he would have left you and Rory that way. Not on purpose.”

She sniffed hard and pulled back a little. “Don’t you get it, Brody?”

---