Page 71 of Absolution

She doesn’t yell. She doesn’t have to. The words slam into me harder than any scream could.

“Jackie…”

She swipes a hand across her forehead, tears pouring freely now. “Do you even remember that night?” she asks, almost breathless. “I was twenty-eight weeks pregnant, Kyle. With four children. I woke up in the middle of the night and you weren’t there. I called you. Over and over. No answer. God, I was actually worried aboutyou.”

I can’t move. Can’t breathe.

“I gave birth to Duke in the back of an ambulance, Kyle,” she says, her voice cracking under the weight. “He would have survived… he could have survived if he’d been born in the hospital, if I hadn’t had to wait for the ambulance because you were fucking another woman.”

My stomach turns. I try to go to her, but she pushes my arms away.

“You told me you fell asleep in the office. That you were exhausted. And I believed you. God help me, I believed you.” She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip. “But that wasn’t true.” She screams, “Was it?”

I close my eyes, remembering that night. I had felt justified, Jackie had been on bedrest for weeks, barely moving, and I told myself I deserved a break… a release. Some part of me believed it. The next morning, I woke up and saw my phone and the missed calls.

“You never held him,” she says, softer now, like she’s speaking from a place so deep I almost can’t reach it. “I asked you, and you said no. The one time the nurse brought him in, you left the room. Said you had to check on the kids.”

I force myself to meet her eyes, but it hurts. It physically hurts.

“Every time I brought him up… or someone else did… you’d snap. You’d shut it down. You told us to focus on the present. That looking back didn’t help anything.” Her voice falters. “And I let you. I let you because I thought it was grief.”

She exhales, the sound ragged. Her next words are barely audible.

“But it wasn’t. It was guilt.”

She looks at me then, like she’s seeing something new. Something unforgivable.

My voice shakes when it finally comes out. “I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I just pushed it down.”

She lets out a rough, broken laugh, wiping her face with the back of her hand while mine stays wet, untouched.

“My mom had that photo framed, you know. Of me holding Duke. Our son. The only picture of him that exists. She never gave it to me,” Jackie says, her voice hardening again. “Because she knew how you’d react. Knew you’d pretend he didn’t happen. And she didn’t want to remind me of how alone I was.”

There’s nothing I can say. Nothing I could ever say.

Because she’s right. I didn’t just lose our son. I abandoned him. And I abandoned her.

“I made a mistake,” I say, almost a whisper. “The biggest mistake of my life.”

“Which mistake are you talking about, Kyle?” she says, eyes sharp and shining. “Twelve years ago, or now?”

My chest caves.

“I thought…” I start, stumbling over my own shame. “I thought you walked away from our marriage. That you were done. I told myself… there was nothing to cheat on.”

The second the words leave my mouth; I want to swallow them whole.

Nothing.

Fuck. Why the hell did I say that?

Her jaw clenches, hands balling into fists.

“I didn’t walk away,” she whispers. “I was grieving. I was drowning. And instead of reaching for me, you wrote me off.”

“I know,” I choke. “Please… I don’t know what happened to me. A midlife crisis, maybe… I just… I lost myself. But I want to fix it. Please, Jackie. Just give me one last chance.”

She doesn’t answer right away.

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