Page 10 of Between the Shady Groves
Well, as soon as he got to her, he’d apologize, and Lauren would forgive him, because she always did, and that would be that.
“Do you want to take these babies? I keep thinking I’m gonna drop one.”
“You know they have names,” his sister said, moving down to grab one. “This one is Arianne, and this one is Mary Lou,” she said as she expertly scooped the babies up. He figured they were six weeks or two months by now. Something like that. Lauren had come down and helped Monique for a few days after they’d been born, but her mother had been in such bad shape, she hadn’t stayed long.
He’d figured she’d want to come back and spend more time with them. It made sense to him. But apparently he’d guessed wrong.
“I know. I just can’t tell them apart. I can’t believe you can.”
“Sometimes we do have trouble. We always dress Arianne in green, and Mary Lou gets pink.”
“That’s hardly fair. I’d hate to be the one who’s always dressed in pink,” he said.
His sister let out a laugh. “Maybe you better worry about your wife rather than the color of baby clothes.”
“Or the state of your marriage,” Philip said softly, but Cannon heard.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, shifting but not getting up. He was hoping that perhaps Monique had an idea of where his wife was. But he was going to have to take the grilling and the questioning if he wanted to find out what she knew.
“Just that you spend a lot of time on your business, and I think your wife felt neglected for a while.”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“It might not be our business, but it’s the truth.” Monique stood in front of him, a baby in each arm, looking at him with her older sister glare. “She’s been through a really rough time. Not only did she lose three babies in the last three years, but she lost her mom as well. And you haven’t really been around to comfort her.”
“She didn’t tell me she wanted comforting,” he said, feelingjustified but again remembering that he was making an excuse for something that he was supposed to have known. Sometimes a man just needed to figure some things out about his wife. And he could, if he put as much effort into his wife as he did into his business.
At least he wasn’t golfing. He could have been putting all of his effort into improving his golf swing or playing racquetball with his buddies at the gym. Then he felt like she probably would have had a leg to stand on. But he’d been putting his effort into something good. Building a business for them so they would have money to do whatever they wanted to. Hire a nurse for her mother when she wanted to go visit babies, for example.
Monique’s lips pressed together, and he could tell that she wasn’t impressed with his answer, not that he expected her to be. It rang hollow to him too.
“Monique’s right. Sometimes your wife needs you to do things without being asked. Those emotional things are some of those things. I’m sure she wouldn’t hesitate to ask you to fix the toilet or take out the trash, but… Sometimes when she just needs you to hold her, you have to figure that out on your own. I kinda thought you were a little smarter than that.” Philip didn’t look like he hated him exactly, but he did look a little disgusted.
He didn’t see any point in arguing, although Philip’s words made him feel extremely defensive. He wanted to say that this wasn’t his fault. That his wife should have stuck around. Should have talked to him about it at the very least, but he supposed this was kind of a hard thing to talk about, and he also supposed it was probably obvious. When someone lost their mother, they wanted comfort. And they didn’t want to have to ask for it.
“I guess I see what you’re saying.” He put his head down and felt really humble as he asked the next question. “Do you guys have any idea where she might be?”
His words were soft and came out without any confidence behind them at all. He really didn’t know, other than Raspberry Ridge, and he didn’t want to drive the whole way there just to find out that he was still on a wild goose chase. He wanted to be with his wife. Hewanted to find her, now. Make sure that she was okay. Fix things between them. It bothered him that they weren’t okay.
“No. She hasn’t called or texted us, and we honestly didn’t know that she had left you.”
To hear someone else say it made it sound really weird and real, and he hated that. He didn’t want it to be real. He wanted to wake up and find out that it was all a dream.
“All right. Any ideas after that?” If there was anywhere he could stop and check along the way, he’d do it. Just so he kept all of the stones turned over. He didn’t want to miss even one.
“I guess a couple of times she talked about going to Yellowstone. She said she’d always wanted to see Old Faithful. But beyond that, she talked about working at an orphanage in Romania. Something about holding babies that needed it. And I had told her that there were jobs in the NICU across America where she could work, holding babies. That seemed to be something she really wanted. To hold a baby.”
Cannon couldn’t feel worse if someone had kicked him right in the gut.
Of course. She wanted a baby. She had cried almost inconsolably all three times she’d miscarried, and he hadn’t understood. After all, the baby was in heaven. It was safe. She’d see it someday. He didn’t understand what the big deal was. But he should have tried harder to find out what her problem was, why she was so grief-stricken, and done more to help her. He’d really dropped the ball. In fact, he was feeling more and more like maybe he hadn’t been the exemplary husband that he’d always thought he was. In fact, maybe he’d been a really rotten husband.
“You know, I think she loves you. In fact, I know she does. Sometimes I can’t figure out why,” Monique said with the honesty of an older sister. “But I think sometimes she just really wished for things you didn’t provide. Like you always provided security. Of course.”
Cannon almost snorted. That was his job. He should have been good at that.
“But empathy and compassion. Kindness, companionship. She spent a lot of time alone. I think that sometimes Lauren was an extrovert, and it was really hard for her to be alone. Even if she was anintrovert, she would have needed attention from her husband. Even introverts don’t want their husband to completely ignore them for days on end.”
He wanted to defend himself again, but he didn’t. She was right. There were times where he was so focused on bidding on a job or whether or not he had gotten another job and how he was going to do a thorough job on a project that had come in and he was afraid the bid was too low and he’d stressed out, and all those things together had kept his mind busy. He’d been home, but he hadn’t really been home.
