Page 14 of Big Island Weddings
Had anything really changed?
“Lei?” When she didn’t respond, he came and sat with her on the steps. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on! I just can’t take off to the beach at a moment’s notice. The house is a mess–”
“Leave the house,” he said with a grin. “It’ll keep.”
“You don’t get it! It’s not just the house. It’s bookkeeping for the co-op and weeding the yard and washing the girls’ clothes so they have something to wear tomorrow.”
“Okay, okay, I get it.”
“No you don’t! You haven’t been here. You don’t know what it takes to keep everything running, not really. It’s so much work, Nate. All the time.”
“You think I don’t know hard work?”
“I think you were out on cruise ships while I was doing all the work of raising our girls,” she said, years of buried resentment coming to the surface.
He gaped at her. “I was working twelve, fourteen hours a day! Saving up so I could make something of myself, build something for our girls.”
“Okay, so you were working twelve hours a day. And then what? Running around the ports, drinking with your buddies? I was working twenty-four seven, Nathan. No breaks. And you weren’t here.”
“I came back whenever I could.”
“It wasn’t enough.”
“I thought you were okay. You’re so strong. You had your parents…”
“We moved in with my parents so that I could survive. I was there with them and the girls while you were out with other women–”
“Is that what this is about? You’re mad I went on a few dates?”
“No!” But the thought of it burned a hole in her chest, even now. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Youdivorcedme,” he ground out. “I was heartbroken.”
She shook her head and looked away.
“‘Olena, we were divorced for five years. What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. I guess–” She laughed, but the sound of it was bitter. “I guess I thought I’d get over you at some point. Meet someone else, someone who was actuallyhere. But I never did.”
“Never got over me?” His voice was soft now. “Or never met someone else?”
“Both. Neither.” She had never been with anyone else, never felt that spark with anyone else. Nate was the only man she had ever wanted… even when she also wanted to smack him upside the head.
“I’m sorry I didn’t fight for you,” he told her. “When you served me with divorce papers… I thought you were done with me. I thought that you must have found someone else.”
She laughed brokenly. “Why do men always think that?”
“If I’d known that there was still a chance, I wouldn’t have signed them. I would have fought for us. That’s what I’m doing now. I’m herenow.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just… an adjustment. I guess I’ve gotten used to being alone. Parenting alone.”
He knelt in front of her and took her hands in his. “Lei, you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
Tears burned her eyes and she squeezed them shut, but they fell anyway. She hated that he could make her cry with a few simple words.
“You and our daughters are my whole world. I’m not letting go of you again. Whatever struggles we have, we’ll figure them out. Okay?”
