Page 43 of Big Balls
“The only person whose husband I could ever be is dead. So if you’re thinking about me and a wedding, you need to reconsider.”
Zoe’s eyes fill with tears, and I know it’s hurting her, but she deserves to hear the truth, and right now, before she gets carried away on the tide of Katy’s little daydreams about us having some kind of wedding.
Katy hears the little sound of distress that Zoe makes, and turns toward her. She reaches up and covers Zoe’s ears, then hisses at me, “You’re being really rude, Daddy.”
I swallow the last of my feelings down, letting the words slice my throat open like shards of dirty glass. “I’m not being mean to you or Miss Zoe. I’m simply telling the truth.”
I shrug off the sting of the words, the sickening tidal wave of loss that I feel curdling up in my stomach already.
Zoe shakes her head and wipes underneath her eyes. “Well, in that case I’d better get going.”
She reaches over to the side of the table, where her bag was already packed, then tucks Katy in close to her body for a hug and a kiss.
“Be good,” she says, her voice as sweet as ever.
Katy’s lip starts to jut out again. “No, ma’am,” I say to her quickly, as Zoe waves to my daughter and heads out the door.
Zoe didn’t meet my eyes even once after she’d heard what I said. But I owed it to her to tell her the truth. And if I had to bet, I think she won’t be coming back this time.
Katy stands up, shaking with rage and unhappiness. “Why?” Her voice is as pained and plaintive as I’ve ever heard. “You told me I was mean to say she couldn’t sing, but you told her she wasn’t ever going to be part of our family!”
I look at my left hand, feeling the heavy weight of my wedding ring sitting on my finger still, after all these years.
“I’m sorry, Katy. This is how things are, and I can’t change who I am no matter how much I like Miss Zoe.”
“Horsepucky,” she yells and storms off to her room.
And in the silence that falls, I put my head in my hands and remind myself that I made the right choice. The only possible choice.
I’m nobody without my wife, except for Katy’s father. And I can’t get over losing Lisa, because I should have kept her safe and failed.
I’ll never let anyone hurt someone I love again. I make the vow all over again, like I once did while holding our little girl in my arms at the side of my wife’s fresh grave.
14
Zoe
My dad offersto bring me ice cream in bed, which is how I know it’s dire.
But on what planet does anybody deserve to have the hottest sex of her entire life and then be told flat out, within mere hours of doing the deed, that there’s no realistic chance at a future with the other person involved?
By the other person. In front of his kid, who I love. Yep, can’t imagine why I feel miserable.
I know if I stay here in bed feeling sorry for myself for too much longer, Ethan would be well within his rights to fire me for job abandonment. But damn it, what he said really hurt.
It’s not like I believed that we were ready for him to get on one knee and hand over a ring the size of a small meteorite, but I did expect for us to be able to keep doing what we were doing. Preferably the naked parts, too, but all of that was before he basically wiped his ass with my heart.
I manage to sit up and take a moment to realize that the thing that smells gross in my room is me. I’ve been wallowing in my misery for long enough that I actually stink.
I trudge upstairs in my dirty bathrobe, the one that always seems to have an egg yolk stain on it, and stop at the sight in my kitchen.
My father and Ethan Alexander are sitting at the kitchen table. It seems like some sort of macho staring contest, except both men turn to look at me when I come into the room.
Ethan flinches, and I reflexively flip him off. “Don’t you even say one word to me right now,Big Balls.” I fill up that stupid nickname of his with every single drop of venom left inside me, and then head toward the bathroom.
I slam the door closed and start to take off my clothes, but there’s a knock at the door, because of course there is. Of course he’s going to knock on the door when I have half of my clothes off.
It wasn’t enough for him to ruin pancake noodles, possibly forever. Now he’s going to ruin the part where I get my act together and put all of my feelings behind us and we move on with our lives like none of that happened.
