Page 50 of When We Were More
We spend the next thirty minutes looking at images of bathrooms. I show her my open concept shower, and to say she loved it would be an understatement. She sat in it for a solid five minutes. Once the business is all taken care of, I think she’ll rush to leave, but I’m pleased when she doesn’t. Instead, she sits back down at the table. She glances over at Layla, who is now fully engrossed in her movie. She smiles, then looks back at me.
“Your girls are beautiful and special, Henry. And you’re great with them. Meeting Layla initially and watching you with her made me start to think it’s possible you weren’t a total arrogant asshat. But seeing you with them today solidifies it. You might be more than the cocky contractor who I’m aware intentionally likes to push my buttons.” She’s smiling now.
“Does that mean you don’t hate me anymore?” I tease.
“I never hated you. Strongly disliked you at times, yes, but there was never hate.” Her grin is almost flirty when she looks up at me through her long lashes.
“Well, good. Now I can take these two back to their real parents and get back to my evil ways.”
She rolls her eyes at me again.
Her face turns serious, and she bites at her lower lip. I think it means she’s hesitant or nervous, if I’m learning her body language like I think I am.
“You can tell me to mind my own business if you don’t want to talk about it, but the girls’ mother, is she around or are you a… are you a?—”
“I’m not a widower, Matilda. Only a single dad. But, no, their mother isn’t around.”
“Oh. Okay.” She picks at her cuticles, and it’s clear she’s uncomfortable.
“If you’ve got time, I’ll tell you the story. Friends should probably know it.” When she looks up at me, I wink at her to lighten the mood.
“I’ve got time,” she almost whispers.
“Well, when I met Jeana, Layla was about two and a half. Jeana grew up here in Aron Falls. I met her before I moved here, when we were still in the planning stages for the company to relocate here. I was spending a lot of time here between planning for that and working on the cabin. I met her at a bar, and we were casually seeing each other. It was never serious, but we both were okay with what it was, and neither of us was looking for anything more. Things ended after about six months. Four months later, Jeana texted me that she needed to talk. She was five months pregnant despite us having used protection.”
“Oh, shit. That must’ve been a lot to take in.”
“It was. I thought the right thing to do was to marry her. It was my responsibility to take care of them. So, we got married about two months before Lena came along.”
“Did you love her?” Her gaze is intense. I won’t lie to her even if it makes me sound like an asshole.
“I cared about her. But I wasn’t in love with her. I’d like to think I was good to her, though, and tried to make her happy. I would have stayed married to her and been faithful because it was the right thing to do.”
She looks away from me and does that lip nibbling thing again. I worry I’ve said something that made her uncomfortable, but I’m not sure what.
“Where was Layla’s mom during all of this?”
Now I’m confused. “Huh?”
“Layla’s mom. While everything was happening with you and your wife, was she still seeing Layla regularly and all that?”
I realize then that I haven’t been clear enough with my explanation. I guess it is an unusual situation.
“Jeana is—or was, I guess I should say—Layla’s mom, Tillie. When I said she was already here when I met Jeana, I meant Layla was Jeana’s daughter from a previous relationship. Anyway, right before Lena was born, I legally adopted Layla because I didn’t ever want her to question how I felt about her. I couldn’t love her any more than I do. Jeana had no idea who the biological father was, meaning there was never one in the picture, but Layla knows?—”
She gasps.
“God, that makes so much more sense now.” She looks up at me with those blue, almost gray eyes. A man could get mesmerized looking at them. “When I first met Layla at my house, she said to me: ‘My daddy wasn’t my first dad, but he picked me and he’s my forever daddy.’ At the time, I was totally befuddled and just chalked it up to confusing things kids say. Shit.” She pauses. “I need a second.”
Tillie leans back in her chair and places the heels of her hands over her eyes. She takes a few deep breaths, then moves her hands, wipes her eyes, and looks back at me.
“Sorry. That’s absolutely beautiful, Henry. She knows you chose her. I can’t tell you how much that means to a kid.”
I get the sense she knows from personal experience. It also strikes me that whatever happened to make her understand what that feels like, for her, it wasn’t a positive experience. It was extremely painful.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No, please. I want to hear the rest.” I see her glance over at Layla before looking back at me.
