Page 31 of Say You Remember Me
“Yeah,” I admitted, feeling my cheeks redden. “Apparently, I’m a bit of a man-child.”
“Well, at least you pay the people who help you avoid certain tasks,” she said as she put the lid back on the ointment, putting it away. “That’s definitely better than just being lazy and expecting a girlfriend to be your lover and your mom.”
“From the way you say that, I’m guessing you might have experience with being someone’s romantic partner and mothering them.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Do I sound that bitter?”
“Not exactly.” I chuckled. “But it does make me think you must have carried a lot on your shoulders in the past.”
She sighed. “My ex really liked the idea of us sticking to the traditional gender roles in our home.”
“So you didn’t work while you were together?”
“Oh, I worked full time, too.” She laughed lightly, even though she didn’t seem to actually think her situation had been funny at all. Then shrugging, she said, “I don’t want to bore you with the nitty-gritty details, but well, we didn’t have what I would consider a fair balance of responsibilities. And even though I was the one paying most of our bills since his variousbusiness ventures never really turned a profit, I also handled most of the household chores and made sure Grant’s needs were taken care of.”
“Is that why you’re no longer together?” I asked, hoping to sound simply curious and not like I was judging her for not being married anymore.
“It definitely contributed to it,” she said. “But no, there were a lot of other things, too.” She looked like she might explain more about what led to her and her ex’s divorce, but then she seemed to have second thoughts and left it at that.
So instead of prying for the details that she seemed to want to keep private, I asked, “Were you together for long?”
“We were together off and on for about nine years.” She sighed. “We met when I was in high school and had fun. He was nineteen, so I thought it was exciting to hang out with an older guy. But we weren’t really exclusive at that point.” She picked up the wrappers from the bandage and tossed them into the trash bin under the sink. “We tried to make things work when I found out I was pregnant, but even then, we were so young that it was pretty rocky. We didn’t even move in together until Grant was two.”
Which was probably why she’d mentioned her dad being a good grandfather since it sounded like he’d probably been her main support system during that time.
“But I don’t know,” she continued, grabbing the ointment from the counter and tossing it into the first aid kit. “We were probably never really well matched. We tried to make it work because of Grant, but if I hadn’t gotten pregnant so young—before I really knew who I was and what I wanted out of life—we probably wouldn’t have tried to make it work in the first place.”
“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, right?”
“It definitely is.”
We were quiet for a moment, and I couldn’t help but think that Maddie was such a strong woman. She was only twenty-six but had already been through so much and carried so much responsibility on her shoulders. Raising a child from such a young age while I could barely keep a plant alive without help.
I probably seemed so immature in comparison.
Sure, I was able to support myself—the privileged life I’d been blessed with helped me a lot in keeping the different cogs in my life spinning. But Maddie was raising a literal human. And from the sound of it, she had to do a lot of that on her own.
“I feel bad I wasn’t much help tonight.” I glanced at the sink, still full of dishes, and felt a bit useless. “In fact, I probably just made even more work since I broke one of Sloan’s glasses in the process.”
“It’s fine,” Maddie said. “I can handle it.”
“I know.” I sighed, tipping my head to meet her eyes. “I just— I wanted to be helpful, but now it’s even later, and I know you have work early in the morning.”
“It’s really fine, Ian.” Maddie chuckled. “I probably shouldn’t have said all that about living with a man-child because I can tell you’re now worried that I’ll think you’re a man-child, too. But I don’t. So what if you don’t hand-wash dishes? That’s fine. You at least know how to load a dishwasher, right?”
“I do,” I replied, probably a little too proudly.
“Then don’t worry about it.” She laughed. “Sloan was planning to throw everything in the dishwasher tomorrow, anyway.”
“You don’t think she’ll send me an angry text when she discovers I didn’t actually leave a spotless kitchen for her to wake up to?”
“I can’t promise that…” she said. But when a smirk lifted her lips, I knew she was teasing me.
“Fine.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll go home and try not to have nightmares about turning into a man-baby in a diaper.”
Maddie blinked, her brow furrowing. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Sorry! Weird joke.” I quickly waved my hands, regretting the image I’d just put in her head. “Forget I said that.”
