Page 6 of Catching Our Moment
Tell them to stand down. I’m OK—no need to sound the alarm. James is here now. Aaron and I will come there for the weekend so I can regroup. Can we stay with you?
Grace
Of course. Pack a bag and get up here.
Me
I’m serious, though. Please tell them to stand down. I’m fine. I have enough on my plate right now and don’t need them stirring the pot.
Grace
I’ll see what I can do, but Shaw is already on his way, honey. You know they care about you and Aaron.
Me
Yeah. And they knew this day was coming. I bet they even had a plan already drawn up. I wonder if they had money on how long it would take before my marriage failed.
Grace
Honey. It’s not like that. Please don’t be mad at them.
Tears welled in my eyes for the first time as all the emotions surfaced at once—anger, embarrassment, shame, sadness…and, dammit, failure.
When I first found out about my pregnancy with Aaron, I postponed my physical therapy career. I burned my friendship with Shaw after he offered to slip into the role as baby daddy and, instead, ran to James the minute he wanted to give marriage and parenthood a shot. All to have it fail.
When it came down to it, marriage to James was like driving an economy car when what I’d walked away from was a fully loaded luxury vehicle.
And seeing Shaw was a reminder of the choice I’d made—the leap I failed to take. I chose what I thought was the safe path, and it blew up in my face. Seeing Shaw was my reckoning, and that pain would be salt in the wound that was the failure of my marriage.
Me
I don’t want this to be a thing.
Grace
Honey, you didn’t answer his call. That’s all he needs to know. It’s a thing.
My thumbs hovered over the screen. Maybe if I texted him, it would be enough. I could tell him I was fine and that I’d contact him once things settled. I heard he was on the West Coast doing promos for some new sponsor, and his model girlfriend was keeping him occupied. His schedule was too full for him to be involved in my domestic nonsense.
I tightened my eyes. I could’ve used one of his amazing bear hugs. I’d bury myself in his chest, and he’d lean down, whispering that everything would be okay and that he had my back. My last hug from Shaw had been the night he was drafted into the professional football league, back when I was pregnant with Aaron.
I took a cleansing breath and released it then investigated the noise from the master bedroom. James was kneeling in the closet, rummaging around.
I didn't want to encourage further conversation with him, so I sat at the kitchen counter.
Hopefully, Aaron would be amenable to traveling. He didn’t like sudden changes in his routine, so I tried to think of what I could do to distract and entice him to make the transition easier. Maybe some chicken nuggets for dinner.
James came out of our room with a few clothes on hangers and the Roomba tucked under his arm.
“Uh-uh. No.” I followed him and grabbed the robot vacuum. “No way.”
I grabbed the beat-up toaster his mother had given us for our wedding over a decade ago, yanking it out of the wall, crumbs scattering, and placed it in his arms. “If you need an appliance, take this.” I tamped down my frustration, determined to get him out of the house before we wrestled for the air fryer or the indoor grill.
Growing up with a father as a football coach, I knew how to drop a shoulder and take down a guy twice my size—hard. I channeled that energy into using his body as a tackling dummy and shoved him out the front door, slamming it on his protests.
I managed not to throat-punch him. So there was that… Yay, me.
I leaned against the door and let the realization sink in that, after a decade of being a wife in a loveless marriage, this was an opportunity for me—and a small victory. I could quit pretending I was happy and seek out change for myself.
