Page 11 of Marriage Ever After
“I would never. You know my work ethics plus I have a wife that I’m crazy about. Maybe a little too crazy about.”
I shook my head looking back down at my phone.
“Let’s go grab a drink and lunch, on me.” He said.
“I’m working a case, Unc.”
He laughed.
“You’re the fucking boss. You take breaks when you feel like it plus your favorite uncle is asking so let’s go.”
“You’re my only uncle that speaks to me after everything.”
I joined him in the laughter as we both stood to leave my office.
****
Lunch with my uncle wasn’t unpleasant. It never really is but I knew he was itching to say something, so I chugged my whiskey then got ready to hear him out.
“Say what the fuck you’ve got to say, Unc. I can see it’s itching your ass to say it anyway.”
Graham was in the middle of drinking his drink and he choked. I waited until he settled his coughing fit while he gave me the finger the entire time. Everyone around us looked at us like we were the biggest weirdos ever.
“I will get your ass back for this, neph. Keep playing.” He smiled as he chugged his water then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as if he wasn’t taught proper table manners. “Anyways, why is your wife sleeping at a hotel and your ass is in your comfortable ass bed, huh?”
I worked my jaw for a second finding the proper way to explain this.
“I, I fucked up Unc.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know. Tell me what’s crawled up your ass and made you so cranky with her about having more babies.”
“It’s just… Unc, you know I’ve always wanted a lot of kids. I don’t mean like a whole team, but I want more than one. I want Jordy to have siblings. To grow up with a sister or a brother or both who can support her and always be there. I just don’t ever want her to feel like no one has her back.”
Graham nodded.
“You’re projecting right now though. Jordy isn’t you, you’re not your father and Mila is definitely not your fucking mother. You both love Jordy with all your hearts. You and Mila are good people who love each other.”
I looked down at my now empty drink.
“I don’t think she loves me anymore Unc.” I worked my jaw again, a mechanism I picked up to stop myself from random outbursts. “She wants to be done with me, but I can’t do that Uncle Graham. I can’t let her go.”
“Shit,” Graham said. “When you call me Uncle Graham, it means only one thing, you’re in a bad headspace. Listen to me, Kash. That girl loves the fuck out of you, and she isn’t going anywhere. I need you to get out of that headspace, I told you, your mother isn’t a woman worth loving. You did your best. You loved her but she left you broken. Let her and your father go. He may be my older brother, but he is a fucktard. You, Kash Emerson, are only theirs by being born into this world. After that, there’s nothing in your veins that is theirs. You are an amazing father, an even greater husband. You just need to work on going back to being the man that Mila fell for or rather be better than that one. That idiot thought Mila shitted out rainbows and glitter but you, now, the family man that you’ve become, that’s who needs to love Mila. She’s just as broken as you are. She may not speak it out loud but deep down, I know why she’s scared to have more kids.”
I tilted my head.
“What reason could that possibly be? I know she’s using her promotion as a crutch. I would never take anything away from her either. I would support her in every way as I always have.”
Graham leaned in as if he were telling me a big secret.
“She’s just like you, Kash. She thinks she’s the product of her parents. One who’d go as far as killing a man to protect herself and the other, who would just up and leave without ever looking back. I’m going to tell you what I told Mils, you are not her father. You are her husband, the man who dedicated and promised to be there for her no matter what. You’re more than a father who abandoned her and a stepfather who should’ve never been given that title in the first place.”
I had nothing more to say. All I could do was think about Graham’s words.
Mila
“Kash is not your father. He is your husband, the man who dedicated and promised to be there for you no matter what. He’s more than the father who abandoned you and the stepfather who you, should’ve never given that title to. He didn’t protect you or make you feel safe. He made your mother chose a future that she couldn’t survive from. It isn’t fair Mils; nothing ever is but it doesn’t mean you can’t change the outcome of shit that’s going on with you…”
Graham’s words rang true to me and I didn’t know what to do. After work, I packed my stuff, checked out of the hotel and got home. I didn’t know what I was going to do but I had to figure it out. When I got home, luckily for me, Jordan was already in bed. I wasn’t in the mood to put up pretenses of what was going on. I was tired and wanted to sleep in a bed, but I knew in the back of my mind that it wouldn’t be my own. When I walked into the master bedroom, there my husband was, asleep already. I knew that he had come home early to be with Jordan, it made me happy that he was here for her. I softly placed my suitcase in our walk-in closet and when I came back out, Kash had his eyes open watching me. He didn’t say anything, he just watched me as if I wasn’t real.
