Page 79 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Libby wants to lie to him, tell him that there’s nothing to worry about, but she finds that she can’t. Her son is not a child anymore, and not every story has a happy ending. “I’m sure she will be. All we can do is be here for her right now. Just keep an eye on her, okay? Let me know if she needs anything.”
Lucas nods. “Yeah. I will.”
Libby looks at her son, nearly a man now, as he stands protectively outside the guest room, and she’s overcome with emotion.
“I love you,” she says.
Lucas grins, and for a moment he’s her little boy again. “I love you too.”
“I know this past year has been hard on both of us, but you’re a good kid, Lucas. I’m proud of you, of the man you’ve become. I hope you know that.”
“I know.” He looks down at the ground. “And, Mom? I’m proud of you too. Thanks for, you know, being here.”
Tears gather in the corners of Libby’s eyes. “Always,” she says, as she turns and heads back downstairs.
“All good?” Bill asks as she walks into the kitchen.
The sight of him there, drinking coffee from her favorite mug, Jasper sprawled at his feet, is comfortingly familiar and yet so out of place, as if he’s always been a visitor just passing through. The anger Libby felt at him earlier, her searing jealousy over Heather’s pregnancy, had drained out of her after her confrontation with Colin, Bill jumping in to protect her. All that’s left is a sort of nostalgic emptiness, a hollow resignation that echoes with the promise of what they could have been.
“Yeah,” Libby replies. “Christina wanted to get some rest.”
“Did she tell you any more about what happened?”
“No.” Libby pulls out a stool from under the counter and perches on it. “She didn’t.”
Bill leans against the counter, the mug cradled in both hands.
For a moment they’re both silent, existing in the rare peace that’s settled between them.
“I didn’t mean for things to be this way between us.” Bill’s words come to her softly, and, for the first time in nearly a year, Libby gets the sense he’s letting his guard down, that, finally, he’s not pushing her away. “You were right about what you said. I should have tried harder to work through things, to fix us, instead of walking away. I should have told you how I was feeling sooner. I just…I didn’t know how. Not until it felt like it was too late to fix it.”
“And I should have realized how unhappy you were,” Libby concedes. “I think maybe I did know, on some level. I just didn’t want to face it.” It’s an admission, Libby realizes, that has been a long time coming. A truth she hadn’t, until now, wanted to admit even to herself.
They haven’t made things easy on each other, she and Bill. When Bill ended their marriage, it felt like a sudden blow to Libby. A hasty decision, cavalierly made. She’d been blindsided by it and so she’d lashed out, blaming Bill for everything that had gone wrong in their lives. She’d wielded her pain like a sword to cut him down with, and the more she swung at him, the farther he backed away from her.
But it hadn’t been sudden to Bill, had it? His leaving was something he’d been building toward, slowly preparing himself for, so by the time he’d ended things, he’d already put up walls around himself, so thick that they’d felt impenetrable to Libby. They’d both made so many mistakes. If only he’d talked to her sooner. If only she’d been easier to talk to…
“I still can’t believe I’m going to be a father again,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “At my age! This wasn’t exactly the plan…”
“I know. Or at least, I suspected.”
“I never meant to hurt you or Lucas.”
“I know that too.” Libby looks down at the counter, tracing circles with her finger. “But life doesn’t always go according to plan.” A fact Libby has only recently come to accept.
She lifts her head, watches the familiar scene before her, Bill rinsing his mug in her sink, and she sees, for the first time, how much he’s changed. He’s no longer the boy she’d met at nineteen. Libby feels like she’s lived one thousand lives since then. She’s changed—through motherhood, through the career she built for herself—she’sgrown and evolved and become someone new. And she understands now that Bill changed too. How had she not realized it sooner? Although they’d navigated the currents of life together, the tides shaped them in different ways. Formed them into people who no longer fit together. All this time she’s been clinging to a version of Bill that no longer exists. Perhaps it’s time now to let him go.
“You’re going to be a great dad,” she tells him. It’s a peace offering, an olive branch extended, but she finds that she means it too. In a flash, she pictures Bill pushing a little girl on a swing, teaching another little boy with his distinctive smile how to catch a ball. “You always have been.”
“I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear you say that.” Bill turns to face Libby, drying his mug with a tea towel, and their eyes meet.
They’re going to be okay.Things will never be the same between them, but they’ll be okay.Libbywill be okay.
Bill places the mug back in the cabinet. “I’m going to head home. But you call me if you guys need anything. Anything at all, okay? I can be back here in fifteen minutes if you need me.”
“We’re fine. Thanks, Bill. I’ll walk you out.”
Libby follows Bill to the door and watches him walk down her front steps. He stops as he reaches the driveway and turns back to look at her one last time, his hand raised in parting.
