Page 95 of We Were Something
My arms wrap around my stomach at her words. At the things she’s not justimplying, but outright confirming.
I knew she didn’t want me here from the second I arrived, and I assumed somewhere in the grand scheme of things, she was a bit jealous seeing her ex with another woman for the first time.That never feels good.
But I had also assumed that most of her treatment of me had to do with grief. Had to do with the loss of her baby’s father and seeing her mother-in-law in a coma. Not that she was wanting me gone so she could try to patch her family back together.
“You’re divorced,” I say. It’s the only thing I can manage to think of, my normal arsenal of rebuttals feeling strangely empty.
“Divorce doesn’t change our history, and twenty years of love doesn’t just disappear. I know he still loves me.”
I spin around and look at Nancy, suddenly wishing I had a friend sitting in my corner, ready to chime in and help me take back control of this conversation. But even then, I’m only reminded of how much Logan said NancylovesJen, their history together nearly as long as her history with Logan.
“I mean, really—how can you come here and feel good about yourself when I just lost the father of my child, and you’re robbing me of the man who can help me raise this baby?”
I shake my head but don’t look at Jen again.
Instead, my eyes latch onto the picture I brought here myself and set up in the corner. The photo of Jen and Logan on their wedding day, smiling and happy and in love. That familiar sensation of worthlessness surges through me as I imagine the two of them together with a baby.
“Just leave, okay?” Jen says. “You shouldn’t even be in here at all. It’s not like you’re family or anything. You’re nothing to Nancy. You’re barely anything to Logan.”
Her words hit their intended target, lancing through my chest and leaving me nearly gasping for breath.
I spin and dart out past her, jogging quickly to the restroom at the end of the hall. Slamming through the door, I pick a stall and lock it, then drop onto the toilet seat and drop my head into my hands, trying to catch my breath.
Giving myself a moment to think.
I don’t normally allow the words of others to tear me down. I’ve been through too much in my life to let the petty frustrations and disappointments of other people determine my happiness.
But I can’t help but wonder if Jen’s desperation has merit, and instead of pushing her words away, I allow them to find purchase inside of my mind and my heart, mulling them over as my own tears stream down my face.
Am I robbing Logan of a family?
Am I taking away his ability to have the life he probably always envisioned for himself?
My throat feels thick and my head is throbbing, but I force myself to sit and really think it all through.
Not because of her. No,fuckher for cheating on Logan and then makingmefeel like the interloper.
It’s not because of Jen that I think over what she said, but because of Logan.
Because if I reallydolove him, can I keep him to myself, knowing I might never be able to give him a future?
Is that fair? Is that real love?
I sit there for a long time, until I’ve dried my tears, until the nausea I felt earlier as I listened to Jen beg me to leave has finally eased. And then I head back out to the hallway and down to Nancy’s room.
I come to a stop just shy of going in when I see Jen standing at her bedside, next to Logan.
They’re talking to Nancy, like I was earlier, but they’re smiling and laughing, probably telling stories from the decades they had together. As a family.
Then Logan places his hand on Jen’s stomach in a way a man touches the woman he loves. He looks at her and smiles, and then he says something else to his mother, the two of them looking like the couple they probably were back before things between them fell apart.
The sadness that courses through me is unlike anything I’ve felt before. If I know in my heart of hearts that I can’t make Logan happy, if I believe what Jen said is true—that I’m robbing them of being a family—the most loving thing I can do is let him go.
It’s hours later, well after midnight, when Logan reluctantly agrees to leave the hospital again. Dr. Ramos told him the likelihood of her waking up in the first 24 hours after surgery is low and reassured him that they would call if shedidwake up.
Jen went home a while ago, practically begging Logan to come with her without using those exact words though at the time he was determined to stay with his mom.
And now, at nearly two in the morning, we walk through the front door of Nancy Becker’s charming three-bed, two-bath home in Mount Baker.
