Page 95 of Nobodys Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars 3)

He realized right away that he’d made a mistake. Lynn didn’t like being backed into a corner, and she always met aggression with her own brand of quiet stubbornness. Now she regarded him levelly. “Annie told me to tell you she doesn’t want you calling the house.”

“Well, that’s just too bad.”

“She’s really angry with you.?

?

“Annie’s been angry with me since I was eight years old.”

“That’s not true. Her health is making her cranky.”

“If she’d stop putting a stick of butter in everything, she might start feeling better.” He leaned back in the chair. “You know why she doesn’t want us talking. It’s because she’s got a good thing going having you on Heartache Mountain full-time to take care of her. She won’t give that up easily.”

“Is that what you think?”

“You bet it is.”

“You’re wrong. She’s trying to protect me.”

“From me? Yeah, right.” His voice softened. “Damn it, Lynn, I’ve been a good husband to you. I don’t deserve to be treated like this.”

She looked down at her plate, and then up at him, her eyes full of pain. “It’s always about you, isn’t it, Jim? From the very beginning everything has revolved around you. What you deserve. How you felt. What kind of mood you were in. I’ve built my life around trying to please you, and it hasn’t worked.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’re blowing this whole thing out of proportion. Look, forget everything I said that night. I didn’t mean any of it. I was just—I don’t know—having some kind of mid-life crisis or something. I like you the way you are. You’ve been the best wife a man could ever have. Let’s just forget all of this happened and go back to the way things were.”

“I can’t do that because you can’t do it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Someplace inside you there’s this knot of resentment that formed the day we got married and has never gone away. If you want me back, it’s only out of habit. I don’t think you like me very much, Jim. Maybe you never have.”

“That’s absurd. You’re overdramatizing this whole thing. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.”

“Right now I want to please myself.”

“Fine! Please yourself. I’m not standing in your way, and you don’t have to run away to do it.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You’re going to blame me for everything, aren’t you? Go ahead! You explain to your sons what a bad guy I am, then. And while you explain it, remind them that you’re the one who’s walking out on a thirty-seven-year marriage, not me.”

She regarded him levelly. “You know what I think? I think you walked out on our marriage the day we said our vows.”

“I knew you’d start throwing up the past at me. Now you’re going to blame me for the sins of an eighteen-year-old boy.”

“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m just tired of living with the part of you that’s still eighteen, the part of you that still hasn’t dealt with the fact that you knocked up Amber Lynn Glide and had to take the consequences. The boy who thinks he deserves something better has never gone away.” Her voice grew soft and weary. “I’m tired of living with the guilt, Jim. I’m tired of always feeling as if I have to prove myself.”

“Then stop doing it! I haven’t made you live that way. You’ve done it to yourself.”

“And now I have to figure out how to undo it.”

“I can’t believe how selfish you’re being. Do you want a divorce, Lynn? Is that what all this is leading up to? Because if you want a divorce, you just tell me now. I’m not living in this limbo forever. Just tell me right now.”

He waited to see her shock. What he had suggested was unthinkable. But there was no shock, and he began to panic. Why didn’t she tell him to stop talking so crazy, that their situation wasn’t nearly bad enough to even think about divorce? But once again, he’d miscalculated.

“Maybe that would be for the best.”

He went numb.

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