I smiled at my daughter and checked my phone for the thousandth time since my wife walked out the door. I knew she was at O’Kelley’s, and that she was with her sister, but my mind was on overdrive thinking of all the other people there. People with cocks who would take one look at Melody and want to take her home. People who were smarter than me and wouldn’t let her go.
“Daddy, look!” Amber said in her too loud voice.
I turned back to her, shoving my phone into my pocket, and grinned. “Good job, honey. That was great.”
I had no idea what she actually did, but it was harder than I could do. I’d never taken a dance class in my life, but that was irrelevant. My daughter was insanely talented, even if all she was doing was spinning in a circle with her hands in the air.
“Ms. Emily says I’m the best spinner in class,” Amber said proudly. Her red hair floated around her as she spun again, showing off her new skill.
“I bet you are. No one could be nearly as good as you,” I told her with a smile. “Do you want to play a game?”
Amber abruptly dropped to the floor and nodded. She loved games. Board games, games on my phone, games we made up. She was easy to please.
We picked Candy Land to start with. Amber won, as always, then she got to pick the next game.
We spent an hour playing games before she yawned. She wasn’t old enough to be able to tell me when she was tired, but it was getting closer to her bedtime. The only thing Melody and I talked about anymore was Amber, so I knew the school year wore her out. She conked out earlier on the weekends than usual, and she fell asleep faster during the week. All the excitement was good for her, but it definitely left her exhausted.
“Why don’t we take a bath and read a book?” I suggested, hoping she’d go for it.
She nodded and lifted her arms when I stood. I scooped her up and my knees nearly buckled when she wrapped her arms around my neck and rested her head on my shoulder.
I’d missed that. A lot. Of everything I’d missed by moving out, the day-to-day with my family was the hardest. Amber was growing up quickly, and it made sense for Melody to be the one who had her full time, but it meant I missed out on a lot. Bath time, nighttime cuddles, story time, and everything that used to come after that.
I drew in a breath and pushed those thoughts out of my head. Amber cuddled on my lap while I ran her bath. Once I made sure it wasn’t too hot, I told her to climb in. She was too tired to splash and play, so she washed quickly, then got right back out, cuddling back into me once I had her wrapped in a towel.
She sleepily pulled on her pajamas and crawled under the covers. I laid down next to her and opened the well-worn copy of Charlotte’s Web. It was Melody’s favorite book as a kid and she started reading it to Amber when she was pregnant. We’d continued reading it, re-reading the book at least twice every year.
I softened my voice and started reading where they left off. Amber yawned and curled against my side. I wrapped my arm around her little body and held her close, inhaling the sweet scent of her fruity shampoo.
It wasn’t long before Amber’s soft snores filled the room. I kept reading until I finished the chapter, then set the book on the nightstand. I curled around my daughter and held her for a minute, wishing I would be able to sleep under the same roof as her again.
She wiggled against me and turned over, and I sighed. She never liked to cuddle at night. During the day, she’d crawl in my lap and play with my hair or Melody’s, but at night, she needed her space. I eased out of her twin bed and turned off the lamp, then left her room, closing her door like we’d always done.
I checked my phone once I was in the living room again. No messages from Melody. It wasn’t late yet, but she didn’t say what time she’d be home. She’d never been one for going to bars or staying out late, but I wasn’t sure I knew her anymore, so maybe she was now.
I felt like a creeper walking around the home I’d called mine until a few months ago. Was it okay if I watched TV? Was the food in the fridge saved for a future dinner? Hell, I wasn’t even sure where I could sleep if Melody didn’t get home until really late.
It sucked being a guest in my own home, but I was the one who left. I was the one who said we should get a divorce. Yeah, I felt like we were over, but she never said those words.
I leaned my head back on the couch I’d found so comfortable when I lived there and told myself it was for the best. Melody wanted more kids, and the only way to stop that was to lose her. At least she would live. If I gave in and we had another child, she could die. That was what the doctor said. Mel didn’t care. She wanted to have another kid, more than one. And she wasn’t giving up. Which left me only one option. I had to.
Walking out the door was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Mostly because there was a part of me that honestly believed she’d tell me not to go. It hurt my pride almost as much as it hurt my heart that my wife would rather have another child than me, but if we weren’t together, she wouldn’t have another child. She wouldn’t die. She would live and Amber would grow up with her mother.
That was what really mattered to me.
I made some popcorn around eleven and wondered if I should call Melody. If I did, was that going to make me look like a desperate ex? What if she was with someone?
Just the thought had me clenching my fists and ready to punch something. She was still my wife, and until we signed divorce papers, she belonged to me.
Sometime during the night, I passed out on the couch. I woke up with a stiff neck watching infomercials about cleaning the house.
I got up and walked down the hallway to my old bedroom. The lights were off, but I could tell Melody wasn’t there. I walked into the bedroom, not turning on the lights, and just stood there.
Melody’s scent filled the room. Her perfume, the same one she’d worn since high school, floated around me. Her shampoo drifted out from the bathroom. The bed was made, but the indent on her side was more pronounced. Or maybe that was just because my side was covered in pillows.
My old side. It wasn’t my side anymore. Nothing in the room was mine anymore. My clothes were out of the closet, my personal items out of the bathroom. Every trace of me had been erased from the house.
I went down the hall to one of the guest rooms, the one next to Amber’s room. When we bought the four-bedroom house, we planned to fill it with children and laughter and love. We had a guest room so friends and family could stay, but the second nursery became a second guest room instead of a second nursery once we lost Steven. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to go into that room.
The bed in the guest room was comfortable. I’d slept on it more than once when I still called the house my home. I stared at it like the death sentence it felt like it was. Melody didn’t come home. After a night at a bar, she didn’t come home. And she didn’t call or text me to say she wouldn’t be. Which left me with only one possibility of where she was.
I tossed and turned on the once comfortable bed until the sun forced its way through the curtains. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and forget about the outside world, but footsteps raced down the hallway and told me I had a job to do.
Amber was standing at the end of the hallway, looking around. Melody was always the first one up. She let me sleep in whenever I wanted, but she was up early, making breakfast, drinking coffee, and getting ready for Amber to wake up.
“Mommy?” Amber called out softly, a hint of fear in her voice.
“Hey, baby girl,” I said, drawing her attention.
“Daddy!” her brown eyes lit up with joy and she rushed to me.
I bent down and scooped her up, holding her close. The fear inside her gave way to excitement as my regret ramped up and made it hard for me to breathe. I wasn’t around. I wasn’t there for so much, and Amber was excited to see me, but it also reminded me how rare it was for me to be there in the morning, or at all.
“What do you say we fix some breakfast?” I suggested, carrying her to the kitchen.
“Where’s Mommy?”
I shook my head and pasted on a smile. I was not going to show my daughter how upset I was that her mother didn’t come home. That she spent the night with a stranger instead of home with us.
Us. What a joke.
“Mommy isn’t here.”
Amber’s face paled. “Did she leave me like you did?”
That was it. That was the moment I knew I’d never recover from walking away from my family. My daughter thought I left her. She was so young that we never sat her down and explained it all to her, but she drew her own conclusions and thought it was all her fault.
Instead of continuing to the kitchen, I took her to the couch and sat with her on my lap. “First of all, Mommy will be back. She just spent the night out with Aunt Willow. She didn’t leave you and she never will. She loves you.”
Amber’s bottom lip wobbled and her eyes filled with tears. “You don’t love me?” she asked in a shaky voice that shredded me.
I hugged her close and shook my head. “No, Amber, that’s not it at all, baby. I love you. So much it hurts. I hate not being here with you all the time.”
“And Mommy?”
I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat. “And Mommy. I wish I could still be here with you guys.”
“Then why can’t you? In school, Mrs. Anderson says we have to be nice to everyone, but we can be friends with whoever the people we like the most. If you like me the most, can we be friends still?”
I smiled through my pain and tucked her wild hair behind her ear. “We’ll always be friends. And I’ll always love you. You will always be able to tell me anything, and I’ll always be here for you. Me leaving has nothing to do with you.”
“So, you don’t love Mommy?”
I drew in a breath and smiled again. “I do love Mommy.”
“Then why don’t you live here?” she cried.
“Because…” How do you explain to a child that leaving was about loving the people you left when you didn’t even understand it yourself? How could I tell her that if I stayed with them, Melody would wear me down until I gave her anything she wanted and it could mean losing her forever? How did I tell my daughter that?
“Why don’t you live here, Daddy?” she asked again.
“Because Daddy and Mommy want different things,” Melody said from behind us.
I didn’t hear her come in. I didn’t know how much she heard. All I knew was she was there, as always, with the right words to put a smile back on Amber’s face.
“Mommy!” Amber shouted, jumping off my lap and rushing toward her mother.
Melody took a step back when Amber barreled into her. She wrapped her arms around our daughter and smiled, then dropped to the floor to scoop Amber up. “Hey, sweetheart. How was your night with Daddy? Did you guys have fun?”
Amber nodded. “We did. Daddy let me play games and I showed him my dance. He said Ms. Emily is right and I am the bestest spinner in class. And we ate dinner. And Daddy read some more of Charlotte’s Web to me before I fell asleep.”
“That sounds like a great night,” Melody said. “I’m so happy you had fun with Daddy. And I thought you’d still be sleeping this morning. How early did you wake Daddy up?”
Amber shrugged, and Melody finally looked up at me. Our gazes collided and the guilt in her eyes made my gut swirl. Her not coming home sent my imagination into a tailspin, but seeing the guilt in her eyes and knowing she was with someone else was more than I could handle. She avoided looking at me, but the second she did, I knew. I knew she wasn’t with Willow like I hoped, even though I knew every second she spent with her sister was taking her farther away from me. No, my wife spent the night in the arms of another man.
“We haven’t been up long,” I finally managed.
Melody nodded and focused on Amber again, breaking the connection we had. “Why don’t we get breakfast started?”
“Daddy was going to make breakfast. He’s going to have breakfast with me.”
Melody’s eyes went to mine again. She gave me a tentative smile and nodded. “Sounds great,” she said to Amber a little too brightly. “Why don’t you two get started while I go change?”
Amber happily skipped to the kitchen, and when I didn’t immediately follow, she said, “Come on, Daddy.”
I wanted to talk to Melody, but I couldn’t in front of Amber, so I followed my daughter to the kitchen while my wife changed out of her sex clothes.
Amber and I made French toast for breakfast, with bacon and sausage because, why not? Melody and I drank our coffees and pretended everything was fine. Amber didn’t notice Melody and I didn’t speak to each other. She simply chattered happily about everything going on.
After breakfast, Melody told Amber to change out of her pajamas. Amber argued, but Melody pointed out the syrup on them, and Amber finally agreed.
As Amber left the kitchen, Melody started cleaning up. I stayed at the table, the one we picked out together when we were first married. It was old and worn, but it was sturdy, a fact we’d tested out more than once before Amber was born.
I stared at the table and tried to think of anything other than my wife testing out the table, or another table, with another man. The longer I stayed silent, the more pissed off I was.
“Do you do this often?” I asked her.
“Do what?” she replied, not facing me.
“Stay out all night?”
She spun around and glared at me, one eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”
“I was just wondering if you usually spent the night with someone else when Amber is home wondering where you are and if you’re coming back.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, and dammit, my gaze went there. Because she knew me so well, she noticed and dropped her arms to her sides. Her fists clenched, and I ground my jaw to keep from opening my mouth. I wanted an answer.
“No. I’ve never spent the night out. I’ve never done anything. I’m home, raising our daughter night and day, like I’ve done her entire life.”
I scoffed. I couldn’t help it. I was pissed off. Furious. I hated that my wife screwed someone else while I was home with our daughter, and she didn’t even have the decency to tell me she wasn’t coming home.
“Who was he?” I asked.
Her eyebrows went up. Her hands lifted, like she was going to cross her arms again, but she dropped them back to her sides. She pursed her lips together and drew in a breath. “Who was who?”
I stood up and stalked over to her. I waited until I was close enough to feel the heat from her body and smell her scent. She must have put more perfume on when she changed because I couldn’t smell another man on her. “Who was the man you went home with last night? The one you spent all night fucking while I was here with our daughter? The one you were so wrapped up in that you couldn’t be bothered to tell me you weren’t coming home?”
She flinched like I slapped her, then straightened, raising herself up. She squared her jaw and glared at me. “You haven’t spent a night with Amber in months, Ramsey. Months. You walked out of this house and decided you didn’t want me anymore. You made that choice, not me. And you don’t ever get to walk back in here and tell me what I can or can’t do, or who I can or can’t sleep with.”
“Just tell me if you’re screwing someone I know. Just so I’m prepared that when I see him again I know if he’s seen my wife naked.”
She scoffed and shook her head. “I didn’t realize you were this big of an asshole. I really didn’t.”
“You’re my wife, Melody.”
She shook her head again. “No, I’m not. You said you wanted a divorce. You walked out on me. You left. So, no, I’m not your wife, I’m the woman raising your daughter.”
“Tell me who you were with last night.”
“Screw you, Ramsey. Get the hell out of my house.”
“I still pay the bills. It’s my house, too.”
She laughed and finally broke eye contact. She turned back to the sink and ignored me. But I was too upset to let it end that easily. I needed to know who she was with, so I could kick his ass and tell him not to ever touch my wife again.
“Who was it?” I demanded.
She turned around and slapped me, all in one motion. It happened so quickly, I didn’t realize what she was doing until I felt the sting on my cheek.
I looked at her, ready to light into her, and saw tears running down her cheeks.
“I spent the night with Willow, you ass. I wasn’t with some random guy. I was with my sister. For the record, I have never once asked you about who you bring home at night. I have never once accused you of sleeping with someone else. You have your own place and you get to do whatever and whoever you want, and I don’t ask. So, you don’t get to come in here and accuse me of anything. You don’t get to judge me. You don’t get to say anything about the way I’m living my life since you walked out of it. Fuck you, Ramsey.”
Amber’s footsteps raced down the hall, and Melody pasted on a bright grin and pushed away from me. She swept Amber up and carried her into the living room. I heard them talking and laughing and playing, and I felt like an outsider. I wasn’t a part of their lives anymore. And I was just making it worse by being there.
I accused my wife of sleeping with someone. I made her feel like shit. All because I was jealous. Because I wanted her to be mine again. Because I couldn’t accept the fact that I let her go.
I didn’t deserve them. I never really had. So, I snuck out the back door like the fucking coward I was and vowed to give Melody what she needed. Space from me.
