Written in the Scars(42)

I think.

I head into my bedroom. I slip off my dress and boots from work and throw on a pair of sweats and a hoodie. It’s all done on auto-pilot. My body goes through the motions while my head and heart have an argument of their own.

My brain thinks I should be logical and fair and tell Ty about the miscarriage. My heart knows I can’t make it through that conversation and feels the need to protect me. My mouth doesn’t want to take sides and spill the wrong way.

I’m scared, plain and simple.

When I enter the kitchen again, I see my phone blinking on the counter with a voice message.

“Hello, Elin. It’s Parker. I wanted to let you know that your husband was in the office this afternoon. He advised me he won’t be cooperating with the divorce, should it go forward. I’m sure you know that, but I wanted to see if your mind had changed in any way. Please give me a call back tomorrow.”

“Ugh,” I groan, dropping the phone onto the counter. Burying my head in my hands, I lean against the wall. “Why do you have to be so damn stubborn?”

A smile touches my lips, even though I fight it. Something about him wanting to fight for us, for me, feels good. Even though it would be easier if he would just let me go, let us end, a part of me deep in the shadows of my gut delights in the fact that he won’t.

Gravel crunches outside and I look out the window. Ty’s truck is sitting behind my car and he’s climbing out.

My breath hitches in my throat. No matter how many times I’ve seen him in my life, he still makes it hard to breathe.

He doesn’t look towards the house. Instead, he walks around the back of his truck. I can hear him banging on something and the tailgate closing.

I wait, but he doesn’t come to the door. I wait still, but nothing.

Slipping on a pair of rubber boots, I head outside. My heart thumps in my chest in a mixture of excitement and dread. Seeing him is going to make tonight a long, lonely night.

Rounding the corner, I see him in the middle of the yard with a rake. There’s a pile next to him of old clothes and I stop in my tracks. He looks up, but keeps raking, a little hint of a smile on his lips. “How was your day?”

His shoulders flex under the brown thermal shirt as he works the rake back and forth. His thighs fill out his jeans, and I pray he doesn’t turn around because I don’t want to see his ass. Not in those jeans. Dear Lord.

“Cat got your tongue?” he teases, dropping the rake. He heads to the pile and grabs a pair of corduroy jeans we bought together at Goodwill almost ten years ago.

“What are you doing, Ty?”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

He ignores me and shoves leaves down the leg of the pants. I just watch with amazement that after everything that’s happening, he’s here. Doing this. Like we’ve done for the last decade. Together.

Finally, he looks up. “You gonna stand there or you gonna come over here and help me make this scarecrow?”

“I . . .” I’m speechless. I shouldn’t help him. I should make him leave. But I find myself walking across the lawn and grabbing the pants. I’m rewarded with a mega-watt smile.

“I think the rain that’s supposed to come this weekend will put an end to the scarecrow days. I figured we better get it up today before it’s too late,” he says, working on the second leg.

I watch him, my brows pulled together. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because it’s what we do,” he says, pulling rubber bands out of his pocket and fastening them around the leg holes.

“Ty,” I protest as he takes the pants from me and hands me the shirt. “You have to stop this.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop this.”

He rises and looks at me. Bits of broken leaves are splattered across his shirt and in his hair. I want to reach out and brush them off, touch his cheek, but I resist. Barely.

“You can’t come by here anymore and do these things. They aren’t our thing anymore.”

“We’ve been through this,” he mutters. His arms reach into the pile and he pulls up a heap of brown leaves, shoving them into the shirt with more force than necessary. I pull away.

He sighs, releasing a breath that sounds like he’s been holding forever. “I’m not letting you walk away from me. If I have to spend the next ten years winning you back, I will. I’m prepared to do that.”

The sincerity in his eyes causes my bottom lip to tremble. “I promised you for better or worse, until death do us part. This is the worse part. I’m aiming for the better now.”

“Ty . . .” The words are stolen by the look on his face.

“Even if it takes me until the death part, I’ll try. I love you, Elin. I’m going to remind you of that until you believe it.”

“It could take a long time,” I say, my words kissed by a sniffle. “I don’t think your patience would last very long.”

“Probably not. So you should just give in now,” he laughs, pulling his hand away from the side of my face.

He fills the shirt and then grabs a bale of straw and a pumpkin and builds the scarecrow by the road while I watch, lending a hand when I see he needs it.

There’s a calm between us, an ease rooted in a comfort between two people that has been built over a lifetime. This is something I won’t have with anyone else.