Crazy Girl(86)

“No,” I told her. “I truly don’t think he is.” There was no way for me to know for sure, obviously. I could only go with what I felt in my gut, and my gut said Allen was as honest as they came. He was dealing with the arrival of the baby in a way she didn’t understand. There were a million things that could wedge themselves between a husband and wife, and it’s not always infidelity. If to her Allen was slacking on his end, I believed there was a good reason…or at the very least an explanation that wouldn’t ruin their marriage.

“He still won’t have sex with me,” she whimpered, taking her hand from mine and wiping at her face. I sat up quickly and swiped a few tissues from the box on the nightstand next to me and handed them to her before lying back down. Dabbing at her face, she went on. “I just feel like he’s so distant. I don’t understand.”

It occurred to me that there were things not being said between them. I was no couple’s counselor, or authority on marriage given mine had failed, but I could say with honesty that divorce does teach you some things about yourself, or shows you who you were within the confines of matrimony. No matter who took most of the blame for why a union failed, we can all learn something about ourselves from it. We can all say, Here are some things I could have done better and will remember for the next go-round. And one of mine was communication. When my ex-husband Ross did something that upset me, a great deal of the time I’d let it go. Back then I was in more of a pick your battles way of thinking. Arguing was exhausting, and if I could avoid it, I did. But the more I pretended, the more I turned a cheek to things he did that hurt or bothered me, the more resentment built. Resentment leaks into everything. You think avoiding an argument, biting back words, means keeping the peace, but what animosity lurks in the unsaid?

Flipping the covers back, I climbed out of bed and walked over to the dresser where Deanna’s phone was charging. Grabbing it, I walked to her side where she was just sitting up, trying to figure out what I was doing. Holding her cell out, I said, “Call him. Right now.”

She glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. “It’s almost midnight. He’ll be sleeping.”

“Then wake him up. But call him. Tell him how you feel, Deanna.”

The tissues I’d given her moments before were balled up in her hand as she used them to wipe under her eyes. “We can talk when he gets back.”

Placing a firm hand on her leg to make her look at me, I met her stare. “That man loves you, ya know? He’s got something going on in his head and so do you, and you’re sitting here crying. That’s silly.”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’m being a baby.”

“Deanna,” I growled. “Stop it. You can always cry to me. I just mean I know there’s a good reason for all this. Ask him, and tell him how his behavior is making you feel. Stop letting him off the hook because you don’t want to rock the boat.” When she took the cell from me, I added, “Don’t be afraid to battle for your man, even if that means having to kick him in the ass once in a while. Men need to be loved and supported just as much as they need to be called on their shit.”

She bobbed her head twice before dialing up Allen. She sniffled a few times and cleared her throat to compose herself as it rang. I waited a moment to make sure Allen would answer.

“Yes, I’m fine, and the baby is fine, too,” she said after a beat. Allen must’ve answered in a panic after seeing what time it was. “We need to talk,” she added.

With that, I grabbed my own phone and one of the heavy white robes the B&B provided and left so they could talk in private. Taking a seat on one of the rockers outside, I closed my eyes and let the sting of the cool fall air nip at my cheeks. I hated to be cold, but that night I didn’t mind it so much. Again, I let my mind wonder off somewhere or to someone. Him. Always him. My manuscript was nearly finished, but I was at a standstill. I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was causing my writer’s block. Was it Wren’s absence—would I be able to finish the book without my muse? Was it the hurt I was feeling—how could I write a happily-ever-after when things had ended so badly between us?

And the thing that worried me most was, I wasn’t sure I could.





“Write what disturbs you, what you fear,

what you have not been willing to speak about.

Be willing to split open.”

-Natalie Goldberg





We were at breakfast the next morning, a delicious spread of eggs, bacon, and biscuits that the B&B provided for its guests in front of us.

“I’m sorry Allen couldn’t make it, but I’m loving this,” I pointed out before shoving a fork full in my mouth. When I’d returned to the room the previous night, Deanna was calm. She didn’t give me many details, but she said they’d had a good talk. That made me happy. But when she woke this morning she’d been quiet; her brow had been slightly furrowed most of the morning as if she was worried about something.

She gave me a slight smile with my little joke as she leaned back in her chair and rubbed her belly. She’d had two cups of coffee, which wasn’t like her, but I figured she had to be exhausted from the night before. But it seemed like there was more.

“Deanna?” I said her name softly, placing my fork on my plate and swallowing. “What’s wrong?”