Getting Real (Getting Some #3)(72)
“I don’t regret it either.” She looks over at me, her face gentle. Unguarded.
And it’s like I’m looking back in time. Finally talking to the girl I knew . . . the person I used to love.
“Everything just went so fast,” she says. “There was never any time . . . and one day I woke up and I was thirty-eight. And I . . . couldn’t breathe. Because my life was rushing by and nothing about it was what I thought it was going to be. What I wanted it to be.”
She inhales deeply, rubbing her palms on her jeans.
“It’s hard to admit that when you have kids. Scary. So I blamed you for it. Because that made it easier to change it. To upend the boys’ lives and blow our family apart.”
I’ve wondered about this for so long. I knew we had issues—our marriage was never perfect—but her insistence on getting divorced took me by surprise.
“And then, this last year,” she goes on, “it’s like I went crazy on only having to worry about myself. I knew the boys were with you. That they were safe and happy, that you would take care of them. And I got to think about me. It had been so long, Connor, since I was able to only think about me. It’s like I was drunk on it. The freedom of it. It felt like I was twenty-five again.”
She glances my way.
“You probably can’t understand that.”
When we were married, Stacey took care of the details, the small things.
All of them.
The appointments, school paperwork, homework, schedules, playdates. The laundry and food shopping and housework. Even when we took vacations, she booked the hotel, reserved the flights, the rental car, packed the boys’ suitcases.
I only had to pack mine. All the other stuff was just . . . taken care of.
Because I was working. Because my mind was on my patients—on becoming and being a doctor. And when I was home, I just wanted to spend time with the kids, with her. I needed that.
“I don’t know if I would’ve understood it then, but I get it now,” I tell her. “And I knew you were unhappy . . . in the end. But I was so tired of trying, and fighting. I just . . . stopped caring. It’s fucked up.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. You couldn’t save us, like one of your patients. You couldn’t fix us, Connor.”
“I know. But it’s still wrong. You were my wife, the mother of my kids . . . I should’ve cared.” I look her in the eyes, my voice low and my words true. “I’m sorry.”
She nods softly, sadly.
“I’m sorry too. For so much.”
Stacey’s gaze drifts back to Aaron. “And I’ve been sitting here thinking of all that time I’ll never get back with them. With Aaron. And I’ve been praying—I’ve been praying, please, God, take me instead.”
She shakes her head as tears flow from her eyes and down her cheeks, her voice louder and higher pitched.
“I just want one more hour with him, one more day. I want to hear his voice, Connor. Smell his hair. We can’t . . . we can’t lose him like this!”
I go down to my knees in front of her, pulling her into my arms and pressing her face to my shoulder as she unravels.
“I know, Stace. I know.”
Her hands twist in my shirt.
“I wasted all that time and I’m so sorry!”
“Shhh, easy.” I run my hand down the back of her hair, my voice calming. “You have to keep it together. I know it’s hard, but this is the ICU; they will kick you out of here and I won’t be able to do anything to stop it.”
She nods against me, pulling in a shuddering breath.
“It’s going to be different, Connor, I promise.”
“I believe you.”
“Everything’s going to be different between us from now on.”
I rock her gently while she cries.
“I know it will be. It’s okay; we’re going to be okay, Stacey. You and me and the boys—we’re all going to be all right.”
*
Violet
“It’s going to be different, Connor, I promise.”
Shit.
“Everything’s going to be different between us from now on.”
Shit, shit, shit.
“We’re going to be okay, Stacey.”
I’m going to be sick. My stomach coils and twists and it’s all my own fault.
Garrett and Callie stopped by the house to see the boys, so I drove to the hospital to drop off coffee for Connor and Stacey. The good stuff, not the turpentine they’ve probably been drinking from the break room or the vending machine. I thought they could use it.
And then when I heard them speaking, I waited outside the door to Aaron’s room.
Because I didn’t want to interrupt.
I wasn’t listening . . . I was waiting. But then the words were just there.
“You and me and the boys—we’re all going to be all right.”
And because curiosity didn’t just kill the cat, it broke its fucking heart too—I peeked around the corner into the room. And I saw Connor holding Stacey in his arms, touching her hair.
I left after that—went down to the ED and talked with my coworkers, my friends. After twenty minutes, I walked back to the ICU. Stacey’s eyes were puffy and Connor was somber, but they were sitting in their own chairs. I gave them the coffees and pretended like I’d just gotten there.