When We Believed in Mermaids(103)

“Was great.” He looks surly and sad, but he’s not shoving me away, and that’s a good sign.

My hands are on his shoulders. I move them to his face. “I’ve paid for everything I did, Simon, and then some. When life gave me a chance, I figured out a way to turn it all around. And look at us, Simon! What kind of idiot takes such a hard stand on the moral road that he throws away his wife and his entire family?”

“I’m not throwing you away.”

“Uh, yeah, you are. If you stay with this hard-ass stand, all of us suffer. All of us—you, me, the kids. That would be stupid.”

He pulls my hands off his face. “Trust is everything, Mari. If everything you’ve told me is a lie, how can I believe anything you say going forward?”

I sigh, fear starting to dig its claws into my heart. But I have also become someone who can fight for the good in her life. A woman who doesn’t run from things. “I didn’t lie about anything in our lives from the time we met, only about the past.”

He starts to shake his head again, shift me off his lap.

“No.” I tighten my grip, hands and legs. “We’re not going to wreck our family over this. We will not do that.” My hands are in the hair over his ears, in fists. “This is not some depressing Victorian novel where a woman who makes bad choices inevitably dies a terrible death. I’m not Veronica Parker, paying for the sin of having the life she wanted. This is me and you. We fell in love the minute we met, and it’s been good ever since.”

Tears are gathering in his eyes again. “I’m so angry with you.”

“I know. And you have every right to be. Be mad. We can work through that.”

He only holds me close, and I know he’s crying, trying to be manly about it. “You can come home, but this is not over.”

“Okay. I’m okay with that.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says raggedly.

“Me neither.” I allow for the reality of everything that has happened. “Maybe, in the end, you won’t be able to forgive me.”

“I’m afraid that may be true.”

I close my eyes. “I love you so much, Simon. More than I’ve ever loved anyone until our children were born. You are the sun in my world, the most normal thing that ever happened to me.”

He closes his eyes, and the tears spill out below his lids. “I just love you so much,” he whispers. “And it was all so perfect.”

“If this is the worst thing that happens to our family, we will be lucky people indeed.”

He sighs, his hands on my waist. “You’re my Achilles’ heel.”

With my thumb, I brush away one of the tears, and I bend in to kiss each eyelid. “No. I’m your sunshine in the morning, your moonlight at night.”

He lets go of a choked laugh, and then his arms are around me, so tight, and it’s my turn to make a hushed, grateful sound. “I need you,” he says.

“I know. And I need you.” Into his neck, I whisper, “It’s all a big mess, but we’ll work it out over time.”

We sit, exhausted, together for a long time. “I talked to my mom on FaceTime,” I say quietly. “I told her to come see us.”

“Will she?”

“I hope so,” I say, and I mean it.

Now, if only Kit will forgive me, everything will be all right.





Chapter Thirty-Four

Kit

I head straight up the elevator to Javier’s floor. My hair is wet from the rain, and I’m trembling in every inch of my body, and I’m having trouble catching my breath. I keep thinking that if I can find him, talk to him, some of this will make sense. Dylan and Josie.

Josie.

Javier is not home. I pull out my phone to call him, and then I just tuck it back into my bag, feeling airless, as if I will fly apart, dissolve into the universe. Standing in the hallway, shaking, I can’t think what to do. What my next step should be.

I can’t do this. Can’t sort this out. I can’t breathe or think or even settle on a single thought. Josie and Billy. Dylan and Josie. My poor, poor sister, carrying it all for so long. Finally killing herself off rather than deal with it anymore.

Dylan.

Images of him spill through my mind. So beautiful, so lost, so tortured.

How could he have had sex with Josie? How could he have kept a secret about her abuse like that? Knowing she needed counseling. Needed help. He saw her spiraling, drinking, drugging, and he didn’t just not stop it; he encouraged it. How could I have missed all this?

Overwhelmed, I spin around and head for the elevator.

Home. I just want to go home. Lie in my own bed. Sit on my patio.

I want it so desperately, all of a sudden, that it’s all I can think about. I return to my rooms and start throwing everything into my suitcase, willy-nilly, not folded. Bras and dirty underwear and new T-shirts. It feels like I’ve been on a very long, challenging journey, as if I have traveled around the world and taken part in a million festivals and now I’m leaving, a changed person.

The view this afternoon is moody and soft, the water roiling, turned a steely gray by the rain, and it makes me ache. I haven’t known it as well as I’d like. I wanted to learn more, but it’s just impossible to stay right now. I have to get back home, to my refuge, to the world I’ve built.