Page 66 of Single Dad Problems
Knock.
Silence.
Then Cole's voice spoke through the wooden door:
"Callie, we know you're in there. You don't have to open the door. We're going to talk anyway. Do whatever you need to do. We're going to say everything you deserve to hear."
I closed my eyes. Luke went first.
"Callie. I made a list. I'm not going to read it. The whole list was just one sentence written eighty-three different ways and the sentence wasI was wrong.I was wrong. About you. About what I saw. About what I let myself believe in three seconds standing in front of a woman I have loved ever since I met her."
He took a deep breath.
"I want you to know what was in my head that day. It wasn't you. It was my ex-wife. I have been in therapy for years to learn the difference between the woman who hurt me and the woman in front of me, and the second the stakes got real, I forgot every single thing I have ever paid to learn. I looked at your face and I drew the worst conclusion my brain has ever been trained to draw, and I said it during what was probably the worst day of your life and every fucking minute I want to take it all back."
His voice cracked.
"There was no version of you that day that deserved any of that. And there is no version of me, going forward, that gets to pretend it didn't happen. I needed you to know that. I promise to never assume the worst of you again."
I was not breathing. The first tears slipped past my defenses like little traitors who had jumped ship without permission, and I hated him a little, in that moment, for being good at this, for sounding like a man I might still want.Ugh.
Cole spoke next.
"Cupcake… I drove past your house every night that week because I needed to know your lights were on. And then the second I stood in your driveway with my best friends so we could tell you we want to share you, I looked at you and believed the worst. And I think maybe cause deep down I felt like I didn’t deserve you or that we didn’t and I was looking for it to come apart like everything else in my life has. I fucked up. The man my mama raised would not have done that. The man I tried to be for my son would not have done that. I am not asking you to take me back. I am asking you to know that I have spent every day since trying to figure out how to be the man who would not have done that, and I am going to spend the rest of my life on it whether you let me near you or not. If you let me near Oliver again, I will earn it. If you let me near you again, I will earn that twice over."
I had my hand pressed over my mouth and tears were running down my wrist into the collar of my pajamas and I was not making a sound.
"Cupcake."
Ben’s voice that always made him sound like he was about to tell you a story you were going to laugh at.
"I have a thing I do. It is a small embarrassing thing and I have never told anyone about it. I keep track of your smiles. I have since the lake. I know the one when you are pretending to like a bad joke. I know the one when Oliver says something that takes the floor out from under you. I know the one when you walk into a room with a spaghetti stain on your shirt and dare anyone to mention it. I know the embarrassed one and the shy one and the wired one when you have had two coffees too many."
A pause.
"There is one I never got. There is one you give Beth when she gives you a flower from the parking lot, and one you give your son when he says something only the two of you understand. The pure happy one. The one with no work in it. I have been waiting to earn that one."
His voice cracked, just barely.
"In your driveway I looked at you and I did not see any of them. I did not see one single smile I have ever loved. I saw a face you had never made before because something terrible had happened to you, and instead of recognizing that I had never seen it before, I decided it must be a face you made for somebody else. I have spent nine days going over the smiles I have got from you and I am furious, Callie. I am furious at myself. Because I have beenstudying you,and the second the test was real, I failed it. I want a chance to get it right. And if you tell me to leave, I will leave. But I want you to know I have been keeping the list either way, and the day you give me the pure happy one, on purpose,because I earned it, is the day I will know I am even partway home."
A long silence on the porch.
Then Luke spoke up in his warm and steady voice.
"There is an envelope. We are going to leave it on your step. You do not have to open it. You do not have to read any of it. But you should know what's in it. Beauford is on administrative leave pending criminal investigation. Karla Chism has been fired as apparently, she knew about and enabled his behavior. Renata Abbott went on the record. Charges were filed Tuesday morning. He is done, Callie. The part you cannot do alone is done."
He paused.
"There is something else in the envelope about the house. We will explain it if you want us to. We will not if you don't. We are leaving it on the step either way. We are not going to push. We are not going to ask. We came to say what we said, and to give you this, and to go if that is what you tell us."
Silence. They were waiting to hear if I would answer.
My mouth would not work. My throat had closed up around something the size of a fist. I was pressed against the wall in my best friend's kitchen in stained pajamas with mascara running into the collar of my shirt and my hand over my mouth and I could not produce one word in the English language.
From the bedroom doorway, at completely normal Oliver volume:
"Mom. They cannot hear you crying because you are being quiet. But they can hear me."
