“Is that when you had to start caring for Jo?” he asks.
Oh, boy. Best pull all the lies out of the darkness and lay them all out in the sun to be examined.
I take a shaky breath. “I’ve been taking care of Jo since she was a month old. My sister abandoned her the week you left.”
Pat’s face shifts as he realizes what the timing means. “But that time I called,” he says slowly. “You said you were in Europe.”
I nod slowly. “I did say that.”
The memory of his phone call is painfully etched inside my skull. I had not been in Europe. I’d been standing at the kitchen sink, washing bottles, the sour smell of formula mixing with the bright clean lemon of dish soap. When my phone rang, I was so exhausted, I didn’t even look at the caller ID.
I heard Pat’s voice, and I almost dropped my phone in the sink.
He’d been at a club or bar—I could hardly hear him over the thumping bass and sound of voices. I didn’t know why he was calling when he couldn’t have been bothered to so much as text me the night he ditched me without saying goodbye.
“I just wanted to catch up!” he said, practically shouting into the phone. “How are you, Lindybird?”
He wants to catch up? How am I?
In the window above the sink, I caught sight of myself. Lank hair, falling out of the same ponytail I’d worn for days. I had dark shadows under my eyes and hollows in my cheeks. The stained shirt I wore had spit-up in so many places it seemed silly to wash it and change into something clean. That had been the week the dryer broke.
It’s still broken. And so am I.
Before I could find words, I heard another woman saying Pat’s name, asking him to buy her another drink. Her voice was clear enough for me to know she was right there, probably pressed against him, her lips near his ear and—
I snapped. Lie after lie poured from my mouth about cities I’d seen, places I’d stayed, how wonderful it was being free and unattached. Tears poured down my face to match the lies streaming out. Lying was a way to shove Pat out of my life and slam the door behind him. I couldn’t have him calling me up when he wanted, breaking my heart all over again.
And then I heard Jo stirring through the baby monitor on the counter. I told Pat I had to go and hung up without waiting for a response. I went up to feed Jo, diving back into what had become my routine, hoping to forget about the man I’d loved.
Now, as understanding washes over Pat, I can see him fighting to contain his hurt and anger. I expect an explosion, but he holds it all behind the tightness of his jaw, the pinch of his forehead.
Pat has changed, or maybe he’s simply matured. Restraint was never his strong suit. What he felt bubbled out of him like an underground spring, unrestrained and uncontained.
“Did you ever go to Europe?” he asks.
“Raising a kid and taking care of Mama changed all my plans.” It changed me. Sometimes I think for the better, but it’s really hard to say.
“I wondered why I could never find your articles. I scoured the internet for your byline in every travel journal and website out there.”
He did?
I can’t let that detail soften me toward him, but it turns something in me, like the statement is a tiny brass key.
“I still write, just under another name. And not about travel, obviously.”
A ragged breath escapes him, and though his muscles bunch like he’s about to run, he doesn’t. “So, when I called, you were here?”
“Right inside the house.” I tilt my head toward the door. “I’ve been here ever since a few days after you left without saying goodbye. Remember that?”