And as loud as Ace is crying, the last thing I want to do is nurse so in a move I register as callous but don’t quite understand, I tune Ace out and focus on Colton as he walks across the room and into the kitchen. I hear the cupboard open, close, the clink of glass to glass, and know he’s poured himself a drink. Jack Daniels.
Crap. It must have been really bad.
I wish he had let me go with him today. I wish we didn’t have Ace so I wouldn’t fear leaving my own goddamn house because of the cameras and never-ending intrusion into our privacy. Both of those things prevented me from being there for my husband on a day he needed me the most. Guilt stabs sharply, consumes my state of mind, as I wait for him to return and hopefully talk to me.
Out of nowhere and without a trigger, a sudden wave of sadness bears down on me in a way I’ve never felt before. Oppressive. Suffocating. So stifling it’s significantly worse than the darkest of days after losing Max and both of my babies. And just as my shock ebbs from the onslaught I feel, a ghost of a thought becomes stronger and knocks the wind out of me: I just want our life back to when it was Colton and me and no one else.
Oh my God. Ace.
The unspeakable thought staggers me. Its ludicrousness takes my breath momentarily but is gone as quick as it comes. The acrid taste of it still lingers though but thankfully the rising pitch of Ace’s cries breaks its hold on my psyche.
I try to get a grip on myself, remorse and confusion fueling my actions as I gather him closer to me and kiss his head over and over, begging him to forgive me for a thought he will never even know I had.
But I will remember.
With shaky hands, I go through the motions of getting him latched onto my breast as quickly as possible, needing this moment of bonding to quiet the turmoil I feel within me. When his cries fade as he starts to suckle, I close my eyes and wait for the rush of endorphins to come. I hope for it, beg for it, but before I feel it I hear Colton enter the room and stop in front of me.
I open my eyes to find his and have to fight the urge to look away, fearful if he looks close enough, he’ll see into me and realize the horrible thought I just had. Panic strikes, my nerves sensitive like bare flesh on hot coals. I just need something to ground me right now—either the soothing rush from nursing or to be wrapped in the arms of my husband—to prevent me from feeling like I’m slowly spiraling out of control.
And just as my breath becomes shallow and my pulse starts to race, it hits me. That slow rush of delayed hormones spreads their warmth through my body and dulls the erratic and out-of-control emotions. All of a sudden I have a bit of clarity, can focus, and the person I need to focus on most is right in front of me.
Our eyes hold in the silence of the room, the intensity and confusion in the green of his makes my heart twist from the unmistakable pain I see in their depths. His eyes flicker down to Ace at my breast and hold there for a moment before lifting back up to meet mine with a touch more softness in them, but the hurt still plain as day.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Colton clears his throat and swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I saw what I needed to see, know what I need to know. Curiosity satisfied,” he says as he sits down on the coffee table in front of me.
And I know that sound in his voice—guarded, protective, unaffected. There is a whole storm brewing behind the haunted look in his eyes, yet I’m not sure if I should draw it out of him or leave it be and wait for the eye to pass on its own.
My own curiosity gets the best of me. My innate need to fix and soothe and help him when he’s hurting controls my actions. “Did you get to—?”
“He’s a piece of shit, okay?” he explodes, startling both Ace and myself. “He didn’t give a goddamn flying fuck who I was. All he saw was a nice car, nice clothes, and was totaling up dollar signs in his eyes for how much he could take me for. He reeked of alcohol, had the tats to show he’d earned his prison cred . . .” The words come out in a complete rush of air, the hurricane within him needing to churn. The muscle in his jaw pulses with anger, his muscles visibly taut as he lifts the glass of amber liquid to his lips. He pushes the alcohol around the inside of his mouth trying to figure out what to say next before he swallows it. “I am nothing like him. I will never be anything like him.” He grits the words out with poisoned resolution.
“I never thought you were or would be.” Still unsure of the right thing to say, I take the direct approach with him. He doesn’t need to be coddled right now or treated with kid gloves. That would only diminish the validity of his feelings and what he’s going through.
“Don’t, Ry,” he warns as he shoves up from the table, his anger eating at him. “Don’t give me one of your speeches about what a good man I am because I’m not. I’m the furthest fucking thing from it right now, so thanks . . . but no thanks.”
He turns to face me, eyes daring me to say more, the defensive shield he carries at the ready, up and armed. Our gaze locks, mine asking for more, needing to understand what happened to rock the solid foundation he’s been standing on for so very long.
“You know I went there today with no expectations whatsoever. But a small part of me . . . the fucked-up part obviously,” he says with a condescending chuckle, “thought he’d see me and shit, I don’t know . . . that he’d just know who I was. Like because we shared blood it would be an automatic thing. And even more fucked up than wanting to know I was a blip on his fucking radar, was at the same time, I didn’t want him to realize it at all.” His voice rises and he throws his hands out to his sides. “So yeah . . . tell me how I’m supposed to explain that.”
The anger is raw in his voice and there’s nothing I can say to take away the sting of what he went through. I just wish I’d been there with him.
“You don’t owe an explanation to anyone,” I state softly. His legs eat up the length of the living room and he moves like a caged animal. “Everyone wants to feel like they belong to someone . . . are connected to another. You have every right to be confused and hurt and anything else you feel.”
“Anything else I feel?” he asks, that self-deprecating laugh back and longer this time around. “Like what a fucking prick I am for asking Andy to go with me? For asking the only dad I’ve ever known, the only man who has ever given a rat’s ass about me, to drive me to find a man who hasn’t given me a second thought his entire life? Yeah . . . because that screams son-of-the-fucking-year now, doesn’t it?”
His verbal diatribe stops just as abruptly as it starts, but his restraint from saying more manifests itself in his fisted hands at his sides. And I can see his internal struggle, know he feels guilty over needing to close this last door to his past at the expense of possibly making Andy feel less in all senses of the word in his life.
I want to shake him though and assure him Andy wouldn’t see this as betrayal. Find a way to make him see that he’d see it as his son taking the final step to lay the demons to rest. Find peace in the one constant that has been his whole life.
“Your dad has always supported you, Colton.” His feet stop, back still to me, but I know I’ve gotten his attention. “He encouraged you to find out about your mom. You’re his son.” He hangs his head forward at the term, the weight of his guilt obvious in his posture. “He’s proven he’ll do anything for you . . . I imagine he’s glad he was the one with you when you faced the final unknown of your past.”