Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
The first time I’d seen it had been when she tripped over the ledge outside our old house and fell. Amy and I had been puzzled. The ledge was big enough to see and it had been from the beginning.
Pieces of the jigsaw fell into place. She must have gone to see an eye doctor after that. Guilt gripped me by the throat. What sort of husband had I been that I had not noticed my wife’s failing eyesight?
Chaz must have made the difficult decision to leave me when she was told that her vision would deteriorate. I was the bastard who had left her when she was given the sad news. I had never bothered to even come looking for her.
Emotion overwhelmed me and I covered my face with my hands. What was wrong with me that she could not tell me about her illness? Was I such a perfectionist that she thought I would not want her if she wasn’t perfect?
Charlotte had said earlier that day that she had called me. It didn’t take a genius to work that out why she called me, it was about her pregnancy. I punched into my other hand.
My mother had unknowingly kept me away from my son but I couldn’t really blame her. Charlotte had not tried very hard. If you wanted to tell your ex that you were expecting his child, you would find a way to.
She had not tried very hard. Or even at all. That made me sad and angry. I understood that she was dealing with a difficult situation with her eye illness but there was no excuse to keep a father and son apart.
The fact that she was ill made it even worse. Charlotte was not in touch with any of her relatives or anyone from her past. What would have happened to our son if God forbid, something happened to her? He would have been taken into foster care, and all because Charlotte had been too proud to look for me. I was not mad. I was seething.
Charlotte
“Is something the matter?” I asked Alex, ten minutes into the drive to Cleveland.
He had been different since the previous day when he returned home after checking out of the B&B. I’d hoped that we would spend the night together, making love, but he’d been silent and brooding. At bedtime, he had said good night and gone to the guest room.
I’d stood outside his door contemplating whether to go in or not. Courage had failed me and I’d spent a long, sleepless, horny night alone. Alex’s sour mood had continued in the morning, which led me to believe that he did not want to be in the same house with me.
“No,” he said.
“You know, it’s okay if you want to continue staying in the B&B,” I said.
He glanced at me. “It’s not that.”
“So there’s something.”
“Drop it, okay?”
I swallowed my hurt. In the years we had been married, nothing had been off-limits to talk about.
“We’ll talk about it after your nappointment,” he said.
I fiddled with the radio and searched for a station with soothing music because clearly, we would not be conversing. I gave up on trying to figure out what was bugging him.
As we got closer to Cleveland, my thoughts shifted to the appointment with the ophthalmologist. I didn’t want to get my hopes up and then have them crushed. But a tiny seed of hope had grown. Maybe in the last two and a half years, a new treatment had been found.
With the wisdom that comes from hindsight. I should have gone for a second opinion but I’d been young and naïve. And then I panicked and all I could think about was what a burden I would be to Alex.
Would he understand when I explained all that as the reason why I didn’t tell him about Kayden?
“Here we are,” he said, easing into an empty parking space. He turned off the ignition and turned to me. “Whatever happens, I’m here and I’ll always be. Okay?”
The anger was gone and all I saw was love in his eyes. My heart ached with so many things that I wanted to tell him but which I’d forfeited the right to.
I love you. So much.
I need you. I want you back in my life.
I tried to remember how my life and Kayden’s had been before Alex came back and failed. All I saw was darkness. He had splashed color back into our lives. Kayden was flourishing with the attention from two adults.
I tried but, on some evenings, I was too tired to play with him. When there were the two of us, one person was always ready to play with him.
“Okay,” I said softly.
We got out of the car and walked to the entrance of the building. It was nothing like the time I had gone to get my results after the eye tests. This time, even though I was nervous, I was bearing it well. I had Alex with me and I knew that whatever the outcome, unlike before I knew I had someone in my corner.