“And I’m also the woman who suffered because of the heartache you felt when she left you.” She smirks at me, cocking one eyebrow as if daring me to challenge her statement. I can’t because she’s right. I was a total prick to Alyssa, even though she was pregnant with my son, because I was convinced that no good could ever come from allowing a woman into my heart again. I tried everything short of cheating on her to get her to leave me alone but she refused to give up on me.
“I’m so sorry, Alyssa,” I mumble, shaking my head. “You didn’t deserve the way I treated you. If I could go back and do it all over again, you have to know I have devoted every day to showing you what an amazing woman you are.”
Alyssa presses her fingers to my lips. I hold them there, kissing the pad of each finger before dropping our joined hands into my lap. “I know you are. But now, you have your second chance with her. Don’t fuck it up because, as much as I think I should probably despise her, she’s an amazing woman. Hell, if I wasn’t dying, I might fight you for her, but I don’t think I could win right now.”
“I don’t want a second chance with her. I want you…” The words fade to silence, knowing it’s a wish that will go unfulfilled.
“How many times have we told Jacob that he can’t always have what he wants? This time, I’m telling you, you’re not going to get what you want.”
“Why won’t you let me see Mommy or Miss Melanie?” Jacob cries, jerking me back into the excruciating present. I scoop him into my arms, walking out to the balcony. I pull him into my lap once I’m lounging on the swing overlooking the ocean, trying to calm him down.
“Buddy, remember what your mommy told you?” I ask, offering a silent prayer thanking Alyssa for being the better parent, right to the very end. No way would I have been creative enough to suggest a teddy bear as part of the solution to his grief. “Where’s Blaze?”
Jacob’s eyes light up as he remembers the bear that Alyssa told him would be his connection to her when he couldn’t see her anymore. At the time, I thought it was morbid, but listening to him tell her about our trip each night as he drifted off to sleep, I quickly realized that my wife was a genius. With the exception of trying to play deathbed matchmaker. That was insanity, no two ways about it.
“He’s in my bedroom, should I go get him?” I nod, sliding Jacob off my laps and watching as he scampers through the house to get his magical bear. While I wait for him to come back out to the balcony, I reach into my pocket, wrapping my hand around my phone.
The longer I think about that last, strange conversation with Alyssa, the more I wonder what it is that’s truly holding me back from scrolling down to her contact information. Am I avoiding her out of anger or because, even though Alyssa seemed to give me the green light, I’m not sure I can or want to keep Melanie in our lives?
Over five minutes later, Jacob still hasn’t come back to me. In my very brief time being a single parent, I’ve learned that his silence and absence is typically a sign that he’s getting into something he shouldn’t be. I ease myself off the hammock-style swing and tip-toe through the house. Eventually, I will have to lay down the law with him, but for now, I find his innocence and mischief freeing.
The bedroom door is partially closed and I hear him stammering as he talks to his newest prized possession. I lean against the wall, listening just out of his line of sight. “I miss you so much, mommy. Miss Melanie and Unca Braydon told me that you’re an angel now and you’re with me everywhere I go. I wish I could see you because I know you would be smiling. You smiled so big the day we got to go on the boat.”
He continues recounting details of the day he and his mom went on the glass-bottom yacht when we were in the Bahamas. And then he moves on to the Disney characters he got to see and dance with on the ship deck. In retrospect, I’m glad Melanie pulled me aside and told me to stop being a controlling asshole when I insisted it was a ridiculous idea to go on a cruise when Alyssa’s condition was so dire. For twenty minutes, Jacob talks to his bear, reliving those four days in paradise.
“Daddy misses you too. I hear him talking to you late at night when he thinks I’m sleeping. Sometimes I get up at night and want to sleep with him, but Daddy doesn’t like sharing his bed,” he says sadly. I pinch the bridge of my nose, realizing that Alyssa wasn’t the only one I should have shown how much they meant to me. I know Jacob is thinking about the nights before Alyssa moved into her own room when she and I would fight about whether or not he could sleep between us. We’ll have to talk about that because if curling up next to me is going to help him sleep at night, that’s where he should be. “If you talk to Daddy, can you tell him to call Miss Melanie for me? I really miss her.”