But it looked just the same. She hadn’t changed a thing. It was still clean as a pin, like she liked it, tidy, like kids didn’t live there, and well-decorated in a way they both had liked it.
Their divorce agreement meant he left her with the house and the furniture, and since she made enough money he didn’t have to pay child support. Seeing as she made that money at a job she’d never lose, Hix’s lawyer had told him to fight her for a settlement since she got everything and he walked away with the old desk his father had given him for his apartment in college and some boxes of other shit that had meaning but no value.
He hadn’t fought for it. She didn’t have it, her father would have to have given it to her, or she’d have had to sell the house or dip into accounts that were healthy because they’d fought to keep them that way and she’d already given him his share of that.
But regardless, anything she gave him would be put toward the kids’ futures so there was no point. All they’d saved for that was in an account neither of them could touch except to do something for the kids.
In return, she’d signed away any rights to go after his pension or retirement accounts.
He hadn’t wanted the divorce so he’d thought it was a decent enough deal.
Now he was glad. He didn’t have pushing their situation to someplace ugly to get money out of her, which would have surely endangered his relationship with her family, something that meant something to him, but even if it didn’t, he’d need to keep it copasetic for the kids. It left their house intact for the kids to live in it without at least that change to their lives. And he didn’t have a single memory of her or the life they’d shared that he had to face daily.
Clean slate.
All good.
She turned to him in her living room and he stopped three steps in.
“You wanted to chat,” he started when she didn’t. “I’m here.”
“Would you like a beer?” she asked.
“No,” he answered.
“A bourbon?” she offered.
“No, Hope,” he told her.
“Would you at least sit?” she requested, beginning to show impatience or nerves, he couldn’t tell which.
He could do that so he went to one of the two couches that faced each other vertical to the fireplace and sat in the corner.
A fireplace where he noticed she had a fire going.
And there were candles lit.
Jesus.
Throw on some music, and with her made up, dressed like that and the room this way, he’d be smacked in the face where she wanted this to go instead of it being just in his face.
He didn’t settle in. He sat close to the edge with his elbows to his knees, his hands hanging between them, and looked at her settling in across from him.
When she did, she tucked her legs under her like they’d be chatting all night, and Hix fought his mouth getting tight.
“I’m glad you finally agreed to talk to me,” she said softly.
“I did and we’re doin’ that but I don’t wanna do it for long. The kids are home, they got a new TV and—”
She interrupted him. “Shaw can watch over the girls and Shaw can also set up a TV.”
He kept going like she didn’t say anything. “Greta’s with them.”
She assumed a hurt expression and looked to the fire.
“Hope, I’m here, you wanted to talk, talk,” he prompted.
She drew in a delicate breath and looked back at him, tears now shimmering in her eyes.
Christ.
“It wasn’t about the ring,” she said quietly.
“All right.”
She stared at him a beat before she asked, “Don’t you want to know what it was about?”
He felt his brows draw together. “Am I here to play games?”
“Of course not,” she said swiftly.
“So let’s get this done, Hope, be straight with me and say what you gotta say.”
She again stared at him before she lifted her chin a touch and declared, “Cooking.”
His brows did not unknit when he asked, “Say what?”
“Cooking.”
“Hope,” he growled, sliding to the edge of his seat.
“You let me cook, Hixon.”
He went still.
“You expected it,” she stated.
“Are you telling me you didn’t divorce me because I didn’t tell you I’d buy you a twenty-five thousand dollar ring but instead you did it because you did the cooking?”
“You expected it.”
“I don’t like to cook, and Hope, you know I’m shit at it.”
“Because you never tried to learn.”
“You’re right, because I never wanted to learn.”
“So it was down to me.”
For fuck’s sake.
“There’s no point to this,” he muttered, beginning to take his feet but he kept his seat when she spoke.
“It’s about the cooking. And the cleaning. You also let me do most of that too.”
He didn’t get a chance to say anything, she carried on.
“You’d vacuum, Hix, but I asked you to do it more than once a week and you said it didn’t need it when it did. We had Maynard for thirteen years and he shed crazy, all over the place, but we also have three kids. The floors needed vacuuming more than once a week.”
Their dog Maynard died three years ago.
And he was getting this shit now?
“You’re not giving me a point to this,” he informed her.
“I dusted, you never dusted, not ever.”
“Hope, that’s bullshit.”
“Right, okay, so maybe you did it a couple of times, but Hix,” she threw up a hand, “we were married nineteen years.”
“Together only eighteen since you kicked me out,” he corrected her.
“Like that makes a difference,” she returned.
“And you bitching about me not dusting and vacuuming and you cooking makes a difference at this point?” he fired back.
“You don’t get it and I thought you got it and it hurt, Hixon, it hurt like you wouldn’t believe when you didn’t get it.”
“Get what?” he asked.
“Get this.” She threw both her hands out that time, doing it with arms wide, indicating her immaculate house. “I kept this house nice. I cooked. I cleaned. I did the dishes even, most of the time, when it was me who cooked. I’d get Mamie from dance and I did most of the running them around before Shaw could drive and you let me.”
“You have a job that’s more flexible than mine but that’s beside the point. You were my wife and you are their mother, Hope,” he reminded her.
“I was and I am, and I thought maybe you might appreciate it a little bit.”
That shut his mouth.
“But no, you expected it and when you got that money from your Uncle Jack, I asked for that ring because I thought you’d want to give it to me, I thought you’d want to show me you loved me, you appreciated what I did for you, for this family, but you laughed at me.”
“Hope—”
“And that hurt.”
“I can see that,” he said quietly, watching her.
Her chest moved out as she drew in a big breath and she looked to the fire when she let it out.
“It wasn’t even like that ring was all the money Uncle Jack gave you. It wasn’t even half. But that doesn’t matter because that wasn’t what it was about,” she whispered to the fire.
“So you didn’t want the ring,” he noted.
Her eyes cut back to him. “Of course I wanted the ring. It was a beautiful ring. But what I really wanted was what it would mean if you gave it to me.”
“So why didn’t you tell me that?”