She bent slightly toward him. “Because you should know.”
Okay, she had a point, a good one, and she’d made it.
But that pissed him off.
“And when I shared with you repeatedly I didn’t know, why didn’t you tell me then?”
“Because you should have figured it out.”
“Are you joking?” he whispered.
“No,” she snapped.
Yeah, he was pissed off.
“You didn’t once mow the lawn, Hope.”
“You don’t have to mow the lawn every night, Hixon.”
“You didn’t once take the trash out, not even fucking once, not our whole marriage.”
“And you don’t have to take the trash out every night either,” she retorted.
“You never took your car in to have the oil changed. I did that.”
“And what?” she asked. “That happens every three months?”
“You also didn’t get up with the kids every morning. I did.”
“Hix—”
“What about shoveling the walks, Hope?” he pushed.
“Again, that didn’t happen even close to every day,” she returned.
“We’re gettin’ into the minutiae, you wanna talk about grocery shopping? Who did that?”
“We both did, Hix. But I’ll admit, you took the kids and made a thing of it most the time, but only because you bought them junk and I didn’t like it.”
“So we both did things to take care of this house, our lives and our family,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but—”
“And I didn’t ask for a twenty-five-thousand-dollar anything because that was my job as your husband, their father. I just did it because it had to be done and because a part of me liked doin’ it because I was looking after the ones I loved.”
Now she shut her mouth.
“I’m not as clean as you and I know this because you dogged my ass for nearly two decades about it, but it’s just the way it was. I didn’t need every dog hair vacuumed up and every particle of dust swept away because I was living in a house with my wife and three kids and our dog and I actually liked the mess of my family around me.”
She kept her mouth shut.
Hix did not.
“You wanted it like that and I didn’t mind hanging my jacket on the hooks by the door so you wouldn’t see it flung over the couch or puttin’ up the towel folded like you liked it because who gives a shit? But I’d never consider it grounds to throw a tantrum or, say, end our marriage to get up in your face about the fact that it was a pain in my ass to do shit that meant nothing to me because it meant something to you. And since we’re lettin’ things fly, you never lettin’ us have another dog because they shed fucking sucked, Hope. The kids were devastated when we lost Maynard, they wanted another pet, I did too, and you puttin’ your foot down about that with the excuse of what a pain in the ass pet hair was blew. So, frankly, Hope, it sometimes bugged the crap outta me you were so damned neat and bitched about it when we weren’t. And it definitely bugged me you were that way when we all wanted another dog.”
“You never said anything,” she stated quietly.
Was she serious?
“Now you’re definitely joking,” he bit out.
She got what she’d just said and how fucked up it was and tried to backpedal.
“I . . . what I meant was—”
Hix cut her off. “You meant what you said. And I hear you about the ring and about what it would signify to you and you actually had a point, fourteen months ago. Now you don’t. You had plenty of time in between to stop tryin’ to make me dance to your tune when I didn’t even hear the record that was playing. And it shits me we’re sittin’ here now talking about all this crap, but take it as honest when I say I’m sorry I laughed when you asked for that ring. It was insensitive and that wasn’t the right response. But Hope, you lost traction immediately not sharin’ with me I hurt you then, and your response to mine was so outta whack, it’s freaking insane. And now I’m thinkin’ you got just a hint of bein’ in the dark about something someone you give a shit about has a problem with and they never shared it with you. Magnify that to make it cause the end of a marriage and powerless to do anything but watch a shitload of garbage land on your kids because that happened, and maybe you’ll get where I’m comin’ from.”
He watched her swallow. Then Hix held her eyes as she held his and he was about to put an end to this waste of time when she spoke again.
“So where does this take us now?”
“Sorry?” he asked.
“Where do we go from here?”
He felt his neck get tight.
But before he could figure out what to say, she uncurled her legs from under her and rushed across to him. Getting on her knees in front of him, she grabbed his hand and held it tight in both of hers.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered urgently. “I’m so sorry. I knew I’d done wrong at the lawyer’s office when we signed those papers but it had gone so far, I didn’t know how to stop it. But then you wouldn’t talk to me and I couldn’t tell you I was sorry. I couldn’t explain where I was at. I couldn’t start fixing things between us. Then you found her and—”
“Stop.”
She stopped.
He tugged his hand from hers.
The second he started doing that, her eyes dropped to his hand and she kept them there even as her hands fell to her sides.
“We’re done, Hope.”
Her gaze shot to his. “We’re not done.”
“We’re done.”
“You love me.”
“I did. I don’t anymore.”
More tears hit her eyes and she scooted forward on her knees, pressing her stomach to his leg as she lifted a hand and rested it on his chest.
“You do. You love me. You totally love me, Hix, in a way you always will.”
“Hope, God,” he pulled in breath through his nose and finished, “I’m sorry. I don’t. Not anymore.”
“That’s not true.”
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, pulled it away, let it go and slid down the couch from her.
She fell back to her calves and stared at him.
“I wanna get along with you, for the kids,” he told her. “I want you to stop doin’ the shit you’re doin’ that hurts them. I want to help repair your relationship with Shaw so you’ll have him for the time we still have him before he goes off to live his life. But us, we’re done. There’s no turning back.”
“We were good together,” she reminded him.
“We were. Now that’s over,” he reminded her.
“We weren’t good, honey. We were great. We were happy. We’re talking now about this . . . this . . .” she shook her head in a fierce way and forced out, “stuff. The bad stuff. But it wasn’t bad. It was good. We laughed a lot. I made you laugh a lot. I should have listened after we lost Maynard and I should have shared what I was feeling, but all this stuff . . . this stuff we’re talking about . . . I see now it doesn’t mean anything.”
“You’re right, Hope, and I’m sorry but now all of that is over in a way there’s no going back,” he said as gently as he could.
“I don’t care about the cooking, Hix. It’s not that.” She flipped out her hands. “I mean, it is but it isn’t. It’s the significance—”
“I get it, Hope. It doesn’t change things.”