She leaned his way. “It does.”
“You should have told me. I’d hurt you, you felt I was taking you for granted, that was something I needed to know.”
She nodded repeatedly and quickly. “I should. I know that now. I should have told you. And from now on, I will, Hixon. You have my promise.”
“Hope, you broke it. It can’t be fixed. It’s done.”
“It’s not.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again as gently as he could. “It is.”
The tears started flowing over when she reminded him, “We vowed forever.”
“Then you filed for divorce.”
She slapped a hand against her chest. “This isn’t just on me. You have your part in it.”
“Maybe I did but then it got done and there was nothing left but our kids.”
“That’s not true. You promised me forever, so if it’s broken, you have your part in fixing it.”
“Hope—”
She surged to him, grabbing both sides of his neck and pressing between his legs. “I love you, Hix. You’re the only man I ever loved, and I’ll never love anyone else because I shouldn’t have to.”
Again, Hix wrapped his fingers around her wrists, both of them this time, and he pushed her back but held her not too far away with their hands between them as he dipped his face in hers.
“I tried to fix it,” he reminded her quietly.
“I should have let you, but now—”
“You didn’t,” he told her. “And now, it’s over. There’s nothing to fix.”
“We can get it back,” she begged, tears still flowing.
Hix used his hold on her wrists to pull her gently to her feet as he stood but he held her in front of him and kept at her.
“I know you’re hurting and that doesn’t make me happy. I know what you want and I lived so long wanting to give you what you want, it’s hard, even now, to say you can’t have it. But you did what you did and then you acted the way you acted, and it sucks I gotta remind you, but that was even worse than what you did to put yourself where you are now. For me, Hope, it sucks to share this with you too, but I’m not where you are now. I’m somewhere else and I’m not turning back. I’m not because you threw away our lives the way you did. I’m not because you played the games you played and pulled the shit you pulled after you did that. And I’m not because I just don’t love you anymore in a way I know I’ll never do it again.”
“Her,” she spat.
“Yes, Greta. And also you, Hope. You let it die and now it’s dead, and if you can’t understand that, I’m sorry. But it’s the God’s honest truth.”
She yanked her wrists from his hold, stepped away several paces, lifted a hand, dashed it on her cheek to wipe away the tears and hissed, “And you’re blameless.”
“Probably not. But what I’m trying to say is it doesn’t matter now.”
She squared her shoulders, tossed her pink champagne hair and sniffed. “Right. Then you can get out of my house now.”
“You wanted this talk, I’m here and we should take it where we’re at least good to raise our children healthy and happy and not runnin’ away and walkin’ across town at seven in the morning because that shit is whacked.”
She opened her mouth and he knew it was about to come spewing out.
But surprisingly she shut it and looked again to the fire.
She crossed her arms on her chest and declared, “I miss my son.”
“I’m sure and we’ll work on that.”
She looked to him. “And I want that woman not staying the night when my children are with you.”
“Don’t go there,” he growled.
“It isn’t right.”
“What it isn’t is your business.”
She dropped her arms but held them out to her sides. “They’re my children.”
“They’re mine too and Greta’s gonna be in their lives, the way things are goin’, for the rest of them, so no reason for her not to be in them now.”
Her face froze in shock with her mouth open.
She unfroze to stammer, “You’re go-go-gonna . . . you’re gonna . . . you’re gonna marry her?”
“I don’t know. But I know if you take a second and think about it, you’d know that I wouldn’t have a woman around them that I didn’t have feelings for. You also know you can trust me to do the right thing by our kids. So we don’t have to have this conversation not only because it’s not your business but because I’m a good father who loves his kids so you shouldn’t insult me by saying anything.”
She crossed her arms on her chest, protectively this time, and stated, “You’ve got to know that hurts me, Hixon.”
“I can imagine, Hope,” he murmured. “But it is what it is, it’s happening, and you’re gonna have to get used to it too.”
She looked to the fire and declared, “I think you should leave.”
“Hope, you need to stop talkin’ shit around Mamie.”
She turned again to glare at him but he kept going before she could say anything.
“You can be pissed at me. You can hate me. You can hate Greta. You can do what you want, say what you want, talk all you want. That’s your prerogative. But not in front of our daughter.”
“I’m sure Greta went tattling to you about our conversation this morning,” she spat.
“She called me when she got to work, yeah,” he told her. “But you’re an adult, she’s an adult, I can’t control you, and because of that, I can’t protect her from you. Do I want you never to do that again? Hell yes. Can I stop you? Unfortunately no. Can we put up with your shit and carry on? Fortunately yes.”
“My shit,” she murmured, her lip curling.
Hix sighed and prompted, “Mamie?”
“Since the girls are both desperately in love with her because of her hair and her stupid heels, not to mention she’s buying their love by giving them gift certificates to make their room in your house nice, I won’t mess with that,” she gave in ungracefully.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“But it’d be nice if you’d also have a few words with Shaw.”
“I’ll do that.”
“And I’ll curtail discussing on my phone in my house about how I feel about your new slut when the children are around.”
“Now see,” Hix whispered, holding his body perfectly in check, and Hope didn’t miss it, he knew it when her face paled, “that’s stepping over a line I’ll state plain right now you just crossed and you better never fuckin’ cross it again.”
“I—”
He took one stride to her, getting in her space and dropping his head so they were nose to nose.
“Do not ever speak about her that way again, Hope. Not ever. Not fucking ever.” He pulled his head back and bit out, “Now we had our talk and you got a choice. You get your head out of your ass and get with the program or you don’t. I can’t say what’ll happen if you don’t. I’ll have to deal with it if it happens. What I will say is, right now, we got eight months with Shaw, two years with Corinne and five years with Mamie. Five years to make our kids happy, teach them what they gotta know to live their lives, take on the world and be decent human beings. If I gotta do all that on my own, I will. But it’d be nice to have your help.”
Her head moved like he’d slapped her, but he was done.
And he communicated that by sidestepping her and walking right out of her house.