Adjusting in my seat, I answer her. “I wanted my life back. I wanted him back. But at the same time, I really didn’t. I wanted who I thought he was back. Having people ripped from your life is hard.”
Her brows furrow as if she doesn’t understand. As if she thinks Kurt didn’t deserve any consideration whatsoever from me. And she’s probably right. But I didn’t feel that way back then. “He was my husband. Life was comfortable, familiar. I knew him, or I thought I did, and I felt safe knowing he mostly knew me. He knew how I liked my coffee, how I’m grumpy when I first wake up. He knew how I cried at sappy movies or sad stories no matter how many times I’d seen them. He knew I liked fountain Coke from 7-Eleven with lots of ice—he had my habits down to a T. Once upon a time, he loved me and all my quirks. That’s hard to let go of.”
“So . . . you didn’t want him back?” She cocks her head to the side in question.
“I wanted the man I married back. But he’d left me long before then. You’re so young, Ashley,” I explain. “This probably doesn’t make any sense to you. I was grieving. Marriage feels like a living and breathing thing, and when you lose it, it’s like losing a family member. There are all these memories you’re left with, good ones that you can’t really look back on fondly because you know it’s ended. And just like death, once it’s gone . . . really gone, you can’t get it back. My marriage was gone. I wanted it back. But I knew, no matter what, it would never return. Even if he’d come back crawling on his hands and knees, too much had happened. He’d lied and disrespected me too many times; betrayed me too much. And even though I knew that, that still didn’t make it any easier.”
“How were you coping with the news about Daisy?”
I let out a long groan. “I wanted to hate her. She had the life I’d wanted. I was so sad, and I wanted him to feel that, too. I wanted him to hurt like he’d hurt me. And I felt like Daisy was keeping him from feeling any pain. She was his distraction. But I didn’t hate her. I refused to. Hating her would make me a smaller person, a petty person.”
“So how did you do it? Moving away from your job, your friends, and your life. It doesn’t sound like you had a great welcoming committee here.”
I run my finger along the arm of the chair. “No, I didn’t.”
“Did it get any better?”
“Over time. It took a few months. I think he started trying harder, but we still butted heads on quite a few things.”
“Well Paul described the gun incident night as a turning point for him. What was yours?”
I’d lived in Virginia for a month and a half. I had no friends. My staff hated me. Marcus really hated me. I’d put an end to his shenanigans with our clients and he did not take it well. With Paul, it was day to day. Some days we got along just fine, others, he thought I was a raging bitch and I thought he was an entitled asshole. I sold my shitty car to the junkyard and bought another shitty car that looked way uglier. At that point, I didn’t really have anywhere to go, so the appearance of my vehicle didn’t matter much so long as it ran and got me to work and back home every day. I was more alone than I’d ever felt in my life. But I had my house. My beautiful, shitty house. When I wasn’t at work, I worked on my house. Business was good, thanks to some new methods I’d implemented, and I was finally starting to get a paycheck and since I had no life, my money went to my home.
With each job; painting walls, replacing windows, and so on, slowly, I felt myself finding peace. It was a Saturday, the first one I’d had off since I moved to town, and I’d planned an “exciting” day of staining cabinets for my kitchen. The weather was unseasonably hot for April in Virginia, or so everyone said. Every window in the house was open, box-shaped fans in them, since I hadn’t had enough money to add central air and heat yet. The oil heat got me through the cold nights, but eventually it would have to go. With my stereo blasting and the fans running, I didn’t hear Paul’s truck pull in, nor did I hear him enter my home. I was standing on my counter, smearing wood stain on the cabinets, when he touched my leg. I nearly fell off of the counter, it scared me so bad.
“What the hell?” I hissed, my chest rising and falling dramatically as I attempted to catch my breath.
When he laughed, I couldn’t hear it because the music was too loud. He turned and hit the power button, then I could hear him chuckling.
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be doing dives this afternoon.”
“Well, hello to you, too,” he said dryly.
“Hi, Paul,” I uttered exaggeratedly. Then, putting a hand on my hip, I asked, “Again. What are you doing here?”
“The last group canceled today. Their church bus broke down and they couldn’t make it.”
“Damn,” I sighed. “That sucks.” That was a lot of money we just missed out on.
“Good news!” He beamed. “The day is not lost. I come bearing gifts. Well, a gift.”