“Did you talk to him?”
“Yes.”
My nostrils flared with a sudden burst of hot anger. “He won’t answer my phone calls, but he talked to you?” My voice was brittle, humming with rage.
“I’m sorry, Libby,” she said quietly.
“What did he say?” My lips pursed as I tried to keep my anger in check. I didn’t want Naomi to be hit with the shrapnel of my fury.
“He just said you’d been in an accident and that you needed me to be here for you—since he couldn’t.”
“Sure he could have,” I muttered as I scooted back to lean against the headboard. “He could have just chosen to stay.” I dug my fingers into my hair and scratched at my scalp.
“He sounded…” she started but trailed off.
I looked up at her. “What? He sounded what?” I was desperate for any scrap of insight.
“He sounded bad, Libby. Like he was barely holding it together…like he wasn’t holding it together at all, actually,” she amended.
“And he thinks staying away from me will make him feel better?” I asked in frustration. “Doesn’t he want to see that I’m okay? Doesn’t he want to check on Joanie?”
As if hearing her name, my baby stretched and grunted in Naomi’s arms, then her lower lip pushed out into a tiny pout. I held out my arms and Naomi crossed to hand her over. I propped my arms up with pillows and Joanie settled in to nurse, her little grunts making her sound like a piglet. In spite of everything, I smiled at that noise. Then I laid my head back against the headboard with a sigh. “He left me, Nae.”
“I don’t think—”
She stopped talking when I snapped my head up to glare at her. “Yes,” I said with conviction. “He did.”
She frowned and nodded and then leaned in to give me a hug.
Heat rushed to my face and my shoulders started to shake as a prelude to my tears. “How am I going to live in this big house by myself? I don’t want this life if Sean isn’t in it.”
“I know, but you can do it. You did it after Jonas died.”
“That’s when I had my house. My home with all my memories of Jonas. Now I’m in this new place and it’s like Sean dragged me here. It was the price I had to pay to be with him, and I was willing to do it. But now I’m here and I can’t go back, because he sold my house and then he left. He left, Nae!”
Joanie protested, either to being squished between our hug or to my heaving and wracking sobs. So I sucked it up, pulling out of Naomi’s arms and wiping my eyes. “I was prepared before,” I said after I had gained a bit of control. “I had built up my armor. I had prepared myself to be a single parent, to be alone. It was what needed to be done, and I was going to do it. But then Sean showed up. And he wormed his way past all my anger and pain. He was this…this brilliant light amidst all the crap I was dealing with. He gave me hope.” The anger rushed back in. “I let myself hope. I let myself count on him. I knew when he first arrived that it wouldn’t last, that he would never be a safe place for me.” I rested two limp fingers against my mouth. “But then he changed my mind. He did everything right, said everything right. I honestly believed him. He made me believe him!” I was incredulous and indignant. “How could I have been stupid enough to believe him?” I asked in a pathetic whisper.
Naomi didn’t bother answering.
♪♫♪
It wasn’t until later that another worry reared its ugly head. I was angry about what he’d done to me. I was hurt and bruised and my heart felt like it was actively bleeding inside my chest. Me. Me. Me.
So it took until that afternoon for me to think back to Naomi’s words and what they might really mean for Sean. She’d said he wasn’t holding it together.
I’d spent years of my life holding Sean together with nothing but my bare hands. I knew better than anyone what it meant for him to fall apart.
Was he falling apart now? Falling off the wagon? Spiraling? Crashing? Burning?
I resented all the protective, worried feelings that rushed to the surface at this thought. I wanted time to be selfish. I wanted to focus on me and give myself space to sit in my anger. But despite all my hurt and outrage, in the end I knew I would be okay. I could deal with it.
But Sean? My confidence in his coping skills was shattering. That confidence had been non-existent when he’d first shown up at my door. But it had grown and flourished each day that he’d stuck with me and taken care of himself. Now, with him out of my sight—isolated and damaged—he could be doing anything, and the worry and not-knowing ate at my stomach and wound its way around my throat, choking off my breath.
I held it together until I got Joanie down for a nap, and then I went out to the guest house. I hadn’t been back since I’d read his song. Now I stormed in and practically tore the place apart looking for…what? Evidence? Clues to what he’d done just before leaving me? What did I think I’d find? Booze? Narcotics? As if he would have had that before he left. He wouldn’t have. I knew that. He never would have brought it close to me or Joanie. So what did I hope to find? There was nothing in the kitchen cupboards or drawers to give me any insight or closure. No hand-written notes. No flight information.
My entrance into his bedroom was less sure. It felt foreboding to walk into the place where he had slept. But I sucked in a breath of determination and went through his dresser drawers and his nightstand—both empty—and then threw the covers off the bed, more in anger than with any hope of finding something.
I stood over the bed, my breath puffing in and out as I fought the urge to cry—again. I stared at the mattress with burning eyes for several minutes before it came back into focus. Then I noticed a folder sticking out from underneath one of the pillows.
It should have been vindicating, finding this. There should have been some excitement. Instead the pit in my stomach simply deepened.
I pinched the corner of the folder between two fingers and pulled. The tab read “For Libby,” and my heart dropped further. I used one finger tip to flip the folder open.
It was papers, mostly full sheets, but also some torn scraps, napkins and bill envelopes. All had writing on them. I realized they were lyrics. It took me several minutes to appreciate what they really were.
Some were dated. I recognized one date from when he’d been in rehab. I told you I’d be better/Now I have to write this letter/Tell you how I earned this fetter/With a life that’s bruised and torn. Some lyrics I knew from songs he’d recorded and included on his albums. Others were entirely unknown to me. But as I went through them, it became clear that all had been written about me, or for me, or to me. Don’t take the scars of bitter hate/You’re so much more without my weight.
Some were apologies, begging forgiveness. Some recounted memories so poignantly that my heart broke a little more. Others described me—my personality, my face, the slope of my neck and the curve of my hips—heat rushed to my cheeks as I read some of them. They were incredibly flattering, but I worried that his view of me was a little too rosy. How could I live up to that?
And would he even give me the chance?
I slumped onto the bed and pulled out my phone, looking over the string of unanswered texts that I’d sent him over the past twenty-four hours.