That first phone call with Skylar was just the start of my heartbreak. Apparently, she’d been trying to get money out of Dean, so she could raise the baby, and he was trying to keep her quiet, so I wouldn’t find out. Skylar grew bored of being the secret, so she decided to ruin our lives with one phone call.
I wanted to kick Dean out the second I had the proof I needed, but how could I? This was his house. This was his money we were living on. Dean made sure of that a long time ago. I was just his trophy wife, there at his side to look good. But we weren’t partners. We weren’t equals. He was the man of the house, and I was like a child with an allowance.
Almost as if Skylar knew I wouldn’t believe her off her word alone, she showed up at our place brimming with energy, her belly on full display. That icy pain filtering through my chest was a living, breathing entity. I had never cried so much in my entire life, and I had no one to run to. My mother was gone, my father wasn’t speaking to me, and my best friend lived on the other coast. Every person I’d normally run to for help was suddenly nowhere to be found.
I filed for divorce and spent that last month crying day in and day out until Skylar gave birth. Of course, Dean fought me. He wanted to make it work. We had almost ten years of marriage under our belts, and he didn’t want to throw it away on a mistake.
But this wasn’t just a mistake.
He didn’t mistakenly sleep with my cousin. And my heart tells me he didn’t mistakenly get her pregnant either.
Dean claimed his slipup with Skylar was because he was in pain. After so many failed tries of IVF and miscarriages, I shut down. I’ll admit that I wasn’t the perfect wife. I was depressed. I was angry with myself. I was so many things except a good wife.
He tried to win me back for a while, but I think he gave in when he realized I wouldn’t budge. Some part of me considered making it work. I toyed with the idea of therapy and counseling—anything to get us back on the right track—because the idea of navigating life with no one by my side was almost too scary to bear.
Now when I look back, I can’t believe I even considered taking my husband back. My cheating husband and his child. All it took was one conversation with my best friend, Rosalind, to pull me back in my right mind. Nothing was left of my marriage to salvage. I let this man embarrass me and dictate everything in my life for years. I wasn’t going to forgive him this time. I couldn’t let this slide. I planned on telling him all of this to his face. I planned on handing him divorce papers and smiling in the face of his frustration, but that was when the second phone call came, and my entire world crumbled around me.
Not only had my husband been in a car accident, but Skylar was, too. Even in death, they still managed to hurt me because it was apparent Dean wasn’t done with Skylar just yet. They were still sleeping together, even while he was begging me to take him back and crying that he couldn’t live without me. That was never really it, though, was it? He wasn’t going to miss me. He would miss the wife who would do everything for him—the wife who took care of him, not Daisy.
Not the Daisy who used to laugh.
Not the Daisy who loved to paint.
He was going to miss the version of me that made his life easier.
What hurt the most was the fact that I never got to give him my final piece. I never got to leave him and watch him realize he lost a good woman. He died before I could ever do any of that.
After Skylar and Dean’s death, the blows didn’t stop coming. Oh no, the final blow was Faith, their daughter. At six weeks old, she had no parents and nowhere to go. On Dean and Skylar’s getaway trip, they left their newborn daughter with a nanny Dean had apparently hired. On top of that, he had bought Skylar a condo for her and the baby. He mentioned he was staying at a hotel to give me space at the house, though I didn’t believe that for one second.
I considered turning my back and saying this baby wasn’t my problem, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t. When I looked in her eyes and saw pieces of Dean and Skylar, it equally broke and mended my heart at the same time. She was beautiful and innocent, and she didn’t deserve to be bounced around from family to family or put in the system because her parents were selfish. She deserved to be loved.
And after much thought, I decided I could love her, despite the mistakes of her parents. Dean’s parents could’ve taken her, I’m sure they wanted to, but after taking that first look at Faith, I knew she was mine, maybe not in the way that mattered to the rest of the world, but I felt it in my heart.
So that’s where I am now, raising an infant with no job, no money, at my best friend’s place until I can get my shit together. I pad down the hallway into Rosalind’s immaculate kitchen and start warming up a bottle for Faith. She’s still crying at the top of her lungs, my bouncing and soothing not working. There’s a part of me that knows it’s because she misses Skylar. She has to.
My heart twinges at the thought of her missing Dean, too.
“If this arrangement is going to work, Little Miss Faith needs to keep it down a few notches. I think my ears are bleeding,” Rosalind says on a yawn as she pads into the kitchen. Guilt slams into me. As a lawyer, I can’t imagine having a screaming baby up at all hours of the night is helpful for her or her clients. She’s not the only one I have to worry about either. Her fiancé, who also works at the firm with her, is asleep, too. Though, I have noticed he’s a heavier sleeper than Rosie. But still, I don’t think a crying baby will help them win any cases. Hell, I remember how hard it was on Dean while working at the firm back in California.
After the accident, Rose helped me pick up the pieces of my heart and my life. When I decided I would take Faith in, she was the one who wanted me to make sure I could do this. That I could spend the rest of my life looking down at this little girl and love her with all my heart. Despite all the heartbreak and turmoil, I knew deep down that I could. Because I’d never forgive myself if I left her to the system.
Rosalind offered to fly us out to her home in New York until I could get back on my feet. So with what money I had to my name, which wasn’t much without Dean’s paycheck, and not including his life insurance policy, we moved. Don’t get me wrong, we have assets in the process of being liquidated, but now, more than ever, I felt the need to walk out of this marriage with everything I came with. None of that money was ever mine to have—Dean made that blatantly clear. I’d make sure every cent of that money went to Faith and her future. It’s only our third night here, and it already feels like we’ve overstayed our welcome.
I just need to find a job and a nanny who can take care of Faith while I’m at work, then we’ll be okay. I can dig into some of the savings from the insurance policy and get us a place. Just until I can go back to college, finish my degree, and find a real job.
“I’m so sorry, Rose. I promise, we’ll try to be quieter.”
She shakes her head, settling on one of the barstools at her breakfast bar. “Stop apologizing, Daisy. None of this is your fault. I opened my home to both of you because I love you.”
My chest squeezes like it’s in a vise at her words, so I turn toward the counter and finish making the bottle. I blink back the tears threatening to spill.
I hate feeling like an inconvenience. I know she’s my best friend, and she’d do anything for me, but she has her own life. A fiancé who I’m sure wants his privacy. I’ve known Damon for three years now. I met him during one of Rose’s trips to California. He’s an amazing guy and the perfect match for her. It should’ve been a red flag that Dean didn’t like him. Dean didn’t seem to like anyone.