Page 111 of A Better Place

She nods her head and looks up at me through her what have to be fake eyelashes and overly done makeup. The barely-there makeup that Carly wears, allowing her natural beauty to shine through, can make me hard in the snap of a finger. But this? What Nicole is presenting to me? Nothing but ugliness. I’ve never been so grateful that Lily takes after me and Tess in the looks department (and our hearts) than in this moment, right here, staring at what could have been her future. Our future.

“How is it you plan to… make it up to me… as you put it?” I ask.

“James, I love you.”

I can’t help it. I laugh. I laugh hard, actually. Is it rude? Probably. Do I give a shit? Nope. Not one single flying crazy monkey. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the wicked witch, just ready to take flight.

“Why are you laughing at me, James? I’m serious.” She pouts as if that’s going to work on me.

“Oh, Nicole, no way in hell are you serious right now.” I wait for her to clue in as to why I’m laughing. But, shockingly, she looks completely serious. “No way could you possibly, even remotely, think that you feel anything sort of like love for me. Or for your daughter, for that matter. When you love someone, you put your needs aside. You don’t set out to destroy their world. You move past the shit that’s clouding your brain and pull up your big-girl pants and man up. You move mountains to get past your insecurities, your selfish desires. When you love someone, you would do anything in your power to see them succeed, to be happy. Your version of love is an F5 tornado, taking out everything in its path.”

I stand up from the chair, walk around the desk Barrett built me in the newly renovated office of my restaurant, and stand in front of her. Her purse sat on the chair in front of my desk, and she seemed to be settling in to stay a while, but I had other plans.

“You see, when I came home that day, I thought my world had been destroyed. I thought nothing could ever hurt as badly as seeing your stuff out of our closet. Out of our bathroom. Out of the home that we’d shared. But nothing — and I mean absolutely nothing — hurts worse than seeing the woman you love, with every fiber of your being, second guess that love you have for her, even if for a split second.

“You did that. You not only destroyed me once. You tried to destroy me again, because you came at my girlfriend, the woman I love and plan to marry, plan to spend the rest of my life loving, and you made her question my love for her because of your petty bullshit, because of your jealousy that I finally had something good and you couldn’t bear to not be a part of it. But guess what? It backfired because she’s the strongest person I know and saw through all your crap. So, Nicole, thanks for loving me in that way. I can’t tell you how it makes me feel. If I had the same heart as you, I would wish you the grief you’ve given me, but you can thank your lucky stars that I don’t.”

“James… if I put that doubt in her mind…”

“Don’t. Don’t you even dare finish that sentence,” I tell her, my voice low and angry, even to my own ears. I won’t allow her to stand here and spout off shit she knows nothing about, or belittle the woman I love. “You have no idea the things Carly has overcome. She’s the strongest woman I know, and when life about killed her, when her world imploded around her, she didn’t run for the hills. She didn’t tuck her tail between her legs and only think of herself. She remained tall and changed her world. She was strong because she stood at her weakest, and she survived. No, scratch that. She conquered.”

“So this girl…”

“Woman,” I correct her.

She rolls her eyes dramatically.

“Woman — excuse me—” Her snarky tone has me clenching my fists. “—is perfect. Just because she didn’t have a momentary glimpse of panic? I’m supposed to be punished forever because of that?”

“You didn’t have a momentary glimpse, Nic. You had almost two full decades of panic. You abandoned your daughter! You left your husband, and without an explanation. Without any knowledge of where you were until I received the divorce papers in the mail!”

“I’m sorry, okay! I’m sorry! I didn’t know what else to do!” She cries and wipes a tear, as if I believe for a second that it’s real. “Our lives… they were just so… ordinary,” she says, shaking her head and looking away for a moment. “I felt like I was living every day the exact same way. I felt like I was suffocating.”

“That’s no excuse,” I say quietly. “Nic. Everyone’s lives are ordinary. Don’t you get that? The ordinary is what makes our lives extraordinary. The everyday crap that you felt sucked the life out of you? That’s the amazing that you missed. You missed watching Lily learn everything. Everything! Riding a bike, going to kindergarten, writing her name, her first at bat in t-ball, learning to swim, trying her hand at ballet and realizing she was far too energetic for it. Her first starring role in the school play when she was just a freshman. The gleam in her eyes when she came home after volunteering for the first time, realizing that she had found something she wanted to do forever. Every volleyball game she played, every hurdle she jumped in track meets. Failing and succeeding in different things she was courageous enough to try along the way. You missed her friendships and seeing her navigate through life. You missed her first date, her first dance, the prom? Yeah — I wasn’t exactly much help when it came time to choose a dress, seeing as I wanted her in a burlap sack. You missed her getting her period. Did you know that I had to have Tess come and talk her through everything? Because, in case you didn’t know it, I’m a man. A man who has never experienced the joy of having a period.”

I stop talking long enough to let it all sink in before I continue. “Nineteen years,” I murmur. “Nineteen years she went without a mother. Nineteen damn years she had to celebrate Mother’s Day without one. Do you have any idea what feeling as if you’ve been abandoned does to a young girl? Do you have any idea what it’s like for her friends to be making crafts for their moms at school, only to not have a mother to make anything for? Because if you had any idea, any clue as to what your departure did to her, to me, you wouldn’t be standing here right now, justifying your actions because you were bored.”

“I’m not justifying my actions, James! I’m apologizing. There’s a difference.”

“Apology accepted. I forgave you years ago because living with that kind of hate for you only festered and didn’t make me a man I could be proud of. So, I moved on. Do you hear me? I moved on. From you. From the life I had envisioned and thought we could have together. Honestly, maybe I should thank you. Because if it weren’t for you destroying our lives, we wouldn’t be in a better place now. We would be stuck living with a bitter and selfish, ugly soul.

“Move on, Nic. Once again. You managed to do it before without so much as a backward glance, aside from sending the divorce papers, and I suggest you do it again.”

“How can you be so cruel?” she has the guts to ask.

“How can…” I scoff and shake my head, hardly believing the craziness coming out of her mouth right now. “The truth hurts, Nic. I’m sorry that the truth is something that hurts you. I’m sorry that your truth is hard to hear. But I’m not going to apologize for you hearing it. If you seriously thought you could come back here, say you’re sorry, and we would all go skip away into a happily-ever-after, then you must have been on some serious drugs while you were away.”

“We have a daughter together,” she says, ridiculously.

“Still on that? No, as far as I’m concerned, you donated an egg. Don’t come back here and screw up the wonderful young woman Lily has become. She’s so beyond everything I had ever wished for. She’s kind, loving, caring, would rather poke herself in the eye than hurt someone. She’s intelligent, hardworking, grounded, and most of all… she’s mine. You’re not a parent to her. And don’t, for a second, think you’re going to go to her and change that.”

“He’s right.” I hear my daughter’s quiet voice speak up.

I didn’t realize she was here, obviously. She walks into the office, wide eyes brimming with tears as she looks at the woman she no doubt only remembers from pictures. Her hands, that I know are shaky, are clasped tightly in front of her to obviously not let her weakness show. Somehow, they didn’t see each other at Emily’s wedding. I had hoped I had dodged the bullet.

“Lily…” My ex-wife’s voice is one of awe.

I get that. Lily grew up to be a beautiful young lady, and that’s not just because I’m biased. She’s been approached to model simply from her pictures on her social media accounts, but she’d never do it. She’s a humanitarian at heart and would never want to be seen in that light. Not that there’s anything wrong with celebrating outer beauty, but her greatest fear is allowing her outside affect who she is on the inside. Her beauty shines from within, and she’s mature enough to recognize that.

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