Page 168 of All I Have Left

A stifled laugh rakes through him. “Uh huh. If you were smart you would have turned off your location on your phone before we stopped here.”

Shit. He’s right. Turning on the truck, a blast of air conditioning hits my face, finally giving me some relief from the heat outside. Now to think of what I’m going to tell my wife when I get home.

“I can’t believeyou went there,” Evie snaps, pacing the floor in our bedroom. “On our daughter’s birthday of all days.”

I sit in silence on the bed, staring at my hands, waiting for the implosion. I don’t have an answer for her. Not one she’s going to be satisfied with. “I didn’t intend on going there,” I tell her, knowing lying isn’t the best way to approach this conversation.

She turns to face me, glowering at me with tears in her eyes. “Bullshit you didn’t, Grayson. I know my husband. You wanted to go there. That’s why you went to Nashville.”

Marriage isn’t always pretty. Just because you say I do and promise forever doesn’t mean your life is wrapped up in a bow with a stamp of bliss on it.

Evie and I fight. Over stupid shit sometimes. Like who stole the blankets in the middle of the night or who didn’t put the clothes from the washer into the dryer. But we also forgive. And listen. That’s marriage. Seeing past your faults, and theirs, to where the love resides. Marriage is sucking up your pride and remembering that vow and keeping it. For better or worse.

I had to put this into words that she’d understand. I couldn’t say, you went to see him, so I did. Because that wasn’t fair. My reasoning, had nothing to do with hers. She wanted closure. Me? I wanted him to see me. Living. Surviving. I wanted… him to know I had her.

My jaw works back and forth. Truth is, I’m angry that she’s questioning my intentions and making me feel guilty. But on the flip side, I should feel guilty though. I was so mad at her when I found out she went to see Shane without tell me, and I did the same to her today.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t intend to go there. I didn’t,” I tell her, my voice firm. It’s not a lie. “It wasn’t until we left Nashville that I wanted to go.”

“See, I know that’s a lie,Grayson Gomez,” she grumbles, narrowing her eyes. “You have to get clearance to go there. And apply months ahead of time for a visitation. You have to be approved by the inmate.”

Standing from the bed, I stare back at her, reaching for her hands. I force her stop pacing and face me. I cradle her cheeks in my hands. “I didnotintend to go there. I actually told myself not to. Yes, I got clearance.” She blinks, slowly, as if she kind of believes me, but she’s confused. “Franklin, that guy I did concrete work for his mom, you remember him?” She nods. “He works at the prison and got me clearance and basically told me I could show up and he’d get me in if I wanted. But again, when I left for Nashville this morning, I didn’t think I was going to stop.”

Tears roll down her cheeks. Slowly. It’s like pouring acid on my heart seeing her upset with me. I don’t cry. I don’t even want that emotion inside of me right now, but I can’t help it when it swells in my chest. There’s a flash of an image, one of her screaming for me, begging them to stop.

She cries, breathing harder than before. “What did he say?”

This is the part where I want to lie. She doesn’t need this. Not today. Not when we should be healing. But it’s on me. Iknew when I walked into that prison this conversation would happen. And if I didn’t want to have it, I shouldn’t have went.

My throat dries up. I fight to swallow as my heart does to beat a regular rhythm. I can feel it pounding in my temples with every thump. I search her eyes, so green and still, even after everything she’s been through, innocent in some ways. “He said… the only thing he’s sorry for is that I survived.”

“He fucking said that?” Evie steps back, as gasp leaving her lips. “Are you serious?”

I nod.

“What a piece of shit,” she snaps. “I should go there and make him say that to my fucking face.”

Part of me is strangely turned on by her anger. I have half a mind to lay her on the bed and have her take some of that frustration out on me. Sighing, I hang my head and stare at the floor. I can hear the kids laughing downstairs, their footsteps as they run through the house. I think about building this house and all the hard work that went into it from the structure to the roof. All things to protect what we have inside. Our family. I would forever protect them no matter what. For that reason, I couldn’t tell her everything he said to me.

Taking the guitar off the bed, she adjusts the bow on it and starts to leave. I catch her hand. “Don’t go… tell me you’re okay.”

She won’t look at me, but she stops. Her body tense, her blonde hair falling into her eyes. “I love you, Grayson, with every part of my heart and soul, but you really pissed me off today by going there and bringing this up on Taliyah’s day. I don’t want to ever think about that man again, and you keep making me.”

The slamming of our bedroom door resonances off the walls and into my temple, competing with the angry beat of my heart. I keep making her?

I think about those words longer than I believe she meant for me to. The dig deep, down to where his “I’m only sorry you survived” comment is festering. Trauma doesn’t go away. It’s asimple fact of life. It’s like a crack. You can heal it, fill it with the strongest glue known to man, but there will always be a crack. And if you look close enough, you find it. A weak spot.

Like it or not, Shane was a weak spot for me. A part of our lives I wasn’t sure I could ever completely bury. But at what cost? My marriage? My family? They’re my glue. They’re the ones I filled that crack with.

Lying back on the bed, I stare up at our ceiling and the fan circling slowly. The blades dance a flicking shadow over my face, like a slide show snapping through images. I lie there for over twenty minutes before I remind myself I’m acting like a goddamn pussy.

Time for a grand gesture.

Peeling myself from the bed, I make my way downstairs. Evie is in the kitchen with Stevie on her hip. She doesn’t look at me, but Stevie lunges for me. “Daddy!”

Daddy. That’s what I have to be thankful. I take Stevie in my arms, kissing her hand she holds out to me. She thinks she’s a princess and we let her believe she is.

Evie tries to move past me but I trap her between the kitchen island and the stove, our baby in my hands. She can’t ignore me now.

---