Page 74 of This Is How It Started
“But we used to be so close, so in tune with each other. Why didn’t we grieve together? Why did we drift apart?”
There’s a long pause as Campbell chooses his words. I know him well enough to know he’ll tell me the truth, but he’ll do it with utter and complete kindness. It’s one of the things I’ve always loved about him, his thoughtfulness, his desire to never hurt anyone he cares about.
“Because I couldn’t fix it,” he finally says. “I didn’t have the tools at that age to know what to say or what to do to make it better.”
“I didn’t expect you to fix it. A miscarriage isn’t anything anyone can fix, Campbell. What I don’t understand is why you stopped loving me. It’s like you went from being the most important person in my life to a complete stranger overnight. Do you know what that was like? In one fell swoop I lost our baby and you. I need you to help me understand why.”
Campbell lets out a long sigh and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Because secretly I was relieved.” He fixes me with a look, waiting for me to respond, and when I don’t, he continues, “I was fucking relieved, Rachel. The idea of giving up school, my youth, to bring a baby into this world...Jesus, I could barely take care of myself. I lived in fear of seeing the disappointment in my father’s face, my father, who’d worked his whole life so that I could make something of myself. The disappointment of your parents, who trusted me...the disappointment of Adam. But none of that came close to how I felt about disappointing you...So, when you came to tell me that you’d lost our baby, it was like a giant weight had been lifted. It was as if fate had given me a second chance, fate had given me my freedom. How was I supposed to tell you that? How could I be a man for you when I couldn’t be a man for myself? The guilt burned me up inside.”
I reach out and take his hand. “I was relieved too. Relieved but at the same time wrecked, a lethal combination. It just would’ve been good if we could have shared those feelings. If we could’ve leaned on each other instead of walking away.”
The silence stretches between us. Then he says, “You think if we had, we’d be together now?” There’s something in the lilt of his question that sounds sad and hopeful at the same time.
To answer yes would mean forsaking Josh and our precious time together, so I say nothing, not a word.
Chapter 26
The Kiss
A mere two weeks after I learn that Campbell has canceled his wedding, I am planning my own. Or more accurately Shireen Ali’s. Josie’s client. She loves the house, the property, the pool, the views, so much that it only took her five minutes to say, “Where do I sign?”
Now, Brooke and I are in the wedding business.
The learning curve is steep. I’ve spent days calling around, finding out the average price for wedding venues and what we should include. It runs the gamut, let me tell you. Everything from just the room to the whole enchilada. Shireen wants us to take care of everything. The tables and chairs, the china, the food, and the lodging, leaving the music, flowers and photographer in her hands.
We have a little over two months to pull this thing together. It turns out Shireen is ten weeks pregnant and would like to walk down the aisle without waddling. Her words, not mine.
In the meantime, both the cottage and the pool house are booked through June. Brooke’s traveling nurse arrived two days ago to break in the new renovations.
I haven’t seen Campbell since he finished the work. Twenty times, I’ve picked up the phone to call him and stopped before punching in his number.
Just when I consider calling him—really calling him—my phone rings. It’s Mom.
“Whassup?” I can’t help myself.
“You need to come over here right now and talk some sense into your sister.”
“What’s going on, Mom?”
“She’s left Stephen.”
These are the last words I think I’ll hear, which is silly because it’s wholly predictable. Even inevitable. “I’ll be there in ten,” I say.
I race across town, my fear of driving temporarily suspended, and command Siri to call Adam as I weave in and out of traffic.
“I’m on my way,” he says instead of hello.
“Mom called you too?”
“Not too. First. I’m her favorite.”
So true. When we were kids, we used to ask her which one of us she loved best. Her answer was to hold up her hand and say, “That’s like asking which finger is my favorite.”
Hannah, a born litigator, would reply, “The middle one of course, just like Adam is your middle child.”
“You think Hannah knows?” I ask.
“I’d say it’s a pretty good possibility. If she was going to leave him for being an asshole, that would’ve happened years ago.”
