Page 39 of The Atonement
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just stay with me?” she offered. “I can move my exercise equipment out of the spare room to give the kids a bedroom. They’d still be able to go to their schools, and you could go to work. It seems that would make the most sense.”
“We have to get out of here, Mom. I can’t…I can’t stay here.”
“Are you sure the kids are okay with that?”
“They will be. They like to travel, and it’s not permanent. Just for the year.”
She was silent for a while. “Well, at least let your father share some of his miles with you. Lord knows how many that man’s racked up.”
“We’ll be fine, Mom. Honestly.”
“Okay, well, check in occasionally. Let me know you’re all still alive.”
“I will.”
“And be careful, okay?” Her voice was soft. Vulnerable in a way I’d never heard it.
“We will.”
“Okay, I have to go. Matt’s helping me to fix a broken fence post in thebackyard.”
“Matt the neighbor?”
“Don’t say it like that, as if he’sjustthe neighbor.”
“He isjustthe neighbor, Mom. Youjustmet him.”
“I’ll have you know that sometimes…two souls just connect.”
“Did you just tell me you think he’s your soul mate?” I grimaced.
“Oh, Ainsley, honestly. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m going now. Goodbye.”
With that, she ended the call and I shook my head, too worried about my own problems to concern myself with my mother’s. Even if, for a split second, she’d managed to find her heart, I had years of experience to tell me it wouldn’t last long. Whatever sort of sentimental itch my mother had gotten, I knew who she was down deep. Maybe she was just bored. Maybe she was feeling guilty over our fight. Either way, she’d find something else to busy herself with soon, and the kids and I would be just another thing she didn’t have time for.
Maybe Matt would be the next project she took on. All I knew was that I was done concerning myself with other people’s lives before my own.
I’d saved my children. They were safe with Glennon and Seth, I had no doubts.
Now, it was time to save myself.
CHAPTER TWENTY
PETER
Two hours after I’d been attacked and abandoned by my wife, I stood in the quiet hallway of my office. It was strange, really, how much of my life was spent within these walls. How much time and energy I put into making it something great. When Ainsley and I first dreamed of building Lae Haer, it seemed impossible. Without money or experience, who were we to try to build a company? But we tried and failed more than once.
We were on the brink of failure again, the company ready to go under, when I approached her about bringing in an investor. She’d been hesitant initially, but I’d pushed. It was my judgment, my vision, that saved my company. Beckman had been unsure too, originally; he’d actually told me no once or twice. He didn’t know much about architecture, but he did know about business. That was what I needed. After a few meetings, I’d gotten him to come around.
Persistence. The unwillingness to take no for an answer. Those were my strengths.
I could be persuasive, I knew.
I always had been. Maisy had gotten it from me, Ainsley often said.
People could be talked into just about anything if you refused to accept the word “no.” That was what it was going to take with my wife, I knew. I wouldn’t give up. I’d never give up, and she knew it.
I rapped my knuckles against the wood of the office door next to mine, twisting the knob and leaning my head inside.
