Page 86 of The Broken Heart Playlist
During that time, I curl up on Gideon’s couch with my laptop, trying to catch up on admin. In reality, I spend more time watching them laugh and joke and chat about all sorts of subjects. My heart lifts when I see how well they get along.
After spilling her secret two weeks ago, Lisset no longer balks at reading to Uno. She’s reading up to three pages now and Laura, her teacher, tells me Lisset is reading in class as well.
“How long will you be gone?” Lisset asks Gideon now as we sit at the kitchen table eating Chinese takeout.
“Nearly two weeks.”
I keep my gaze fixed on my noodles so he doesn’t see my reaction.Two weeks. The words expand in the space between the three of us.
For the last two weeks, Gideon has weaved himself into the texture of our days, popping in to say hi or watch a movie with us or fix a leaking faucet. He’s become such a fixture in our lives that I find myself a little undone at the thought of his absence.
“When are you going?” Lisset asks.
“I leave tomorrow.”
“What about Uno?”
“He’s staying with a friend,” Gideon answers.
“Where are you going?”
“Out of town. There’s some business stuff I need to sort out.”
I’m quiet, allowing Lisset to interrogate him while I absorb his answers and wrap my head around the fact he’s leaving us.
There’s a brief pause while Lisset pokes dejectedly at her egg roll, gathering her courage for her next question. “Will you be back?” she finally manages.
“Of course,” he answers, a trace of surprise in his voice.
Her question doesn’t surprise me, though. Lisset might have been only four when her father left, but the fact he never came back has stuck with her. She’s still a little girl craving a father’s love, still fearful that when someone says they’re leaving, they might not return.
She stays silent, her doubt evident in the downcast curve of her neck.
“Lissy.” He waits patiently until she lifts her head to look at him. “I promise I’ll be back.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he says solemnly.
She nods, reassured. “Okay.”
And then Gideon levels a stare my way. “I’ll see you in two weeks,” he repeats softly.
It feels like his words hold a different kind of promise to me, but I can’t be sure. His eyes are impossible to read.
Like Lisset, I take a fortifying breath to gather my courage and unpeel a layer of my heart with my next remark. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
Something flares in his face, a taut anticipation. A soft recognition of my bravery. We stare at one another for five charged seconds. Even with Lisset’s presence, it’s such anintimate moment. More and more unarticulated boundaries are dissolving between us.
As the warmth of his gaze lingers, I wait for my familiar misgivings to return. But it’s as though the unveiling of the unpleasant truths behind my marriage has hit snooze on my anxiety.
With Gideon’s encouragement, I came clean about my marriage to my family. There was such a relief in the telling. They knew I had a bad marriage, but I’d kept from them just how bad it really was. I braced myself for tears and there were plenty of them. Tess, especially, was a mess, blaming herself for not doing more to help me. I had to reassure her I probably wouldn’t have accepted her help anyway. Aaron and my dad did a lot of angry pacing, vowing to find Oliver and... Let’s say there was a lot of mutterings about castration and broken limbs, and it took them awhile to calm down.
It felt like a cleansing. A fresh start.
I know it might take a while to work through my insecurities and trust issues, but with every day that passes, the hollow feeling inside me dwindles. As does the shame and guilt and bitterness. Hope is taking their place. And as Grandma keeps telling me, there’s no timeline for learning to love again.
“Gideon, when you go away, what’s going to happen to my reading?” Lisset asks now, worrying her bottom lip.
