Had he ever wanted me?
“I’ll be here with you, okay?”
Cecilia’s voice pierced my thoughts, and my next question flew out faster than I could even process it.
“But why? You don’t owe me anything. And I’m pretty sure you don’t love Dad. So, you aren’t sticking around for him.”
And after a beat of silence, she sighed.
“I’ll be here because I want to be here. And you’ll just have to deal with it.”
She didn’t comment on my other insinuation. On the other comment I’d made. And I couldn't blame her.
I mean, how the hell could she love a man like that?
“I feel tired.”
“Then get some rest. I’ve got a book I’m reading, and I’ll let you know what the doctor says—if anything—once you wake back up.”
I sighed. “What are you reading?”
She held up the book in front of my face. “Finding The Spouse You Married.”
I would have laughed had my heart not randomly started aching for her. This beautiful woman, full of love and interesting stories and lessons to pass on, was reading some bullshit self-help book on how to make my dad treat her the way she wanted to be treated. It was sickening, and yet very telling of what my mother must’ve gone through with Dad.
I wondered if she’d ever tried reading books to fix what had become so broken.
“Want me to read you a page? The anecdotal stories are pretty funny.”
I smiled, closing my eyes. “Sure. Go ahead.”
“All right. This particular chapter is about getting the two spouses on the same page. Listen to this. There are two people in the story, Mary Margaret and James. And I’ll let the story tell the rest.”
I settled into bed as she launched into this story. A ridiculous story of some imaginary married couple that had drifted apart because James thought he wasn’t getting enough sex. And Mary Margaret thought James had gotten lazy about sex. I chuckled as Cecilia giggled through the story, and before she could wrap it up the two of us fell apart in laughter. The story was so ridiculous, and had almost nothing to do with them getting on the same page. I mean, I’m sure it did, eventually. But Cecilia and I were laughing so hard we couldn't actually get to that part.
“It’s so ridiculous. I still can’t finish this chapter because of the story.”
My chest jumped with laughter. “How the hell can you read shit like that?”
Cecilia kept giggling. “I don’t know. It’s so insane. And all the stories are like that. I guess I just…”
Her sentence trailed off and I coughed, trying to calm down my laughter. Because hers had shut down, like someone had flipped a switch inside her head.
“You just what?” I asked.
She sighed. “I guess I’m just desperate to get back the man I married, I guess. And maybe, if I read enough of these books, the answer wi
ll jump out at me and I can fix what’s been so very broken for so long.”
And in that moment, I didn’t know which I hated more: my father, for putting her in this position, or the damn author of that book, for preying on women like her and draining them of their money, only to feed them shit I could sum up with one sentence.
It can’t be fixed if the other person doesn’t feel like they need fixing.
9
Raelynn
“Why don’t you come make brownies with me? We can have them for after dinner tonight.”