“No,” I said.
“Dawn, just talk to me. That’s all I’m asking.”
I looked at my attorney.
“It’s your call,” she said. “It’s just a mediation. It can’t hurt.”
“What do you want?” I asked, standing out in the hallway with Reginald.
“I want you back.”
“Don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t say that.”
“I want you back and you couldn’t say you don’t love me, so you must want the same.”
“Stop it!”
“Do you love me?” he asked. “Do you still love me?”
“Just stop it.”
“Tell me you love me!”
“Yes, I love you, but that doesn’t mean anything,” I said.
“Yes, it does. It means we still have a chance.”
“A chance for what?”
He touched my chin.
“To have our life back. To have our family back,” he said. “We can do that.”
“But you’re with Sasha.”
“That’s a mistake and you know it. You told me. See? You’re my better half. You’re my eyes. She doesn’t compare to you. It’s over between us. She knows that.”
“But you left me.” I started crying. “You left us.”
“It was the worst mistake of my life. But in all these years we’ve been married, it was the first. I never cheated on you. You know that. This was just a bad situation. We can’t lose our family because of it.”
“I don’t know, Reginald,” I said as he wiped my tears. “I’m just getting over this. I can’t turn back. You hurt me too much.”
“I want to make it better,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “I want to make it
up to you.”
“But everything is different now.”
“We can change it right back. Right now. We can call off these lawyers and get out of this freaking building. We can go home. To our house tonight. Me and you. We can have it all back,” he said and he was crying, too. “Don’t you want that?”
“Yes. But I don’t know. Maybe it’s too late.”
“We can change everything back. Let’s just do it. I promise I won’t let you down. If you give me a chance to hold you again, I promise I won’t let you down. I’m your husband.”
I fell into Reginald’s arms and all of the pain and hurt I’d felt after all of those months away just funneled out of me. I cried “no” until my heart said “yes.” I had to try. I had to give my life one more try.
“What happened up there?” my mother begged when I found her. I saw in her eyes what I saw the night before when I came in the house—a fear of what was going on. Of what she already knew, but I was blind to.