CHAPTER 16
Regrets. I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.
What a load of hogwash, Nathanael thought. Bullshit lyrics spouted by people who knew they’d done wrong in their life but were still determined to stand their ground and act like it was okay.
As for him, he was awash with regret. Drowning in it. Whenever he lowered his guard, whenever he failed to fill his tortured mind with work, work and more work, the regrets slipped in through the cracks like a noxious gas. Over and over he replayed the mental video clip of himself, packing his bags and walking out of his marital home, leaving behind his wife and unborn child, who had both needed him to be there.
He kept reviewing over and over the way he’d acted since Benjamin was born. Shoving the mere thought of his own baby’s existence out of his thoughts. Burying his head in the sand as if that would do any good. As if out of sight was out of mind.
What an ass he was. If he knew then that he was capable of loving the baby, he would never have left them.
But the thing about life is that it moved relentlessly forward, like a river down a hill. It never turned back on itself, unless you owned a time machine, which he certainly didn’t. All he could do was move forward with it, and instead of allowing himself to be swept up in the tide, he needed to take control. Swim in the direction of the flow, but manage his strokes.
So here he was, days after returning home with Shaundra and Benjamin, determined to do better. Be a better man, and a better dad. He acknowledged that he knew nothing about the basics of baby care, but approached his ignorance on that subject as he would any other information gap in his life. He did his research. He joined daddy groups on social media and read through the threads, and Googled everything that came to mind.
And he took care of Benjamin every chance he got. Samia had returned, and he was glad of that, because it meant that Shaundra could get some rest after her harrowing weeks in the hospital.
Every day he would go to the nursery to see how he could help, how he could be a part of this wonderful experience of raising a child. Shaundra had moved a small bed into the nursery, and that was where she was sleeping. She’d asserted that she wanted to be near the baby, but Nathanael also had the sneaky feeling that her move was partly motivated by the fact that she no longer wanted to sleep next to him.
That stung like salt in a wound, but he understood.
But at least she didn’t try to intervene when he wanted to hold and care for Benjamin. She might have been mad at him, but she wasn’t spiteful.
And he so enjoyed those little duties. The most prosaic chores held meaning for him. Changing diapers and brushing his soft, curly hair. He learned how to hold a squirming, distracted child steady while giving him a bath, and laughed when he came away from the experience soaked down the front.
But there was still work to be done, so often he would retreat to his home office and immerse himself in his business, often going over to Alex’s to discuss business matters. Whenever the sun went down, he returned home, responding to the instinct to be there to protect his family at night.
He was sitting up in bed, trying not to think of the huge empty space next to him, where Shaundra had slept. His laptop was balanced on his knees, and he was preoccupied by a long and frustrating chain of email conversations with a supplier in Taiwan who was being difficult, suddenly swerving on his bid for a contract in an effort to leverage more money out of one of Nathanael’s companies. He was irritated and determined not to give in.
There was a sound in the doorway, and he looked up, knowing at once who it was. Shaundra stood there, half-swathed in shadows.
He missed her. Oh, how he missed her. She was still talking to him, sure, but their conversations were stilted, distant, and focused solely on the baby. And now she was standing in the doorway of their room? He didn’t dare assume that she had come to see him.
Immediately, he put the laptop aside, his mind full of questions, but trying to play it cool. “Hey.”
She nodded, stepping in, walking past the bed and into the large en-suite bathroom. He heard her rummaging around, and she returned with her arms full of toiletries. “Just forgot to take some of my stuff,” she said, and then added with a nervous laugh, “You know I can’t survive long without Jacyn’s bath products.”
He didn’t know how to answer that, so he said, “How’s Benjamin?”
“Sleeping.”
He tried again. “Samia told me you were trying him with mashed potatoes. Did he like them?”
“Yes.” She was standing in the doorway, her body angled toward the door in a clear signal that she wanted to go back to the nursery, far from him, but he didn’t want her to go yet.
“I noticed today that his onesies barely fit anymore. Maybe tomorrow we can drive into town and—”
“Nathanael,” she cut him off. “If you want to go buy him onesies, go buy him onesies. But there’s something you need to know.”
He felt a cold wave flow along his bare skin. Immediately, every pore in his body tightened. He could feel the goosebumps rise. Something was wrong. Very wrong. His lips were almost too dry for him to ask the question. “What is it?”
“I was talking to the doctor.” She shifted nervously, still trying to balance the tubes and bottles in her arms. “I asked him how soon Benjamin would be cleared to fly.”
“What?”
“He says it shouldn’t be too long. A week or two, maybe. He’ll see him again next week and give his assessment then.”
Nathanael’s brain was struggling to process her words. “You’re traveling? Where to?”
“As soon as Benjamin can fly, we are—he and Iare—going back to the States.”
Hoping against hope, he asked, “Are you going to visit your mother?”
She huffed as if that was the world’s stupidest question. “No. We’re going back home. Without you. I didn’t only talk to the doctor, I talked to a lawyer. I’ve filed for divorce.”