Chapter 13 - The Story Garrett Told Too Late
On the second night after they left, Garrett asked to speak to me alone.
Dana advised against it.
I agreed only because Reed remained on the property line and Jonah was asleep upstairs at Tessa’s house for a long playdate that was actually cover for emotional safety.
Garrett stood in the kitchen that had once felt like a joint life and now looked like a stage after the actors have missed their cue.
“I didn’t think it would get this bad,” he said.
That sentence made me angry in a way shouting never could.
“When?” I asked. “At the cold rice stage? The empty shell stage? The searching-through-my-desk stage? Or the watching-your-mother tell my son he wasn’t real family stage?”
He flinched.
“I know I failed.”
“You outsourced your spine to your mother.”
His eyes filled unexpectedly.
“I grew up like that.”
I believe him.
That was the tragedy.
He had spent his life surviving Carol by making himself smaller around her and calling it peace. Then he married me and expected I would do the same.
“I kept thinking if I didn’t challenge her, the tension would pass,” he said.
“But the tension was never the problem,” I said. “The problem was that she had power in my home because you lent her yours.”
He leaned against the counter and covered his face with one hand.
“Can we fix this?”
I thought about Jonah saving the piece of dirty lobster for me.
“No,” I said.
He nodded before I even finished.
“Can I still see him?”
“Yes,” I said. “But not like this. Not until you learn the difference between access and safety.”
He cried then.
May you like
Softly.
I did not.
