Love’s Suicide(51)
Author: Jennifer Foor

I ducked back into the kitchen, sitting at the table while thinking about Bobby.

A few moments later Brooks came in and sat down across from me. He was calmer and I was afraid to speak first, in fear of pissing him off.

“I’m sorry if I caused you problems, Kat. When you pulled away earlier, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I had to see her and I wasn’t even thinking that I would be walking into what I did. He didn’t even know I was alive. My God, he looked like he was staring at a damn ghost.”

I kept looking at my hands, avoiding eye contact with him. “I’m not mad at you for coming. I don’t even think Bobby’s mad. He’s just scared.”

Brooks crossed his arms. “Scared of what?”

“He’s scared of losing B. He was there for me when I found out I was pregnant. He married me so that I could be on his insurance. I suppose he’s been in love with me since then, but it wasn’t until recently that we really started living as a married couple. Now out of nowhere you’re in the picture and no matter how he plays this out in his head he loses.”

“Why would he think that? I told him that all I wanted was to have a relationship with my daughter. I stressed to him that I meant your marriage no harm. My word is the truth, Kat.”

I rubbed my face and thought about what to say. Too much was happening all at once and I needed a breather to sort it all out in my head. “I know, but he doesn’t know you like I do.”

“Look, I’m not here to discuss your marriage. I’m here because I have a right to see my child whenever I want. I have a right to introduce her to my family.” He pointed at me. “Let me get something clear with you right now. You will not keep me from her ever again. Do you understand me?”

I nodded.

“I can’t believe you did this to me. My God, why? Why would you write me those letters, professing your undying love and devotion to me, when all the while you’re hiding my child from me? How could you ever think that I would be alright with that?”

I shook my head and scrunched up my face, fighting back tears so I could respond without being a blabbing idiot. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I couldn’t tell you. After the first letter I wanted to. I even told myself that if a second one came I was going to tell you all about her. Then you wrote me back and when I got it all I could think about was being with you again. I knew if I told you about Bobby and B it would change everything and so I got scared. The longer it went, the more scared I became until finally the letters stopped coming. Brooks, you have to believe me. I wanted you to know. I’ve always wanted you to know.”

He ran his hands through hair. “It doesn’t even matter now, does it? We can’t go back. What’s done is done.”

I shrugged. “Yeah. I’m the devil and you wish you never grew up loving me, right?”

“I never said that. Don’t even make this about you.”

“It is about me, though. It’s about me and my mistakes. It’s about me holding onto some kind of false hope that someday we could ride off into the sunset with our daughter and live happily ever after.”

Brooks chuckled and shook his head. “That’s never going to happen, Kat, not anymore.”

I brought my legs up to my chest and rested my face on my knees. “I know.”

I figured he’d offer some kind of truce, being that he never wanted to argue with people, but Brooks had nothing to say. I don’t know whether he was even looking at me. I kept my eyes closed and sobbed at the mess I’d made out of all of our lives. I thought about Brooks, having to explain to his parents how I’d had his child and kept it from all them. I imagined their faces when they found out, and then having even more reasons to hate my guts.

No matter what else I focused on, my mind kept coming back to every single mistake that I’d ever made.

Finally, after a good five minutes passed, he cleared his throat. “I better get going. I need to check in.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I’ve got a lot of figuring out to do, but I’m coming by here once a day to see Brooklyn. You can choose to be here, or arrange to meet me somewhere that I can spend time alone with her. The choice is up to you.”

He started to walk out the door and I followed him. “Brooks, wait.”

I watched him turn around and look at me. He was hurting. I knew him well enough to see it. “Kat, don’t ask me for anything right now. You can’t just throw all this on me and expect us to go back to being the way we were. I’m really biting my tongue from saying what’s on mind. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. I probably have every right to, but I’d like to think I’m better than that. Besides, I’d never want you to feel the betrayal that you’ve made me feel. So, let’s just call it a night and we’ll see if tomorrow it gets easier.”

I closed my eyes. The thought of him hating me was like a million daggers being driven into my heart repeatedly. “For what it’s worth, I think she knows you’re important to her. I could see it when you were holding her. She’s young, Brooks. She’ll never be able to remember a time when you weren’t in her life.”

He let out an air-filled laugh, like I wasn’t worth his time. “She may not remember, but I will. For nearly seven hundred days she’s been here on this earth and I never knew she existed.”

I don’t know why, but I felt like I needed to defend myself. “You were in another country. Even if you knew, what were you going to do? Would you have escaped the country just to get court marshaled and ordered back? Think about it, Brooks. How hard would it have been for you knowing that I left town with only the clothes on my back? I didn’t know anyone here and then found out I was carrying the child of a man who wasn’t going to return for years. Even if I told you, what would it have changed? You missed contact with her since you got here, which has only been a couple of months, in which if I knew you were here, I would have come to you. So tell me, Brooks. Look at me and tell me how all of this is my fault. You left me too, you know. You left me before we even had a chance. No matter if I would have stayed in that hotel room with you, I would have still watched you leave for Afghanistan and that would have been even harder to do. You think I did all of this to spite you. I did it because I knew that either way I was going to lose you.”

He got up in my face, like he did when were kids.

“Don’t go there. You kept the secret from me.”