Love’s Suicide(55)
Author: Jennifer Foor

Brooks laughed. “I live on base for now. There’s family housing available and I filled out the forms while I was on shift this morning. If everything goes the way it should, I may be able to move into something in the next seven days. I had to explain my situation to my commanding officer, but given the importance, he said he can pull some strings. “So, you’d have a whole house?”

“It’s like a duplex. Two small houses connected. Some are one bedroom and some go up to three. I can also live off base, provided I can find something affordable and close. I’m not going to rush into anything. My parents won’t care what my living conditions look like.”

I don’t know why I would do it, but I blurted out a solution to make their stay comfortable. “They can come to my house. Bobby still owns another house, so we’ll go there for the weekend. The house is already baby proofed and B will be comfortable.”

“Wow. That’s pretty generous of you. Are you doing this to kiss my ass?” I sensed a hint of sarcasm in his question.

“Is it working?”

He laughed and shook his head and then, at the same time I was looking at him, he looked at me. My stomach began to twirl around, as if I was in high school, crushing on a boy.

Brooks smiled. “I’m still mad, but some of the things you said last night were true. Knowing you were pregnant and alone would have been torture for me. It doesn’t make what you did right, but I don’t know if I could have handled not being able to get to you.”

I could feel our conversation getting deep. Thankfully, B came up and grabbed Brooks’ hand. “Pay wit me.”

I watched a grown man melt. He ducked down and walked at her level. Seeing them, watching them interacting as if they’d known each other forever made me feel so happy.

After a few minutes, when it was apparent that Brooks wouldn’t fit in all of the crawling tubes, he came back over and sat next to me. “Is she always so playful?”

“Unless she’s in grumpy mood. Then she won’t want anything to do with you.”

I had my hand on the bench seat, sort of leaning forward. Brooks put his hand down to adjust himself. When his hand touched mine my heart reacted. I looked at him and he looked at me. In that moment I could feel it happening; that pull toward him that I’d had for as long as I could remember.

He pulled his hand away. “Sorry.”

I looked forward. “Yeah, so that was weird.”

We didn’t look at each other.

He cleared his throat. “Your husband seems nice. Does he make you happy?”

The last person that I wanted to talk to about Bobby was Brooks. “He’d do anything for me.”

Brooks turned to look at me. “So, you’re happy? Well, before all this happened I mean.”

His eyes were mesmerizing me, making me think that the things he was asking were loaded with intent. “Yeah, I guess. We’ve had our problems. Bobby had an accident at work and his legs were both broken. It’s taken him a long time to be able to get himself mobile again.”

“I guess I just want to know if he gives you everything you need, because for all the years that I’ve been away, I somehow believed that I was the only person that could be all that you wanted.”

Was he being cocky?

I couldn’t tell.

B ran by, carrying on with a little boy her age. I smiled, thinking about it reminded me of Brooks. “Do you remember how I used to follow you like that?”

“I remember chasing you.”

I knew he was waiting for me to answer, albeit I couldn’t bring myself to.

“Kat, all of this feels like some sort of out of body experience to me. I’ve got a two-year-old daughter and you’re married to someone else. I feel like at any second I’m going to wake up and it will have all been a wonderful dream.”

I finally looked into those baby blues. “It’s real. I’ve been living this life for almost three years now. I can assure you that you’re not going to wake up.”

He leaned in close to me, so nobody else could hear us. “Then I just need to know one thing.”

“What?”

“You’re not going to like it. It’s just really been bothering me.”

“Say it.” Our conversation wouldn’t go anywhere if he didn’t spit it out.

“Did you ever consider having an abortion?” He threw his hands up before I could scream at him. “I’m asking because you were all alone. You knew I wasn’t coming home for years and that you’d have to raise the child yourself. I keep trying to make sense of everything. I won’t be mad if you did. Looking at what we made was the most fulfilling kind of feelings I’ve ever experienced, but I get that you were alone and scared. So tell me, Kat. How did you know you were going to be okay?”

My answer was simple. I didn’t even need to think about it. “I never considered terminating the pregnancy, Brooks.” I looked over at our daughter who was still smiling and enjoying her day. “Because no matter where you were, I knew I had a piece of you growing inside of me. Giving that up was never a question.” I looked right at him, finally able to face my fears and be honest. “That night we spent together in that hotel room was the second best night of my life.”

I could tell that I’d affected him. “What was your first?”

“The day I gave birth to your daughter.”

Brooks closed his eyes and leaned his head down. His hand reached over and touched my knee. He squeezed it and kept it placed there. “I can’t stop loving you, Kat,” he whispered.

It took my breath away and I think he knew it too. He finally looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back, unable to respond. Those words, those heart pounding five words echoed in my mind.

I couldn’t say it back, because giving Brooks my heart meant I was shattering Bobby’s, the man who’d taken care of me and B. I couldn’t do that to him.

Chapter 32

For the rest of the time we were at the indoor play park Brooks didn’t ask me anything too concerning. He wanted to know about life, jobs I’d had and where I’d lived. He asked me about my friends and told me about some of his.

We took B out for dinner to get her chicken nuggets and fries. I knew we’d been out a while, but I couldn’t get enough of seeing the two of them together. Every once in a while I’d catch eyes with Brooks and get those waves of excitement. If that wasn’t bad enough, it seemed like he wanted to get a rise out of me.