Take This Regret (Take This Regret #1)(63)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I smiled at my precious daughter. “Guess it’s just you and me tonight, Lizzie.”

Lizzie trailed me into the kitchen and helped prepare our dinner, a box of pasta, white sauce, and fresh cut broccoli florets. She grinned at me from across the table as we ate our simple meal. Affection swel ed as I shared the evening with my sweet, sweet girl. I listened to her simple words, so honest and pure, and thanked God for grace because I knew there was nothing I’d done to deserve the sublime. Lizzie asked about New York—what it would be like and what we would see. Then in a quiet voice she asked, “Wil you hold my hand on the plane? I’m a little bit scared, Daddy . . . I’ve never been on a plane before.” I smiled at my daughter, brushed a hand through her bangs, and answered, “Only if you hold mine.”

After dinner, I helped her into her sweater, and we stepped out into the crisp evening air. Hand-in-hand, we fol owed the sidewalk to the smal park at the end of the street. I pushed her high on the swings, chased her over the grassy hil s, relished in her laughter as I caught her at the bottom of the slide. My spirit danced as we played, rejoiced in this gift, my heart forever devoted to this precious child.

When Lizzie began to shiver, we returned home and went upstairs where I bathed her in her mother’s alcoved bathroom. I fil ed the tub with bubbles and her smal bathtub toys and didn’t mind when her rambunctious play soaked my shirt. I let her splash and dunk until her fingers had shriveled and the water had turned cool.

“Come here, sweetheart,” I gently prompted, helped her safely from the tub, and wrapped her in a huge, fluffy white towel. I ran it over her damp skin and dried her hair, wondering how I’d become so favored that in less than a year, my life had gone from completely empty to overflowing.

“I love you so much, Daddy,” she professed as she peeked up at me through the towel wrapped around her head and body as I carried her to her room.

Leaning down, I kissed her forehead and pressed her to my chest. “I love you more than anything, Lizzie.” Keen eyes probed my face as she whispered, “But you love Mommy, too.”

My feet faltered, frozen, amazed at my young daughter’s poignant perception, far from oblivious, always aware.

I should have known she would have noticed the change between Elizabeth and me in the last week, the newfound affection, the embraces, our timid touches.

Swal owing the lump in my throat, I nodded and met her hopeful gaze. “Yes, Lizzie . . . I . . . I love your mother very much.”

I’d never spoken it aloud to Lizzie before, afraid of getting her hopes up, worried Elizabeth and I would never reconcile, and that we’d go on as partners in Lizzie’s parenthood— friends as Elizabeth had somehow considered us.

Even if Elizabeth had claimed it, she should have known there was no chance that we could just remain friends.

She was mine, had always been, and I’d always been hers. Despite what I’d done, the wounds I’d inflicted, she had always been mine. When I’d lain with other women and she with other men, our hearts had been tied, our bond one that neither of us could ever escape.

I think I’d known all along that one day we would be together again, and as my mother had said, it would just take time and patience. When Elizabeth had realized it, I wasn’t quite sure. Maybe she’d realized it somewhere along the way as we’d shared our daughter, as she’d taught me how to be a father and what loyalty and commitment real y meant. Maybe she’d felt it when my father died and her heart had bled so freely for me or perhaps in the embrace she’d met me with on my return—certainly by the time she’d kissed me that same night.

It’d taken every ounce of resolve for me to lie still , to keep from tugging her body against mine, to pretend that I remained asleep, to pretend that the warmth of her fingers hadn’t brought me to consciousness, and to pretend that I hadn’t felt her mouth upon mine.

I’d been strong enough to give her that moment and all ow her the space to deal with the emotions that could no longer be contained. I’d listened to her cry in the room above me as I tasted the salt of her tears on my lips, silently promising her again and again that one day I would erase that pain.

Lizzie rubbed her nose into my chest and peered up at me with a sadness I wished my five-year-old daughter didn’t know and made me wish she hadn’t witnessed the things she had when she said, “I don’t want Mommy to cry anymore.”

It took two seconds for me to shift her, to bring her chest to chest, to promise her that everything would be fine, and to tel her we were all going to be happy—together.

I tucked Lizzie into her bed, smoothed her damp hair from her face, and told her again that I loved her.

Yawning, she snuggled down in her covers as I pulled them to her chin and murmured, “Night, Daddy. See you in the morning.” It made me dizzy with joy with the idea of her proclaiming that each night.

“Sleep wel , Lizzie.”

At her door, I watched as she drifted off to sleep before I flipped off the light. I left her door ajar and walked downstairs. I glanced at the clock on the microwave as I grabbed a bottle of beer from the refrigerator.

Only ten o’clock.

Patience.

I’d waited for months—for years, real y—I could wait a few more hours.

I slid the back door open, left it open a crack in case Lizzie woke, and dragged a chair to the edge of the patio. I leaned back to look up at the night sky that was a jaundiced haze with the glow of lights and tipped my beer to my mouth as I listened to the hum of the city—dogs barking at passersby, the whirr of the highway a few miles off, an ambulance blaring in the distance.

I wondered what Elizabeth was doing, worried if she was safe, and wished she were home.

I thought of the scar above her eye, the one that had twisted me in knots last night, made me sick with rage, and starved for vengeance before her words from months ago had come to mind.

Nobody has ever hurt me as badly as you hurt me, Christian. No one.

Never had I hated myself more than then, knowing I had scarred her deeper than the disfigured evidence of abuse on her skin.

But somehow, her heart went deeper than that, deeper than my betrayal, and she had comforted me.

Breathing in the damp air, I drained my beer, stood, and went inside to get another.

Only eleven.

I dropped onto the couch, turned on the television, flipped through channels, and listened to a newscaster drone on. I sipped from my bottle, letting it ebb at my restlessness and soothe my impatience.