She huffed but sat regardless. “I thought we were over the passive-aggressive comments about your dad.”
Something we never would have anticipated was what seemed like the never-ending fall-out of Murphy’s indiscretion. I had known how difficult it would be to restart our relationship, because there was no such thing as a “clean slate” after cheating, but I made a choice, a choice I stuck by, and one I would make again.
“Sometimes it’s hard... I feel this bitterness toward him, and I can’t help it,” Lux said, and I studied her. She looked almost ashamed of how she was feeling about her dad. I knew she struggled with the knowledge because she onlyeverhad fond memories of him. He was always there forher.It was hard forher to separate her dad being her dad and putting him in the “he’s a human who makes mistakes category.”
“Can I ask you a question, baby girl?”
She shrugged as if it made no difference to her.
“If you had never found out the truth bysnoopingthrough your grandma’s journals, would you have ever known what happened between your dad and me?”
She shook her head.
“Now, can you understandwhywe didn’t tell you? I know it’s hard for you to understand this because you’re still learning how to become an adult, how to sort through and deal with these bigadultfeelings, and your dad and I didn’t want this totouch you. We didn’t want you to judge your father based on theworstthing he’s ever done. Can you understand that? That we decided together, as a couple, to work through it because he’s it for me, baby girl. Your dad...he’sitfor me, and I’m it for him. Yes, we got lost, but we found our way. And that’s our journey,our story,our beginning, and we refused to let that be the end. You have to find a way to be okay with that because you only getonedad, and he loves you more than life itself. I can tell you that all this anger you have, you’ll regret it one day.”
“Were you angry at him?”
“Oh, you have no idea,” I told her truthfully.
“But you forgave him?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in my forgiveness now; he had earned it and continued to earn it every day of every year that we were together.
“Do you regret it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t regret any part of it, Lux, and that might be hard for you to understand. I don’t regret the beginning because it gave me you, I don’t regret the fall-out because it made usstronger, and I’ll never regret forgiving your dad because the forgiveness gave me Lennon, and it gave me this beautiful life. I would have missed out on all that if I held on to my anger.”
“But you did, for a while... I read about it. Foryears.I remember, you know, when you guys weren’t together. Now that I’m older, I remember how sad you were. How hard you worked at pretending you were okay. I remember it all now.”
I nodded at her. “A selfish part of me wishes I could have shielded you from that, but I am human, and I made my own mistakes in trying to heal.”
“What made you decide to give him another chance?”
“Truthfully, Lux, I’m not sure. It was a bunch of little things and nothing at the same time. I realized how it felt like I was struggling to breathe without him. I saw how dedicated he was to you, how dedicated he was tome, even though I made it almost impossible for him to be part of my life. I saw the change.”
“He’s always been the best dad.”
“I know.”
“Always,” she whispered, and I heard it, even though it was obvious she was saying it to herself, and not to me.
Always.
Chapter 12
December 2031
Odette
I couldn’t help the pacing in my kitchen as I waited for Lux’s car to pull up into the drive. This was the first time she’d been away from home for a stretch of time this long, and I was positively crawling out of my skin to have my baby back under my roof for the first time since she left for college. She decided to go skiing with some friends over Thanksgiving, and as much as Murphy and I wanted to beg her to come home and spend time with her parents, we knew she needed to spread her wings and make a life for herself.
“I can feel your anxiety.” Murphy's voice hit the tender spot behind my ear that still caused my body to go on high-alert and goosebumps to rise over my skin, even after all these years. “Later, baby.” He kissed the tender spot, and I had to suppress a moan.
“I know what you’re doing,” I scolded.
“And what’s that?”
“Trying to distract me. She should have been here by now.”
