“I mean, I get it. But why wouldn’t she talk to you about it first?”
I shrugged.
“We were both grief-stricken and dealing with his death in our own way. In other words, not communicating, so it made grieving together impossible. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize she blamed me for the accident until we were getting divorced.”
“She what? How was it your fault? You weren’t even in the car!”
“Yeah,” I said softly as I thought back to that horrible night. “But I was supposed to be the one to pick him up from daycare. Since I ended up having to work late, I asked her sister to get him. Sienna had only had her license for about a year, so she wasn’t an experienced driver and expressed her apprehension about taking Bodhi in the car with her.”
“Still not seeing how the accident was your fault.”
“I assured her it would be fine, but suggested she take the route she did. It had less traffic, so I thought it’d be safer.” My voice trailed off. “Obviously, it wasn’t.”
I could still hear Sienna sobbing, “I’m so sorry!” when I’d rushed into the emergency room.
It hadn’t even been her fault. The other driver hadn’t yielded when Sienna had a green light, and he made a left handturn into her rear passenger door. Right where Bodhi’s car seat was.
My son would be nine years old today if he hadn’t died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital seven years ago.
Unbeknownst to me, my ex-wife had her tubes tied five months later, all while taking a pregnancy test every month for a year and pretending to be disappointed when it came back negative.
That’s not exactly something a relationship bounces back from, even if we hadn’t buried our youngest.
“Fuck, Gabe. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
“The sadder thing is, after lots of therapy, I understand why Becky did what she did. She was probably right. How could we have another child after losing our son? I just wish she would have gone about it differently, ya know? It took a while to make peace with not having more kids, but it turned out to be the right decision. I don’t think I could alter course again; it’d be too hard.”
“I still think Gretchen’s your soulmate.”
I barked out a laugh.
“Isn’t that somethingI’msupposed to know, not you?”
“I can’t explain it… from the moment I met her, I thought she was perfect for you.”
Yeah, me too.
“Maybe we’ll run into each other again in the future when our timing is right.”
“Are you sure the timing isn’t right now?”
A picture of her this morning as she laid in bed watching me get dressed popped in my head.
“I’m not sure about anything, anymore, D.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gretchen
I’d just gotten dressed and was in the middle of brushing my wet hair when my phone rang.
My face broke into a big smile, because I knew exactly who it was: Jake.
Well, it’d be my mom first, then she’d hand the phone to my little man.
I glanced at the caller ID to confirm my suspicions were correct, then answered with a cheerful, “Hey, Mom!”
“Hi, sweetie. How was your night? I hope you were able to relax a little.”
