Chapter 12

Evelyn

I glare at Shawn.

“We need to talk,” I hiss at him before I follow Tanner into the kitchen.

“How about some cartoons while you eat?” I suggest, flicking on the television.

“Really?” Tanner’s eyes widen as he hops onto the chair. TV during meals is usually one of my big no-no’s.

“Just this once,” I tell him, ruffling his hair. “I need to go talk to your… to Shawn.”

I leave Tanner happily eating, never taking his eyes off the garish cartoon figures chasing each other around on the screen.

Six years old. I turn back and watch him for a moment—thinking of all the things that have happened since the nurse first laid him in my arms in the delivery room.

Sleepless nights, crawling, staggering first steps across the living room. First words. Tears and tantrums.

I lean back against the wall in the hallway, sudden tears stinging my eyes. Shawn has missed so much of his son’s life. Every milestone…first day of school, first lost tooth, first home run in Little League.

For all those years, while I struggled to raise Tanner alone, I thought Shawn was dead. I’d tried not to think about it too much. I’d needed every ounce of energy to cope with a busy little boy.

And now Shawn is alive, and I have no idea what to do now. Was he still my husband, technically? Did I still want him to be?

I sigh and square my shoulders. No time to dissolve in a puddle of emotion. Time to start figuring some things out.

We need some boundaries here, or I’ll go crazy.

I march back up the stairs to the guest room.

“Hey,” Shawn says as I enter the room.

He’s gotten dressed while I was wrangling Tanner, and he’s perched on the end of the bed, looking totally at home.

Wait—is it also his home since I bought it with our money? Or just mine?

I sigh, suddenly toggling somewhere between annoyance and just wanting to crawl into a hole and leave all this behind.

“Tanner all set?” Shawn asks.

“Yes,” I tell him, resisting the urge to sit beside him on the bed. Distance, Evelyn, distance. “So, we have a few minutes to talk.”

“It’s amazing to me,” Shawn says, wonderment in his voice, “that such a great kid is my son.” He grins. “Our son.”

I sit down on a chair, as far from him as I can get. “He is a great kid. A handful sometimes, but isn’t that what boys usually are?”

“Not me—or at least not that I remember, but I guess that isn’t saying much…” There’s that crinkle-eyed grin that used to melt me.

There’s an awkward moment, and I can feel Shawn’s eyes on me as I focus on the wall.

Finally, I say, “We need to talk.”

“Uh-oh,” Shawn says, bemused. “Conversations that start with those words never turn out well.”

I shake my head, and I suddenly have way too much nervous energy, so I stand up again and start pacing.

“I thought you were dead,” I say suddenly. “For Tanner’s entire life, I’ve lived with that every day. And now you’re here.”

“And now I’m here,” Shawn echoes. His face shifts into lines of sadness. “I wish I could remember…and I wish I’d been here, for all those years, watching my son grow.”

“The point is…” I continue, ignoring his words and avoiding looking at him, “What do we do now?”

There is a moment of silence, and I can hear the sound of squeaky cartoon voices coming from the kitchen.

“I guess that depends more on you than me,” Shawn says finally. There’s another weird silence, and he asks, “Are you still going to get married?”

I snort. “Well, first of all, I have no idea if you and I are still married. So, it might be a little awkward to marry James if I’m already married.”

“Well, you could always have two husbands,” Shawn says with a grin, and I throw a stray pillow at him.

“Not funny!” I say, running my fingers through my hair—a nervous habit I can’t help.

“Sorry,” Shawn says, definitely not sounding sorry. “But we can’t figure out what to do until you decide if you and James are still planning a wedding.”

I sigh. “I don’t know,” I say finally, walking to the window and staring unseeingly outside, twisting the curtain cord around my fingers.

“You don’t know if it’s legal, or you don’t know if you want to?”

“I don’t know!” I repeat, my voice rising. “I can’t think straight.”

And I won’t tell him what I’m really thinking…that I never would have agreed to James’ proposal at all if I’d known he was still alive.

Shawn is quiet for a moment, then offers, “I guess we can’t figure anything out until you know whether you can marry James, and then decide if you want to marry him.”

I don’t…I say to myself. But I don’t know what to do.

“But what about you?” I ask him, turning back toward the room.

Shawn looks at me steadily. “I don’t know how much I’ll ever remember about our life together,” he admits. “So even if we…even if we got back together, it would be like starting fresh, in a way.” He catches my eyes. “But I know that in seven years, I never forgot your face and how I felt about you.”

I groan. This is so not helping.

“Evelyn…” Shawn says softly, standing up.

Just then my phone goes off with James’ ringtone, and I pull it out of my pocket, grateful for the reprieve.

“Hi,” I say, watching as Shawn wanders into the hallway. “What’s up?”

“Hi, honey,” James says, his voice a little stressed. “Look, I know we have a cake-tasting today, but I just got called into a big meeting, and I’m not going to be able to make it.”

“But that means I’ll have to go alone!” I say, unable to keep frustration from creeping into my voice.

“I know, sweetheart, and I’m sorry,” James says patiently, “but this is a big deal, and I can’t bow out. If you don’t want to go alone, then call and cancel. But I’m not sure they’ll be able to reschedule us any time soon.”

I sigh. “All right,” I tell him. “I’ll go. But don’t blame me if I pick something you absolutely can’t stand. I’m still stuffing it into your face at the reception.”

James laughs. “Fair enough,” he says. “I’ll call you later, hon.”

He clicks off, and I’m left staring at the phone in my hand. I’m not sure I even want to do the wedding thing now—if I ever was—and being stuck tasting cakes all alone feels like some kind of torture.

“Everything okay?” Shawn asks from the doorway.

I shake my head. “We have a wedding cake-tasting today, and now James can’t make it. Something at work.” I shove the phone back in my pocket. “I’m tempted to just call the whole thing off.”

“The wedding?”

Does he actually sound hopeful?

I give him a small, rueful grin. “No, not the wedding. At least, not at the moment. But does it really matter what the hell the cake tastes like? We won’t get to eat much of it, anyway.”

Shawn hesitates a moment, then he says, “I could go with you, if you’d like. It would add another opinion, at least.”

I look at him, startled. Then I laugh. “Now that’s gotta be a first…the ex-husband attending a cake tasting for his wife’s wedding.”

“Not exactly ‘ex’, for all we know,” Shawn says, with surprising force. “And after all, we never did a cake-tasting for our wedding—or, at least, I can’t remember it if we did.”

“No,” I agree. “It was whatever the bakery decided to make, if I remember.” Then I have to consciously steer my thoughts away from that particular path…our wonderful wedding day and how very happy I was.

“So, all the more reason,” Shawn says. “At the very least, I can keep you company.”

It would be weird, but really, did I care? I didn’t want to go alone.

“Okay,” I say finally. “It’s at 10. And now I’ve got to get Tanner ready for school.”

Shawn looks down at himself, still wearing the jeans and shirt I found for him. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have any more of my old clothes around, would you? I should probably dress up a little bit.”

I bite my lip. Do I really want to admit that I couldn’t bear, in seven years, to get rid of anything of his?

Finally, I tell him, “If you go out to the garage, up on the top shelf by the door, there are some boxes of your stuff that I haven’t gotten around to taking to the charity place.”

Shawn is clearly surprised. “Wow, I guess I didn’t really expect you’d still have anything,” he tells me as we both start down the hallway towards the kitchen. “But thanks, I guess.”

I nod and head back into the kitchen to find my son.

“Okay, big guy, time to get dressed for school,” I tell him, flicking off the TV.

“Okay,” Tanner says, more agreeably than I expected. Maybe it’s because Shawn’s standing right behind me, and Tanner doesn’t want to have a tantrum in front of him.

As Tanner heads to his room, Shawn’s watching him hungrily.

“You did a great job, Evy,” he tells me, then turns and opens the door to the garage.

“Thanks,” I say softly, even though I know he can’t hear me.