Twenty-Seven
Izzy
The slamming of the car door made her jump. She grabbed another tissue and rolled her swollen eyes. Why did he have to be so freaking persistent? The least he could have done was to wait until the kids were asleep. They didn’t need to hear this.
She sat on the side of the bed, overcome by the same memory that haunted her for more than twenty years. The taillights of her father’s car pulling out of the driveway appeared in front of her eyes and her mother’s shrill screams echoed in her ears.
She’d always said she wouldn’t make their mistakes. She’d sworn she would never let her children deal with the same demons she had. She’d trusted Tanner to stay faithful, to be a better man.
But it was too late for those things now. Clearly history was going to repeat itself, but she didn’t know if she’d have the strength to make it through it again.
Her heart pounded as she heard the heavy footsteps on the stairs. Long before she was ready, there was a light tap on the door and it slowly swung open. Tanner stood just inside the doorway wearing gray athletic shorts and a tight, faded blue t-shirt with some indie band logo on the front that she’d never seen before.
The realization that when she drove away she took the duffel bag that held his change of clothes hit and she felt her cheeks warm. Obviously he’d borrowed something from one of his brothers.
“I didn’t know.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “Wyatt showed me, but sweetheart, I swear I didn’t know. I don’t remember what happened.”
Lifting her hands helplessly, she said, “But it happened, Tanner. It happened and you can’t undo it.”
She stood up and pointed at him. “You made the decision to drive out there, you made the decision to follow him to the bar and drink way more than you should have,” she choked back her tears, “and you made the decision to put your hands and your mouth on someone else.”
Izzy wrapped her arms around her midsection. “And now I’m making the decision that you need to leave.”
Tanner closed the door with a quiet click before he stormed over to her. He grabbed the tops of her arms and held her tightly. “No. Hell, no. It doesn’t end like this. You don’t get to walk into my life and make me the happiest man in the world for more than a decade and then throw it away because I screwed up one time. No, Belle. It isn’t going down like that.”
Mustering all the strength she could, she looked into his blue eyes, drowning in fear and panic and tears. The ones that still could see through to her soul, no matter how much she tried to fight it. “There was one thing. One thing, Tanner, that was special. One thing that was just ours…just mine.” She shook her head. “It’s not mine anymore. You’re not mine anymore.”
His nostrils flared, and he pressed his forehead against hers. “The hell I’m not. I’ve been yours since the very first day I saw you and I’m going to be yours until I take my last breath. Please. Please, I’ve never begged for anything from anyone, but I’ll beg if that’s what it takes. Just please don’t make that decision now.”
She offered a hollow, haunted laugh. “And when should I make that decision, Tanner? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month?” She shook her head.
“Saturday. Just wait until Saturday.”
Izzy pulled out of his arms. She couldn’t be that close anymore. She couldn’t feel his skin, his warmth, or the agonizing pain radiating off his body for another second and hope to have any sort of defense. Running a hand through her hair, she took three large steps away. “What’s so magical about Saturday?”
If it were possible, he looked even more devastated when she walked away from him. “Our date. Our last date.”
She rolled her eyes again and leaned her head back. “And you really think that this…this date,” her heart cracked when he winced at the derision in her voice, “is really going to change anything?”
“I think I promised you forty-three days of change. Forty-three days to prove how much I love you and how sorry I am that I screwed up the single best thing that ever happened to me.” He paused for a minute and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “And you said you’d let me try.”
She lifted her shoulders slightly. “But that was before…” The images on Wyatt’s phone, long red fingernails intertwined through Tanner’s hair, danced in front of her eyes and stole the air from her lungs. “Before I knew. Before I saw.”
Tanner matched her three steps and fell to his knees in front of her just like he did when he first came home, confessing his transgression. And just like then, her fingers itched to play with every strand of his still damp hair. The desire causing the newest wound to her heart begin to ache even more exquisitely. His hands landed on her hips and he held tight. “Please, Belle, just give me until Saturday.”
Her heart and her mind locked in a bitter war. As certain as she was that her heart would never again be whole, the very idea of Tanner’s absence from her life made it valiantly urge her to say yes. Ava’s piano recitals with each of them sequestered on opposites sides of the auditorium. Noah’s baseball games seated at least five rows apart. Graduation. Weddings. Grandchildren. Every single important event yet to happen in their lives, done as two separate, broken people. A far cry from the happily ever after she’d always envisioned.
“Okay.”
The single word, barely more than a whisper, made Tanner’s head snap up. “Okay?”
She could do little more than nod in response, her brain screaming that he clearly could not be trusted.
He stood up quickly and cradled her face in his hands. He brushed his lips across hers softly, hesitantly. “Thank you, sweetheart.” And then just like that, his hands fell away and he left her standing in their bedroom, peeling out of the driveway minutes later.
Her fingers touched her mouth, feeling as cold and vacant as her heart. Izzy fell onto the bed and let go of all the tears she had been holding back, wondering if it was the last time he’d ever kiss her.
***
Izzy folded her arms across her chest and glared at the doctor. She was tired, hungry, and annoyed by the staples still in her stomach eight days after the C-section. The nonsensical comments coming out of the man’s mouth weren’t helping her attitude in the slightest.
“I really don’t care what you think, what the averages are, and what your stupid studies show,” she seethed, her voice low and menacing. “My children are not going to have any impairments or disabilities and you can take every pamphlet and paper and shove them up your pompous, insensitive—”
He held a hand up in surrender. “I’m simply informing you of probabilities and your options, Mrs. Carlisle.”
She snorted and pointed at the door behind him. “I consider myself fully informed. Now get out.”
Before she reached the plastic cushioned seat carefully placed between the twins’ cots, arms wrapped around her from behind, making her jump.
“I’m so sorry.” A soft voice spoke from the cheek pressed against her back. “I just needed to thank you for doing that.”
Izzy laughed lightly as the other woman released her and she turned to face her. She had seen her in here every day, keeping the same vigil over her son that Izzy did over the twins. Feeding, bathing, changing, all the little tasks most parents took for granted, but things they could only do when their children were stable enough. Healthy enough.
“Hi, I’m Caroline Thompson, and I really am sorry but you said all the things I’ve always thought but never been strong enough to say.” She dropped her gaze to the floor and tucked a lock of hair behind one ear.
Izzy stuck a hand out, feeling just a little foolish at the formal greeting after the other woman had just given her a hug. “Izzy Carlisle. And I’m sorry if I created a scene, I just couldn’t listen to another word.”
Caroline shook her head quickly, her short brown hair bouncing around her face. “Oh no. He’s done that to everyone I’ve seen so far. And it’s terrifying and frustrating and you are so brave.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not brave, I just have a big mouth and an itchy stomach and my husband has yet to magically appear with food.”
Izzy noted the dark circles under Caroline’s eyes and knew the other woman would have a level of understanding only a fellow NICU mom could have. Something inside warmed at the unfortunate but unique bond immediately created between them.
“So you have twins?” Caroline ventured cautiously. The unspoken rule of the NICU, you never knew what landed someone here, be careful with your words.
Her gaze fell on Ava and Noah, who continued to grow much faster and get much stronger than expected, despite the ridiculous doctor and his ridiculous statistics. “Yeah, pre-term labor with a side dose of placenta previa.” Izzy quirked her lips wryly. “I don’t recommend waking up in labor covered in blood. It’s a little disconcerting.”
Caroline laughed lightly. “Preeclampsia isn’t a walk in the park either. I didn’t think my cankles would ever disappear and he,” she gestured to her son’s cot, “felt very confident ten weeks early was a perfectly acceptable time to make an appearance. Hopefully any future siblings will decide to stay where they belong for the duration of the ride.”
Immediately the smile fell from Izzy’s lips and her hand involuntarily covered her abdomen. There wouldn’t be any second chances for her and Tanner. She studied first Ava’s face, then Noah’s. She loved them more than she ever thought possible to love another human being, but knowing there was no chance she and Tanner would have more children of their own, and knowing that decision had been taken away from them, stolen from them, shredded her heart. She couldn’t stop the crippling pain from forcing her into the squeaky plastic seat and she definitely couldn’t stop the onslaught of tears.
Caroline dropped to a knee beside the chair. “Oh, I’m so sorry for…whatever I said. Are you okay?”
Izzy couldn’t make her mouth form the words. How could she possibly explain to this woman, this stranger, that she felt broken and useless? That she hadn’t had the time to process any of it or figure out her life from this point on because every waking moment had been spent staring at the monitors attached to her babies and anxiously taking any and every opportunity to play the role of a normal parent. That deep inside, despite every reassurance, she felt that Tanner deserved someone better, someone who was whole.
Caroline wrapped an arm around Izzy and pulled her against her shoulder, quickly sealing the bond Izzy felt as soon as she introduced herself. “It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. If you need to cry, you can just cry.”
Several minutes later, Izzy finally felt in control enough to pull away. She waved her hand towards the twins’ cots. “They are it for us. We can’t…” She shook her head. “I can’t have any more children. I had complications during the C-section and the doctor wound up doing a hysterectomy.”
The other woman’s face paled. “Oh honey, I am so sorry.”
Izzy shook her head. An overwhelming urge to speak the words she’d been holding in for so long overcame her, and she found herself saying every dark thought to a virtual stranger. “But Tanner, my husband, he…we always planned on having a huge family. Lots of kids.” A vacant smile curved her lips. “I’m an only child and he has three brothers. He’s used to chaos and I’ve always wanted it. I just keep thinking he deserves better. He deserves to have his dream.”
Caroline grasped her hands. “Your husband? That guy that’s here with you every night? Oh honey, he could teach Prince Charming how to treat a woman.” Her soft southern accent made Izzy giggle. “That man only has eyes for you. Two kids or twenty.”
The frail, fragile heart that had been holding so much fear slowly started to heal. If someone she just met felt this way, why in the world would she question it? “I think you’re right.”
The wooden door the doctor had exited a few moments earlier swung open and Tanner walked in, still clad in his business suit, carrying Styrofoam containers and paper cups. “Somebody need dinner?”
Caroline popped up off the floor. “I think there is at least one doctor in this hospital who could confirm a hangry diagnosis for your wife here.”
His eyes landed on Izzy and all the humor fled. He dropped the containers on the closest counter and assumed the same position on his knees in front of her that Caroline had just abandoned. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” One hand cradled her cheek and the other clamped onto her knee. “Are you okay? Are the babies okay?”
Izzy leaned forward and kissed him. “We are all fine. I think I just may have scared the doctor though. The self-righteous, arrogant son of a—”
“Hey now.” Tanner chuckled. “You never say a bad word. That’s my job.”
Caroline had taken up residence back beside her son and chimed in. “Your wife certainly took care of that guy. Bad words or no.”
Tanner brushed his lips across her forehead. “My wife is from New York. She can take care of herself.”
The dull ache still throbbed in the back of her heart, but she felt a new level of peace she hadn’t before. “Yeah, but she doesn’t have to anymore, right?”
“Damn straight, sweetheart.”