On the third morning, I found Emmett's message waiting on my phone.
Can we please stop this and talk like adults?
I read it while Lily slept against my shoulder.
For a moment, I felt the old urge to apologize.
I wanted to tell him that I wasn't trying to punish him.
I wanted to explain that I had left because I was hurt, not because I wanted him to suffer.
I wanted to reassure him that I still loved him.
But I had already explained those things in different ways.
He had heard me.
He simply kept returning to the part where I had left.
I placed the phone on the table without answering.
Then I fed Lily.
Afterward, I carried her downstairs to the kitchen.
My father was reading something at the table.
He looked up as I entered.
"Morning."
"Morning."
He closed the folder in front of him.
"How are you feeling?"
I considered giving him the usual answer.
Instead, I said, "I'm still angry."
He nodded.
"That makes sense."
"I keep thinking I should be over it by now."
"Why?"
I looked at him.
"Because it was one dinner."
My father leaned back in his chair.
"Was it?"
I lowered my eyes.
I knew what he meant.
It had been one dinner in the sense that there had been one photograph and one evening when Emmett took my keys.
But it had not been one moment of hurt.
It was the accumulation of all the times I had made excuses for him.
All the times I had let his mother's opinions carry more weight than my own.
All the times I had asked for something ordinary and then felt guilty for asking.
The dinner had simply made the pattern visible.
"I don't know how to make him understand that," I said.
My father looked at me for a moment.
"Perhaps you can't make him understand it."
I felt a familiar tightness in my chest.
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Tell him what you know. Let him decide what he does with it."
I looked down at Lily.
She was awake, watching the movement of my fingers.
I touched her cheek.
I didn't want my marriage to end.
I didn't want to raise my daughter without her father in the same home.
But I also didn't want to teach her that keeping a family together meant pretending not to be hurt.
Those two wishes sat inside me, and neither was willing to disappear.
That afternoon, Emmett called.
I let the phone ring once before answering.
"Hello."
"Thank you for picking up."
His voice sounded tired.
I wondered whether he had slept.
I wondered whether he had spent the night reading my note.
Then I reminded myself that his sleep wasn't the question I needed to answer.
"What's going on, Emmett?"
"I want you to come home."
He said it immediately.
No greeting beyond the first.
No question about whether I was ready to talk.
No mention of what had happened in the kitchen.
Just a request to return.
I closed my eyes.
"Why?"
"Because this is where you live."
"It was where I lived."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Talk like you're not coming back."
I looked toward the nursery.
The crib stood beside the window, its white sheet tucked tightly beneath the mattress.
"I don't know whether I'm coming back."
He fell silent.
Then he said, "You can't make a decision about our whole marriage because I went to dinner."
"I haven't made a decision about our whole marriage."
"Then come home."
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
"Emmett, you're asking me to return before we've even talked about why I left."
"We've talked about it."
"No. We've argued about whether I had a right to be upset."
He exhaled.
"I said my mother shouldn't have sent that message."
"Yes."
"So what else do you want?"
The question landed harder than I expected.
Not because I hadn't anticipated it.
Because I had spent years trying to answer it.
I wanted him to recognize that I had been left alone when I needed him.
I wanted him to understand that his mother's cruelty was not a private disagreement between two women.
I wanted him to see that he had participated in it by choosing the dinner and taking the car without considering what it meant for me and Lily.
I wanted him to understand that an apology was not a key that automatically opened the front door.
I took a breath.
"I want you to understand that our daughter and I are part of your family even when your mother doesn't want us around."
"She didn't say that."
"She told me you deserved a peaceful evening away from me."
"She was upset."
"So was I."
He didn't answer.
I continued.
"You took my car. You left the infant seat and diaper bag with you. You told me not to come, and you went to a dinner where everyone knew I wasn't invited."
"I didn't think you'd leave."
I looked down at my hand.
There it was.
The truth, spoken without decoration.
He hadn't thought I would leave.
He had expected me to stay home, take care of Lily, and wait for him to return.
He had expected me to be hurt quietly.
I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line.
"I thought you'd understand," he added.
I swallowed.
"Understand what?"
"That Mom was leaving. That it was important to her."
"And what was important to me?"
He didn't answer.
I waited long enough to hear a faint sound in the background.
Then I said, "I had just given birth, Emmett. I was recovering. I needed my husband to act like he wanted us there."
"I do want you there."
"Then why didn't you take us?"
He started to answer.
Stopped.
Started again.
"I thought it would be easier."
I looked at the yellow blanket folded over the chair.
The same blanket I had carried out of the house.
The same blanket I had held when I called my father.
I had heard those words before.
Easier.
For everyone.
The difference was that I no longer believed they were about what was best for Lily.
They were about what was easiest for Emmett.
I spoke quietly.
"I can't come home just because you're ready for me to."
He sounded frustrated.
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"Start by understanding why I left."
"I've said I was wrong."
"You've said the situation got out of hand. You haven't told me what you think you did wrong."
Silence.
I could almost hear him searching for the answer he thought I wanted.
Then he said, "I shouldn't have taken your car without making sure you had another way to get around."
It was a start.
But it wasn't enough.
I didn't say that aloud.
I wanted him to reach the rest of it himself.
He continued.
"And I shouldn't have let Mom send you that message."
I waited.
"All right?" he asked.
I looked at Lily.
She had fallen asleep in the chair beside me.
"No, Emmett. Not all right yet."
His voice tightened.
"I don't know what else you want me to say."
I was tired.
Tired of finding the words.
Tired of explaining why I deserved to be considered.
Tired of feeling as if I had to present evidence before my hurt could be accepted as real.
"I want you to think about it without asking me to do the thinking for you."
He didn't speak.
Then I heard him move away from the phone, as if he were pacing.
I knew that sound.
It meant he was trying to control his frustration.
I used to follow him when he paced.
I used to keep talking until we reached an agreement.
Sometimes the agreement was only that we would stop discussing the problem.
I had called that compromise.
Now I let the silence remain.
Finally, he said, "I don't know how long you're going to stay there."
"Neither do I."
"What am I supposed to tell my mother?"
I looked toward the window.
"You can tell her the truth."
"Which is?"
"That your wife and daughter are staying somewhere they feel welcome."
He made a small, impatient sound.
"You're making me choose between you and my mother."
"No."
I spoke before he could continue.
"I'm asking you to stop making me compete with her."
The words seemed to surprise both of us.
For a moment, I felt the old fear rise.
I wondered whether I had gone too far.
Then I remembered the seven places at the table.
I remembered my father's voice asking whether I felt safe.
I remembered the brass key beside my bed.
I didn't take back what I had said.
Emmett finally asked whether I would speak to him again the next day.
I told him I would consider it.
He seemed unhappy with that answer.
But he accepted it.
When the call ended, I sat quietly for a while.
My father came into the room a few minutes later.
He looked at my face.
"That was Emmett?"
"Yes."
"How did it go?"
I thought about the conversation.
"He wants me home."
My father nodded.
"And what do you want?"
I looked at Lily.
"I want him to understand why I left."
My father pulled out the chair beside me.
"Then that's where you begin."
He didn't tell me whether Emmett would understand.
He didn't tell me whether my marriage would survive.
He simply sat beside me while the house remained quiet.
I rested my hand on the yellow blanket.
For the first time, I wasn't trying to find the right words to make everything comfortable for everyone else.
I was allowing myself to say what I needed.
And I was prepared to wait until someone was willing to hear it.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: My Father Told Me I Could Take All the Time I Needed, but Emmett Was Finally Running Out of Excuses
My Husband Put On His Dinner Jacket While I Stood in the Kitchen With Our Six-Day-Old Daughter
Part 8 of 12
