Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
She crosses her arms, but nods. “I was angry, and I was lashing out. I knew the situation and I knew how it would end, but I did it anyway. I’m sorry.”
I nod, and then turn, walking out of my house and leaving her there.
I hope now things between us can be different.
Like maybe, we might just be able to work together for the boys.
I need them in my life, even if it means I have to have her in it, too.
Sacrifices.
I pick Merleigh up from the hospital and take her home. She’s exhausted, so after tucking her into bed, I go and collect the boys and take them for some ice cream. They’re both attaching themselves to me, and Sunny, even though he isn’t my biological son, looks at me like I’m the father he adores. It fucking kills me that I left him, because in his mind, I was his dad.
I will never forgive myself for that.
Once we’re done with our ice cream, I head back home to drop them to Isla so I can go back and spend the night with Merleigh, but when I arrive, she’s not there. Figuring she might have just gone out, I try to call her phone, but it tells me it’s disconnected.
What the fuck?
In a slight panic, I look around the house and that’s when I find it. A folder on the kitchen counter, with my name on it. As if my mind already knows what I’m about to read, my body tenses and I pick it up with stiff fingers. I close my eyes before reading it, praying it’s not what I fucking think it is.
I’m wrong.
It’s exactly what I think it is.
The first thing I pick up is a letter from Isla, handwritten.
Dear Bohdi,
I know you’re going to hate me for this, and I know you’re going to take a long time to understand why I’ve done it, but I hope one day you can accept that I did what I had to do – for all of us.
I can’t be a mother. I love my boys, but I’m miserable and unhappy. I spend my days wishing I could be anywhere else. I’ve forgotten how it feels to live and I need to remember who I am. It’s selfish, I know, but they adore you and you always had such a great bond with them.
I’m not coming back, Bohdi. I’m not so cruel as to leave their lives and expect to come back when my mind changes. They don’t deserve that and neither do you. I want you to tell them I love them, but I just can’t be their mother anymore. I wish I could, more than anything, but I can’t.
I have attached papers that I have had drawn up, signing away all my parental rights and making you the full time guardian for both. I have thought this through, and it’s the right choice. I don’t want you to think I can come back in ten years and try to pick up where I left off. I’m signing my rights away, for your peace of mind.
It’s the least I can do.
I know you will be a great father to them, you always were. I know eventually, they’ll forget about me and grow to love you and whoever you end up with.
I’m sorry. I know you’re going to hate me. I just hope one day you can understand.
To Sunny and Taj, I’m sorry.
I’m truly sorry.
Isla x
NOW – MERLEIGH
The knocking at my door has me stopping what I’m doing to see Bohdi standing at the screen. His eyes frantic. I rush over, well, as fast as I can move with my sore leg.
“What’s the matter? Is everything okay?”
“You know how you said you wanted to be a Mother?”
I narrow my eyes, confused, and just as I do I see Sunny and Taj walking up the stairs, hands full of shells, smiles on their handsome little faces. Still, I don’t understand what Bohdi is talking about. What does he mean be a mother? To the boys? I don’t understand.
“You’re not making any sense, Bohdi. What’s going on?”
He hands me a note, and with narrowed eyes, I take it and read. What I read has my eyes widening and my heart racing. This can’t be real. Isla wouldn’t just up and leave her children like that...would she? No way, it just doesn’t make any sense. Is she in trouble? What if she is and this is some sort of ploy to get Bohdi to believe she made this choice on her own?
It’s not so far-fetched, is it? I mean, Bohdi upped and left everything and had people believe he was dead. This wouldn’t be so far from that kind of crazy. I narrow my eyes and then Bohdi hands me another stack of papers. “Before you go over theories, have a look at these papers, signed by her and done up by a lawyer. I rang that lawyer, who told me Isla was very calm and insistent on everything, and that she was certainly clear of mind. Trust me, I’ve been over every option, but the truth is that she wanted this. That’s all there is to it.”