Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
That mine was the one that got away.
Tell me what I have to do
To prove my heart is married to you.
It won’t be overnight.
Just give me time to make it right.
Please wait for me, Nina.
Later that night, she sent me a text.
I will.
CHAPTER 25
Holding onto the promise she made me as insurance, I gave Nina the physical space she felt she needed. We spent a lot of time talking on the phone, sometimes late into the night. During one of our conversations, she paused out of the blue, changed the subject and said, “Tell me about her.”
She hadn’t really asked much about Ivy up until that point, aside from wanting to know where things stood. Maybe she wasn’t ready or hadn’t felt secure enough in our relationship. I spent the next hour of that phone call going over the last six years and shared memories of Ivy, both good and painful ones. It was liberating to get it all off my chest and to finally share everything with her.
***
A month passed before I was able to take a week off from work to head to Boston. I didn’t want to have the divorce talk with Ivy over a weekend in case I needed to stay for the fallout. I also never quite knew what kind of a mood I’d find her in. A week would give me enough of a window to ensure I’d get her on a decent day.
My plan was to use the rest of the time off to research all of the legal issues. If possible, I wanted to be able to keep my power of attorney. She didn’t have anyone else who was trustworthy to make important decisions.
We had stopped the new medication because she wasn’t benefiting enough to make it worth the risk. So, waiting for that to kick in was no longer an excuse for me to put everything off.
When I arrived at the group home Tuesday night of that week, I had geared myself up to have the dreaded conversation.
Her door was open, so I knocked lightly, but she didn’t notice. She was listening to an old c.d. that she had recorded of herself playing the guitar years ago.
My chest tightened as I watched her sitting on the bed with her back facing me. She was swaying side to side to the sounds of her own music. I would have given anything to know what she was thinking about.
I tapped her shoulder, startling her, and she turned to look at me.
“Hi,” she said. “What day is it?”
“It’s Tuesday.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you. I took the week off.”
She turned back around facing the window, and I sat next to her on the bed. We sat in silence, listening to the mellow guitar. Ivy’s music. She hadn’t played in years. Although, she still kept her Gibson propped up in the corner of her room, an eerie reminder of what used to be.
She stood up in front of me. Her long red hair was tousled, and her eyes looked tired. Even so, she was still a beautiful girl. It was the one thing that never changed, that wasn’t taken away from her.
She tugged at my arms pulling me up. “Dance with me,” she said.
I couldn’t help but smile. That was the last thing I expected. Her behavior was always unpredictable, but this was a new one.
She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and placed her cheek on my chest. I closed my eyes and moved my body slowly to the music, matching her rhythm.
Dancing obviously wasn’t what I came here for, but moments like this with Ivy were few and far between. If dancing with me gave her some peace, I’d do it all night. I just wanted to take her pain away. There was never anything I could do to make that happen.
Her breathing became shaky, and I realized she was starting to cry. I held her tighter as her tears covered my shirt. I didn’t know what to say or do.
She whispered, “Jake, I’m scared.”
“Don’t be scared, baby girl. I’m here.” My eyes started to water when the next song played: Ivy’s rendition of Yesterday by the Beatles. I caressed her hair as we continued to dance, the last six years flashing before my eyes.
It dawned on me that maybe she was more aware than I had given her credit for. Maybe in a moment of clarity, she put two and two together when I showed up out of the blue on a Tuesday. Maybe she knew she was about to lose a part of me. I wouldn’t know for sure, but what I did know was that no talk was happening tonight. No. Tonight, we would just dance. She deserved that.
***
After leaving Ivy’s, my head hurt from mentally preparing for the talk, only to have to put it off again because of her emotional state.