Daughters Of The Bride. Susan Mallery

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      “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

      He shocked her by picking up her handbag and digging through it until he found her keys.

      “Hey! You can’t do that.”

      “I just did.”

      He walked toward the street. She watched him for a second, then walked slowly to collect the bases.

      Every step was agony. Pain shot down her right leg, and she was terrified that the muscles were about to seize up. She had muscle relaxers at home, along with the healing ice. But first there was this mess to clean up.

      By the time Greg got back, she’d stacked the bases and collected the forgotten equipment. He shook his head.

      “You couldn’t wait, could you? What the hell, Rachel? Why do you always have to be the martyr? It’s like you’re the only one who gets to be right and everyone else has to be—”

      He stopped talking.

      “I don’t think everyone is wrong,” she told him. “But sometimes they are. Like Heather is today.”

      “Yet you won’t confront her. You’ll simply stew about it. You’ll be snippy with her the next time you see her and she won’t know why. She’ll think you’re a total bitch, but you get to have righteous indignation on your side. Then at some parent meeting someone will mention the team mother thing and you’ll get to be the one who always showed up.”

      She didn’t like the sound of that. “You’re saying I’m wrong to be here on time, doing her job and mine?”

      “No. I’m saying you’re wrong for not calling Heather and telling her to get her butt down to the game.”

      “That’s not my style.”

      “You’re right. It’s not.” He turned and walked a couple of steps, then faced her again. “It’s never been your style. You are the queen of passive-aggressive.”

      “What?”

      He put his hands on his hips. “I always knew it, but I didn’t get what it meant. I never realized how it affected everything.”

      She sank onto the bench and stared at him. “You’re acting crazy.”

      “I’m not. I’m right, aren’t I?” He moved closer, then sat a few feet away and faced her. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Us and what went wrong.”

      “You cheated.”

      “Yeah, but it’s more than that. You’ve been mad at me for years. Because of how I acted. Because you had to be the grown-up in the relationship. I loved you, Rach, but I wasn’t ready to be a husband or a father. But there I was—playing at both.”

      “Leaving me with all the work,” she grumbled.

      “You’re right. I did leave you with everything. You couldn’t depend on me to support you the way you needed. And you sure wouldn’t ask for help. That’s the part that gets me. Why didn’t you ask?”

      He paused, as if waiting for an answer. Not that she had one. She’d liked the conversation much better when they’d been talking about his flaws rather than hers.

      “Do you think it’s about your dad dying?”

      “What?” she yelped. “Leave my father out of this.”

      “I know it was hard for you when that happened. You missed him, and your mom depended on you to take care of things. There was so much responsibility for you. So much more than you were equipped to handle. But you couldn’t ask for help.”

      How had he figured this out? She searched for an escape, but there was only her car and he still had her keys. It wasn’t as if she could simply limp away.

      “I don’t want to talk about this,” she told him.

      “You had to do everything,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “There’s a part of me that thinks you really like doing everything. I’m not sure if it’s a control thing or being the one who’s right or something else. But like today. You could have asked a dozen people to go get the drinks, but you didn’t. You had to do it all yourself, even with your back hurting.”

      Tears threatened, but she blinked them away. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Humiliation burned, but so did determination. And the latter was going to win.

      “Or with us,” he continued. “You should have reamed me a new one, but you didn’t. You simply endured my bad behavior. I played and you were the faithful, long-suffering wife. You got to be right, though, and you enjoyed that.”

      “You’re wrong,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her midsection. “About everything.”

      “I’m not. It’s taken me nearly two years to put together the pieces, but I think I have them now. I was wrong to cheat on you, Rachel. I knew the second I did it, I would regret it for the rest of my life. And I do. I was wrong and I’m sorry. I broke your trust and you were right to throw me out. I needed that and you deserved your pound of flesh. But you were wrong about a lot of other things.”

      He leaned toward her. “Here’s where it gets fuzzy for me. The asking for help thing. Is it that you really need to do it all yourself, or do you think you’re the only one who can do it right? Because I think that’s the key. Getting the answer to that question.”

      “Why are you doing this? Why are you treating me this way?”

      “Not to hurt you. I hope you can believe that. The thing is, I don’t think we’re finished. I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but I haven’t moved on, and I don’t think you have, either. We’re both in limbo. I keep thinking that if I can finally understand you, I’ll know what to do.”

      He stood and smiled. “Thanks for talking to me. This was really good. I understand a lot more now.”

      How nice for him. He’d laid her bare, talked about how awful she was, and now he felt better? Lucky him. She felt sick to her stomach. She wanted to crawl into a hole until the entire world went away.

      “I’m not going to ask if you need help,” he told her. “I know you’ll say no. I’m just going to do it. You sit here while I load the car. Then I’m going to follow you home and unload it. You just worry about yourself. I’ll take care of everything else.”

      She felt as if he’d slapped her. Of all the awful, mean, cruel things to say—that was the worst. Because he wanted her to believe in him. To trust him. To hand over control and let him run things.

      She’d tried that before. With him, with her mother, even with her friends. And she knew how it ended. With the other person letting her down and her all alone. It had always been that way and it always would be.

      He looked at her, then shook his head. “I can see you don’t believe me. It’s okay, Rachel. Now that I know what’s wrong, I can fix it. Maybe that makes me a fool, but I’ve got to try. You’ll see. Everything is going to be fine.”

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