Page 42 of Reckless Love

Already, I’m picturing sitting at the table, alone, until whenever Raul decides to arrive. Maybe if I down a few scotches while staring at the gorgeous cliffside ocean view, my marriage will miraculously become palatable again. It’s been a long time since I’ve dipped into this well of depressive thoughts, and it surprises me a little how heavy they are. I’ve never been the type to sit in misery when I can be doing something to change my circumstances, but the changes I’d have to make this time…

“Come on, Landon,” I say, scooping him into my arms. “Let’s pack a bag for Auntie Ember and Uncle Gage’s house.”

“Noooo,” Landon moans. “I’ll have to play with the girls.”

“Come on,” I say, whispering close to his ear. “You remember what Stephen said?”

He draws back to look at me solemnly while I carry him toward the stairs. “I’ll be kind,” he says. “I’m going to be a kind man.”

“Let’s start that right now,” I say, “with your best attitude with your cousins.”

He cuddles into the crook of my neck and clings on. When we’ve almost reached his room, he murmurs, “I miss Stephen already.”

Me too. Me too.

Instead of dropping off Landon and rushing to the restaurant, I’m sitting on the back patio with Ember, both of us with drinks in our hands, while Gage is in the pool with all the kids as both teacher and police officer. Normally, his attempts to wrangle the kids in the pool amuse me, but I can’t find a trace of that emotion in me today.

“What’s going on?” Ember asks, peering at me over the rim of her wine glass. “You’re not yourself tonight.”

“Just questioning all my life choices.”

“Except normally, that sounds like a joke.”

“Definitely not a joke this time.”

“Raul?”

I let out a huff. “You and the rest of Bellerive will hang banners that say, ‘I told you so’ if I admit I’m not happy.”

“I’ve heard lots of other people say that marriage is hard. Maybe you’re just going through a hard phase.”

I notice she doesn’t say she’s found her marriage hard. I’m pretty sure none of my siblings have uncovered any difficult parts to marriage, and the obvious reason is because they married the right person. Me, on the other hand, with a bit of guidance, I made the best out of a bad situation.

“Hard I could maybe live with.” And I almost think that’s true. When anyone wants something enough, hard isn’t so terrible. That was how I went into my marriage. I wanted my company and a present father figure for my son. Being married to Raul was the realistic price to pay to have those two things. Our relationship might put me in emotional debt, but the payoffs would be worth it.

But the emotional interest has accumulated. Being in a loveless marriage, where even sex is a transaction or a power play, is not making me happy. Not even the success of my company can pay back the emotional and physical deficit left by the house I live in, the man that I theoretically share my life with.

He gave me everything I thought I wanted and nothing I actually needed.

I got it all so wrong.

“Our finances are knotted together,” I say. “Raul, as absent as he is, would never let me take Landon and leave.”

“You’re serious?” Ember asks, sitting up in her lounge chair to face me, her long black hair cascading around her like a partial curtain. “You’re really serious?”

“He’d take my company, and he’d take my son,” I say, and my voice goes thick. “Wouldn’t he? He would, wouldn’t he?”

“In a heartbeat,” Ember agrees. “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, as a Tucker, you’re not exactly powerless.”

“I know,” I say. “But he’d make leaving as painful and expensive as he possibly could. He’d drag every skeleton in my closet out for all of Bellerive to see. In another…” I do the math in my head. “I was going to say twenty years, but I just need Landon to be eighteen. Thirteen years, and he doesn’t hold as much power.”

“No,” Ember says, shaking her head. “That cannot be your plan. Live in misery for thirteen years?”

“I don’t have a plan,” I say, and I gulp back the last of my wine. “Forget I said anything.”

“Ava,” Ember says, standing up with me. “Is this because of The Nile unionizing? Is he being kind of terrible about that? Obviously, you two don’t talk much… Live pretty separate lives. You kept saying you were fine. Happy enough—whatever that meant.”

“I am fine,” I say. “I was just thinking out loud.” I can’t tell her about Stephen, that all these intrusive thoughts have come to a head because my old crush played house with me for a week, and it was the best week I’ve had since he left me six years ago.