into the nursery. She had a piece of who he was. An explanation for why he was. And yet she felt no closer to him than she had before. If anything, she felt like there was a greater distance between them.
She was beginning to believe that they would never be able to bridge this divide.
The more reality crept in, the more it filled this space between them, the more impossible it seemed they could ever find their way back to each other.
He was not her reward. She thought of everything they had. A broken marriage, loss, pain. She couldn’t see the reward in any of it.
She looked down at Isabella again. Maybe there were no rewards at all. Maybe there was simply life. And what you chose to do with it.
“I don’t know that my father ever knew what to do with me,” she whispered into the silence of the room. “But I loved him anyway. He loved me, too. He didn’t know how to show it, but he did. You see, much like your father he lost someone he loved very much. My mother. I think it becomes difficult after that to show love.”
She only realized just now, talking to an infant who didn’t understand a word she was saying, that it was the truth. Her father was more comfortable with work, with Leon, because it was simpler than love. Taking a protégé on, helping him succeed...it cost less than loving.
Love was so terribly expensive. And she was only fully grasping that now.
“I loved your father,” she continued, a hot tear slipping sown her cheek. “But he’s never loved me. That hurts. It makes me want to curl into a ball and never love anything ever again. But I think you’re going to need someone to love you. I will. I’ll love you like no one has ever hurt me. We didn’t choose this. And you certainly deserve better than me. But it’s time for me to start making some choices. It’s time for me to stop waiting. I choose you, Izzy.”
She swallowed hard past a lump that was rising in her throat. “I don’t know what your father will do. I can’t... I can’t make him into the man I want him to be. I can only be the woman I want to be. I can only try to be the mother you deserve. I don’t know how to be a mother. I barely remember my own. But I know what I missed having. I can give you those things. He’s right about one thing—I do hide. Well, I’m not going to hide anymore.”
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