Christening (10 page)

“Three breakfasts and four dinners a week with my family is hardly too demanding. And rather than being too rigid, I think a schedule would actually help to make sure I don’t unintentionally start to neglect you again. And maybe we could say I’ll spend at least one entire day—either Saturday or Sunday—with you. And more, whenever possible.” When he saw she was listening with interest, he continued, “If I’m not able to keep the schedule one week, then I’ll have to make it up the following week. And if there’s a crisis of some kind that takes up too much of my time at a certain point, then I’ll have to take some time off afterwards to…”

He was clearly on a roll, but his voice trailed off when he saw that Erin had narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“You’d already figured all of this out,” she accused him on a taken breath, something thrilling in her heart despite her heated tone. “You didn’t just think of all these details on the spur of the moment. You had it all worked out beforehand.”

Seth shifted slightly, looking torn between amusement and embarrassment. “Of course. Do you have any idea how much I’ve been thinking about this for the last week? Naturally, we can work the details, but I thought a schedule might be a good idea.” He gave her an adorable half-smile. “I told you I’m good at strategy.”

Erin collapsed into happy, relieved giggles, and she leaned against him affectionately. “Thank you, Seth. A schedule is an excellent idea.”

They were quiet for a long time, and she could feel Seth relaxing beside her again. Then his arm went around her, not so casually this time. He turned his head to press a kiss onto her temple, his lips soft but more purposeful than before.

She knew what he had in mind. She could feel how his body was beginning to tighten.

But she’d resolved not to be distracted today by sex, so she pulled away and made herself move into the rest of what they needed to discuss.

“So we’ve talked some about my worries and needs. What about you? I know our problems haven’t just been your fault.” She put her hand on his forearm. “Tell me what
you
want, Seth.”

He shifted uncomfortably, obviously not having expected this shift in dynamic. “I just want you and the girls to come home.”

“No. Don’t do that. Don’t act like you’re undeserving. You deserve just as much from this family as me and the girls. For this to work, you need to tell me what you want, what you need from
me
.”

Seth didn’t answer immediately. In fact, he sat for a long minute, staring out at the lake, his face occasionally working strangely, as if he were having a private struggle with himself.

Erin let him think, let him work through whatever he needed in order to open up enough to share this with her.

She sat beside him in silence, not even watching him, so he wouldn’t feel like she was pressuring him or intruding on his privacy.

Finally, he said, his voice a little stiff, “I need you to tell me what you want.”

Erin experienced a surge of disappointment, since she’d really thought he was going to be honest about his needs. “Seth,” she began.

“I’m not being the victimized martyr. I mean, I need you to
tell
me.”

She didn’t understand immediately. Just stared at him blankly.

With a reluctant expression, he pressed on. “I know I should have known better than to take you for granted. But, despite the fact that I’ve been clueless, I basically came back one evening to find you packing your bags to leave.” He cleared his throat. “You were going through so many things, you were having so many fears and insecurities, and you never even told me.”

Erin felt another stab in her heart—this one from knowledge and guilt.

“I guess I’d known you weren’t happy with my being gone for so long,” he continued. “But I had no idea it had gotten to this extent. And I had no idea that you were feeling so lost and uncertain about all this other stuff. I’d thought you were happy being a wife and mother.” When Erin opened her mouth to object and explain, he spoke over her, “I know you still want to be a wife and mother, but since you hadn’t done anything with your degree, I just figured those issues from before were settled.”

Erin mumbled, “They weren’t.”

“I know that now, but I
hadn’t
known before everything completely blew up. If I’d known it before—if you’d shared that with me before—then maybe we could have done something about it sooner.”

Erin restlessly rubbed her fingers against her scalp. “I know. You’re right. I should have told you a long time ago. It just…I don’t know…it snuck up on me. I really thought I was happy. I mean, I
was
happy. But just, little by little, it seemed like all I was doing was being a mom. And then it was so hard to find a job. Then I had less and less motivation to even look, since it felt like I was just doing it as an empty gesture. And then, with you gone so much, it felt like I wasn’t even a woman anymore. Just a mom. And not even a hardworking one, since I don’t really have to clean and cook and everything. So it just built up until it felt like I hardly even had a purpose.”

“So why didn’t you say anything to me? Was it because I wasn’t around enough?”

“Maybe a little. But it was my fault, not yours. I just have always felt so…petty, complaining about my life. I’m the wife of a rich, successful man who loves me, I don’t have to work, I have two incredible children—what the hell do I have to complain about?”

Seth rolled his eyes. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know. But, to begin with, everything was so minor that I really did feel ungrateful whining about it. And then, once everything started to build up into real issues, then I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.” She reached up and stroked his face briefly. “But you’re right, Seth. I should have told you. It wasn’t fair to keep you in the dark, and I know it made everything worse.”

She leaned over and kissed his jaw softly. “I’m sorry.”

He gave her a small, fond smile. “Thank you.”

For some reason, Erin felt almost embarrassed. So she snuggled against him and hid her face in his shirt.

“So what do you think would make you feel more fulfilled?” he asked. “Do you want to try to think of a different career path? Go back to school?”

Erin sighed. Felt a faint twisting in her gut, a familiar loss that was years old now. “No. I still want to be a lawyer, if I can.”

“And yet you stopped even looking for a job.”

“Yeah. That’s my fault for getting discouraged. I’ve got to figure out something. I still need to think about it some more.”

Seth was watching her quietly. When she’d stopped talking, he asked in a low murmur, “Is there anything else you’ve been worrying about?”

Closing her eyes, Erin groaned. “Oh, everything. It seems like I’m worried about
everything
. Last week, I got panicked that I was going to turn into one of those bitter wives of wealthy men—lonely, jaded, and bored. I've always been so determined not to be someone like that, but then I got afraid it was happening anyway."

She paused and took a deep breath before she went on. "I want so much to be a good mom, and I want the girls to see me being strong—for them, for you, and for myself. I want to show them that there’s joy and value in being a wife and mother, but I also want them to know that’s not the only possibility for a woman. I want to show them real love always means committing and working through problems, but I also want them to see that they—and
I
—don’t need to settle for less than we deserve, just so we can keep a man happy. I want to be a good example for them, but I just don’t know if I can.”

Erin was tearing up again, but this time she didn’t dissolve into sobs. “I just don’t know how to do all of that. But I want them to see me be…strong.”

Seth made a guttural noise in his throat. “You are strong, Erin, and the girls have already seen that. They’re always going to know that.”

She gazed up at him through blurry eyes. “Do you think so? I don’t think I’ve done a very good job lately, but I want to. I’m going to keep working on it. I want our girls to be strong too.”

“They will be. If we have anything to do about it, they will be.”

Erin wiped her eyes on his shirt. She felt a lot better. Felt like she’d said everything she needed to.

Almost.

Seth led into the last little thing, as intuitive as ever. “So, do you need to spend a few more days here, figuring the rest of this out?” His face was stiff, almost diffident.

She swallowed over a new lump in her throat. “I’m so sorry, Seth. I think I need at least one more day.” When he glanced away, she hurried on, “It’s not about you, anymore, though. You know that, right? I want to be home with you, but I’m so scared that, when I get there, I’ll just let everything slide back to the way it was, unless I have a plan in place. I just need to figure out how exactly I’m going to make myself commit to having a life of my own—one that’s not wholly defined by you and the girls.”

“I understand. Take all the time you need.”

She knew it wasn’t what he wanted, and she loved him even more for saying it anyway. “But I don’t want you to have to suffer because of me. You should take the girls home with you. I’ll just be another day or two.”

Her voice cracked on the last word.

Seth seemed to be thinking hard, but finally he shook his head. “No. They should stay here.” Before she could argue, he went on. “I have to work late tomorrow anyway. They’ll be happier with you than spending most of the day with Sarah.”

Sarah was the nanny they’d hired after Stella quit and moved out here with Erin’s father. Lately, however, Sarah had only worked part time, since Erin was home so often.

“Are you sure?” Erin replied, studying his face to see if there were any sign of his hiding his real feelings. “Because I don’t want to keep the girls away from you.”

“I’m sure. And it will only be another day or two. Right?”

“Right,” she assured him, leaning over to kiss the side of his mouth. “We’ll be home on Tuesday, at the latest.”

Seth relaxed for real and smiled at her. The sweet, intimate smile she usually only saw in the bedroom. “Good.”

They sat together, as close as they could get, for several more minutes. While there was still too much uncertainty for Erin to feel perfectly happy, she actually felt peaceful for the first time in a really long while.

When she noticed that the sun was getting lower, she finally pulled away and stood up. “We should get back. It must be almost three already. Who knows what kind of trouble the girls are getting into?”

Seth agreed, and they started back toward the spot where they’d been picnicking.

Before the girls were even in sight, Erin and Seth
heard
what kind of trouble they’d been getting into.

To be more exact, they heard loud, piercing screams.

After meeting each other’s eyes, Erin and Seth hurried the rest of the way there.

When they arrived, she saw their daughters at what was clearly the height of a fight. A real fight. A loud, angry, intense, dramatic, violent fight.

Both girls were screaming furiously at each other—the words lost in the torrent of extreme emotion. Stella was actually having to hold Anna back, as the little girl seemed to be trying to free herself to launch an attack on her older sister.

Mackenzie had never been as physical in her anger. Instead, she stood stiffly beside Erin’s father, hurling insults at her sister, which were obviously intended to rile Anna up even further.

Erin blinked, momentarily stunned by the passionate altercation. The girls had occasionally been reduced to this kind of intensity before, but usually Erin was able to curb the conflict before it got to this point.

Now that it had, Erin couldn’t immediately think of what to do.

Seth, however, experienced no such lapse. He took three steps forward and roared, “Enough!”

His voice wasn’t angry, but it was very, very loud.

The girls, who hadn’t even seen their parents approaching, immediately froze in shock at the bellow of their father’s unexpected voice.

Their screams catching in their throats, Anna and Mackenzie jerked toward Seth, their red faces momentarily uncomprehending.

Erin took a breath of relief at the sudden silence, although she wasn’t foolish enough to think it was over quite yet.

It wasn’t. As Erin moved over to stand beside Seth, Anna burst into hysterical tears and sat down with a thump on the grass. She was trying to gasp out words through her sobs, but all Erin could pick out was, “Mac…Mac…sit…mean!”

Mackenzie could evidently understand these anguished wails better than Erin. Her face was red and scowling and obstinate, and she glared at her sobbing sister without pity. “I was not mean! I was sitting there first. Anna pushed me! Daddy,
she
started it—”

While Mackenzie spoke, Anna’s wails had gotten louder. Her little face was just as red as Mackenzie’s was, and her hair, which had been pulled into a neat ponytail, had gotten snarled into an off-center mess.

“Quiet,” Seth commanded.