“I would have done everything differently that day too, if I could have, but nothing I do now will change that. And it’s the same for you. Surely you see that? Xander, you have to see that and accept it to move past it.”
Xander swallowed and turned away to watch the dog as she continued to explore the garden. “It doesn’t make it any easier, though, does it?”
“And it’s no easier handling it alone, either.”
“No, you’re right there. I watched my mother handle everything on her own while I grew up. She became so adept at it, so automatic about it all, that she wouldn’t even accept help from me once I was able to give it. She told you that my father suffered a complete breakdown after my brother died, didn’t she?”
Olivia moved to stand beside Xander, slipping her hand inside his. “Yes, she did. Until then I never understood how tough it must have been for either you growing up or for your mother—or even your dad, for that matter.”
“I didn’t really know any different at home. Sure, I knew what other families had and I knew our household was odd by comparison and that I couldn’t bring friends home, but it wasn’t until Parker died that I fully understood what my father must have gone through. I didn’t want to fall down into that dark hole. In fact, I did everything I could to prevent that from happening. I never let out any of it—not my fears, my sorrow.” He shook his head. “I tried so hard not to be like him. He couldn’t even function without my mother there he depended on her so much. She had to go to work each day because if she didn’t, we’d have nothing to eat, no roof over our heads. But from the second she left the house each morning to go to work, he’d weep. I’d let myself out the door to go to school, with the sound of his sobbing echoing in my ears. Some days, he’d find the strength to pull himself together, but as I got older, more and more often when I got home, he would still be crying.
“You know, when he died, I felt relief rather than sadness or loss because for the first time in years I knew he finally had peace. He couldn’t forgive himself for my brother’s death, couldn’t talk about it, nothing. Most days he could barely get out of bed. He needed my mother for everything. I couldn’t let myself be like him—not even the slightest bit.”
Olivia squeezed his hand, hard. “Your whole family should have had more help.”
Xander nodded. “Mum is not the kind of person who accepts help. She soldiers on. Does what needs doing and keeps looking forward. She was strong and capable and solid as a rock through all of it, and I really thought that was something to aspire to. In fact, I saw a lot of that in you, too. I don’t think I ever saw her shed a tear or admit she couldn’t handle anything.
“After Parker died, you coped with everything that had to happen afterward with the funeral—even giving our victim impact statement at the sentencing for the driver who killed him. Your composure scared me. Made me look at myself and question why I couldn’t do those things. Was I my father’s son?”
Olivia hastened to reassure him. “No, you weren’t. You were grieving, too. Everyone copes in their own way, Xander. You couldn’t be anyone other than yourself or feel anything other than what you were feeling at the time. Me, I pushed all my feelings aside, the way I learned how to do when I was a kid. Life goes on and all that,” she said bitterly. “It got to the point where everyone in my family turned to me when it came to making choices about their life, even my dad. It became second nature to me, and it made me who I am.
“I never thought twice about involving you in the big decisions I made because I was just so used to following my own plan. And when I met you and we fell in love and got married, I thought I’d be able to craft the plan for both of us—for our life together. It’s no wonder we fell apart through the very happening that should have driven us closer together.”
Xander sighed. “It wasn’t all your fault. Through our marriage I let you take control of everything because it was so much easier that way. It left me free to do what I saw as my role, the role my father never had in my memory. I needed to compensate for all the things he didn’t do, but it wasn’t without its own cost, was it? Do you think we can make it work? Give ourselves another chance at this thing called love?” he asked, still staring out at the garden.
“Yes, I know we can. Not because I want to or because you want to, but because we owe it to ourselves, and to Parker’s memory and to the life of this new child we created, to do so—to be happy.” She reached up to stroke his face and smiled when he turned into the touch and planted a kiss on her fingers. “I’ve never stopped loving you, Xander. I never will. I just needed to learn that to make a marriage work it needed to be a joint proposition—from start to finish—and I’m totally not ready for us to be finished yet.”