I don’t say anything to her as he leans his head back and closes his eyes, and by the time we roll out of the driveway, his soft snores fill the car.
“This was fun,” I tell her, and she just nods her head.
“By the way,” I start, and my hands suddenly get clammy. “You won’t find my name on that puck bunny website.”
She turns her head toward me, her hair flying. “What are you talking about?” she asks, and I shake my head and look at her. In the dark, you can’t see her green eyes that well, but lucky for me, I’ve spent a good deal of time memorizing them.
“I came to hang my jacket up,” I start telling her, “and I heard Vivienne asking how to spell my name.”
“Um.” She hesitates, and I can see she’s nervous, so I lean over Jack’s car seat to touch her closed hand. But it was the wrong move, totally wrong, because her hand is soft, warm, and so small. The shock of her touch runs through me. My hand covers her fist.
“Trust me, I’ve heard about the website. My wife, or my soon-to-be ex-wife, used to troll it regularly.”
“What?” she whispers, and I realize that her fist is now open, facing up, and my hand is in hers.
“Chantal had trust issues, I guess you could say,” I say with a laugh. “Which is amazing, considering she was the one who cheated on me.”
“She cheated on you?” she asks me, and this time, her hand squeezes mine. Almost as if she is giving me strength.
“Yeah, I walked in on her and my best friend,” I tell her. “The week before I moved here, I got home earlier than planned, not a day or so, but just four hours earlier.”
“You don’t have to do this,” she tells me, and I smile at her.
“I know that I don’t.” I look at her, thinking how I would like to touch her cheek while I say this. “But I want to.”
“Okay,” she says softly.
“I mean, I guess I should have known she was cheating; it’d been over a year since she’d touched me.”
“What?” she says, shocked. “She didn’t touch you in over a year?”
“Yup, the day before we found out that Jack had cancer was the last time we were together,” I tell her. “Every time I would try, she would tell me that her head wasn’t in it.” I wait for her to say something, anything, but she doesn’t. She just holds my hand while I pour out the big secret I’ve been keeping. “Then she started to change the way she would do things with Jack. She wouldn’t hold him or come to the doctor visits with us. And at that point, I didn’t want to touch her or be with her either, but”—I shrug—“he was going through so much. He didn’t need to go through his parents getting divorced on top of that.”
“So who helped you?” she asks almost silently. “Who held you when you cried over your son?”
“No one,” I answer honestly. “My parents came down as much as they could, but Chantal wasn’t the warmest or most welcoming person at that point.”
“I would have,” she says so quietly, it’s like she didn’t say anything.
“What?” I ask her again to make sure I heard what I did. When the car comes to a stop, I see we are in front of her loft.
“I would have,” she says louder. “I would have held you while you cried over your son. I would have held your hand through every single test, through every single letdown or good day.” She blinks her eyes, and I feel a tear drop on our hands. “Good night, Zack,” she says, and the door opens for her with Marco standing there.
I don’t have a chance to say anything. I don’t have a chance to process anything; all I have is the sight of her walking into her building and the door shutting behind her. Marco gets back into the car and heads toward our house. I look out the window, my hand still wet from her tear, her touch still on me.
I watch the night zoom by until we get home, and then I undress Jack and tuck him in. I slide under the cold sheets, my eyes landing on the one star I can see through the open curtain. I watch the star blink, my mind racing all over the place. What a difference it would have made to have a woman hold my hand through this whole thing. A loving woman who would put the need of her child first. It’s the last thought I have before my eyes finally close for the night.
Denise comes to me in my dreams—her smile, the light in her eyes, the loving way she looks at Jack—and the whole time, she holds my hand never once letting it go.