I’d even gone so far as to ask Jerry about this, but he’d a.s.sured me that he handed the papers and the note directly into Tristan’s care, so I’d gotten no answers there.

Tristan had seemed so ready to take on the subject when he was asking the questions, but something about my question seemed to have weakened him.

He moved to the table in his breakfast nook, felt for a chair, and sat down, looking at his hands.  “Yes, I remember.”

I moved to sit as well, but not facing him.  No, I turned my chair away, staring out the window.  This subject was hard enough to face, without having to face each other, as well.  “Do you remember the letter I sent with the papers?”

There was a very long pause, then some agitated movements behind me, as though he’d taken exception to his chair or the ground it was sitting on.

My stomach churned when he answered behind me, his tone just awful with pain and confusion, “What letter?”

My eyes squeezed shut.  I didn’t want to dig into the old wounds, but ignoring them had obviously never made all of the questions go away.  “When I sent Jerry to you with the divorce papers, there was a letter with them.  A very important letter.  For you.  Jerry swears to me that he handed both directly into your care.”

A longer silence pa.s.sed with more agitated movements.

“What did it say?” he finally asked in the most wretched voice.

I wished instantly I’d never brought it up, but I trudged on.  There was no going back now.  He’d been like a dog with a bone before I’d opened my big mouth about the letter.  There was no question he’d be even more relentless with still more questions in the mix.  “I’ll tell you.  First, though, I want to know what happened to it.  Were you alone when he came to see you?  He told me he didn’t see anyone else at the apartment.”

More silence, then the sound of something breaking in the kitchen.  Near the sink, likely a plate, I thought, but I didn’t look.

This was rough enough, just hearing what it was doing to him.

“Dean was at the apartment with me.  He came out of his room after Jerry left.  He’d heard Jerry’s voice, wanted to know what was going on.”

“The letter was tucked into the papers,” I explained, keeping my voice gentle.  I’d come to terms with this years ago.  No new fresh wounds for me here, just sore old ones.  Not so for Tristan.  Some of this was very new to him.  “Impossible to miss once you started going through them.  Is there any chance you set them down before…before you read them?”

More silence, more things breaking in the kitchen.  I could hear his heavy, ragged breaths catching as he moved.  He was not taking this well.

“I did.  I set them on the coffee table and went to pour some shots.  I didn’t want to read the papers without a drink.  I didn’t think I could handle them.”

There it was.  All of the puzzle pieces fit right into place.

“And Dean, I take it he was near the coffee table when you turned your back?”

More things broke in the kitchen.  And then his ragged breaths were directly behind me.  “What did that letter say, Danika?”

I took a few deep, steadying breaths.  “It was short.  An ultimatum.  Essentially, it said that if you went to rehab, I wouldn’t divorce you.”

I sat there for a long time, even after he’d left the room, my mind in dark places.

Regrets were such useless things, and even so, it seemed impossible to dislodge some of them.

So many mistakes on both our parts, and here we were, six years later, still dealing with the aftermath.

I loved him every bit as much as I ever had, and that love was more useless than it had ever been, even now, when I could get through to him.

I found him out back sitting on a lawn chair, staring into his pool.  He was bent forward, fists clenched.  He looked wound up so tight that he might just curl into a ball at any second.

I stroked his shoulder and he jerked like he’d been shocked.

I touched him again, and this time he seemed prepared for it.  “Come on.  Let’s go to bed.”

I led him by the hand up to his bedroom, and he let me.  I certainly couldn’t have moved him otherwise.

Slowly, tenderly, I stripped him and then he me.  I tugged him under the covers with me.  I hugged him tight, trying to ease the frigid remorse that was gripping him.  It had me in its grip as well, so I knew better than anyone how the touching helped.

We held each other for a very long time before he spoke, his voice rasping out, breaking on some of the words.  “I would have gone to rehab, even as f**ked up as I was back then, if I had seen that, I would have gone.  I thought you were dead set on staying away.  I thought you were so done with me.  If I had read that letter, everything would be different.”

“It’s no use,” I told him gently.  “We have enough to contend with.  We don’t need to harbor these regrets, as well.  We’ve got to let it go.  The past is the past, and we cannot go back.”

Those words weren’t only for him.  I was still convincing myself, as well.

I pulled his face closer, and laid my lips very softly on the corner of his mouth.

He shut his eyes, and I turned his head just so, pressing my lips gently to the pulse in his neck.  I held them there for a prolonged moment, then pulled back, tilted his head down, and rubbed my lips against his forehead, then down, brushing against his stubbly cheek, his jaw.

He held still and let me, compliant, even pa.s.sive, under my soothing hands, my forgiving lips.

He was shivering relentlessly, and I warmed him with my touch.  I warmed us both.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I was in his large foyer, about to leave for work the next morning, when he stopped me with a question.

He said it from behind me.  I’d left him soundly asleep and had hoped he’d stay that way for a few more hours.  It had been a rough night.  He needed it.

Also, I’d wanted to avoid this.

“Wh-what—“ his voice trembled, and I thought that perhaps he’d guessed the next part.  “What changed to make you want to work things out?”

The closest chair just seemed so far away.  Like a limp doll, I leaned against the closest wall, then sank down to the floor.

What could it hurt at this point to just tell him?  What more damage could it possibly do?  All of the damage had already been done.  Of course, it had.  Years ago.  No one knew that better than I did.