Page 73 of Unsure in Love
Like Damian did… He made it no secret that he wanted more… more than just a he-got-me-pregnant-so-he’s-sticking-around relationship. He’s the only man to ever sweep in and break past my defenses to reach my heart, and I wanted things to work as best as they could with him.
“So, Henry. Why?”
28
CASS
The room got quiet.
Henry stared at me, and my gaze never wavered. Finally, he blew out a long breath and said, “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t know what to do with that because it wasn’t enough, so I stayed quiet.
Pushing his fingers through his graying hair, he shrugged. “Your mother and I were together for a long time.”
I nodded. “Since high school.”
“We grew up together in the same little town, then we got married right out of high school. Maybe it was too soon, I don’t know. I mean, plenty of people are together long term and it works, but I think your mother and I should have taken some time apart.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “But you didn’t, and you started a family. How do your marital issues justify abandoning your children?”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t you dare say you didn’t. That’s exactly what you did. You left one day and never came home.”
I watched him struggle to find words and practically felt his agitation, but I refused to let up. “What excuse could you possibly have for that?”
He turned to face me, his expression twisted with agony. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“What?” I asked, my voice quivering. “Us?”
“No.” Henry’s beseeching stare had me even more confused. “Cassandra, please try to understand where I’m coming from…”
My growing irritation got the better of me. Huffing, I spat, “If you’d tell me what the issue was, maybe I can. You still haven’t given me an explanation for leaving.”
“Your mother and I fought a lot.”
I snorted and grumbled, “And here I thought adults were supposed to know how to work their shit out.”
For a while growing up, I held onto the idea that Dad was verbally abusive to Mom because I remembered the shouting matches, and his voice was always the loudest. But Lucy pointed out that Mom was every bit as malicious with her words, so I couldn’t lay all the blame on Henry.
“It got to the point where we could barely stay in the same room for a minute without a verbal war.”
I stared at Henry, dumbfounded. “Wait…” My glare must have been intense enough to roast him alive because I felt the heat of my fury practically burning its way through my veins. “You mean to tell me that you abandoned your five daughters—one who was just a year old—because you and your wife couldn’t get along?”
My voice rose to a screech. “You have got to be fucking kidding me! I can never tell Ruby about this. She’ll hate you!” My younger sister would call this man all kinds of coward if I ever told her his excuse for leaving. She never really felt one way or the other about Henry’s disappearance because she was one at the time. She had no memory of him.
Henry gawked, and I wondered what he had the nerve to be surprised about. I was the one who was supposed to be wallowing in shock here. Utter shock at his ridiculous excuse for abandoning me and my sisters. It might be because I dropped an F-bomb. For a second, I was almost apologetic because maybe swearing in front of a parent was disrespectful. But then I remembered that Henry was just my mom’s sperm donor, so the level of respect was severely diminished.
“Of all the excuses you could have come up with—”
“Cassandra, please…” Henry’s expression was twisted into a grimace. It was almost as if he was in physical pain.
I was a little pissed at myself for feeling a tad sympathetic. Did this man deserve my compassion?
“I don’t know why I didn’t go back,” he said. “Life with Esmie became so overwhelming and I… I…”
Once again, my hormones kicked in—because everything had become the pregnancy hormones’ fault—and tears gathered in my eyes.