I had packed everything the girls might need for the journey.
Extra clothes.
Clean bottles.
Diapers.
Wipes.
A small blanket for each daughter.
I had even brought a spare shirt for myself in case one of them spilled milk on me.
I had prepared for the ordinary problems of taking two babies away from home.
I had not prepared for Ryan.
He stood beside the bench with his hands in his jacket pockets.
The blue fabric looked different to me now.
I could still remember buying it.
I had stood in the shop for nearly twenty minutes, comparing two jackets because I wanted to choose the one he would like best.
I had pictured him opening the gift.
I had pictured his smile.
Now I couldn't look at it without remembering the woman who had stood close enough to touch it.
I hated that a simple object could change so quickly.
Ryan glanced toward the girls.
"They've grown."
The comment was so ordinary that I almost didn't understand it.
He was looking at his own daughters, and the best thing he could think to say was that they had grown.
Of course they had.
Three months had passed.
Three months of feedings and appointments and nights when I could barely remember what day it was.
Three months of watching their faces change.
Three months of taking pictures so he wouldn't miss every little thing.
I had sent those pictures because I wanted him to feel connected to us.
Now I wondered what he had been thinking when he looked at them.
Whether he had smiled.
Whether he had felt homesick.
Whether he had been standing beside Simone while looking at photographs of the daughters I had carried and delivered.
The questions came too quickly.
I couldn't answer any of them.
"Would you like to hold them?" I asked.
Ryan looked surprised.
I hadn't planned to ask.
The words came out before I had decided what I wanted.
He stepped toward the stroller.
"Yes."
He bent down and looked at Ava first.
She was awake and watching him with the solemn expression babies sometimes wore when they were trying to understand a face.
Ryan smiled faintly.
"Hello, sweetheart."
Ava moved one hand.
He reached toward her, then paused.
I saw uncertainty in the way he held his arms.
He had been away for so long that he didn't seem to know what to do.
I wanted to help him.
The instinct was immediate.
I wanted to show him how to support her head, how to lift her gently, how to settle her against his chest.
Then I remembered what had happened.
I kept my hands at my sides.
He lifted Ava carefully.
For a few seconds, he simply held her.
His expression softened.
I watched him look at her tiny face.
There was tenderness there.
That made everything more confusing.
I could not tell myself that he felt nothing for our family.
He clearly felt something.
But whatever he felt for Ava did not explain the kiss.
And whatever he felt for me had not stopped him from doing it.
He lowered his head and kissed the top of her hair.
Ava remained quiet.
Ryan swallowed.
"She's beautiful."
I nodded.
"So is Mia."
He looked toward the other daughter.
I could see that he wanted to reach for her too.
For a moment, I imagined the scene I had wanted so badly.
Ryan holding Ava.
Me lifting Mia.
The four of us standing together while someone took our photograph.
It was a small dream.
A simple one.
Yet I could no longer imagine it without Simone appearing in the background.
I took Mia from the stroller and held her against my shoulder.
Ryan watched us.
"Claire, I know you're upset."
I looked at him.
"Upset?"
He seemed to realize that he had chosen the wrong word.
"I know you're hurt."
I said nothing.
He shifted Ava slightly in his arms.
"I should have handled things differently."
That sentence stayed between us.
I waited for the rest.
He didn't offer it.
"What things?"
He looked away.
"The situation with Simone."
I felt something inside me go cold.
He had given the kiss a name that made it sound like a scheduling problem.
A situation.
Something that had happened around him rather than something he had chosen to do.
I adjusted Mia against my shoulder.
"Did you kiss her because you wanted to?"
Ryan looked at me.
For the first time that morning, I saw genuine discomfort in his expression.
He opened his mouth.
Then he looked down at Ava.
"Can we please talk about this later?"
I closed my eyes briefly.
I had spent months waiting for him to come home.
Now he was home, and he was asking me to wait again.
I opened my eyes.
"How long have you known her?"
He looked toward the harbor.
"Claire."
"How long?"
He took a breath.
"I can't answer everything right now."
I stared at him.
It was not that I expected him to solve every problem in a single conversation.
I knew people sometimes needed time to explain difficult things.
But he had been given an opportunity to tell me something simple.
He could have told me whether he knew Simone before that morning.
He could have told me whether the kiss meant what it looked like.
He could have told me whether I was discovering a new problem or finally seeing an old one.
Instead, he kept asking for more time.
I began to understand that time was the one thing he still expected me to give him freely.
I had given him three months without complaint.
I had given him my trust.
I had given him the benefit of every doubt.
I wasn't sure what else he believed he deserved.
Ava began moving restlessly in his arms.
Ryan looked down at her, then toward me.
"Can you take her?"
I reached out and accepted our daughter.
He handed her over gently.
For a second, our fingers touched.
I felt the familiar warmth of his hand.
It was such a small thing, and it hurt more than I expected.
I placed Ava back in the stroller beside her sister.
Then I checked their blankets again.
Ryan watched me.
"I missed them."
I believed him.
That was the difficult part.
I believed that he had missed his daughters.
I believed that he might have missed me too.
I simply no longer knew whether those feelings meant what I had always assumed they meant.
"Then why didn't you call more often?"
The question surprised both of us.
He frowned.
"I called when I could."
"Sometimes you went days without calling."
"My schedule wasn't always under my control."
I knew that was true.
His work at sea could be demanding, and there had been times when communication was difficult.
I had never expected him to call every day.
I had never demanded that he abandon his responsibilities.
But there had been other times when he sounded distant even when he had time to talk.
There had been calls that ended abruptly.
There had been evenings when he said he was exhausted and promised to speak with me the next day.
I had accepted those things because I wanted to be understanding.
Now every forgotten conversation seemed to carry a second meaning.
I didn't know whether that meaning was real.
I only knew that I could no longer ignore the possibility.
Ryan rubbed his forehead.
"This isn't helping."
I looked at him.
"What would help, Ryan?"
He didn't answer.
"Would it help if I pretended I hadn't seen you?"
He shook his head.
"That's not what I mean."
"Then tell me what you mean."
He glanced toward the stroller.
The girls were quiet now.
Ava had begun to close her eyes again, and Mia was sucking gently on her pacifier.
I envied them.
They had no idea that the man standing beside us had become someone I couldn't understand.
They didn't know what a marriage was.
They didn't know what betrayal meant.
They only knew the sound of their father's voice and the warmth of someone's arms.
I wanted to protect them from the uncertainty spreading through me.
But I couldn't protect them by pretending nothing had happened.
Ryan finally spoke.
"I need you to trust me."
I stared at him.
For a moment, I wondered whether I had heard correctly.
Trust him.
He was asking me for the one thing he had just given me a reason to question.
I had trusted him enough to bring our daughters to the harbor without telling him.
I had trusted him enough to imagine his reaction.
I had trusted him enough to believe that the man who returned from the sea would still be the man I had married.
And now he wanted me to trust him simply because he had asked.
"I did trust you."
My voice was quiet.
Ryan looked at me.
"I know."
"No, I don't think you do."
He shifted his weight.
I continued before I could lose my nerve.
"I came here because I wanted you to see your daughters. I wanted you to have something good waiting for you when you came home."
His face tightened.
"I know, Claire."
"I don't think you understand what that means to me."
I looked down at the stroller.
"I spent the last three months telling them about you. I showed them your pictures. I talked to them about the day you would come home, even though they couldn't understand a word I was saying."
My throat felt tight.
"I did all of that because I believed we were waiting for the same thing."
Ryan didn't speak.
I wished he would interrupt me.
I wished he would tell me I was wrong about something.
Instead, he stood there and listened.
And his silence made it impossible to stop.
"I wasn't expecting you to be perfect," I said. "I wasn't expecting some wonderful reunion from a movie. I just wanted to bring our girls to their father."
He lowered his eyes.
I looked at him for another moment.
Then I asked the question I had been trying not to ask since Simone walked away.
"Is she someone you've been seeing while you were gone?"
Ryan's face went still.
He didn't deny it.
He didn't confirm it.
He simply looked at me as though the question had opened a door he had hoped to keep closed.
I felt my hands begin to tremble.
I pressed them against the stroller handle.
"Ryan."
He finally looked up.
"I need some time to explain."
I shook my head slowly.
"You keep saying that."
He glanced toward the harbor entrance.
"Because I don't know how to tell you everything here."
Everything.
The word caught my attention.
He hadn't said there was nothing to tell.
He hadn't said Simone was a mistake.
He hadn't said I had misunderstood.
He had said everything.
I stared at him.
"How much is there?"
He looked away again.
For a few seconds, I thought he might answer.
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
He checked the screen.
I watched him do it.
It was such an ordinary movement.
Yet it reminded me that there were parts of his life I could not see.
Messages I had never read.
Conversations I had never heard.
People he knew in places I had never been.
I had always understood that marriage did not mean two people shared every moment.
Ryan had his work.
I had my responsibilities at home.
We both had private thoughts.
But I had believed that the important parts of our lives belonged to us together.
I wasn't certain of that anymore.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket.
"Let's get the girls home."
I looked at him.
The sentence sounded reasonable.
The girls were tired.
I was exhausted.
We needed to leave the harbor.
But going home with Ryan felt different from arriving there without him.
The house had been the place where I waited for him.
Now I didn't know whether I wanted him inside it.
Still, I couldn't settle everything on the pavement.
I had two babies to care for, and they needed somewhere quiet.
I nodded.
Ryan reached for the stroller handle.
I held it a moment longer.
Then I released it.
He began pushing the girls toward the exit.
I walked beside him, leaving a little space between us.
Neither of us spoke.
As we moved away from the harbor, I looked once over my shoulder.
Simone was gone.
The place where she had stood was occupied by strangers.
There was nothing left to see.
But I knew I would remember her face.
I would remember her hand on Ryan's chest.
And I would remember the way he had looked at me after the kiss, as though the most difficult part of the morning was that I had witnessed it.
By the time we reached the car, I had made a decision.
I would take the girls home.
I would let Ryan come with us.
But I would not let the subject disappear simply because he wanted it to.
He had asked me to give him time.
For once, I intended to decide how much.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: On the Way Home, I Tried to Recognize the Man Beside Me While Every Familiar Detail Began to Feel Different
I Thought Our First Family Reunion Would Be the Happiest Morning of My Life Until I Saw Who Was Waiting Beside My Husband
Part 3 of 20
