The Wife He Couldn’t Bring Home Chapter 09
Hundreds of miles away, I stood at the front door of my family home, dragging my suitcase.
The old oak tree in the yard was still there. My dad’s old shirts swayed gently in the wind on the clothesline.
I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
The person who opened the door was my dad—he had just retired a couple of years ago. He froze for a moment. His gaze fell on my pale face, and then he looked at the suitcase. He didn’t ask anything. He just stepped aside. “Come in. It’s windy outside.”
My mom poked her head out of the kitchen. As soon as she saw it was me, she nearly dropped the spatula in her hand. “Maya? Why didn’t you… tell us you were coming back?”
I changed my shoes and walked into the living room. The house looked exactly the same as always: the floral cushions on the sofa, the picture from my college graduation on the coffee table, and the pothos plant that had been on the TV stand for ten years.
“Mom,” I heard myself say, my voice very soft. “Cole and I are over.”
The spatula in my mom’s hand clattered to the floor. My dad stood by the door in silence for a few seconds before walking over and patting my shoulder. “If you’re divorced, you’re divorced. It’s good that you’re back.”
My mom hugged me with red eyes, pressing me into her embrace. She patted my back just like she did when I fell down as a little girl. “It’s okay now. It’s okay, baby. It’s good to be home. Mom is here.”
I buried my face in her shoulder, and the tears I had been holding back for two days finally fell.
For the next few days, I didn’t go anywhere. I just stayed at home with my parents.
In the mornings, I went to the farmer’s market with my mom. At noon, I watched my dad water the flowers in the yard. In the afternoons, I curled up on the sofa to watch TV. At night, our family sat around the table for dinner.
The days flowed by as quietly as water. The still-bleeding wound in my heart was healing little by little.
My mom intentionally or unintentionally brought up Owen from next door—the boy I had grown up with. He was two years older than me, and when we were little, I used to follow him around every single day.
He had come back after graduating from college and opened a small architectural modeling studio in town. He was doing quite well, and he had grown up to be even more handsome.
“He even asked about you the day before yesterday,” my mom said, setting a fruit platter down and sitting in front of me. “I told him you were back for a while, and he said he’d treat you to dinner to catch up sometime.”
I was munching on an apple, so I just gave a vague sound in response.Â