I try to stay calm, but I am just as mad as he is. This is going to be one hell of an argument. I calmly walk over and stand directly in front of him.
“I am sorry about not telling you, but you can’t stand there and tell me that you aren’t keeping secrets from me too about this whole situation with the Menetti family. But you see, I needed to know what the hell is going on because you sure as fuck aren’t telling me shit!”
Standing taller, Luke’s head jerks back as if I just slapped him.
“I haven’t been keeping a fucking thing from you! I am trying to keep you and our daughter safe from this fucked up mess!”
“You’re not keeping things from me?” I ask, signaling air quotes with my hands. “Ben Menetti is threatening your whole family, including our daughter, and I am not supposed to know about this?”
“Fuck!”
He takes the bottle in his hand and throws it up against the wall. Brown liquid and shards of glass fly all over the place. I stare at him incredulously.
“What the hell has gotten into you, Luke?”
His anger is palpable as he strides up to me.
“I just got you back after seven miserable damn years and now I find out we could have been together this whole damn time and raising Lucy together, that’s what has gotten into me! I don’t want to lose my family over some sick, twisted vendetta that someone has against my father, but then to find out he has known about Lucy and where you have been this whole time? I am just sick and tired of all the fucking lies, the secrets…everything!”
“Luke, stop it!” I shout back at him. “Standing there and yelling at me like this is not going to get us anywhere. All of us have been through hell over these past years, but you and I and Lucy are happy right now. I’m not saying you need to forgive and forget what your father did; I’m not saying that at all. But we can’t put the blame on everyone else anymore; we have to put some of this on ourselves, too. We could have found each other somehow, but we didn’t. There are a lot of reasons why we didn’t or couldn’t, and we’ve acknowledged that a million times already. It doesn’t help to dwell on ‘what ifs’. When you feel the time is right to go talk to your father then do it, but right now this is me and you.”
I take a small step forward and reach out toward him.
“All I want to do is take away all of your pain, so please, don’t do this to yourself anymore,” I whisper.
It takes him all of a split second to reach me and pull me into his arms. “I have missed out on so much, it just makes me so fucking mad…I know I am taking this shit out on you, and for that I am so sorry.”
He leans his forehead against mine and continues.
“I love you and Lucy so fucking much. All I want for once is to live a normal life with my family.”
As we look into each other’s eyes, I know he sees the same hurt and anger reflected in mine as I do in his. He lightly kisses my forehead then goes to the broom closet to get what he needs to clean up the mess from the broken bottle. However, we both know this conversation is not over. We still need to discuss how to handle the fact that his father never told him he knew where we were and that he had a daughter. I glance over to where Luke is crouched down on the floor whisking broken glass into the dustpan.
“How did the conversation go with your father?” I ask.
Without answering me right away, Luke dumps everything into the garbage and continues to finish cleaning up. Finally, he turns to me as he is wiping down the walls.
“He explained everything to me. The logical part of me understands why he did it, but the stronger part of me, which is my heart, is crushed by the fact that he knew. Right now I just can’t forgive him for this.”
I feel that I need to try and ease his mind.
“Look at me, Luke. I agree with you that what your father did was wrong, but I did the same thing if you stop and think about it. Hell, I could have looked harder and found you, but I was hurt and bitter because you left me. We both need to find a way to forgive him and move on, because if we don’t, it is going to tear this family apart. We have found our way back to each other, and not too many people get a second chance like this.”
Luke stands up and tosses the dishrag into the sink, then pulls me into his chest.
“Give me some time on this, baby. It’s so much easier for me to forgive you than it is for me to forgive him because he was around and saw how much pain and suffering I was in for years. It’s just going to take me some time to be able to forgive him for this.”
“Thank you, Luke,” I say, but I know that before we can move on and try to enjoy our night together I need to talk to him about Ben and let him know I overheard the message that was left on his phone the other day.