“So he’s moving here? What does that mean? Are we moving in with him?” He stood in front of me, his hands in his pockets. When did he get so big?
“Umm, yes. Yes, he is. He told me this morning. I didn’t know that was what he was thinking.” I wrung my hands together.
“So what? You just forget about the naked girl in his house? You forget that he lied to you about it? Is that what you’re doing?” He was angry, so very angry.
“Matthew, it was a misunderstanding in what I saw. I believe him. I believe in what he says. I shouldn’t have gone off the deep end before speaking to him. It’s just—”
“It’s just that you thought he fucked you over like dad,” he yells.
“Matthew, I will not tell you again, watch your mouth. I am not discussing this with you.”
“Why would you discuss anything with me? You just put things ‘under the carpet.’ You think I don’t know how my dad messed up? You think I want to sit across the table from him and his girlfriend knowing that he hurt you? That he hurt us?”
“Cooper is not your father. He is nothing like your father. I’m not excusing what your father did, but I think in the end maybe we would be exactly where we are right now.” I move closer to him and lean up to grab his face. “Regardless of what or who your father is with, he loves you. He will always love you. You have to know that.” My boy doesn’t want to cry. He doesn’t want to show me that he isn’t the strong kind.
“He left us, without a second thought. Who does that? Who? He didn’t even try to fight. Cooper...Mom, he came here even though he knew you didn’t want him. He came to you and fought for you, he fought me for you. Why couldn’t Dad?” he whispered, letting a tear escape his eye.
“Sweetie, maybe I didn’t fight either. Maybe I just let your dad leave. Maybe I knew it was over. I love him for giving me you and Allison. I love him for making a life with me. I can’t explain it, but what I have with Cooper is so different than what I had with your dad. Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m older, maybe I’m wiser, but I know that I would fight till my last breath for him,” I say to him, making him look me in the eye.
Just when he was going to say something, Allison runs through the room, looking for her princess shoes to wear to all those castles we are going to see.
Matthew and I end up in a fit of giggles.
That day we visited four houses. Four houses fit for families of twenty. One house had ten rooms. Who in their right mind would need ten fucking rooms?
Just when I thought it was a lost cause, we pulled up on Meghan and Tom’s street, stopping three houses down from theirs. This home was massive, but the weeping willow trees in the front lawn made it look homey.
We started in the back yard. If that was what you called it. It felt as big as a football field. Smack in the middle of the yard was a huge pool with a water slide hidden in the rock mountain behind it. Off to one side sat a hot tub adjoining the pool. At the far side of the yard was the biggest wooden jungle gym you could ever possibly see, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. Next to the jungle gym, it looked like a little house with a door and two windows. The house was of course pink and purple, perfect for Allison, who ran with all she had to that house. Opening the door, she shrieked. It had a fake kitchen, a kitchen table, a miniature couch set, and one bedroom with none other than a princess canopy bed. It was like a house. Allison turned around and looked at Cooper with hearts in her eyes. “Can you pwease buy this house, Cooper?”
I don’t know how I knew, but that was the moment I knew he would be putting an offer on this house without looking at anything inside. So ten days later after everything was signed on the dotted line, his stuff from his condo arrived.
I really didn’t know what he was going to do with this monster of a house. It had seven bedrooms, which considering all the other houses it was like a downsize. Ten bathrooms. How many people will be using the bathroom at the same time that they needed ten fucking bathrooms? It had a theater room, which I have to say is pretty cool. A home gym, three-car garage, and a huge kitchen in the middle of the house. It was everything he was looking for.
I also found out during this time that Cooper hates furniture shopping. By hate, I mean he fucking loathes it. The one thing he wanted was a king-sized bed. He didn’t care about the colors of the paint, the style of the furniture. He hired Meghan to decorate the whole house with one instruction. Show it to Parker. She likes it, you buy it. Only one thing wrong with this. I couldn’t decorate to save my life, so I just told her to make it homey. Whatever the fuck that meant.