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I’m jealous of the love he had for her. Jealous that no one ever loved me so fiercely. Not once.
That one letter has shown me what was right in front of me the whole time; he loved me, but I wasn’t good enough for him.
“Because you will only get married once in your life. It’s just the way you are; you are loyal to a fault. If you marry me, you will never move on,” she said with tears running down her face. “If you marry me, you will never marry anyone else; you will never have babies. You will die with me, and I won’t do that to you.”
“I love you with everything I have,” she told me. “I love you enough not to hold you to the promise that you make me. I love you so much that I won’t let you die with me. You have to promise me,” she said, her breathing getting weaker. “You have to promise me that you’ll live and fall in love.”
“I can’t love anyone. I’m broken,” I tell her the truth. “Half of me is broken.” “What if you find someone who is just as broken as you are and”—she swallows, and her hand comes to my face as she cups my cheek in her hand—“together, you’re whole.”
“Are you going to be the one who is going to fight for Mommy?” Lizzie is the first to ask, and my mother has to look down, and I know why because the tear falls. “I want to stay with my mommy.”
“What would you change if you could?” I don’t stop, nor do I have to think twice about it. “I would have kissed you tonight before I left.” I don’t wait for her to disconnect; this time, it’s me who does it. I walk into the house and am locking the door when my phone beeps. I know it’s from her; I’m just not sure I want to know what she says, but I stop when I read it. I would have let you.
“I love her with my whole soul,” I start slowly. “I never thought I would be able to love again, but she fixed my broken.” I get down in front of Hailey, taking her hands. “And I want to fix her broken. I want the girls to be happy and not live in fear that someone is going to take them away from their mother. I want her to be able to go to the store without feeling shame or fear.”
“Yes”—I nod—“with everything I have, I love her. I would carry all her worries on my shoulders. I would step into the ring with the devil for her.”
I love him. With all my broken pieces and all his broken pieces, maybe we’re whole together.”
“My broken heart got slowly filled; it filled with a new love.”
Three years later “Shh,” I say while I rock my son, Carter, to sleep. He just turned eighteen months, and his teeth are coming in. “Don’t wake Mommy,” I tell him as he looks up at me with my green eyes.
