A Storm in the Desert (On Hold)

Chapter Five

Lily sipped her coffee and watched the dark clouds move toward the vibrant red rock in the distance. 

"What happened to the girls' father?" 

Jason's voice came through the open French doors, he was still in bed. She knew if she turned to look, she'd be hard pressed not to join him. 

Lily relaxed into the cushions of the sectional and looked down at her coffee, "He came to the conclusion that fatherhood was not for him." 

"How long ago was that?" 

"Almost three years." 

"When the girls were two?" he asked, as he walked out onto the deck. 

Lily nodded, "To be fair, he was gone years before he left. Before the girls were born, even." 

She didn't look at him as he settled on the lounger next to her, taking her coffee cup with careful fingers. He set it on the table near his elbow and pulled her under his arm, across his lap, tucking her head under his chin. 

She held her weight off him, her arms awkwardly stiff until he tipped her head back and looking right in her eyes, said, "Cut it out." 

"Fine," she said and dropped on top of him.  

He didn't grunt, or gasp for breath, just laughed and squeezed her bottom.  

"If you knew he was already gone, why get pregnant?" 

"I thought it would give him a reason to stay. It sounds so stupid but that's what I thought. I'd known him since I was seven, met him in first grade. He told me he was going to marry me that year, and every year until I married him when I was thirty-two. I thought I understood everything about him. But, of course, I didn't and it turned out that it was the most important things I was wrong about." 

They lay quietly for a few minutes, a cool breeze whispered around them. His fingers drew soft shapes on her bare shoulder.  

"What were you wrong about?" Jason asked. 

"I thought he'd always be so persistent, I thought he liked me the way I was, I thought he'd never let me down. I really thought all that. I was a thirty-one year old idiot."  

"I don't believe that." 

"He wasn't the husband I thought he'd be. He quit having sex with me at the exact moment I needed it more than ever. He missed the birth of his daughters to play golf with a client. He felt the girls were a distraction to him when it came to work, and moved to another state. He insisted on calling me Lillian. He's known me for thirty-three years, he still calls me Lillian." 

"Does he ever see them?" 

"Last week, before that, not since the divorce." Lily paused, then added, "He wants me to move to Los Angeles. He told me that I miss him and that we should never have let ourselves grow apart. And I bought it, and I flew us to Los Angeles to see what it would be like and it was terrible! He lives in a high rise, downtown, there's no playground, no animals, no trampoline. Ambra liked the big windows and Esme never let go of me the entire time we were there. And even better, he put the girls in the guest room and assumed I'd be sleeping with him. So on top of all of it, I spent a week sleeping in a full size bed with the girls. He worked the whole week and called me at the airport because he couldn't understand why we were leaving. It was insane." 

"Were you talking to him when the girls tore your skirt?" 

"Yes. A decent man would have looked away." 

"Yes, I'm sure I was the only man in the place, captivated by those three red straps." 

"When I looked at you, you weren't looking."