Once, every time Cooper left, he couldn’t bear to be away from me. He’d cling to me, reluctant to go, as if his heart was tethered to mine.
But now, it had become a ritual; his departures were swift and without hesitation.
Not long after, another message from Kaia flashed across my phone.
It was a picture of Cooper’s back as he worked in the kitchen, busy and absorbed in what he was doing.
She wrote, “Baby was crying, but the moment Daddy showed up, he quieted right down. Don’t you think that’s what they mean by a bloodline connection?”
I didn’t reply. Kaia didn’t need my responses; she sent message after message, her words dripping with pride and taunting.
As long as Cooper was with her, she would keep sending her little provocations.
I saw everything but said nothing.
What I wanted now wasn’t confrontation; I simply needed to wait for the right moment, to slip away quietly, to disappear somewhere no one could find me.
I couldn’t bring myself to compromise, not like my mother had. I wouldn’t settle for a life of misery, enduring a man who had long since fallen apart.
When Dad was young, he’d often wander, pouring all his tenderness into other women, while coming home to beat and berate both my mother and me.
Everyone told her to leave him, but she would just cry and say, “If I leave him, how will I live? My husband is here; where else can I go?”
Then, my dad died in a car accident after a night of drinking and not long after, my mom remarried.
On the day of her wedding, she told me, “As long as he loves you, everything can be worked through. Life’s short, don’t be too greedy. There’s no cat that doesn’t stray, so don’t hold on too tightly to every little thing.”
Once she remarried, we lost touch. She had her new family and I was left as nothing more than a shadow in the background.
I drifted like a sail caught in the wind, always moving between the shorelines, never quite anchored.
It wasn’t until Cooper pulled me from that drifting life that I began to understand what a home could feel like. What seemed like the perfect place, the perfect life, was given to me.
But when I looked back, I still felt the pull of the open sea, unsure and adrift.
When Cooper wasn’t home, I stumbled upon the love letters he had written to me years ago.
Five hundred and twenty letters, each one a testament to his devotion, with not a single word repeated.