June

Nate

I was startled awake by the closing of the front door. As consciousness reached me, I remembered falling asleep on the couch sometime in the early hour of the morning with Riley in my arms. He was crying again last night and Jess refused to get up for him as always, so I did. I gave him some baby panadol to calm his teething pain and we lay on the couch together until we both drifted to sleep.

The closing of the front door must have woken him up too, because he lay on my chest looking up at me, more than likely ready for breakfast. I stared down to his grey, slowly turning brown eyes and saw nothing but love. This kid was my absolute everything. Being a dad is something I always wanted and it's better than I could have imagined. I would love to have more kids, give Riley a couple of brothers or sisters, but Jess doesn't want that.

Believe it or not, we did discuss it before we got married. She knew my feelings on having a big family, she agreed it was what she wanted too. As soon as she fell pregnant, she told me this was it. She was never doing it again. She didn't have a particularly difficult pregnancy, no morning sickness or issues, Riley was healthy the whole time and she didn't even put on any extra weight. She just hated the whole thing and vowed never to do it again. So I poured everything into loving Riley if he was the only child I would get to have.

"Hey buddy, looks like mums gone. Just you and me for breaky," I booped him on the nose and watched his face crinkle as he let out my favourite sound yet, his giggle. He was such a happy kid, except when his teeth hurt him during the night. "What do you say we have some toast and get you to daycare so daddy can go to work?"

As far as parenting went, where no day was really normal anymore, that day started as normal as they got. It wasn't unusual that Jess left early, it wasn't unusual that I woke up on the couch with Riley in my arms or got him ready for daycare alone. I always picked him up too. Jess worked longer hours than me, which I had begun to suspect was on purpose.

I'd get home with Riley, prepare dinner, bath him and most of the time be putting him to sleep when Jess would get home. I worried she was missing out on so many moments with Riley, but whenever I brought it up she said she really didn't mind. It broke my heart for my son that his mother seemed uninterested in actually mothering him. It also meant I worked double time at the parenting to try to make up for it.

That night was different.

I picked Riley up as normal and we drove home with the wiggles playing through the car speakers. When we got home though, Jess's car was in the driveway. "Looks like mummy is home tonight buddy, how good is that?"

Obviously Riley didn't reply and I'm pretty sure the random sounds he made were because of the songs playing and not at all in response to me talking to him. It never stopped me though.

I pulled into the garage beside Jess's car and proceeded to gather Riley and his nappy bag, along with my work stuff. I'd been out quoting jobs today and had a bit of work to do tonight to get back to possible clients, needing to schedule those jobs in around Riley. I was a plumber by trade, but over the years I started to specialise in kitchen renovations and had now built a team of guys who together we could cover off all aspects of building kitchens. I was trying to move off the tools completely though figuring I could manage the books and delegate the jobs to my team, meaning I can be with Riley more. I was also looking to expand the administration side with an app idea I had. But it was just a bit of a dream at the moment.

I gathered the bags in one arm and Riley in another just as Jess stepped through the garage door that joined to the house. "Look buddy, it's..." the words died in my throat.

She was carrying a box.

Time stood still for a moment as she noticed the two of us standing in front of her. I don't think she expected us to be home yet. Especially not by the way she glanced from the box to the car and then back to us.

I followed her gaze, only noticing now that the box in her hand wasn't the first one. Her back seat was full.

"Jess, what's going on?" I asked her carefully. I had a pretty good idea already, but I needed her to tell me.

"I didn't think you would be home yet," she replied.

"That's not an answer to my question."

When she didn't answer, I did it for her. "What this looks like is you are packing your belongings and what? You were going to just disappear before we got home?"

She at least had the decency to look guilty. "I... well..." she stuttered, most likely trying to figure out a way to talk herself out of this that didn't make her look so bad. A way of convincing me that I didn't completely call her out with one hundred percent accuracy. "Nate," she sighed but I interrupted her.

"I'm going to go and put our son down. Then you're going to come in and explain this to me. I think you owe me a little more than a disappearing act. I'm your husband for fuck sake, or I was."

Jess followed me inside and sat on the couch opposite me as I placed Riley down on his playmat. I watched him, pinching the bridge of my nose trying to digest what I just walked in to. I knew things weren't great, but becoming new parents and adjusting to a new lifestyle was never easy. I thought we were doing ok enough. I thought she would at least love me enough to want to make it work.

"So you're leaving me. Leaving us?" I confirmed when she didn't offer up any explanation.

"Nate, I can't do this anymore. I don't know how to be a parent," she gestured to Riley who was totally oblivious to the tension in the room. "I... I don't want to be a parent," she admitted quietly.

"Why didn't you talk to me about it? Instead you were just going to sneak off when we weren't here. What was the plan Jess? I just come home to a half empty house and a note? Like it or not, you are a damn mother. You gave birth to the most amazing little boy and you're married to me! You just decide that you're done and you walk out. No more marriage, no more parenting? Sorry Jess but it doesn't work like that, you're a damn grown ass woman. You can't just walk away without a word."

"Honestly, you're both better off without me in your lives," she retorted as though that was a reasonable explanation. "I don't want this life. I never did. You wanted this life, not me."

I never did.

Those words were the ones that cut deepest. She always knew what I wanted. Before we got married she knew this was the life I always saw for myself. She told me she wanted it too.

"So what? These last five years have all been a lie? You knew where I saw my life going, you said you wanted it too. You had a baby Jess! There is no change of mind policy on a human being!"

"I fucking know that Nate!" She spat bitterly. This was just like her. She always turned nasty when it came down to the rough stuff. "I wanted you, and you wanted all of this!" She gestured around her at the house and life we built. "So I tried to convince myself that I wanted the same things. But I don't Nate. I don't want any of it."

"And me? Do you not love me anymore?" I asked. So far everything she had said was not wanting the life we had, not wanting to be a mother. She didn't say she didn't love me.

"I'll always love you Nate, but I don't think either of us are in love with each other anymore. This is the best decision for both of us."

I thought I was in love with her. Things were just hard at the moment. Sure, we hadn't had sex for months. But we had a baby that was normal right?

Like a large wave crashing into you that you didn't see coming, I realised she was right. We had just been coexisting. If I'm honest, the way she pulled away from both me and Riley hadn't gone unnoticed. I had buried it though, and like anything you shovel sand on top of, eventually the waves wash it all away and reveals itself again.

There was no point fighting with her. She had made up her mind and if that's how she felt, I had no desire to make her change her mind. I wasn't going to beg her to love me, or us, and I had already been doing most of it on my own anyway.

"Fine. Go then," I told her, bending over to scoop up my son. I carried him to the bathroom so I could start his bath, closing the door behind me.

By the time Riley and I were done, she was gone. In our bedroom, her side of the wardrobe was completely empty. On the dresser she left her wedding and engagement rings. A bridal set I spent weeks picking out, wanting them to be perfect for her. In a matter of hours, it was as though all traces that she had ever lived here had been removed, only the remnants of her perfume and the memories remaining. She had even removed our wedding photo from the bedroom wall.

I picked up the phone and called the first person I knew would always be there for me.

Zach answered on the third ring. "Marley! It's bed time, go!" He yelled at her before turning his attention to me. "Hey mate, what's going on?"

"Did I catch you at a bad time?"

"Nah, no stress mate. Everything alright? You don't usually call me this late."

"No, it's not alright," I said. "It's really not," my voice cracked as tears I had held back all night finally broke free. I sank onto the floor in front of what was now my bed and I cried. I don't think it was even me and my relationship breaking down that I was crying over. It was Riley and his mother who just left. Who didn't want him.

I knew Jess wasn't taking to motherhood like I imagined and hoped she would. But I never knew she didn't want any of this life. Now she was gone, and it was just Riley and me. A single dad with an eight month old son.

Like the best friend that he was, Zach was knocking on my front door within twenty minutes of me calling him, six pack of beer in hand. I had cleaned myself up a bit since my breakdown and we sat around my dining table and I told him everything she said.

"So what now?" He asked and I shrugged.

"I guess I just be the best goddam father to that little boy. It's just me and him now."

"What about work? How are you going to manage. Alyssa and I can help however you need, you know that right? Plus your mum and sister aren't too far away."

"I was already moving to the management side of the business anyway. I've got a good team behind me. Plus I've been working on that app idea too. I never told Jess about it, she would have said not to even try. But I want to try now for Riley's future."

I had been working on an idea for an app to help connect people to the trade services they need faster. I just needed some investors, then I would reach out to my connections in all the trades I know to see if I could get them interested in being on the database. It was a solid idea, now was time to get it running for mine and Riley's future. I would be a single income household and if I thought about it, I wasn't sure I could manage this houses expenses on my own.

"I've got some people I can reach out to who may be willing to invest if you know an app developer? We can get this thing going," Zach encouraged. "I know it fucking sucks she left man, but you're a great dad and you've got this."

By the time Zach left I felt a little more hope than I had earlier in the evening. Before I went to bed I stood over Riley's crib watching him sleep peacefully.

"Just you and me now buddy, but Crawford men don't quit. We've got this. You'll always have me little man, always," even if he didn't have a clue what I was promising him just yet, one day he would. I was never ever going to let another person in his life let him down like his mother had.