Avalon and Maddock

Chapter 15: Maddock

Strike.

Zephyr wanted me to strike, so I would. I'd make the apology that needed to be made now.

"I'd never heard the term emotional affair before you accused me of having one with Salem," I began. "I Googled what that was, and I know what you thought had been going on, but it wasn't true. The basic component of an emotional affair is emotion. I didn't have any feelings for her. She was a colleague I was working with, along with all my other executives, to save the company. But I was so focused on what you said about having an emotional affair, that you thought I could actually have feelings for another woman when you fill up my heart, that I glossed over the part of the accusation that actually did apply to me: that I abandoned you and the boys for seven months."

"That's it," Zephyr said softly, sounding more real than I'd ever heard her before. "That is what you should be apologizing for. Keep going, Maddock."

"I listened to your father and let him get in my head about your health, Avalon, instead of doing what I always did and talk things over with you. And that's one hundred percent my fault. I shouldn't have done that, should have told you what was going on with the company, that I was fighting for its life, and I never should have kept that from you. Looking back, I wished I'd told you everything. I should have been willing to let the company go rather than not being there for you and the boys. I'm sorry for being absent for seven months, for trying to save something that doesn't matter like you and the boys do. I'm sorry that when I was home, I didn't really interact with the three of you. That I wasn't present and I was completely preoccupied. I'm sorry that I put everything on your shoulders and basically ignored the three people I love most to save my business."

"That's a good start, but get it all out," Zephyr urged. "Tell Avalon all of what you're feeling, what you've realized."

"I flipped out, Avalon, when you served me with the divorce papers. It hit me like nothing else had what I'd sacrificed to save that fucking company. Salvaging the business hadn't been worth losing you and the boys. Nothing is worth that. So I made yet another mistake and threatened -- forced -- you into counseling so I could buy us some time. So I could show you that I was going to make things different, that I was going to go back to being the man you'd fallen in love with and the father I'd always been prior to those seven months."

I sat beside her on the couch, taking her cold hands into mine, hoping that old wives' tale was true: cold hands, warm heart.

Would her heart ever warm toward me again? I had no idea if anything I was saying would make a difference after the damage I'd done. Despite both of us having been screwed over by her father, he wasn't the only one who'd hurt her. I had, too. The men in Avalon's life had proven unreliable and we'd both caused her a great deal of pain that I didn't know if she was willing to forgive. Although I was fairly certain she'd never forgive her father for what he'd done, where I stood with her, I had no clue. She'd shown up for our counseling appointment with Zephyr after I'd told her she didn't need to, so I hoped that was a positive sign, but maybe after she'd had time to think about all the shit that had been happening around her, maybe a quick divorce was looking like the better option to her.

"Saying I'd go back and do things differently if I could is useless," I told my wife, still holding onto her little hands. "I should have handled things the right way from the start. But since I didn't, I can only ask if you'd be willing to give me time to show you that I'm back for good, and I'm never leaving you and the boys again. No threats, no coercion, no desperate plays to keep you in my life ever again. Even though I have no right to ask this of you, Avalon, I'm begging for you to give me a chance to prove just how sorry I am and show you that I'll walk away from the company before I ever abandon you and the boys again."

"It was the perfect storm, wasn't it?" she said at last. "You trying to save your company so you wouldn't prove my father's predictions about you to be true, and he was working with Jared to destroy your business. Dad was advising you to do one thing while telling me another and insinuating that you were cheating on me. He was playing us against one another and working with Salem to further fuck things up and make me think his predictions had come true."

"Avalon," Zephyr called my wife's name softly. "You don't have to answer him now."

I'm sure the look on my face that I shot at our therapist wasn't friendly, but then I realized she was right. Enough pushing. My wife had been through it and didn't need any more pressure on her, especially not from me.

I squeezed Avalon's hands. "Take as long as you need, sweetheart. I'll wait." It'd kill me, but I'd wait until she was ready to make a decision.

"Since the day you followed me on campus, you've never been good about waiting, Maddock," she shot a knowing look at me. "But in this case, you don't need to wait for an answer. I'm willing to keep working on us now that we don't have any outside influences plotting against us."

"What does that mean, Avalon?" Zephyr asked. "Let's start this off right by being clear with our intentions. The energy faucet is flowing freely now that the negative energy has been confronted, and we don't want to shut off that flow with any miscommunication or mistaken assumptions."

Avalon rolled her lips together to keep from laughing. I knew what she was thinking: that fucking energy faucet bullshit again. When she had herself under control, she began ticking things off on her fingers.

"One, we keep living together in Maddock's condo. Two, I still have a separate room for a while, until we're absolutely sure about our marriage. Three, we continue coming to see Zephyr. Four, we keep doing our homework. And five, we put rules in place to ensure this kind of shit never happens again."

"La!" Zephyr cheered as she rang that damn bell several times in a row. "A very good response!"

"Gotta ask, Zephyr," I said, the question needing to be asked. "What the hell does la mean? And why do you ring the bell?"

She shook her head at me and waved a hand carelessly in the air. "No idea. I just like saying it and enjoy the sound of the bell."

Avalon and I couldn't even look at each other for the rest of the session. We managed to say good bye to Zephyr, but the second we hit the parking lot, we both burst into laughter.

"She's unreal," Avalon laughed, and then her phone rang and the smile was wiped off her face as she answered the call and listened.

"We'll be right there," she said grimly to whoever had called her. "Go ahead and call the police. We're not far away."

Then she grabbed my hand to hurry me along.

"We need to get to the preschool," she said to me. "Dad's in the parking lot, refusing to leave."

We made it to the preschool in record time and pulled in just after the police cruiser. At the far end of the parking lot, we could see Avalon's father pacing. Erma, the owner, was standing in the doorway and ran over to us.

"Thank God you warned us and had us take him off the list, Avalon. He got here about fifteen minutes ago and flipped out when we wouldn't buzz him in. We told him he was no longer authorized to pick up the boys or see them, and he started yelling and demanded we call you."

"Thank you, Erma. I was afraid he'd try to get to me through the boys," Avalon said, and I wondered if the police would turn their backs long enough for me to beat the shit out of him. Showing up at my sons' preschool? Really, asshole?

Avalon walked over to where the police were talking to her father, and then she proceeded to prove why you should never fuck with her.

And I enjoyed every minute of watching her carry out her vendetta against her father.

It was a thing of beauty.