“I saw you with her a few times, you know,” Bridget says, exhaling a breathy, bitter laugh. “There were a few shots of you this summer out doing things together. Laughing. Having fun. I barely recognized you.”
“Searching hashtags again?” I ask, unable to staunch that familiar irritation.
“How else would I know what was going on in your life?”
“Why would you want to know?” I demand, exasperated. “I don’t get you, Bridget. You have an affair with one of my friends. You throw our marriage out the window—”
“Our marriage?” she asks, a double-edged sword of scorn and bitterness. “Is that what you called it?”
My mother, as angry as she was with Bridget, expressed sympathy for her because we were ill-matched.
Bridget tried to crack you like a nut. For the woman you love, though, really love, it’s not hard work. I didn’t have to crack your father. He spilled himself with me.
God, my mother was right. I don’t know that I did anything wrong, but there must have been some things with Bridget I didn’t do right. And now I see clearly that I couldn’t, would never have trusted myself, the real me, my inner self, with the person Bridget has proven herself to be. I don’t think I was capable of it with her.
“Look, Bridge, we’ve been at war with each other for years, and if what happened with Simone showed me anything, it’s the value of a second chance. We have a chance to clean the slate. I’m tired of fighting. It’s destructive, and we both have to move on.”
“With Lotus, you mean,” she says, her voice subdued. “You’re moving on with Lotus.”
“Yeah.” I meet the disappointment in her voice head-on. “With Lotus.”
I ignore her sharp breath and continue.
“I’ve been angry with you,” I admit. “For years, angry that our family, our life was ripped apart.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Bridget whispers.
“I’ve been angry,” I continue. “But I could never understand why you were angry, too. You’ve been angry with me for not being what you thought I would be. For not letting you in, for abandoning you in our marriage.”
“It doesn’t excuse what I did,” she says faintly. “I never meant to cheat on you. It just . . .”
I’m grateful she doesn’t say it just “happened.” Those things don’t just happen.
“It wasn’t all you,” I tell her, clearing my throat. “It was me, too. You used to talk about the wall that came up during the season, but it wasn’t only when I was playing ball. It was all the time. I’m a hard man to know, to reach.”
“But not for her.” Her words come out on a light breath, but land with a thud.
“No, not for her.” A wry half-smile crooks my mouth. “I don’t regret us, Bridge, because we have Simone, and she’s the best thing.”
“She is.” She chuckles softly on the other end, hesitating before rushing on. “Can you ever . . . could you forgive me, Kenan?”
I’ve simmered in resentment for years, and in this moment, all the pain and humiliation and awful things Bridget’s affair caused me rush to my mind.
Then other memories slowly start to sift in. Bridget, young and alone in a strange city with a newborn while I was on the road. So many missed birthdays, anniversaries, milestones, and times I knew there was something she needed, and had no clue how to give it to her.
Bridget and I haven’t been on the best terms the last few years, but I’ve known her half my life, was married to her for more than a decade. She gave me my daughter. There may not ever have been a time when I loved her the way she needed to be loved, and there may not ever have been a time when she truly saw me, understood me, knew the real me, but there was a time when we were friends. There was a girl I met in college who walked with me through the challenging transition into the NBA, through being a father when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Through my greatest accomplishments. I wish we could have focused on those things more instead of all the ways we failed each other, and now we have that chance.
“I’ll forgive you,” I say with a half-pained smile, “if you can forgive me.”
I don’t have to explain why I’m asking forgiveness. It’s fueled her own anger and frustration and hung over us for years.
“I can do that,” she says, the words tremulous. “Thank you, Kenan.”
It won’t be easy, and I have no doubt our anger and past hurts will resurface sometimes when we least expect it. Maybe it took this wake-up call for us to gain perspective on what’s most important—that it really is about Simone, and that maybe for her, we can set the past aside and focus on her future. Maybe for her, we can be friends again.
* * *
“Got everything?” I ask one more time before I leave Simone at the lush beach retreat where the dance camp is being held.