Between Seasons by Aida Brassington Page B

he’d picked up from the book –for a long time and constantly wished God would appear and explain to him what the Hell the purpose of all this was, he wasn’t entirely sure the Catholic God his parents had worshipped really existed any more than he thought Jews or those who followed Shintoism or Sikhism had it right. He felt free to make up his own rules. The only thing he was sure of was that something really did exist… otherwise, wouldn’t he just be… dead? In the back of his head, he still vaguely believed in the God he’d grown up with, but he wasn’t entirely sure why. He just couldn’t shake it.
    Sara made a noise through her nose, a cross between a snort and a sigh. “Well, I just got my first alimony payment, so I suppose I can take a vacation.”
    He didn’t have a clue what that meant, but the idea of Sara leaving him for a significant period of time didn’t sit well. What if she didn’t come back? He knew more than anyone that things could change in an instant.
    “Oh, I didn’t know you were divorced.” Okay, so alimony must have something to do with divorce. Patrick filed that away for later and carefully leaned against the wall , so he wouldn’t fall into it.
    “Yeah, well…” Sara smiled, although her face was carefully calm, and ate another forkful of salad.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” Megan sounded sincere, and he kind of hoped Sara would take her up on the offer –he still didn’t really know much about it, and he’d been dying to know. Everything about Sara was of interest, but it was the divorce that piqued his curiosity.
    “Uh, there’s really not much to say. Well, that’s not entirely true, I suppose.” Sara threw down her fork in disgust, a metallic clunk resounding throughout the kitchen.
    “You don’t h – ”
    Sara sighed. “All right, here’s the truth: I had a really shitty divorce. My husband basically dumped me after we found out I couldn’t get pregnant.”
    Megan gasped, and Patrick moved closer to Sara, touching her shoulder. She shivered and leaned back in her chair. He hadn’t gotten any closer to figuring why she could now sense him… or feel him… or whatever it was.
    “Oh, geez. I’m so sorry.”
    “Me too,” Patrick said, moving back but wishing he could hug her. He’d never really given much thought to kids before he died since he hadn’t dated anyone seriously except Ginny. The idea of divorcing his wife over something like that didn’t sit right with him, though. He would have never admitted it when he was alive, but he was a bit of a romantic. He had liked doing it with Ginny, but he also really liked just lying around with her on the couch and giving her flowers he’d picked out of his mom’s yard. It might have made him seem kind of girly, but he did. Ginny had always seemed to appreciate it.
    “That’s not the worst of it.”
    “What is?”
    “I sort of went a little nuts over it. I mean, you know, screaming Mimi, a month in a mental institution crazy.”
    She’d mentioned the breakdown when Jules had been here, so that was no surprise, but he still couldn’t believe her own husband would act like such an asshole.
    “Well, I can understand that,” Megan said. “Infertility is a big deal.”
    “It was partly that, but it was mostly what he did.”
    “This sounds bad.”
    “Man, what else could the guy do,” Patrick snarled. “He sounds like a dick.” Too bad he couldn’t snap his fingers and be somewhere else. Not that he could do much other than shout names at her ex that he’d never hear, but that might have been satisfying… well, maybe not. He really wanted to kick the guy’s ass.
    “It is. I, uh, well… we had a really good marriage, I thought. Things were going well. We found out about my infertility , and a few weeks later for our anniversary he took me out to dinner , and we stayed at a hotel.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I woke up in the hospital.” Sara sipped at her lemonade, making it sound like casual