When It All Falls Apart (Book One) by Lucinda Berry Read Free Book Online Page A

I tried to rub his back.
    I took a deep breath before walking into the house—our Spanish colonial home that we’d worked so hard to renovate and make our own. I stepped onto the restored original wood floors that we’d painstakingly done together for months. We’d spent so much time on our knees that we developed matching bruises, but the floors had turned out beautiful.
    I walked into the living room and found it littered with the remnants of David and Rori’s morning. The pillows on the brown sectional were messed up from where they’d laid together during their thirty minutes of the cartoon time David scheduled into each morning. Rori’s sippy cup sat on the coffee table next to his coffee mug holding coffee that had long grown cold. I straightened the pillows on the couch, setting them each back in their place perfectly. I carried their cups from the coffee table into the kitchen and loaded them into the dishwasher already filled with the dishes left over from breakfast—her hardened bowl of oatmeal and his plate caked with scrambled eggs and syrup from his famous pancakes that I was sure he’d shared with her. I looked around at our kitchen. It was first room we’d remodeled. I picked up the dishrag from the sink and wiped the black marble countertops that we had argued over for two weeks until he had finally given in to me, “if marble is really that important to you, let’s do it.”
    My favorite part of the kitchen was the island and bar stools we’d meticulously chosen to slide underneath. Before Rori was born, we spent endless hours each evening sitting at the island, sipping wine, and talking about our days. We would fill the room with our conversation and laughter. I regaled him with stories of my difficult clients and accounts I was working on and he shared about the classes he was teaching and the students he found promising or alternately annoying. I couldn’t remember the last time we had hung out at the island and shared a bottle of wine. Most nights when I managed to make it home in time for dinner, the dinner focused on Rori and trying to get her to eat. She was notoriously picky. If she had her way, she’d only eat goldfish crackers and bananas. As soon as the dinner dishes were cleared, we shifted into the night time routine that David had created and been diligent about performing since Rori had been a few months old.
    The next two hours were split into neatly timed intervals. First, there was a brief playtime followed by a bath. Next, we put her in her pajamas and brushed her teeth. Afterwards, we tucked her in bed, read two books, snuggled with her for ten minutes, and then it was lights out. The routine ran like a well-oiled machine and he was convinced if we veered from her schedule in any way that she wouldn’t sleep. Rori never fell asleep once she was in bed despite the fact that David developed the routine to enhance and promote sleep exactly like all the books instructed. She alternated between calling out to us playfully and sobbing as if her heart was breaking. One evening, I pointed out that her bedtime might be too early for her and suggested she might go to sleep easier if she went to bed later and he had looked at me as if I suggested we serve her glass shards for breakfast. I never brought it up again. It was usually another hour before she was asleep and David was never able to relax completely until he was sure she was. By then, we were both so tired we collapsed on the couch and binged on Netflix rather than settling down together at the island with a glass of wine for some alone time.
    When we did find the time to be alone together our conversations inevitably worked their way back to something Rori had said or done. I liked talking about Rori, but there were times I missed our discussions about other things. I never dared express it to him, but I missed when he used to talk to me about things besides her. I longed for our conversations about sports even though I