Ch. 8

Dawn was breaking and the sun was slowly making its presence known throughout the loft, which caught Dante off guard. He realized that he had stayed awake all night thinking about his situation, and what his next move or moves should be. He had some hard decisions to make—for Lulu's sake, for Rocco's sake. And for Valerie's sake. His emotions were all over the place. One moment he was gut-wrenchingly sorry for how he had hurt his wife. He would allow the sorrow to wash over him as he realized he was an adulterer, a vow breaker. Falconeri men weren't vow breakers—he felt as if he had let his whole family down by his actions. He wondered how he could have allowed his alcohol-fueled anger to lead him to sleeping with Valerie. But then he would think that none of this would have happened if Lulu hadn't lied to him. He didn't have to react the way he did, but why did she have to lie to him? Why couldn't her desire to trust him have outweighed her need to obey her father? It was water under the bridge now, but that was still a sticking point for him. She was willing to lie to him because her father told her to, basically. He couldn't get past that. All night long his feelings fluctuated between anger and regret. Dante sat back and mentally reviewed his history with his wife. He thought about when he first met Lulu, and how he immediately fell for her. How he pursued her until he got her to say "yes" to him. Their breakups. Reconciliations. Their wedding. Finding out they couldn't have children. The custody fight with Maxie. Discovering their son. They had lived a lot of life in these last six years. A lot of life. But it was thinking over their history that had given him a resolution. He finally made a decision, the one he thought was the right one for them. One he hoped they could live with.

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It was a few days later when Dante finally got up the courage to take the launch to Wyndemere after his texts and phone calls went ignored. He understood Lulu's anger and would never try to say she didn't have the right to it, but he wasn't going to continue to be dismissed. Plus he wanted to see his son. Dante thought poor Rocco must be so confused right now. Uprooted and removed from his home without notice, going days without seeing his father, probably wondering what the heck was going on. Join the club, baby. Join the club.

After the launch docked, Dante found himself standing nervously at the front entrance to his brother-in-law's mansion. Alfred answered the door before Dante could even knock or ring. Nikolas must have told Alfred to expect him. He eventually had to contact Nikolas to ask for permission to come out to Spoon Island to speak to his wife. Nikolas was initially reluctant to grant it but when Dante explained how his calls and texts were going unnoticed, Nik relented, gave him a set time when he thought Lulu would be home, and told him to come ahead. Dante was shown to the drawing room and asked to wait for "Miss Lulu, who would be arriving directly." He felt as though he was in the middle of a Victorian novel listening to Alfred's cultured voice, which, in spite of the situation, made him smile faintly.

Carrying Rocco on her hip, Lulu finally entered the room. She didn't look pleased to see him, a reaction he expected. Dante smiled when he saw his son and he reached out for him and said, "Hey buddy! How've you been? Oh, I've missed you! It's good to see you!" Hugging him closely, Dante took in the scent of baby powder and milk that was, to him, uniquely Rocco. After giving his son a kiss and another hug, Dante eventually addressed Lulu. "Lulu. How have you been?"

"I've been great, Dante. Having a wonderful time, as if I was on vacation or something," she responded, semi-sarcastically. She went on, "You look well, too. Cheating must agree with you."

"I really don't want to say these kinds of things in front of Rocco, Lulu, ok? Not saying you don't have the right to say them, just not in front of our son. Please."

"Fine." Lulu walked over to a phone on the sofa table behind one of the couches in the room and pressed a button. She waited for a moment and then spoke into the phone, saying, "Norma? Could you come down and take Rocco back to the nursery, please? Thank you." To Dante she said, "Norma is Spencer's nanny, sort of. He's too old for a true nanny but she's been with him since he was a baby. I don't know why I'm telling you this…"

"So she's helping you look after Rocco? That's good. It must be nice to have the extra help with him."

"Well she can't exactly replace his father, but then again, who knows? Maybe she can. I guess we'll have to see."

Norma walked into the room and after acknowledging Dante with a nod of her head, she took Rocco from his arms and left. Immediately, Dante felt bereft as he stood there with empty arms. He wanted so badly to recall her to the room and take his son back, but he knew he and Lulu desperately needed to talk. He took a deep breath as he geared up for what he felt would be quite a confrontation.

"Ok, he's gone," Lulu said, "so you might as well say what you came here to say. I didn't want to see you; there was a reason I was ignoring your many calls and texts. Nikolas, however, insisted that I speak to you. I told him I would, so…"

Dante gestured to the couch and asked, "Could we sit, do you think?"

"Sure," Lulu replied, "let's get all comfy and cozy."

"So you're still feeling hostile, then? I think we need to talk, but it might be difficult if you plan to be snarky the whole time."

Looking up at the ceiling, Lulu laughed and shook her head in disbelief. "Snarky? Don't I have the right to be snarky? I'm sorry you think I'm being snarky. Really, I think I'm being kind of contained, though. There is that part of me that still loves you. But the rest of me, the most of me, just wants to rip your face off. I can't believe you had the nerve to come all the way out here when it was pretty clear I didn't want to see you or talk to you."

"Any ETA on when you might have wanted to speak to me? Or if you and Rocco are coming back to the loft? I didn't want to come all the way out here but I didn't feel like I had a choice since you were ignoring me."

"Back to the cheating cheaters' love nest? I can give you an ETA on when I'll be returning there with my son right now. Try never. You screwed my cousin in our home, in our bed. I have no intentions of ever going back there."

"So are you saying you don't ever plan to come back to the loft, or that you didn't plan to come back to me?"

Lulu sighed and looked away for a moment. Finally she said, "I don't know if I see any way back from this. I don't know if I can trust in you, or in us, anymore. You broke our vows, you slept with my cousin, and you lied and said all you'd done is kiss, as if that wasn't bad enough. Frankly, I don't see where we go from here."

"I agree."

"So what I'm thinking is—wait a minute, what?"

"I'm agreeing with you. I've given this a lot of thought, done a lot of soul-searching. I don't see any way forward, either."

She gave him an incredulous look of disbelief. "What exactly are you saying right now? You think we should split up?"

"You just said you don't see any way back from this for us. I'm saying I think you're right."

"So that's it, huh? You're not even willing to fight for us? Just 'I agree with you.' It's that easy, right? You're just done, is that it?"

"Hold on a second. Didn't you just say—ohh, ok. Yeah. I get it now."

"You get what?"

Dante sat forward on the couch and folded his hands in front of him. Mentally, he tried to gear up. Here comes the hardest part, he thought. He searched for the right words, the best words to express his feelings. "When couples have been together for a while, they can find themselves getting into ruts, into patterns. Not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes, it can be. We have our own pattern, and it goes like this—I screw up, you run, I haul you back. Time passes; then, in your eyes, I screw up, you run, I haul you back again. That has been our history from the beginning."

"That's not true, Dante!"

"Are you sure? Do you know how many times over the years you've left me? You left me over Brenda, you left me over Lucky. You left me and gave me back my ring after I went back to work to clear my mother's name. My mother was suspected of murdering Lisa Niles, but I had promised you I'd take it easy after getting shot and I went back to work anyway, and that was worth leaving me over. You left me when I wouldn't lie at the custody hearing."

He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts before going on, "When we met, I chased you. Maybe it was the challenge or the fact that it seemed like we had our own push/pull going on, but I enjoyed the chase. But I feel like I've been chasing you ever since."

"You make it sound like we weren't ever happy, Dante! Or like I was never really committed to you and was always leaving you! And we both know that's not true! I let you convince me to get married to you because I was committed to you! We've had our ups and downs like any couple, but we were mostly stable and happy! All the way up until you screwed my cousin!"

"'All the way up until I screwed your cousin?' How about all the way up until you lied to me! How about all the way up until you stopped trusting me? Is all of this really just on me? Is that the way you see it?"

"Are you trying to say that me lying to you and going to Canada is as bad as you sleeping with Valerie? No way are you saying that! They're not even in the same ballpark!"

Sighing, Dante tried to explain, "I committed adultery. It was wrong, the worst kind of wrong. But I never would have done it if I had known the truth about what you were really doing with Dillon. If you hadn't lied, things wouldn't have gotten this far."

"So you're saying I made you cheat on me!"

"No, baby, that's not what I'm saying! Simply put, one action was the causative root of the other. I wouldn't have cheated on you with Valerie if I'd known the truth, if you hadn't lied to me."

"You are saying it's my fault!"

"We're starting to talk in circles, Lulu! I was wrong, I admit it, ok! I can't tell you how sorry I am for what I did! But I didn't mess this up alone!"

"That's the first time you've said it."

"Said what?"

"That you were sorry for what you did."

"Well, it's the first time since you found out that I've been able to talk to you! I am sorry that I did what I did. It shouldn't have happened. And I know you apologized for lying about Canada. But somehow, I get the feeling that in your eyes, I'm the only one at fault. You realize and will admit you shouldn't have lied, but that's it. The rest of the responsibility for our marriage falling apart is on me."

"Because you're the one who cheated, Dante! Don't you get that?"

"What I get is that there's a gulf between us and it's getting wider and wider. You're not going to be able to let this go. You would try, you would say you forgave me eventually, but the next time I did something you didn't appreciate, you'd be on the run again, and I'd be expected to chase after you. I cheated. That makes me a cheater. But that's not all I am, and that's not even all I've been to you. But I feel like in your eyes, that's all I can ever be now. From now on, everything I ever do will be tainted by that one act. Maybe I deserve to, but I don't want to wear a hair shirt for the rest of my life. I don't want to be made to pay for the rest of my life for this one totally wrong act. And maybe you do deserve to be chased, but see, despite what I've done, I feel like I deserve to be chased, too. And I don't think you believe that. So I don't see any way forward for us."

Tears formed in Lulu's eyes, tears she willed not to fall as she said, "So what you're saying is that we're really over? Because you're tired of chasing me? And because even though I did apologize for lying about going to Canada and for not trusting you with my brother's life, I'm still just as wrong as you were even though you cheated on me. That's how it is, right?"

"Because I'm tired of always being the one in the wrong. Of being the one who deserves to be left. You tell me, though, which is worse in your eyes? What you did or what I did?" Lulu didn't answer him. It wasn't that she couldn't answer him, but she knew what he wanted her to say, and she couldn't say it.

Dante gave a sad little chuckle. "You see? Thanks for not lying about it. I see us as equally at fault, and you see me as mostly at fault. We'll never agree here. Everything else for the rest of our lives would be colored by that one fact, and I just don't see any way around that. Do you?"

Lulu shook her head as she replied, "I can't believe we're here. You promised me we'd be old and grey together. I gave you my heart because I trusted in that promise. I can't believe we're where we are right now."

"I wanted us to have forever," he sadly said. "I wanted to honor that promise. If you had told me this time last year that we'd be here, I would have laughed in your face, that's how sure I was about our future. But we're here now, and I don't see any other way forward but to let go." He reached in his pocket for his wallet from which he pulled out a card; he handed it to her. "I've been doing some research, and I think this guy can help us."

Lulu looked at the card in her hand. "Joseph Stewart, J.D.—Divorce Mediation," she read and then glanced over at him. "Wow," she said, "you really had no intentions of working things out, did you?"

"I thought long and hard about everything. I just kept running into the same walls. We're too far apart on what happened to us and how and why it happened. I want to do the right thing for us, for Rocco. I thought a mediator was the right way to go."

"Of course it helps to move forward when you have someone waiting in the wings, doesn't it?"

"This isn't about Valerie, Lulu. It's about you and me, and Rocco's future. About making the best choices for all of us going forward."

"Sure. If you say so."

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