Hugo & Rose by Foley Bridget

Author:Foley, Bridget [Foley, Bridget]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781466859548
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

thirteen

Josh knew that Rose would be sore about the purchase of the bicycle. He also knew that the way in which he presented it—as Isaac’s birthday present, in front of a crowd of people, and at a time during which she would have difficulty pulling him away to yell at him—would all work to his advantage.

By the time the children were asleep and Josh and Rose could talk about his purchase, alone in their bedroom, Rose was still angry with her husband. But the damage had been done, and because she loved him and did not want a fight, she was ready to concede the loss.

There was also the fact that Rose had had the opportunity to actually see her son on a bicycle as he waved good-bye to his friends. On an actual bicycle, Isaac had looked quite different from how he had ever looked in her mind. Rose realized now that in all her imaginings of Isaac and Adam spread out bleeding on the pavement, the bikes that lay next to them were always twins to the one she had gotten as a child. In her fantasies the boys’ heads were never in helmets, and they were always unconscious—this was quite a difference from the happy, helmeted boy that Isaac had been that afternoon.

So perhaps it wasn’t all that bad.

Still, she was sore with Josh for going against her. When he defended his actions by saying that “they were going to give him one eventually,” Rose did manage to see the truth in his words.

But there was something about the way he said it that pushed at Rose. Had Josh been able to seem even a little bit sheepish about the purchase, about his circumventing her authority, Rose could have forgiven him easily. She wanted to forgive him.

But Josh could not bring himself to pretend that he felt bad about his action. He felt that he was right to have gone around his wife … that she had needed him to push her.

So Josh sought neither permission nor forgiveness.

And to not seek forgiveness was, to Rose, unforgivable.

“Rose, can you just recognize for a moment that your feelings on this are just a little bit irrational?”

Josh could not look at his wife and see that an apology would cost him nothing and gain him peace … but an accusation of irrationality would only be greeted with sarcasm.

“Nice, Josh. Nice.” Rose felt the desire to forgive her husband slip from her grasp.

“I just want you to acknowledge that what happened to you was a fluke. Every kid who climbs on a bicycle doesn’t end up in the ER.”

With that statement, Josh planted an image of Isaac in a hospital bed into his wife’s mind.

Rose bloomed with a fresher, newer anger. Forgiveness was now out of reach. Her husband had not thought of any of the practical realities of Isaac’s bike ownership. “I can’t ride a bike, Josh. I have to watch Penny and Adam. You teach him to ride and he’s going to want to ride.

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