Page 34 of Absolution (Infidelty #3)

Three Months Later

“Mom!”

The voice echoes up the stairs, jarring Jackie awake.

She groans, blinking into the light spilling through the window. “Shit,”

she mutters, tossing the covers off and fumbling into the clothes she’d left crumpled on the chair. She stumbles out barefoot, hair wild, and hurries downstairs.

Levi’s already in the kitchen, backpack over one shoulder, shoes still on.

“Hi, honey,”

Jackie says, brushing her hair out of her face.

“What are you doing back so early?”

Levi sighs.

“Today’s a half day, remember? Teacher workday.”

“Right,”

she nods slowly.

“I knew that.”

Before she can recover, Jemma and Iris tumble into the kitchen, talking over each other, sneakers untied, ponytails uneven.

Jackie lifts her hands.

“Okay, okay. I was thinking, how about we go get some food? Brunch?”

The kids exchange glances.

“I could eat,”

Jemma shrugs.

“Sure,”

Iris grins.

“Fine,”

Levi says.

“Great,”

Jackie says, grabbing her keys off the counter. She’s almost to the front door when Levi calls out.

“Dad! You wanna get food with us?”

Jackie freezes.

A beat.

Then footsteps.

Kyle appears at the top of the stairs, shirt wrinkled, hair a mess. He looks like someone caught sneaking out of a room he shouldn't have been in.

“I’d love to,”

he says casually.

Jemma eyes him, fighting a smirk.

“We’ll wait in the car while you guys... get dressed,”

she says, making vague hand gestures between the two of them.

Jackie flushes. Kyle just chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck.

As the kids file out, after taking the keys from their mom, still whispering and giggling, Kyle steps closer.

“Are we bad parents?”

Jackie asks softly.

Kyle shakes his head.

“They wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t spent the morning doing what we did,”

he says, slipping his arms around her waist.

She slaps his hand playfully.

“You’re lucky I love you.”

Kyle freezes for a second. Jackie tilts her head, smiling gently as she reaches up and loops her arms around his neck.

“I really do love you, you know.”

His expression softens.

“I love you too.”

They kiss, warm and slow, until the car horn blares outside.

Jackie jumps.

“Bathroom,”

she mumbles, heading off to fix her hair. Kyle heads off in search of his shoes.

In the car, Iris sighs.

“I can’t believe they’re back together.”

Jemma goes, “Right?”

Levi shrugs.

“They might not be.”

Jemma frowns. “What?”

“Eric Hawkins said his parents are divorced but they still have sex.”

“Ew, Levi!”

Jemma groans. Iris grimaces.

“What? We’re not kids anymore,”

Levi mutters.

Before either sister can tell him how gross he is, the car door opens and Jackie slides behind the wheel. Kyle climbs into the passenger seat a second later.

He buckles in, frowning slightly. ‘How did the kids even know he was here?’ He’d parked around the block, on purpose, just to avoid the neighbours talking.

Jackie clears her throat.

“So… what are we thinking of getting Uncle Cory for his birthday?”

The question works like magic. The kids light up with ideas, Levi says a cool pen, Iris says a record, Jemma says a mug that swears.

The tension melts. Jackie focuses on the road.

Her relationship with Cory is back on track, finally. Not without a warning, though. She’d told him, deadpan, that if he ever lied to her again, no one would find his body.

She’d said something similar to Kyle, too.

She glances sideways at him. He’s watching her with mild suspicion. She gives him a sweet smile.

At the diner, the kids order milkshakes before the menus even settle.

Jemma, in her usual blunt fashion, looks up and says.

“So… are you guys back together? Or just having sex?”

A lady in the next booth shoots Jackie and Kyle a disapproving side-eye.

Kyle chokes on his water, coughing as he sets his glass down.

“Wow. Uh. Okay.”

Jackie raises her brows at him.

“You gonna take that one, or should I?”

He holds up a hand, still catching his breath.

“Nope. I got it. I think.”

He turns to Jemma, who sips her milkshake like nothing happened.

“Where did you even learn to ask questions like that?”

“School,”

she shrugs.

“Of course,”

Jackie mutters.

Kyle shifts in his seat.

“Your mom and I… we’re dating.”

“Dating?”

Levi repeats.

“Yes,”

Kyle nods.

“We’re figuring things out.”

Jackie adds.

“Your dad and I still love each other. So, we’ve decided to try again. We don’t know what happens next, but we do know we love you. And… this isn’t exactly how we wanted you to find out.”

Kyle places a hand over Jackie’s, glancing at their children.

“You okay with that?”

The kids are quiet, taking it in. Then, a chorus of sof.

“yeahs” and nods.

But Iris frowns.

“If you guys move back in together… Can we all live at Dad’s?”

Jackie tilts her head. “Oh? Why?”

Iris and Jemma exchange a look.

“We love the house,”

Jemma says.

“But we like having our own rooms.”

Jackie smiles.

“Of course. We’ll think about it.”

That ends the conversation. The rest of brunch passes with an easy rhythm of laughter, shared syrup, and mild bickering over pancakes. A familiarity the kids missed more than they realized. Maybe even more than the adults.

Afterward, Kyle drives back to work. As he merges onto the highway, the dash lights up with a call from his father.

He doesn’t answer.

He loves his dad, but ever since his mother filed for divorce, the man has changed. Obsessive. Bitter. Determined to fight her over everything: the jewellery, the donations, the assets. His mother, no better, wants outrageous things like a stake in the firm, old vacation homes. It’s become a mess. Ugly. Desperate.

He and Jackie had made a united decision to take a step back while the dust settled. Both parents were wealthy enough that neither would ever be left wanting. But the war between them was corrosive.

Kyle can’t help but wonder, if he hadn’t gotten help, if he hadn’t fought to unlearn what he grew up believing, would this be his future too?

Would he and Jackie have ended up the same? Lovers turned enemies. In courtrooms. Fighting over everything.

Meanwhile, across town, Jackie sits in the back row of her lecture hall, pretending to take notes. But her mind’s elsewhere.

The last time she’d talked to Kyle’s mother, their conversation had been strained and brittle. Jackie hadn’t expected it. She didn’t even know Marsha had her number.

“We’re more alike than you think,”

Marsha had said at the end, her voice cool but careful.

“We both divorced our cheating husbands. We both want what we were owed.”

Jackie had said nothing then. But now, sitting in class, she quietly disagrees.

Because Kyle isn’t his father.

And Jackie never wanted revenge.

She wanted Absolution.

Not for Kyle, for herself. For all the years she gave, all the ways she bent and stretched to be enough. For loving someone who hurt her. For still loving him, even now.

Kyle didn’t come back begging, well he did, but more than that, he came back changed.

And that’s the part his mother would never understand.

Maybe no one would.

It’s easy to leave and never look back. Easy to say I’m done, and mean it. But to stay, to choose someone again, knowing exactly how they broke you.

That’s something else entirely.

Forgiveness isn’t weakness. It’s work. And Jackie knows they’re not finished. They’ll have to keep fighting. For each other. For their family. For the life they’re trying to build from everything that shattered.

But for the first time in a long time, Jackie isn’t afraid. She’s ready.

And this time, she’s not doing it for him. She’s doing it for her.

For the woman who finally knows her own worth, and still chooses love.