I pushed him as I walked by and dared him to put another hand on me. I was going to say goodbye to Bobby and there wasn’t a damn person on the planet that was going to stop me.
I don’t know what I expected, walking in there and seeing a made up version of him lying in that casket. Immediately I was in tears. People moved out of my way and I could hear their whispers. At one point I even heard the word whore. I focused my eyes on Bobby and touched his cold hands. It was hard to see through my glossy eyes. “I just came here to say I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything, Bobby. Please, you’ve got to forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. I’ll never be able to forgive myself for taking your life away. I wish you never met me, so that you could still be here with your friends and family.”
I sniffled and tried to gain my composure enough to finish. “I know we had some really bad times, but I’m going to remember the good ones. When I think of you, I’m going to see you smiling when you saw B being born. I’m going to think of that first time you held her and how I saw you cry. I’ll remember the love you had for her, and for me. I promise to never forget what you gave up to be my friend and how hard you worked to be a better person. For what it’s worth, they were the reasons that I loved you. I know it means nothing now, but I did love you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t give you more. Please, Bobby, wherever you are, please forgive me. I. Am. So. Sorry.”
I don’t know why I expected someone to put their hand on my back to comfort me. As I turned around, I saw all of their eyes on me. His family turned their heads like I was someone they couldn’t stand to look at. In just days they’d all formed their own opinions about me and my life.
I walked down the aisle slowly, since I couldn’t go any faster. I’d been at low points in my life, but nothing like this. When I opened the door to the outside, I didn’t look back. The further I got away from that church, the more I was able to breathe again.
For a while I sat in my car, consumed with guilt and regret. I could have made better decisions and knowing that was eating me from the inside out.
When I pulled up at the house I noticed that Brooks wasn’t there. My heart ached for the way he’d left me at the church. I’d pissed him off when he was trying to support me. Yet again, I’d screwed up.
Walking into the house and seeing the look on Danica’s face made it all even worse. I placed my purse and keys down and looked around for B.
“Brooks took her out for a bit.”
“Do you know where? Maybe I can change and meet them.”
Danica patted the seat next to her on the couch. “Katy, I think you need to sit down. I’ve got some things I need to say to you.”
I walked slowly, as if I was a young child, preparing to be scorned. I’d hurt her son and she wasn’t going to sit around watching history repeat itself.
I started crying even before she could say anything. I felt her hand grabbing mine and I looked up at her face. She was crying. “Katy, you can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what? I’m trying to put my life together and everything keeps getting so messed up. Everything I touch gets misconstrued and turns to shit. I should have just ended my life years ago when everything went awry. I could have saved all of you so much frustration and pain.”
“Stop it, Katy. Don’t you ever say that to me or anyone else. Something like that solves nothing. Do you honestly think that Brooks would be better if you were gone forever? How did you feel when you thought he’d died?”
I cried harder. “I felt empty, like I couldn’t go on.”
She grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her. “Don’t you ever let me hear you say that again. You’re a mother and like a daughter to me. My sons both care deeply for you and so does Walt. No matter what this world thinks, or how you feel about yourself, you are loved. You always have been and you always will be.”
“I’m sorry. I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough. I make the worst decisions and ruin people’s lives.”
“Everyone makes mistakes. We’re human.”
I shook my head. “You’ve been perfect for my whole life. That’s easy for you to say.”
She took a deep breath and started crying herself. Brooks and B came walking in the door as she spoke. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Katy. That’s why I think it’s time you knew the truth.” She looked up at Brooks. “It’s time I told you both the truth, because I can’t sit here and watch you two fall apart, when you’ve got a real chance at happiness.”
I had no idea what she was talking about and from the look on Brooks’ face, neither did he. He crouched down and whispered in B’s ear. She went running into her bedroom.
Our eyes met and I felt his pain. I felt every emotion that I’d made him feel and it was as if I was being stabbed in the heart. I smiled and he looked away. “Look, Mom, I appreciate you trying to help, but if it’s all the same, I’m just going to head back to the barracks for the night.”
I didn’t have a chance to argue.
“No, Brooks. You’re going to come sit down next to Katy and listen to what I have to say.”
When he didn’t move, she stood up and pointed to the couch. “Now.”
Even as a grown man, I watched him sit quickly, knowing his place.
Whatever it was that she was going to say must have been important, but for the life of me, I couldn’t even imagine her having any kind of secret.
Then she started speaking and from the first sentence, I knew, nothing was ever going to be the same.
Chapter 58
Who made up the saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? I’d like to punch that person in the face.
“Katy, I know why your mother went to visit your father that day.”
Danica started her confession with one sentence and it had enough of an impact to make Brooks put his head down and me to hold my breath.
“Do you honestly think this is going to solve anything that’s going on now? Don’t hurt her more with the past, Mom. Whatever it is, just leave it be.”
I grabbed his arm. “No. I wanted to know since it happened. Please. Tell me why she was there.”
Danica covered her face with her hands and began to sob. She finally looked up at me with tear filled eyes. “I just want you to know that no matter what, I do love you like you’re my daughter. I’ve never done it out of guilt.”
I was so confused. “What are you talking about?”
“We didn’t know she was there. She told your dad that she had a PTA meeting at the school. We wanted to tell her, in fact that’s why I was there.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “What are you talking about? Where were you? Who were you with? I’m so lost.”
Brooks grabbed my hand. “I think I know what you’re going to say. Mom, please don’t do this to Katy. Don’t do this to our family.”
Again, I was so confused.
“Your father has known since the night before they died. I told him first. We had decided to separate and I walked next door to tell your father.”
Then, as my mind started to wander, it was all coming together.
Danica cried harder. “Katy, I loved your father. I wanted to be with him, and I had ended things with Walt thinking that he wanted to be with me too.”
I felt Brooks slipping his hand inside of mine. We didn’t look at each other though, because of the shock of what Danica was saying to us. “Please don’t tell me that you were having an affair with my father. He wouldn’t. He loved my mom. I know he did.”
I was beginning to freak out.
“I saw you kiss him and you told me that I was mistaken. I believed you. That’s what I saw wasn’t it?” Brooks was getting agitated and he was taking it out on my poor hand. When he noticed what he was doing, he loosened his grip, but didn’t let go. “You lied right to my face.”
“You both need to understand that we’d all been friends for so long. It just happened and we couldn’t stop it. I tried to stop, I swear I did.”
I
was crying, but it was more in anger, because I felt so betrayed. “So she caught you? Is that what happened?”
“Yes,” she sobbed. “We’d been having a heated argument and I followed your dad into his bedroom. We could hear you three in the tree house and thought we were alone. He rejected me, Katy. You’re father told me he couldn’t do it. He said he wouldn’t ever leave your mother.”
“Then how did she catch you? She caught you talking about it?”
I looked over at Danica, but she was too busy crying to answer.
“Mom, answer us. What did you do?”
She shook her head. “I was so hurt. I’d ended my marriage for him and he wouldn’t leave her. So, out of desperateness, I threw myself at him, begging for one last night together.” She was quiet for a second. “And he didn’t resist.”
I pictured my mother, always so kind and loving, walking in on her one true love and her best friend. The bile rose to my mouth imagining it in my mind. I pulled away from Brooks and started to walk to the bathroom, on account of not being able to run.
“How could you do something like that? She trusted you. Dad trusted you.”
“Brooks, don’t walk away. You need to hear everything.”
B came into the bathroom with a doll in her hand. “Mama, boosh hair.”
While sitting on the floor, feeling nauseous, I brushed her baby doll’s hair. When I was finished she touched my cheek where a tear was in the process of falling. “No cry.” Then she ran out of the room.
Brooks was standing at the door, still in his military dress attire. He’d removed his hat, or whatever those barrette looking things were, and stared at me. “I can’t listen to her.”
“I know what you mean, but I need to know the whole story. This doesn’t just involve you or my dad. It involves all of us, even Branch.”
“I just had to bury Bobby, and now she’s making things worse. I can’t do it, Brooks. Find out what she has to say and then make her go. Buy her a ticket and send her home.”
He crossed his arms. “Kat, this time I’m asking. I need you.”
Brooks never needed me and hearing him ask made everything that I was going through seem irrelevant. I started to stand and he helped me, lifting me the rest of the way. For a moment he looked into my eyes and wiped away my tears. “No matter what she has to say, however it affects us, it won’t change anything for me. If you want space, I’ll give it to you. If we can’t move forward, I’ll accept it.”
I couldn’t give him an answer, because it would have required me to speak and I was too emotional to do it without breaking down.
We held hands as we walked back into the room and sat down across from the woman that was doing a great job tearing our family completely apart.
“Why was my mother in that building, Danica? I need to know.”
“After she walked in on us we didn’t exactly have the words to explain. She put on a pretty face and told me to leave, without saying anything else. I think that hurt me more than anything; the fact that she refused to look at me. I felt so ashamed and regretted everything immediately. I don’t know what they talked about, or how she managed to get through the night without anyone knowing. I went home and made dinner, just waiting for her to confront me. I even called you boys in early that night, in fear of having to leave and spend the night away from the house. Your father was a mess. I’d broken his heart and he wasn’t willing to accept that we were through. The thing is, I never stopped loving him. I just got so caught up in the affair.”
I felt like cringing as she spoke, but instead I squeezed Brooks hand as his mother broke his heart.
“The next morning he left for work and finally was able to call. He said that you were all going to be moving and the house was going to be up for sale within the week. He told me that I was a mistake and that he’d spend the rest of his life making his mistake up to your mother.”
She put her head down and cried harder. “That’s the last time I heard from your father, but not the last time I heard from your mother.”
Danica looked right at me. “Katy, that morning she drove you all to school, and none of you probably caught on that anything was wrong. She was going to meet your father so that they could talk.”
“How do you know that? Because I know she wouldn’t have called to tell you that.”
“The school called me first, letting me know that I had to come get the boys. They asked if you’d be coming home with me, too. As angry as she was at me, I knew you were her first priority, so I called her. When she answered I could tell that it was bad. She didn’t get on the line and start cussing me out, or accusing me of ruining your family. She was calm, almost like she knew what was happening and that they weren’t going to make it. I’ll never forget the words she said to me.” She paused and looked right at me. “Take care of Katy, Dani. Keep her safe and love her forever. Make sure Brooks never takes her for granted.”
I was crying so hard that Brooks was literally holding my body still. I could hear Danica’s sobs, but I refused to open my eyes. It hurt too much to think about. I felt his arms wrapping around my back and him kissing the top of my head. “Shh.”
I couldn’t control my emotions as the pain ripped through me over and over again. I was playing it all out in my head. It was as if I could see her driving to see my father, hoping that they could somehow work through it to keep our family together. I could see her overlooking that betrayal to give one final wish for her only child. After Danica had deceived her and tried to tear them apart, she still wanted her to care for me, because she knew I’d be loved. How could someone, who knew they were dying, swallow their pride and be that brave? My mother wasn’t just beautiful, she was my hero, and she died with the man that was willing to do anything to keep us all together. I wanted to be mad, but it was so poetic at the same time. If I ever had to choose a way to die, in that desperate of situations, I’d want to be with Brooks, because knowing he was at my side would make it all somehow easier.
When I finally opened my eyes and looked in her direction, I was ready to find out why, out of all the times she could have told us, what she was telling us now. “Why now?”
Danica looked at me like I should have already known why. “Don’t you get it, Katy? You can’t move forward with Brooks because you think you were responsible for Bobby’s death. How do you think I felt, raising the daughter of the couple that I killed?”
Then it all made sense.
Everything.
Every single time she’d forgiven me. Every time she looked into my eyes and told me she loved me. Every moment that she spent trying to fix my wounds and comfort me when I was sad.
IT ALL MADE SENSE.
What was even more enlightening, for me, was that I could finally see the point that she was hopelessly trying to get me to see.
“Katy, you’ve got one life; one chance to make things right. It’s taken me a long time to accept the things that I can’t change. I’ve got to live with myself every day. I’ve got to look in the mirror and face those demons, but I do it, because I have you and the rest of our family. You see, out of something tragic, I learned to be better to myself and to the people around me. I worked things out with Walt and I’ve never loved anyone like I love him now. Seeing you making the same mistakes I made is killing me. I don’t want you walking away from something you were always meant to have. Even your mother knew it. You two have been in love your whole lives. I’ve never seen something so beautiful in all of my life. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, but please don’t give up on each other. I know your parents are looking out for you. They brought you two back together. I have to believe that.”
She stood up and walked out of the room while Brooks and I pulled apart and looked at each other, both completely in shock.
Chapter 59
I didn’t know what to say to him, and it was obvious that he was also at a complete loss for words. As he used his thumbs to wipe away my te
ars, his head rested against mine. What else could he do? He was in shock.
We both were.
Our parents had been having an affair, and it had cost my innocent mother her life. For years we’d all lived under the same roof with no clue that it had ever happened.
That wasn’t what was bothering me. What was making it hard for me to understand was the fact that Danica’s confession had opened my eyes to what I was doing with my own life. I was dwelling on the things that I couldn’t change and taking for granted what was right in front of me.
Whether or not I could forgive Danica wasn’t the issue. There was something way more important that I needed to tend to; someone that I’d relied on my whole life, but never really let myself believe that it could really exist. Considering my past, and all the pain that came with it, imagining rainbows and sunshine never happened for me. Sure, I knew I loved Brooks, and I also knew he was all I wanted, but I guess I just never had faith that I’d have the chance at it. I’d been living in the now for so long, protecting myself from more long-term heartache. Instead of imagining a forever, I’d thought about when it would all fall apart again.
My eyes were finally open.
Without speaking, I pulled Brooks into my bedroom and sat him down on the bed. “Wait here.”
He watched me walk out, but never argued or asked where I was going. I peeked into B’s room and saw her lying with her grandmother. Danica needed her. As upset and shocked as I was, I also knew that she had honored my mother’s last wish. She’d taken care of me and given me the best life that I could have. She let me make my own decisions, and even though they were wrong, I was able to learn it for myself. She’d forgiven me for all of my flaws and accepted the fact that I’d kept my daughter from her for two years. I knew everything wasn’t going to go back to the way it was over night. Since me and Brooks still needed to sleep on how to react to what we’d just discovered, I took comfort in knowing she wasn’t alone. She was with the one person in the world that was too young to understand what was occurring. Danica was with the one person on the planet that loved her unconditionally.
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