“It's all my fault, Mercy,” she replied tearfully. “I messed up. I misled him about something, and now I just don't know how to fix it.”
She sat down on a stool at the kitchen island and buried her face in her hands as Mercy handed her a tissue. “Oh, Donna. I'm sure you two can work through whatever it is.”
“I don't think we can anymore,” Donna quietly sobbed as Mercy pulled up a stool and sat next to her. “Every time we try to talk about it, we only seem to make it worse. I can feel his resentment every time he looks at me. It's even in the sound of his voice when we talk on the phone.”
“Donna, can I ask … how did you mislead him?” Mercy asked tactfully.
Donna paused for a moment as she composed herself. Then she glanced at Mercy somewhat sheepishly. “Cory wanted to start a family right away. And I let him believe that I did too.”
“But you don't?”
“I want a family, Mercy. I do,” Donna explained. “Cory wants a child so badly, and I want to give him that. I just wanted a little time to focus on building a movie career first. Just a couple of years. But to Cory, that was like asking for the moon. I could see how brokenhearted he was, and it hurt me so much to know that I was disappointing him.”
“So, you've been arguing over starting a family?”
“Not exactly. He gave in. He gave me what I wanted. He agreed to wait until I was ready.”
Mercy frowned at her. “Then I'm afraid I don't understand. If he agreed, then what's the problem?”
“The problem is that he can't let go of it,” Donna said, crying openly once again. “He says that he's okay with our decision and that we're fine. But that's not true! He's still hurting over it. And it shows when he lashes out at me … over the movie, over us spending too much time apart, over me getting hurt during filming. Over whatever! He's still in pain. And truthfully … I'm still feeling guilty over it! Every time I look at him, all I see is the pain in his eyes and it kills me!”
“Oh, Donna,” Mercy said, lightly rubbing her back.
“How can we continue like this Mercy?” she asked, searching Mercy's eyes as if she held the answer. “We can't! He resents me, and I feel guilt and shame whenever I look at him. What kind of marriage is that? How do we move forward from here?”
“Donna …”
“I don't think we're going to make it, Mercy,” she said quietly as the tears ran down her pretty cheeks. “I asked him to stay home tonight so that we could talk about things. But he flat out refused to. He doesn't want to talk about our issues anymore. He says he's tired of the constant argument. But what that really means is that he just doesn't care anymore. He's washing his hands of me.”
“Donna …” Mercy started again. But once again, Donna cut her off.
“And do you want to hear the kicker?” she asked with a sad, tearful laugh. “I'm pregnant!”
Mercy's eyes grew big and round as saucers. “Donna! Are you sure?”
She nodded her head. “I found out right after I left Detroit and went back to Toronto.”
“Well, that has to have made all the difference, hasn't it? What did he say when you told him?”
Donna shook her head slowly as she stared down at the crumpled tissue in her hands. “I haven't told him,” she said quietly.
“Donna, you have to tell him. That will change everything!”
“No. I don't have to tell him,” she said emphatically as she looked up at her. “Mercy, I don't want to use this baby as a Band-Aid to try to fix us. That wouldn't be fair to him or her. Or to me and Cory, for that matter. It's much too big a responsibility for such a tiny little person. If we can't fix our problems on our own, then we certainly have no business adding a child to the mix. And I don't want Cory to stay with me because of a baby.”
Mercy frowned at her choice of words, wondering at her meaning. “Donna, what are you saying?”
Donna paused, wiping tears again. “I'm saying that I don't think Cory and I are going to make it. And if we don't … I don't want to raise a child alone.”
“Donna, Cory would never allow you to raise this baby alone. You know that!”
“Yes, I know that. I know that he would never abandon this baby because he always felt abandoned by his own father, and he always swore that he would never do that to his own child. But we wouldn't be a family, Mercy. We would be co-parents with joint custody. And I don't want that!”
“So if you don't tell him,” Mercy said quietly as she began to work it out in her head. “Oh, my God. Donna … are you saying what I think you're saying?” Donna looked at her with such sorrow, and Mercy's heart went out to her.
“If Cory and I aren't going to make it, Mercy … I don't want to have this baby,” she said tearfully. “I would rather just have a clean break. Anything else would always hurt too much.”
“Donna,” Mercy said softly. “You would really terminate this pregnancy just to have a clean break from Cory?”
She was silent as she nodded her head, wiping her cheeks with the palms of her hands. “I would have to,” she said quietly. After a slight pause, she turned to Mercy with wide, scared eyes. “Mercy, please tell me you'll keep all of this to yourself. You can't repeat any of this. Not even to Noah. Please!”
“Oh, Donna, please don't ask me to do that,” Mercy begged her. “I don't like keeping things from Noah.”
“Mercy please! If you tell Noah, he'll go straight to Cory with it.”
“Noah wouldn't do that,” Mercy tried to reassure her.
“Please! You have to promise me!”
Mercy closed her eyes and sighed as she lowered her head. This was one promise she wasn't at all certain she would be able to keep. “Okay,” she sighed.
“Thank you!” Donna squeezed her hand tightly. “Thank you, Mercy!”
Mercy said nothing as she nodded her head, feeling backed into a corner. “Donna, I'll keep your secret on one condition. You have to promise me that you're not going to make any rash decisions, alright? You and Cory just need time to work this thing out.”
“Time is not on my side, Mercy,” Donna said sadly. “You're a woman. You know how these things work. My window of opportunity is closing pretty fast.”
“How far along are you?”
“Seven or eight weeks,” she answered quietly.
“Oh, Donna. This is all such a mess.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
They spent a little more time in the kitchen while Donna tried to pull herself together. And finally Mercy left the room to give her a few minutes alone. When she entered the living room, she could instantly tell that Noah and Cory had been talking about the Duttons' problems as well, and their conversation came to an abrupt halt when they saw her.
“Um … where's Donna?” Cory asked quietly.
“Oh, she'll be out in a minute; she just … ran to the bathroom,” Mercy lied as she took a seat next to Noah on the couch. He took her hand in his and gave it a light squeeze, running his thumb rhythmically over her knuckles in a soothing gesture, and Mercy looked into his eyes. They shared a quick reassuring glance before an uncomfortable silence fell over the room as they all sat anxiously waiting for Donna to emerge from the kitchen. And when she did, the tension in the room only grew. They tried to make small talk for several uneasy minutes before finally giving up all together.
“Well, we should probably get going,” Cory said as he stood up. “You ready, babe?”
“Yeah,” Donna said as she stood beside him. He motioned for her to lead the way, and Mercy studied their body language as they all headed toward the front door. They never touched each other. It was as if both of them were being super careful not to allow any body part to touch the other person, not deliberately or accidentally. They were like two islands. Two self-contained, lonely, miserable islands. It was difficult for her to believe that this was the same couple who couldn't keep their hands off of each other when she had first met them several months back. She felt so bad for them.
&n
bsp; They said their goodbyes and Cory held the door open for Donna as she climbed into the car. But they were silent as they got underway, neither one of them saying a word the whole way home. When they finally walked through the front door of their own home, Donna couldn't stand the silence any longer. She turned to face him.
“I guess tonight wasn't very fun, was it?” Cory said before she could speak. He tossed his keys onto the small table that stood by the door, as Donna answered silently, slowly shaking her head 'no.'
“Can I ask you something, Cory?” she said quietly.
“Of course.”
“Do you love me?”
Cory stared at her in disbelief for a moment. “Donna, what kind of question is that? Do you really feel the need to ask me that?”
She met his questioning gaze with one full of sorrow and slowly nodded her head. And Cory couldn't believe her response.
“Donna, I have always loved you. I will always love you!”
She tilted her head to one side as she asked, “Do you think we can fix what's been broken?”
Cory sighed heavily as he stared at her and shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know. Honestly, Donna … I'm not even sure exactly what it is that's been broken.”
She paused a moment as she thought about it. “I think it's your faith in me,” she said softly. “I think you've lost your faith in me. And I don't know how to get it back.”
Cory thought about her words for a moment as he watched her. Maybe she was right. Maybe that was the problem. “Donna, I just don't feel like I know who you are anymore. I don't know what you want. I used to know exactly what you wanted. What would make you happy. Because we wanted the same things out of life. We had a plan, we were on a path. And all of a sudden that plan was just thrown out the window. We used to share a dream for our future. But suddenly that dream didn't seem like it was enough for you. You wanted something else, something we never talked about before! And I just … I don't know where our dreams went. You say they're still important to you, but it doesn't feel that way. I don't feel like we're working toward the same dream anymore.” He paused for a moment as they stared at one another with sad expressions. “Now if that's losing my faith in you … then I guess you're right. And I don't know how to get that back either.”
They stood only a few feet away from one another, but to both of them it felt more like miles apart. They stared into each other's eyes with longing and sadness as the tears silently ran down Donna's face. Wiping her cheeks with her hands, she tried hard to compose herself.
“I'll file for divorce in the morning,” she said quietly.
Cory felt the physical blow to his gut as the air left his lungs. For a few endless seconds, the room went black and the void covered him, numbing all of his senses as it swept over him in a wild torrent, leaving nothing in its wake. He struggled to breathe, his eyes fought to focus, and it was all he could do to remain standing as the ringing in his ears refused to let up.
“What?” It was all he could manage to say as he endeavored to pull himself together.
“I'll see my lawyer in the morning,” she repeated tearfully.
Cory stared at her, not really believing those words were coming out of her mouth. This is not what he wanted. There had to be a way to fix this! There had to be!
“Donna …”
“I don't see any other way. Do you?”
“We'll find a way, Donna! I don't want this!”
“Please, Cory! Don't make it any harder than it already is,” she sobbed.
Without another word, he turned and grabbed his keys from the table and walked out. He climbed into his car with no clue where he was going. He only knew that he had to get out of there. He had to get away from her and her words. Divorce? Where the hell had that come from? Why did she say that? How could she say that? Were they really at that point? Had things really gotten so bad that she had to file for divorce? She was leaving him?
Cory's mind went blank as he drove absentmindedly. And when the car finally came to a stop in the driveway, he had no recollection of how he had gotten where he was. He had no clue how long he had been driving around or even what time of the night it was. He didn't even know where the near empty bottle of Jack Daniels sitting between his legs had come from. He felt numb. His limbs felt like lead. His eyelids felt heavy. Slowly and clumsily, he opened the car door and crawled out, pulling himself and his bottle of Jack to a standing position. Carefully measuring his steps, he made his way to the front door without falling over and rang the bell a few times, holding onto the large topiary next to the door for support as he waited. He squinted his eyes when the light over the door came on.
“Cory?” Even in his fucked up state, Cory could hear the questions and the concern in his friend's voice.
Noah moved quickly, propping the door open with one leg as he struggled to get hold of Cory and help him inside at the same time.
“I'm sorry, man. I didn't know where to go,” Cory mumbled, slurring his words.
“Yes, you did,” Noah answered as he helped him over to the couch. “When you don't know where to go, you come here. You did good.”
“Mercy's gonna be mad,” he slurred.
“No, Mercy won't be mad,” Noah answered.
“I knew you'd … be there of each other … 'cause we brothers,” he said, trying to piece a sentence together as Noah got him situated on the couch.
“Yeah, we're brothers,” he quietly agreed, taking the bottle of Jack out of Cory's vice-like grip. “We're all your brothers, buddy. Cory, what the fuck happened, man?”
“It's over. It's all over,” he mumbled. And then the tears came. And Noah watched feeling totally useless as his best friend fell apart on his couch.
Chapter Thirteen
Cory continued to wipe the tears from his face as he drove on, the memories of how he and Donna had made such a mess of things running over and over in his mind like a tragic silent movie. Images he couldn't get away from, no matter how hard and how far he tried to run. They had made so many mistakes. And he knew that it had been just as much his fault as it had been hers. He should have told her from the beginning how he felt about the change in their plans. They should have talked about it more. He should have been more supportive of her dreams. Why had it scared him so much that she developed dreams of her own? Isn't that what people were supposed to do? To grow and better themselves? Aspire to new things? Why had he been so threatened by her dreams of making movies? Why couldn't he work with her to find a way for them to both have what they desired out of life?
As he drove away from town, away from that attorney's office, Cory felt the full weight of his shame. He had been a bad husband to Donna. He knew that now. If he could only go back and do it over again, he would do things so differently. He would love her better. He would give her what she needed to thrive, instead of focusing on what he thought he was missing out on. He would make her the center of his world.
She had looked so sad as he left the lawyer's office. Her beautiful face had been streaked with tears and her sobs echoed in his heart as he had walked out. They still echoed there, and Cory could hear them as clearly as if she were sitting in the car beside him. He loved her so much. He would do anything … he would give anything if only they could go back and try again. He would bargain with God, or even with the devil himself, if it meant that he and Donna could be together again. That he could put a smile on her face and make her happy once more.
He tried to pull himself together as he drove on. But by the time he reached the house, he was in no better shape than he had been when he had climbed into the car and left the attorney's office. He knew that he was an emotional mess. And he probably looked a physical mess too. Bloodshot eyes from worry and lack of sleep, mussed up hair from running his hands through it in frustration all day. Unshaven. Disheveled clothing. Not to mention he had probably lost more than a few pounds from lack of appetite. He was barely eating these days. He certainly wasn't sleeping. He was a wreck. And he knew
that he was probably driving Noah and Mercy insane by now.
He had been camped out in their guest room since that night Donna had mentioned divorce and he showed up a drunken, sloppy mess on their doorstep. How many nights ago had that been? It didn't matter. What did matter was that it would soon be over. He needed to get his things out of his house so that it could be sold. That's what Donna's attorney had said, wasn't it? That they were to put the place on the market as soon as possible and split the proceeds from the sale. Then everything really would be over. A clean break. As if their marriage had never happened. As if they had never meant anything to each other at all. It would almost be like they had never even met. Now, if only he could convince his heart of that.
He got out of the car thinking that he would go to the house later and box up his clothing and a few personal items. There wasn't much there that he felt he needed to hang on to. Without Donna, it was all just meaningless stuff.
Still mulling it over in his mind, he let himself into Noah and Mercy's house with his spare key. He knew that Mercy was at work at her dad's office, Holland Management. Otherwise he would never just let himself into their place without ringing the bell first. Feeling like he couldn't take another step, he flopped down on the couch in the living room. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes as he took in a deep breath and sighed. His heart ached.
“Hey, man.” Noah's voice cut through his fog as his friend sat down beside him. “How did it go?”
Cory shook his head slightly. “It went. Wait six months and it will all be over. They just need to file the papers. We have to sell the house. Split the proceeds. Severed ties. Like we never even knew each other,” he said quietly, staring straight ahead.
Noah stared at him feeling torn. He sighed as he looked at him and shook his head. “Alright, man, look … I have agonized about this for days now. And I wanted to tell you as soon as I found out, but Donna begged Mercy not to tell me. But the more I think about it, and knowing Mercy the way I do … I think she told me anyway because she was counting on me telling you!”
The Essential Jagged Ivory (Jagged Ivory Boxed Set) Page 37
