Where We Fall: A Novel

by Rochelle B. Weinstein

  Ryan squirmed in his chair, and I just knew he was asking me with his eyes why he had to do this. In here. With her. He wiped his eyes, and he was about to say something, but his mouth closed before a sound came out.

  And then he stood up and walked out Jeannie’s door, the words lost in the slam of the door.

  The car ride home is full of awful pleasantries. The things we aren’t saying are about to burst wide open, and neither one of us wants to fight. We pull up to the house as Juliana walks out the front door. She’s carrying her backpack, and I ask where she’s going. I didn’t expect her to have balloons and a sign strung to the porch, but it would have been nice for her to have waited for me to come home before making plans. Her hair is in a braid down her back and she seems nervous to see me.

  “Where are you going?” I come right out and ask, while Ryan carries my bags in to the house.

  She tells me she’s going to the twins’ house. I ask her why.

  “The new normal is going to shift your entire family dynamic, Abby,” Jeannie had said. “Juliana and Ryan are used to you being one way. They’re trained to react. It’s going to be difficult for them those first few weeks to get used to the changes in you. Expect some friction.”

  Juliana, hand on her hip, replies, “Because it’s Saturday.”

  I reach for her, brushing the bangs away from her eyes so we can make contact. “I thought we’d all have dinner together.”

  Juliana doesn’t know what to make of this. Jeannie is right: I have never questioned where my daughter is going or the time she allots to me. It was always easier to let her go and enjoy herself so I could wallow in my misery.

  “Mama, please,” she says, and this sends a dagger through my heart, one that I deserve, but it doesn’t make it any less painful.

  I say, “Things are going to change around here, Jules.” This forces her to look down at her shoes, Uggs that are worn and probably too small. I’ll take her shopping. I can start by buying her new shoes. And I see my daughter as though for the very first time. The urge to hold her close overwhelms me, and I drop my purse to the floor and cradle my arms around her. “I want my daughter back,” I whisper to her cheeks, her hair, her neck. She smells like resistance and Finesse shampoo, but when I hug her harder, she drops the backpack to the floor and hugs me back.

  “This is hard for you, I know. You probably don’t know if you can trust me again. I’m going to work with you to rebuild that trust in me. I told you when I left for Cold Creek that I promised you I’d be a better mother, and I will.”

  We stand like that for a few minutes and I hold back the tears clamoring to come out. They are reminders of what I’ve missed and lost in the years of emotional absence.

  She says, “I want to love you again, Mama.” And I inhale those words like they are my last breaths.

  “You will, honey. I promise.”

  While I can tell Ryan is pleased to have me home, I know he is holding back. “I’m still digesting this, Abs. You held on to the truth for years. I think I’m entitled to sit with it for a while.”

  We make it through dinner with his beers and my club soda before I tell him I am tired and ready for bed. He has exhausted me with his talk of the team and playoffs, explaining the four quadrants to me—as though I have never followed football. The Giants have remained alive in their bracket, and the feat means they’ll play in the state championship at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium. When he asks me if I’m going to the game, I tell him yes, even though he’s done well enough without me.

  “Do you still believe in our superstition?” he asks.

  I’m not really sure what I believe in anymore, but I don’t say that. Instead I tell him that we can talk about it tomorrow.

  He asks me what he can do for me, how he can make the transition home smoother. “I don’t know what you want.”

  What he means is that he doesn’t know how to sit across from me and pretend that everything hasn’t changed, when it has.

  The conversation explodes just after dinner when we are preparing for bed.

  At first he is cordial and accommodating, passing me my face towel in the bathroom and making sure that being back there doesn’t freak me out. Then he demands answers.

  “I know you’re fragile. I know you’ve worked hard to get to where you are. But goddamnit, Abby, how could you have lied to me? I trusted you.”

  I put down my toothbrush and let him come after me. I deserve it, and at least I have the skills to manage what he is throwing at me. I hear Jeannie whispering in my ear: let him talk, don’t interrupt, just listen. I can do that, but what is eating away at me is the question that sits between us like a child: what would it have changed?

  “You didn’t give me a choice. How could I have known what I would’ve done?” He’s sitting on the side of bathtub watching me get ready for bed. The swipe hurts.

  “I deserve that.”

  “Look,” he begins, “I want to understand why you’d do this. To me. To your best friend. We were pawns, players in your hands. For someone who hated the demons that controlled you, you saw nothing wrong with controlling all of us. I hurt her. Hell, yes. More than she deserved. She was someone I loved very deeply. But this, you can’t expect me not to have strong feelings about it.”

  He eyes me cautiously and I take a swig of mouthwash. “And for her?” I ask.

  “If we’re going to lay it all out on the line here—yes, I have feelings for her. The same feelings I had for her when you seduced me all that time ago. And I still ended up with you. It didn’t make a bit of difference.”

  My body stiffens as I search for a response “So I seduced you. Is that how it happened?”

  “Didn’t you? If we’re being honest, can you at least admit you took advantage of me?”

  I pull my bathrobe tighter around my waist. I wield my hairbrush dangerously close to Ryan’s face. “You could’ve stopped me. There were two of us on that couch.”

  “I was inebriated, Abby. I’d just lost my father, and my girlfriend was overseas. Could you have picked a worse time to make your move?”

  Jeannie’s voice is bellowing in my ear: He’s hurt. Let him denounce the relationship. Give him time to heal. Do not, under any circumstances, throw Juliana in his face. He loves her. This is not about her.

  I bring the washcloth to my lips to wipe the invisible liquid off my mouth. I do this to hide the gulping sound when I swallow.

  “If you can lie about this,” he fumes, “what else can you lie about? How do we trust each other again?”

  My voice turns into a wail: “Can’t you see that I’ve learned from my mistake? Did you not see how it ruined me? I would never lie to you again.”

  He is staring at me in the mirror, our reflections trying to decipher each other. God damn he’s hard to look at. Even when he’s furious with me. Those delicate eyes are asking me all sorts of questions. “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” he says, shaking his head, getting up from his seat, and heading for the door.

  My legs rush after him, my hand grabs his wrist, forcing him to look at me. “What happened to ‘we took a vow and I’m committed to you’?” I plead. “And the part where you loved me?”

  His face is devastatingly sad. “Abby, I do love you. I’ll always love you. I just don’t like you very much right now.” Then he turns away from me.

  And I fight my fist not to throw the brush across the room.

  Later that night, our hands wrestle with the foamy white covers until we find our usual places under the quilt. He reaches across the bed, and I feel his palm land on my hip. My body stiffens. The surge is so strong that I am sure he can feel it through his fingers. His hands move gently down my stomach and thighs. All I can do to stop myself from crying is to turn from him and face the opposite direction.

  He comes closer and curls around me.

  I am saying no with my head, shaking it back and forth against his cheeks. “How do you do this? How do you find room insid
e to love me when there’s so much hate? It’s not normal.”

  I can feel him turn away from me. The room is dark, and I know he is talking to the ceiling. “You’re mad at me for not being more mad at you? Am I missing something? ’Cause it sure as hell feels like you’re pushing me away. Do you want me to leave? Is that it?”

  “Sometimes I wish you’d just scream at me. Then I’d know you’re human, that you’re one of us.”

  “Abby, I’m trying.”

  “I don’t think the therapists meant with sex.”

  He rolls over and I feel awful about the rejection. When he reaches for me again, I don’t back away. I let him kiss my cheek, and I let him explore the places that had died while I was away, though it doesn’t take long for me to know that something feels off. The doctors warned me of the side effects from the medications. I didn’t expect the sacrifice would be dried-up female private parts.

  But this feels like more than a side effect. I don’t want him to touch me. And since I can’t reject him twice, I tell myself I can do this. I can go through the motions, close my eyes, and give us what we both need. The idea spreads down my legs and cracks me open to let him inside. We begin to move, and it’s awkward and uncomfortable. The clumsiness makes it clear: this is not a medication issue. I am dead down there. I can’t go through with it. I don’t want to go through with it. Ryan’s poking at me and it hurts, but not as much as looking him in the eyes and telling him to stop.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  RYAN

  Everywhere I look I see Lauren.

  She was in my truck when Abby stepped in, her perfume drifting through the air vents. On the long drive home, I only heard every other word coming from Abby’s mouth. Thoughts of Lauren kept interrupting, taunting me. I was replaying our conversation of the other day. I was staring into her blue eyes when she’d said she still loved me. Instead of turning from her, my mind makes up a different ending. I face her and let her know I love her back. I’m selfishly not thinking about my recovering wife.

  Over dinner, Abby played with her food while I talked about the game and the team because I couldn’t bear to talk about the things that would drive me away from her. I wedged more space between us by perpetuating a string of lies.

  I don’t know what Lauren was thinking when she said those words to me. Could she have known there was a chance I still loved her back? That surviving without her all these years was essentially just coping?

  That first night in our bed, I reached for Abby out of habit. I thought to myself, If I can have sex with her, if we can join our bodies, then I can erase Lauren from my mind, just like I did all those years ago.

  She looked me in the eyes when I was on top of her, and I had to turn away. I was relieved when she said the medication had killed her libido and we had to stop. My motions were mechanical and detached. I had unknowingly fake-loved her for years, and now every memory of us together was marred by the thick swell of my deceit.

  I asked myself, How can I continue living this lie of a life? The question released a slew of regret I’d locked away: why I didn’t seek out Lauren, why I had let her slip through my fingers without a fight, why in God’s name I had had sex with her best friend.

  The husband in me says I can’t leave my wife. The man in me says I deserve more. I struggle with the conflict as I have for many years, accepting what I thought was lost. Lauren is leaving again. The feelings will go away as they did before. I will pull the stinger from my skin, for the second time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  JULIANA

  Marlee, Sophie, and Nicole are sitting next to me in the Bank of America Stadium when E.J. takes the field. Daddy’s out there, too, and he finds me and waves.

  The stadium is packed, and the cold air drills through our bones. Marlee is complaining about the chill again, and we listen to her rant that she is moving to Florida when she graduates. “Nobody gets fat in Florida because the weather’s so nice. Winter kills me,” she says, throwing her gloved hands up in the air.

  The stands are filled with Giants navy jerseys and the purple of the opposition, the Plymouth Vikings. The twins ask me about E.J., and I sigh, wishing I had something more to tell. He’s been stuck in his stubborn head, and it’s maddening. So when he emerges on the field behind Daddy and sees Daddy waving in my direction, I am certain he will wave too. Instead, he scans the stands for someone else. I spot her off to the side, a solitary figure—Ruby Whittaker. She wouldn’t miss the championship game, no matter the cost. I watch her wave to her son. She draws something in the air with her finger, which he immediately understands. He taps on his heart with his gloved hand, and I feel my own heart skip a beat.

  The crowd is loud and on its feet. The Friday-night lights are even brighter tonight, aglow with energy that fuels the players on the field as the Vikings kick off and the action begins.

  Daddy’s marching along the sidelines; Mama’s back in her usual spot with June Harrow by her side. It’s a different set of bleachers, but the same number of rows behind the bench. Marlee and Sophie and Nicole are checking out boys while I eye the only boy for me on the field. E.J. is a natural out there. Whatever hardship he’s endured away from these beaming lights propels him across the grass. I swear that boy came outta his mama wearing those cleats.

  I want to believe he’s watching me when he’s out there, though I know he isn’t. He always said that no matter how loud the fans, he didn’t hear a sound in his head except Coach’s voice. The stands were a blur, and the only thing that he saw was the faces of his teammates. I used to tease him about the cheerleaders. All the dolled-up girls who would flirt and shake their pom-poms at him. He told me I was the only one: “There’s no one for me but you, Juliana.”

  The scoreboard clock ticks away toward the end of the first half. The rival teams spin a wild tale of football. Just when we squeak ahead, they pull off another score. There is hardly room to exhale between touchdowns, and Daddy looks wicked cross on the sidelines. His hands are folded, and he’s shouting something into the mouthpiece connected to his headphones.

  “I don’t understand your affinity for this game,” says Nicole, who is posing in an inordinate number of selfies.

  “You don’t love it because you don’t understand it.”

  At halftime, we hook up with a group of kids from school. Mama’s talking to some of the other parents, and she doesn’t look nervous or afraid. She smiles at me, and I can’t help but smile back.

  When we find our seats again, Plymouth has scored another touchdown on their first possession. By the end of the third quarter we are tied, and the skies open up with a steady sleet. Marlee, Sophie, and Nicole run for cover, but I remain rooted in my spot. The wet wind stymies the back and forth that had dictated the earlier quarters, and the fourth begins with frustration on both sides of the field.

  With less than ten seconds left in the game, the Vikings are about to throw for the game-winning touchdown when one of our defensive ends comes out of nowhere and pops the Vikings quarterback. The ball floats through the air. I have watched miracles before. Daddy’s always reminded me of the power of perseverance. There is a shuffling on the field. It happens so fast that no one knows where the ball lands, until out of the storm shoots E.J.

  My young stud mostly plays offense, until those pivotal games that require a talented cornerback. The ball is in his hands, and with eighty yards ahead of him, a few seconds on the clock, and an entire Plymouth team charging toward him, he takes off. The sleet is slapping the field, and players are losing their footing. First he speeds past one man, then breaks a tackle, before breaking out into his full, unstoppable pace. The last player in his wake doesn’t have a prayer of catching him. Before the clock runs down and the last whistle blows, E.J. has crossed the threshold to victory. The stands go wild. The fans storm onto the field. The Pine Ridge Giants are the state champs. And the sleet turns into a steady rain that no one seems to notice.

  There’s not a dry eye in the sta
dium when the team lifts E.J. on their shoulders and hands him the game-winning ball. I am so proud of him that I can’t even move. The tears fall down his face, and mine. The crowd around him is layers deep. People want to touch him, take pictures with him. A flock of reporters wait by the sidelines for an interview.

  I am alone in the stadium, feeling the distance, drenched in the wet rain that has mixed with my tears. I don’t know how long I stay seated. The fans have cleared out, and there is a handful of press and a few rowdy fans lingering by the end zone. My cell phone is vibrating in my pocket, and I text the girls to say they can go on without me. “I’ll hitch a ride with my mom,” I write. I begin to shiver, and in my soaked jeans I go down the steps to where my mama waits. Back before crazy, we would drive to school and wait for the buses to return with the players. Joined by friends, families, and girlfriends, we were an elite group of caregivers. Chosen ones.

  “You’re soaked!” she cries out at me. “You can’t go to the parking lot like that. You’ll freeze to death.”

  “Mama, I’m going.”

  We drive in silence. There’s a stillness between us. I’ve had one parent for so long it makes sense that we argue and fight when she tries to mother me again. We’re sitting side by side like two strangers. She tries to talk to me. It feels unnatural and weird.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stop and get a change of clothes?”

  “I’m sure. I don’t want to miss the bus.”

  We arrive among the throngs of people ready to celebrate the state champions. The rain has stopped, replaced by a gentle snow. I am no longer cold. I am ready for E.J.

  “You shouldn’t throw yourself at him,” she says, before getting out of the car.

  Maybe it’s the cold, maybe the water lodged inside my head, replacing logic with cruelty, but before I can ignore what she just said, I spew sass: “You have no right to give me advice about E.J.”