Bent not Broken

by Lisa De Jong

  I grimaced as I took in the unwavering love and support he gave me, his respect, knowing I deserved none of it. I’d thrown everything he’d done for me back in his face.

  Mom stood at the entryway to the family room, anxious and ill at ease. Reaching her hand out for mine, she silently led me to the brown leather sofa and took the seat beside me. I watched warily as Dad and Erin sat across the room.

  “Daniel, please, honey. What’s happened?”

  I sucked in as much air as I could, feeling as though I might pass out. Every regret of my life sat heavily upon my chest, each pressing down, digging into my skin. I rubbed my hand over my shirt, trying to soothe it away.

  “I’m going to be a father.” The words made me sick, and I was ashamed that they did.

  Mom gasped beside me. She took my hand and ran her thumb over my knuckles.

  “When?” she asked.

  Words tumbled from my mouth in a rush. “In four months. It’s a boy, I just found out yesterday.”

  “With who? Are you seeing somebody?” Her brow drew up in confusion.

  I wondered whether she thought I’d never been with anyone since Melanie.

  Dad sighed from across the room. “Dad, I’m so sorry. I...” I stalled as he shook his head, assuring me I had nothing to be sorry for when I knew I did. “I really messed up. Do you remember that mixer we had when we first got to town?”

  “Sure,” he said as if it didn’t mean anything.

  “I slept with one of the reps that night.”

  Silence fell over the room as Mom and Erin stared at me. But it was Dad’s expression that told me how disappointed he actually was.

  “What? How could you do this, Daniel? Do you realize the position you’ve put us in? This could ruin our reputation before we even have a chance to get started...damn it.” He stood and paced as he ranted.

  “Dad...I...”

  Pausing, he blew the air from his lungs, raked a hand through his hair. His voice was low, but no longer filled with anger. “Can I speak with you in private?”

  I nodded, following him to his study. A strange, twisted déjà vu came over me as I sat across from the same desk he had sat at when Melanie and I told him of our child.

  “Who is it?” He was calm, now just wanting information.

  “Her name’s Vanessa.”

  “And I’m to assume this was one of your usual one-time flings?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.

  He breathed heavily out his nose, looked away as he muttered, “Damn it, Daniel.”

  “I know, Dad. I’m so sorry.” I would have done anything to take it back. How ironic it was that I’d sat on this same sofa with my seventeen year old girlfriend, never ashamed, and now I was here, almost thirty, begging for forgiveness?

  “So, what does she want? I mean, you said she’s five-months? Do you even know if it’s yours?” I told him everything that had happened with Vanessa the day before. He remained silent as I voiced all my fears, regrets, and anger.

  He rocked back in his black leather chair, tenting his fingers. “It sounds like you’re probably right.”

  Leaning forward, he tilted his head as he raised an eyebrow. “So, what are you going to do? You’re going to be a father, Daniel. You are responsible for this baby, you know, even if this Vanessa did try to trap you.”

  “I know. I just...” I swallowed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. It used to be the thing I wanted most, and now...it was only supposed to be with Melanie.” I felt so guilty. I should be ecstatic right now, sitting here with the woman I loved, telling my family we were having a baby. Without Melanie, that wasn’t possible.

  I was reluctant to get back up and face the rest of my family, but I couldn’t hide in Dad’s office all night. I opened the door, halting when I found Mom waiting, tears wetting her face.

  “I’m so sorry to disappoint you, Mom.”

  She shook her head. “No, Daniel. You never could. I always knew you’d be a wonderful father.”

  Could my heart break any more? Mom was telling me I was going to be a wonderful father, and I couldn’t even stand the thought of it. I didn’t respond, just forced a tight smile, before I left her and walked down the hall.

  Dinner was tense. Nobody knew what to say.

  Erin finally broke the tension.

  “Um, guys, this feels kind of inappropriate right now, but I have some good news. I got the transfer I wanted, and I’ll be moving here next month.”

  Real joy lit my face. For the first time in ten years, my entire family would live in the same city. Mom was so happy I couldn’t help but forget the problems I was faced with right then.

  And Melanie.

  It was as if everyone I loved was being drawn back to me.

  I looked across to Dad, his smile wide and uninhibited, and I couldn’t help but return the same to him. Yeah, I’d disappointed him, but we’d be okay. I swore to myself right then that I’d never do anything to jeopardize his trust again.

  Erin quirked an eyebrow at me as she caught the smile on my face. I shrugged. How could I explain to her what I was feeling right then? I didn’t even know, but for the first time, it wasn’t the complete hopelessness that had filled me every single day for the last nine years.

  The conversation became loud and excited as they talked about Erin’s move and where she planned to live. She hoped to find a small place she could afford near our parents, and she and Mom started making plans to look for a house.

  It occurred to me then that I hadn’t even told Dad about the building. It was crazy how something that had been so consuming less than two days before hadn’t even entered my mind since I signed those papers last night.

  “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. I signed a contract last night with Borelli & Preston Contractors for the building. We should be able to break ground in the next two months.”

  “Really? That’s great, Daniel.” As he asked me details, he looked at me as if he was proud of me once again.

  Looking around the table at my family, their faces filled with joy, I couldn’t help but feel it was a…good day. Did I really feel that? I didn’t think I had the ability to feel good about anything, but I did. I met Erin’s stare across the table, and a million questions ran across her face.

  She stood up, grabbing her plate. “Why don’t you two go for a walk? Daniel and I are doing dishes.” She smiled sweetly at me, a gleam in her eye.

  I followed her lead, gathering the rest of the dishes, and trailed her into the kitchen. Erin leaned against the island, arms crossed over her chest.

  “Spill it.”

  I frowned at her as I walked past, placing the dishes in the sink. “What are you talking about, Erin?”

  “Oh, don’t give me that, Daniel. Something’s up. I haven’t seen you this happy—or happy at all, I should say—in nine years. And I’d venture to say this happiness isn’t related to the news you just dropped on us a couple of hours ago.”

  I turned to face her, once again thankful she knew me so well. Exhaling, I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest. “Erin, I can’t believe I got myself into this situation.” I ran a hand through my hair, trying not to get upset. “What am I supposed to do? This girl completely screwed me.”

  She scowled at me. “No, Daniel, I’m pretty sure it’s you who screwed her.”

  While I could always confide in Erin, she never hesitated to set me straight, either.

  “I told you you’d end up getting yourself into trouble. Your whole no-strings-attached lifestyle doesn’t always end up working out in real life. You should have known it was going to catch up to you one day.” She fell quiet, suddenly appearing uncomfortable.

  “Are you scared?” She took the couple of steps to come beside me, leaning on one elbow so she could look at me.

  “I can’t even think about a baby...or that one, at least.” I hung my head. After losing Eva, I just couldn’t ever feel the same. “So yeah, I am scared. Sc
ared I’ll never love him. It’s so unfair to him, Erin. This poor kid...you know, I told her I wanted joint custody. It just came out my mouth, and I don’t even know why.”

  “Don’t count yourself out quite yet, big brother. You might just surprise yourself.”

  I wished she was right, but the only thing I felt was regret.

  She nudged me with her shoulder, smirking up at me. “So, now that we’ve got the bad out of the way, tell me what it is that has lit that fire in your eyes again. That flame’s been out for a long time now.”

  Turning, I gestured toward the sink. I dug my hands into the soapy water, and Erin grabbed a hand towel to dry. I started on the first plate and glanced down at Erin, giving her a small smile. “You know how I signed those papers last night?” She nodded. “Well, it’s with a company Borelli & Preston Contractors. I met with them at a restaurant to go over their proposal, and they brought their wives.” She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes, unsure where I was going with this story. It was absolutely not what she was thinking, while at the same time being exactly what she was thinking.

  Shit. It really was complicated.

  I handed her a plate to dry and started on another. “She was there. One of the wives,” I said as I looked directly at her, “was Melanie.”

  Her face paled and the plate she was drying slipped through her fingers, shattering against the marble floor.

  “What?” Her breathing quickened and escalated out of control as the pain she’d repressed all these years came to the surface.

  “Melanie found you?” she rasped out, her hand digging into my arm as tears started to roll down her cheeks. “What happened? What did you say to her? Is she okay? Is she happy?” Questions poured from her, each one coming faster than the last. Erin’s heart had been broken too; when Melanie had left, Erin had lost her best friend and the only sister she’d known. Still, Erin had never stopped loving her.

  I brought her to my chest, holding her to me. “Can you believe it? Melanie is here in Chicago. I can’t even explain how I felt last night, sitting across from her. I could still feel her, Erin. That power.” She nodded against my chest. Erin was the one person I could talk to openly about it; she was the one who helped us understand what it was in the first place. “It was like it had grown, like it had worked all these years to bring us to that very spot last night. She still loves me, Erin. I know it...I could feel it. She wanted me.”

  I rocked her against me, not sure who was comforting who. “I’ve never been so confused. I always believed she found someone better, someone who could make her happy since I couldn’t do that. But her face…she was anything but happy.” I pulled back, searching Erin’s face, trying to make her understand. “She was just like me.”

  Erin tensed and her body shook against me.

  “You!” She pounded on my chest with her fists, rubbing her nose in my shirt at the same time. “So fucking stupid, Daniel.” I tried to restrain her as she continued to beat her hands against me. She cried again and again, “So stupid, so stupid!”

  “Erin, stop. Please!” She was killing me, breaking my heart all over again.

  “No, Daniel. I’ve kept this in for too long, and I’m done! I’m done sitting aside while you blame yourself for something that wasn’t your fault, done keeping secrets that only hurt the people I love!” she screamed, her fists balled in my shirt as she unleashed her anger on me.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Erin?”

  “You let her go, Daniel! That’s what I’m talking about! You made me promise to never contact my best friend...my sister!”

  “You know why I had to do that, Erin! She didn’t want me anymore. You would have run after her to try to change her mind. You would have made her feel guilty for leaving. I wanted her to live the life that she wanted, to have a chance to be happy. I couldn’t stand in the way of that, and you running after her definitely would have!”

  How could Erin blame me for wanting Melanie to be happy? Every day I had wanted to find her. But if being away from me was the one thing that made her happy, that was the one thing I could give her.

  “Right there, Daniel! Right there! Where in that screwed up head of yours would you get the idea Melanie didn’t love you anymore? That she didn’t want you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Erin, maybe when I killed our daughter!” Anger rolled off me as I hovered over her, my hands in fists at my side.

  “She never blamed you, Daniel!” she yelled back. “It wasn’t your fault!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Erin.”

  Erin kicked pieces of the shattered plate across the floor.

  “Daniel, I’ve kept this in for nine years. Nine fucking years!” She sobbed as she held her stomach with one arm. “I made promises to both of you, and I should have broken them a long time ago. All they did was ruin your lives, both of you trying to protect the other. You were both fools, and I was a fool to agree!”

  “Erin, please, what are you saying?”

  “She never blamed you, Daniel.” As her unexpected anger seemed to wane, she stepped forward, spoke softly. “She was protecting you. Her parents threatened that if she didn’t go back to Dallas, they’d have you arrested. It broke her heart to leave, Daniel. She was crushed. She made me promise to never tell you because she knew you’d go straight to her father. At that time she was terrified of him, terrified of what he would do to you.”

  What? Her parents did this to us? How could they?

  Erin bit her lip and averted her gaze as if in guilt. “And she kept making these comments.” She looked up at me, her expression tortured. “She said maybe she wasn’t good enough for you, and she needed to give you time to decide.

  My knees went weak, and I reached to Erin for support.

  She didn’t blame me? All of these years, I’d always believed what everyone had insisted wasn’t true. Erin was right—I was a fool.

  “Why then, Erin? Why, when I went after her, had she married somebody else? Why?” I begged, praying she knew.

  “I don’t know, Daniel.” We swayed, clutching each other, our anger released and washed away, now replaced with questions and what-ifs. “That’s why I was so angry that you wouldn’t let me go to her. I always knew we were missing something, and the only person who could answer that question was Melanie.”

  All these years, everything I had believed was a lie—a lie I had told myself.

  I clung to my sister and let go of the blame I’d held onto for so long and just accepted it.

  It wasn’t my fault.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The smell of coffee filtered through the kitchen. I stood in front of the pot, willing it to brew faster, my eyes heavy with fatigue.

  The last three weeks had not been easy.

  The foundation I’d built my life on for the past nine miserable years had been shaken, cracks rippling through the concrete. I had no idea what side I’d end up on when it finally broke apart.

  I hadn’t come face-to-face with Daniel since that night, but I knew he was always near.

  I could feel him, sense his eyes upon me in almost everything I did. My nerves bristled as I walked down the street, my body calling to him, begging to be touched.

  I knew why he had to stay away. I’d never want to be that kind of person anyway, one who would break apart a family, a home. As badly as I wanted him, I would never be responsible for that. Yet, it didn’t stop me from driving by his office each day, hoping to catch just a glimpse of him, though I never did. And it definitely didn’t keep away the black car, barely visible from where it sat down the street. That car was there in those moments when the weight of his presence nearly brought to my knees, when the pull was almost too great to ignore. It was in those moments I almost didn’t care if it’d make me a bad person if I went to him. Still, I held back. I didn’t have room for one more regret in my life, so we loved each other from afar.

  I heard movement upstairs and braced myself. Things with Nichol
as had been…interesting.

  I’d never gone back to his room after that night. I’d made the guest room my own and refused to allow myself to be used in that way again. I knew he had no qualms about getting what he wanted elsewhere. When I first came to Chicago, I’d made an effort to do the normal things I thought a wife should do, thinking if I had a role to play, then I should play it well. I’d packed the chicken salad and the bread I’d baked and headed to Nicholas’s office. I’d opened his office door to find a naked woman in his lap, his pants pooled around his feet. He’d acknowledged me by coolly telling me, “Close the door, Melanie.” He’d come home that night and never said one thing about it or acted any different. I’d felt nothing but relief in finding them, hoping it meant he would come to me less often. I learned quickly it didn’t.

  But that didn’t matter now. I’d promised myself that night three weeks ago that I’d never let him touch me again.

  Footsteps thudded down the stairs as I poured my first cup of coffee. I ignored Nicholas when he came in the room.

  The air surrounding us was tense. We’d said very few words to each other since that night. He’d crossed a line when he hit me, and he knew it. Never would I let things get back to the way were, even though I sensed he expected it to. I could feel his anger simmering, always on the verge of exploding.

  I knew it was just a matter of time.

  “Melanie.” I looked up in shock, surprised he’d spoken to me. “Shane is coming by to pick up these papers. He’ll be here in about a half an hour. I was supposed to take them, but I’m running late for a meeting.” He flopped a legal-sized manila envelope down on the counter.

  I nodded but otherwise continued to ignore him shuffling around the kitchen as he gathered his things. Only when I heard his car back out of the garage did I begin to relax. Curious, I reached over and grabbed the envelope, nearly dropping it when I saw what was written across it. “Montgomery Oncology.” Daniel. These papers were for Daniel.

  My palms became sweaty as I contemplated.