Crazy Thing Called Love

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Sure,” Billy said. “I suppose I need to explain a little bit … about the kids.”

  “That seems reasonable.” Ruth nodded and then glanced sideways at Maddy. “What about your marriage?”

  “No.” Maddy said. Billy flinched, surprised by her vehemence. “Our shared past is off-limits.”

  Ah. Here they were. Again. Staring at each other over a conference table, their marriage the big fat elephant in the room she wanted to pretend wasn’t there.

  “I think we should talk about it,” he said.

  “There’s no point.”

  He shook his head, befuddled and sad and angry all at the same time. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Can we stop the bullshit and just talk?”

  Maddy cleared her throat before turning to Ruth. “Could you give us a second?”

  Ruth was already on her feet and halfway to the door. “Text me when you’re ready,” she said before slipping into the hallway.

  Billy stared at his ex-wife across the table.

  “Dom called,” she said. “He wanted to ask me a few questions about you. About our marriage.”

  He blinked at her, wondering why that made her mad at him.

  “I didn’t tell him, if that’s what’s got you so pissed. The guy’s a reporter. He’s just doing his job.”

  “I don’t want you to talk about me. I don’t want my life, everything I’ve worked for to get eclipsed by you. Again.”

  He pushed away from the table, suddenly remembering how it had felt years ago coming home from practice knowing he was going to be ambushed by his wife. Knowing in his guts that he was walking in on the end of his marriage.

  She’s going to do it again. End it. Right now.

  “You’re a bigger celebrity in this town than me, Maddy. It will be a big deal for about ten minutes and then it will be over.”

  “And then everyone in town will look at me and think of you. I’ll be Mrs. Billy Wilkins again.”

  “And they’ll look at me and think of you. And you know something?” He stood, the chair zinging across the floor to collide with a box of magazines. “I’m proud of that. Proud.” He waited for her to crack, could see her shaking. But she kept her mouth shut. “You know, I thought we had something.”

  “What? Sex in my dressing room? I wouldn’t let you kiss me.”

  “You let me kiss you yesterday.”

  She blinked up at him, not giving an inch. Not a single inch. It was as if she’d erased that time in her bedroom from her mind.

  “What about the kids?”

  “They’re not ours. We are not a family.”

  It was like she’d stabbed him and twisted the knife deep in his gut. “Man, I keep getting that confused.”

  “What did you think was going to happen between us, really?”

  “I love you.” She flinched when he said it. “Don’t act surprised. You knew. You always knew. And I saw you yesterday, Maddy. I saw your eyes. You love me, too. You can’t deny it. And the rest of this garbage, it’s all bullshit, isn’t it? Being worried about people looking at you and seeing me. Being worried about your life getting sucked up by mine. It’s not the real reason you’re freaked out and playing the ice queen, is it?”

  “You’re right. I can’t deny it. I do love you. I have always loved you, even when I hated you I still loved you. But you know something, love was never our problem, Billy. It’s the rest of the shit we can’t do.”

  “It’s been fourteen years. I’m not the boy I was, Maddy.” He could say it with certainty. It was an absolute. He wasn’t that kid.

  “I know.”

  He could see the doubt in her, how she wavered when she didn’t want to. He stepped around the edge of the table to touch her, to press his advantage, but she stepped back, suddenly fully resolved.

  “And you’re not the girl, can’t you see that? You won’t get lost again. Not you.” He couldn’t tell if she believed him. Couldn’t see anything in her ice cold eyes.

  “I can’t do it Billy, I can’t. I can’t go through that pain again.”

  “Maybe there won’t be any,” he said, and continued to approach as she retreated, until finally she was against the wall. “Maybe we’ll get it right this time. Have some faith, baby.”

  “In us?” She laughed, and it stung like a thousand needles, forcing him to back up a step. “Please. The only thing I have faith in anymore is me. Everything else hurts.”

  “It wasn’t just pain,” he said. “There were good times, too.” But she was shaking her head, denying him. Denying everything between them that wasn’t heartache.

  It killed him that she was doing this, that she was rewriting their history, painting it all with a black brush.

  “You know, I came on this show feeling like I needed to atone for the things I’d done to you. I came here believing that the worst of what happened between us was my fault, and I’m not saying it’s not. But you weren’t innocent either.”

  “I know.” Her admission did nothing to ease his mind. It only made him feel worse.

  “I carried around my anger for a lot of years. I pushed people away and I let it define me. And I think … I think you’ve let your anger define you, too. Where are all those friends you were going to get? All that love I wasn’t giving you? You live in a modern ivory tower and on your show you pretend to be half the woman you really are. Just so no one gets too close. So no one can really see you.”

  “You think that was an accident? You think I don’t know that? I made those decisions so that I wouldn’t get hurt by anyone the way you hurt me. So that I wouldn’t get lost. So that I wouldn’t find myself all alone with nothing, not ever again.”

  “And are you happy with those decisions? Are you happy being scared and angry and alone?”

  “I’m on the top-rated morning show in Dallas! I’m a celebrity.”

  “That doesn’t make anyone happy. We both know that.”

  She clamped her mouth shut, not engaging. There was nothing left but total honesty. Nothing but raw truth.

  “I’m not happy, Maddy. I should be. I’ve got a career I’ve practically killed myself for, a house, a boat. Friends. But somehow none of it makes me happy. Because you’re not in my life to share it.” His heart was still in his chest, a dead weight as he waited for her response. “And now these kids are here.”

  “Right. The kids are here and you need me again. You need me to be their mom, to be your partner. Right?”

  He blinked, unable to deny it. “That’s what I want. Why is that wrong?”

  “What about what I need? All I’ve ever done my whole life with you is be what you’ve needed. I can’t sacrifice myself again.”

  “Fine. Let me sacrifice. What do you want? You want me to give up hockey? I’ll do it. You keep the show, I’ll stay at home. Whatever it takes.”

  “Stop!” she cried. “Stop, Billy. Listen to you. Love isn’t supposed to be that way, is it? One person gets diminished for the other?”

  “I don’t know, Maddy. All I know is that I’m better when you’re in my life. And I want to give you that feeling. I want to make you better. Make you the most you can be.”

  There it was, his heart, shivering and cold on the table between them. And for a minute he thought she would do it. He thought she was brave enough to meet him halfway.

  But then she shook her head.

  “I can’t, Billy.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Semantics.”

  The Maddy he knew, the Maddy he loved, was gone. And this stranger in front of him was empty. Empty of her fire and her passion and her loyalty, and he couldn’t … he just couldn’t believe that she was happy like this.

  “All this time, in my head, you were a fighter. You fought for me, fought to get out of that neighborhood. Fought to be who you are. You’re going to give up now?”

  “I can’t be the person you need me to be just because that’s the picture you have in your head. And I can’t talk about our past and have you
here in my present without thinking about the future. And there’s no future with you.”

  He stepped back. Again. Another step. There were no windows in this room. It felt like a coffin. On the far wall there was a poster of Maddy in a blue dress that looked sort of familiar. She was smiling.

  Mocking him.

  “I’ll tell Dom I won’t talk about our marriage.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I’m not doing this show.”

  “What?”

  “Sit for an hour and talk to you about my family? Tell you about where I grew up like you don’t know? What do you want from me, Maddy? I love you. I won’t edit you out of my past like you’ve done to me. I won’t.”

  “Billy, if you don’t do the show, I’m fired.”

  Her words echoed in the coffin and there was no way he heard her right. No way.

  “What?”

  “If you don’t do the show, I’ll lose my job.”

  “If you don’t do the show, I’ll lose my job.”

  She heard the hitch in his breath when it sank in.

  “Is that … Oh my god.” His laughter was razor sharp and both of them were sliced. “Is that why you slept with me?”

  “No.” That was emphatic. Making love with him had nothing to do with the show and everything to do with what was between them.

  He stepped back, tripping into a chair.

  She waited, braced herself for his rage. But he stared at her. Just stared. Until she couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “You started this, Billy,” she said, guilt making her angry. “You forced your way onto my show, and just because you got mad you think you have the right to walk away. The world doesn’t work that way! You owe me!”

  “Okay.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Okay. I’ll do the show.”

  He was forcing himself to stay calm, she could see it in his body, the way she’d seen it when they were kids and he resisted putting his fist in the face of every kid or adult who called him stupid.

  I just keep hurting you, she thought.

  “I love you,” he said, the words a curse, an epitaph. And even though she knew it, hearing him say it like that was shocking, painful, pricking her self-righteousness until it vanished. She couldn’t help flinching every time he said those words. “Do you get that, Maddy? I love you.”

  “I’m sorry, Billy. I’m so sorry.”

  His sigh turned to laughter, shallow and sad. “I know. And I’m sorry too, but I’m learning how to be honest with myself,” he said. “For the first time in my life, I’m fighting for what’s really important. You should try it.”

  He walked to the door, leaving her there, wasted.

  “Have your people call my people, or however the hell it works for you now.”

  “Billy—”

  “And then let’s just leave each other alone, okay? You’re right. It hurts too much.”

  Twenty-four years ago

  Billy ducked into his sisters’ bedroom. Even though his older sister, Janice, liked to pretend that she wasn’t bothered by the screaming downstairs, his younger sister, Denise, still got scared.

  And so did he. He wouldn’t say that out loud—he was twelve, for crying out loud—but the second he heard his dad’s voice, his whole body went cold and then hot and he started looking for a place to hide.

  And if things really went to shit downstairs, his sisters’ room had the window over the porch, so they could get out.

  “Hey—” He stopped, the door at his back, stunned to see that his sisters weren’t alone. “What’s she doing here?” he asked, pointing to the dark-haired girl sitting with Denise on her bed, looking like she was about to wet her pants and the faded pink quilt underneath her.

  Mom and Dad going at it in the kitchen had that effect on people.

  “Maddy’s here for a sleepover.” Denise said it like sleepovers were something that happened all the time at the Wilkins’ house.

  “Did Mom say it was okay?” He asked Janice. Denise would just lie.

  “She made cupcakes,” Janice said, exhaling toward the open window because Mom would kill her if she ever smelled smoke in the house. But ever since Janice had turned fifteen she acted like no one could touch her. She’d gotten hard around the edges and scary.

  “It’s the last Friday of the month,” he said, but Janice only shrugged. His dad’s disability check came in on the last Friday of every month and he crawled out of whatever hole he’d been drinking in to come home and get it. Which always resulted in a screaming match. Sometimes his mom and dad smacked each other around and sometimes Billy had to call the cops.

  Once he had to call the ambulance.

  All of those things would ruin a slumber party.

  “You want to go home?” he asked the girl, whom he suddenly recognized as Dougie’s daughter. Dougie was the janitor at the hockey arena and Billy thought he was too smart to have let his daughter spend the night over here. But his wife was one of those women who wanted to believe the best of people. She’d probably been the one to okay this stupid sleepover idea.

  “No, Maddy doesn’t want to go home!” Denise cried, clamping her hand down on Maddy’s leg, like a little kid claw. “We’re having fun!”

  Something shattered downstairs. They were throwing dishes. The sound of fun.

  “I was asking her.”

  “Don’t go,” Denise said to Maddy, who was so scared she was white-faced.

  “Yeah.” Janice was only sarcastic these days. Only mean. “Join the party.”

  “Should someone call the police?” Maddy asked him. Her eyes were pretty. Golden.

  “No.” He sat down on Janice’s bed, on the faded yellow flowers on the sheets. “That only makes them mad at us.”

  “What are they fighting about?” Maddy asked.

  Billy shrugged. “Everything. Money mostly.”

  There was a fleshy thud, a scream and the sound of something else breaking. Janice lit another cigarette and Denise started to cry.

  “They’re ruining my slumber party,” she whispered, tears plopping onto her hand-me-down Hello Kitty T-shirt.

  Billy didn’t know the first thing about saving slumber parties, so he hooked his thumb in the hole at the knee of his jeans. His mom would kill him for making it bigger, but she’d be busy for the next little while nursing whatever injuries his dad was currently creating down there.

  “I’ll braid your hair,” Maddy said and Denise’s tears dried right up. Apparently Maddy knew how to save a slumber party.

  Janice laughed from her perch in the windowsill.

  “I could braid yours, too,” Maddy said. God, she was out of place here. Like a bright new penny sitting in the mud. He had to give the girl credit—she was scared, but she was still here. Tough. Foolish, maybe, but there was something cool about that.

  “No thanks,” Janice sneered.

  “How about mine?” Billy said, running his hand over the crew cut his mother had given him a few days ago. Trying to make a joke.

  There weren’t enough jokes in the world to hide how gross his family was. How ugly. But he was glad when she played along.

  “Sure,” she said with a nervous smile. For a minute the fear lifted right up out of the room, and he could almost forget what was happening downstairs.

  But then the most terrifying sound in the world echoed through 12 Spruce.

  The sound of his dad’s work boots on the bottom step of the stairs.

  “Oh Jesus,” Janice said and put out her smoke before lifting the window all the way up.

  “What’s going on?” Maddy asked, her fingers still wrapped in Denise’s long hair.

  Scrambling to his feet, Billy walked over to Denise’s bed. Janice was already halfway out the window and onto the roof of the porch. From there, she would climb down the rusty rain gutter.

  “Listen,” he said to Maddy as he pulled Denise off the bed. “You have to climb out the window.”

>   “I don’t want to, Billy,” Denise said. “It’s scary.”

  “Yeah, well, so is Dad.”

  “He’s coming up here?” Maddy leapt off the bed.

  “Yeah, and if we just get out, it’s no big deal.” He hoped his big fake smile was enough to convince her. Denise was whimpering and crying as she climbed through the window, which didn’t help.

  “Trust me.” He squeezed Maddy’s hand, surprised when she squeezed back. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely,” he lied.

  His father’s footsteps were getting louder and Billy started to rush her, pushing Maddy over the splintered windowsill. Luckily it was summer and both of the girls had their shoes on. The sky was clear, the moon bright, practically lighting their way. Everything would be fine.

  “Billy!” his father cried, his voice clear now that he was on the steps. “Where’s your hockey money?”

  Billy froze. One foot out the window. No. No way. Not his hockey fees. He’d just made the rep league and there was no way his dad was taking that money. He’d been working all spring and summer cleaning gutters and mowing lawns. Walking Mrs. Monroe’s stupid dog.

  He climbed back into the room.

  “What are you doing?” Maddy grabbed onto his T-shirt.

  “He’ll go through my room,” he said. “He’ll find my money.”

  “But …” She was so scared and he felt bad, he did, but he couldn’t lose that money. “He’ll hurt you.”

  Probably. “It’s okay. Honestly. Climb down the rain spout and go on home. Don’t come back over here for anymore sleepovers.”

  He yanked himself away from the girl and jerked open the door just in time to see his dad opening the door to his room.

  “Hiding with your sisters?” His dad asked. He was drunk, but that wasn’t unusual. He had a cut on his forehead that was dripping blood down the side of his face. His mom must have got him with a plate.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “Minding her own goddamn business!” he yelled backward down the stairs. “I need some money, Billy.”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Bullshit.” He smiled, which was always more terrifying than when he yelled. Everyone said Billy looked just like his dad. Big, tall, thick brown hair, and dark brown eyes. A chip off the old block. A charmer, just like his father had been.