by Leanne Davis
“Yeah?” my tone is guarded, bordering on rude, which prompts Melissa to speak now that she stands near me.
“I think you did the right thing. You need to branch out a bit. Live a little and find your own place in the world. I worried about you. You hadn’t tried life out before you settled on a lifestyle. If you have these doubts now, then look at all the grief and confusion you can avoid later.”
I’m dumbfounded by her support. She smiles softly and pretends to punch the side of my arm. She adds, “That was right up there with some of my stunts. You might have even topped mine. Thank you. And good job.”
I don’t mean to smile but a small laugh escapes my mouth. I immediately stifle it, knowing it’s so inappropriate considering all the people I disappointed and inconvenienced. From all the guests who flew or drove in from out of town, many coming from California, to the lavish expenses my parents shelled out, and most of all, to the man I hurt the worst.
She hugs me.
I glance towards my parents. “I plan to pay back every cent you spent on the wedding.”
They exchange a glance. Mom sighs. “We aren’t angry with you. We’re not sure what we are. We were stupefied. At first, we thought something bad happened to you, so maybe, we were angry from worry. But then again, we figured you must have run. You! Something we never considered. You seemed so calm and ready for this next step in your life. I didn’t detect even a smidgeon of doubt from you. Looking back, it is kind of odd for a young bride, and probably should have been a huge warning sign. You were too prepared.”
“And too fine,” Dad agrees.
I nod. “Yes, I see now I was fine because it didn’t mean anything to me. I mean, it meant something, but it was more like a new sense of responsibility and not what it should have been.”
A weird quiet ensues. No one knows how to respond. I’m surprised no one is mad at me. It’s almost like a let-down. I should have been off enjoying my honeymoon and we should have all been exhausted from a huge celebration. Instead, I’m exactly in the same spot I was yesterday. Single college graduate and unemployed. But also unmarried. I really feel good to not be married. The relief over that fact nearly shames me, it feels so good. “So… how’s the food?” I manage to ask.
Christina barks with laughter and walks over to me, hooking her arm around my shoulder, even though she’s shorter than me. “It’s fabulous. You picked the caterer well. Have something.”
“No. I think I’ll go clean up and prepare to face Harrison. I doubt he’ll take it with the same odd, slightly confused, but mostly supportive calmness I received from all of you.”
“No, probably not,” Dad says. “Just remember, if it felt wrong yesterday, it would have been much more wrong in the future.”
Heartened by his words, I enter the bathroom I used to share with both of my sisters. Now, I’m the only one using it. I moved back home from college after graduation two weeks ago. It was all so tidy. Harrison and I graduated from four years of college at the same time, excelling in our respective majors and moving our stuff back home to Ellensburg, with the wedding scheduled two weeks later. I think about our one-week honeymoon to be spent in Mazatlán, Mexico, and it seems so ironic now after meeting Ramiro. After returning home, we planned to stay with my parents for just two weeks until the small duplex we intended to rent would be ready. Harrison got a job with a company who supplies farmers with organic seeds. But the pay is dismal. I hadn’t yet landed a job but had applied around town. So, even as I was getting married, I still had no idea what my actual job was going to be, let alone any career I might have.
Now back in my normal clothes and no makeup, I pull my hair into a low ponytail, and prepare to see Harrison with a wave to my family. Everyone is subdued. It’s an extraordinary sensation.
Even more confusion swirls around my head as I drive to Harrison’s. Who am I? Who am I supposed to be, and who do I want to be? How do I discover whom or what I should be and pursue it? Why aren’t there any clear markers leading the way? Where is the divine calling that this is what I should do or be or act like? Now I feel very loose, set free and all I can do is stand here, flailing my arms in the air, asking, what do I do now?
I pull into the split-level house that Harrison’s family owns. My stomach churns. I knock on the front door, my palms slick with sweat caused by the nerves that keep my heart pounding.
He opens the door. His hair is messed up like he was lying down or running his hands through it. He stares at me with hollow eyes until they fill with hate. “So you weren’t kidnapped.”
“No.” I shake my head and force myself to keep my chin up, refusing to allow my sorrow to show. It would be so easy to fall into a poor-me-pity-party for wronging Harrison. I want to apologize with as much dignity and sincerity as I feel. I doubt it will ameliorate his hatred. I expect he may never forgive me. It makes my heart clench in regret, but I also understand that is most likely the new reality.
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
I swallow, taken aback when he denies me entrance. But I accept it with a wilting of my shoulders.
“Okay,” I say, holding his cold stare. I flinch but don’t react when he looks at me. “I’m sorry, Harrison. For humiliating you. For not showing up. For not being braver. For leaving. For everything I did. Mostly, for not realizing sooner that I couldn’t marry you.”
He steps out of the house towards me. His hand comes up and he puts it on my sternum between my breasts and pushes me back. I have to take a step to keep my balance. I’m surprised to find his hand on me. I’m shocked how quickly and harshly he touches me, keeping his hand now flat on my chest. It isn’t a violent touch, but full of pressure and the anger emanating from his face is enough to make my pulse race. I’m equally shocked by how much I detest his hand on me without my permission. No matter how sorry I am, I feel a rising swell of anger and have to bite my tongue to keep from saying don’t touch me.
He taps my chest. “How dare you? How dare you do that to me? You left me standing there like a fucking imbecile! Waiting for you like some kind of pussy-assed shmuck and you don’t even show up?”
“I—I wanted to, I just panicked and ran without thinking.” I stumble over my words. My breath feels labored as humiliation, nerves, and regret wash over me. I have never heard Harrison sound like this. I glance up. His temple is throbbing and his jaw is locked as his neck muscles looked bunched up and about to pop through his skin. I step back feeling almost scared. I mean I know he won’t hurt me physically. But it’s the first time in my entire life I’m convinced someone wants to, and it shakes me to my core.
“There is nothing you can ever do to make up for what you did, you stupid bitch.”
“I understand.” I keep my tone low and hold his glare. I don’t drop my head. I grab his hand with mine. We are now almost holding hands as our fists battle together. I manage to knock his hand off me and reply, “If you ever want to discuss it, I’ll talk to you. If you need answers, I’ll give them to the best of my ability. I’m sorry. It wasn’t all a lie. You were my first love but something between us waned over time and I didn’t recognize it. Not until that moment at the church. I was so used to us that I didn’t question it. I will never be able to tell you how sorry I am for allowing it to go so far as it did.”
His jaw clenches and his face turns red. I back up. I’m not really afraid, but I want to get away from him. I’ve never caused that kind of rage in anyone. I see an inferno building inside him. I had to come here, knowing it would do no good. He glares at me long and hard and then, in a low, tight voice through gritted teeth, he says, “I don’t ever want to see you again, you bitch.”
I nod. Tears burn my eyes but I refuse to let them fall. “Understood.” I turn on my heel and walk away. Bitch. That’s the only word to describe my actions and behavior towards him. I can’t imagine how many times he, his family, and his friends will call me that. My ears practically sting when I picture how the entire town will remember me
. I’ve tainted all the years that Harrison and I spent together. So many happy years of our youth. I wish, so dearly now, that I ended it a year ago, or two years ago, whenever I realized things were different, when we became complacent. We became better companions and friends than lovers. Long ago, I lost my passion for him. I feel it now after facing his unmasked hatred. It hurts, yes. My heart squeezes in guilt and shame, but I won’t have any lingering pain or anguish over what I’ve lost.
As I get into my car, the tears start falling, and I sigh with huge relief. I’m so glad I’m escaping him that I’m leaving. I’m so gone. I know it’s wrong, but I feel an overwhelming sense of liberation and escape. I got away. I’m free. This weird rush of independence and liberty assaults my senses as my car accelerates and I merge onto the interstate. I increase the speed to match the racing of my heart. I’m going nowhere in particular. Away from here. Away from Ellensburg. Away from it all because I don’t want to be here now. I don’t want to be near Harrison or my home or the town in which I know everyone.
I have no idea what I’m going to do tomorrow. Or the next day. For the first time in my life, I have no plans, no goals, no missions, no routine, no sports. No nothing.
I’m terrified and exhilarated and yet, perhaps for the first time in my entire life, I’ve never felt younger or freer.
My tears dry and I lower the windows on my car to let the pleasantly warm air fill my lungs. I let it all go and leave it behind. I acted strictly for myself and I think it was the right thing to do. Where it will lead or what I will do now, I have no idea, but I’m sure I have no other course to follow.
As I turn up the music and accelerate beyond the speed limit, the wind rushes over me as I tune out and forget. I feel like me and I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I’ve ever had that happen.
Chapter Six
~Emily~
I wake up the next morning after my confrontation with Harrison and find myself with not a damn thing to do. My chest is heavy with regrets and sadness and guilt. The freeing feeling of yesterday is gone and replaced by the reality I now have to live with: that I have no idea what to do with my life. Feeling blue by the time dinner comes around I casually listen as mom and dad are discussing his recent influx in work and the scarcity of workers. I pick my fork up and loop the spaghetti noodle around it and then dip it back down, pulling the stringy noodles up and down out of boredom, watching them stretch and pull like elastic rubber bands
“We’re going to be slammed this summer with the predicted heat and drought. Orders for air conditioning are through the roof. Which is great but I’m going to have to start turning them away if I can’t get enough help.”
I lift my head up off my hand. I’d rudely had my elbows resting on the table. “What kind of work?”
“Mostly it’s the grunt work where I can’t keep people. Materials handling and delivery, assisting in maintenance, and generally being where we need when we say.”
I stare at my dad. He’s already turned back to my mom. “I raised the wage on the position and still I can’t keep anyone in it. It’s like people think they should start out doing my job without ever once figuring out the beginning positions to get here, you know? Like they come out of school and don’t get they have to start at the bottom before they can work their way up.”
My eyebrows wrinkle down. I just came out of school. I have been applying for work all over town… and Dad needs someone?
What the hell? Why not me? Why didn’t he ask me? Or me him? Why the hell wouldn’t any of us take advantage of this? I then ask, my tone almost timid, “Could I do it?”
He’s startled by my interruption. He stares at me with his mouth slightly askew and shrugs. “Not sure you’d want to. I don’t need anyone in the office.”
I sit up straighter. Well, sure because my dad hires out most of the office work to a bookkeeper and he’s never kept anyone on to answer phones. He and his crew do all their own secretarial work in the office. I frown directly into his face. “I didn’t ask about the office,” I said. “I asked about the job you were just describing and which you recently raised the pay and which I could do.”
He smirks. “It’s hard, unglamorous, and dirty and you have to be willing to crawl into tight spots.”
I push back from the table and cross my arms over my chest. “Oh, really? Don’t you think I just listened to that? I need a job, Dad. You have an opening. I’m a hard worker, and I’m strong, I’m smart, and I learn on my feet really fast, especially if I am shown how to do something. Why not me? At least you know I won’t bail on you or not show up because I don’t feel like working.”
He’s dumbfounded. His mouth seems to flap open and shut. Finally he says, “You make some valid points. I never considered you’d want to do this.”
“No. You haven’t.”
His eyebrows quirk downwards as he adds, “Neither did you ask to. Not once in all these years, Emily.”
“No. I didn’t. But I’m recently graduated and I can’t find a job and I need to repay you for my wedding and I need to do something, right now, with my time.” Or I just might go crazy, lose my mind, or start counting tiles on the bathroom floor. I’m desperate for something to occupy my mind and my hands to keep me from obsessing over the pathetic state of my life.
He nods. “Fair enough. Okay. Yes. Emily Hendricks, consider yourself employed.” He holds out his hand and I put mine into his and we shake on it.
Nerves ripple through me as I lay on my bed that night. What the hell did I just do? Agree to what? Go out and crawl around putting together ductwork? I have no freaking idea how to do it or what it’ll entail. My dad simply warned me to wear grubby clothes and leather boots.
I have no idea even how to manage a drill gun. I’ve never spent any time with my dad on his job or out in his shop when he’s been working. I don’t know anything about working with my hands or even the most basic of tools. I don’t even remember ever using a hammer to nail together anything, and shit, a hammer would be an easy tool. How the hell do I think I’m going to make it working on a construction site? Either commercial or residential, I have zero experience. I don’t even know anything about what Dad does all day. I’ve spent the last four years reading and studying and writing papers, being intellectual. I learned and grew and expanded, but I still know less about how to actually work than many sixteen-year-olds. All that knowledge will be squat to what I’m going to start tomorrow.
Nerves ripple through me, making me uncomfortable as I follow my dad towards my very first task on the very first day of my new job. He’s working on installing a new heat pump at someone’s house. They’re preparing to pour a slab of concrete for it to sit on, then they’ll work on attaching it to the existing ductwork of the house. They’ll be working on this all week. And here I come. He has one other installer helping him. My job begins with me running back and forth between them as they are yelling to each other from separate spaces and trying to figure out how to retrofit the unit. I take them tools, after they describe them to me. I drive the company truck back to Dad’s shop three times over the course of the day to grab tools they need. I also get called on to drive materials out to another construction site, this one a new construction of a small realtor’s office. Every single thing I do, besides perhaps driving the truck, is brand new to me. Every tool and material is new, let alone any knowledge of what to do with those tools, materials, and the machinery they are installing or fixing.
Totally spent, I fall on my bed when I get home. I don’t even bother to remove my boots or clothes and fall into a deep sleep.
And thus starts my strange, unexpected new life. I have never worked this hard. Not one day in college was as hard for me as one day as my dad’s warehouse manager. That’s my actual job title. Once free of the install of the house heat pump he takes me to the warehouse and small offices of Hendricks’ HVAC. I learn where everything is stored and kept and how inventory is checked out. How to load it on the truck or flatbed, depending on
which is necessary to haul materials. I’m to be responsible for keeping it all neat, tidy, and in order. I excel at that. What I don’t excel at is having a damn clue what the installers or workers actually ask for. It takes weeks of them describing it to me or sending me pictures as I begin to learn what is what. Beyond this responsibility of supplying all the jobs they have going on and keeping them up to date with tools and necessary equipment, I also go anywhere and everywhere extra hands are needed. I do whatever the lead person requires. My days vary widely and because it’s all so hard and foreign to me, I concentrate with all my heart and consequently, my days fly by. At night I’m so exhausted that I face plant into bed and can barely rouse myself to eat dinner.
What it does is free me from my life. I work so long and hard that my ruined wedding, ruined life, even Harrison’s hurt and humiliation that I caused fade into the recesses of my mind. My emotions become buried simply because I’m too busy to take the time to let them fester. And honestly? I revel in the escape. I don’t want to analyze what led me to that wedding and more importantly what led me out of it. I just want to be. And for once in my life I’m doing that, while also managing to support myself.
I still have so much to learn: from small things like the names of screws and their sizes, to large ones such as the type of equipment we install, and how to read and execute the design specifications for them. The precise measurements and steps are long and complicated. The work is both heavy and dirty and demanding, but also super technical and almost delicate in how to configure them.
What I also experience is a lot of one-on-one time with my dad. As the front man for his company, Dad deals first with all his clients, from average homeowners to big general contractors. He’s currently working on a new addition to the local university as well as some simple maintenance for our neighbors. He always has to be both friendly and knowledgeable in order to converse with both avenues successfully. He can convey his ideas to any layperson who knows nothing about construction, as well as explain the codes and latest equipment to the foreman of a commercial contractor.
