by M. E. Nesser
We took our coffee to go and had the driver take us to Greenwich Village, where the new loft was located. It was on the top floor of a magnificent building that had been recently refurbished. When I walked into the front foyer, I was blown away by the spectacular view from the panoramic windows overlooking New York. I knew I’d never tire of the city from this vantage point. I walked around slowly, taking in all of the new furniture and artwork that had been picked out for us. Spaces were left empty for me to add some of the artwork that I had planned to bring with me. The couches were soft and luxurious, upholstered in billowing Italian leather. There were fireplaces in every room, and the marble floors were a sage green that stood out dramatically against the light furniture. The dining set was made of deep mahogany wood, with intricate designs sculpted into the legs and the base. The kitchen was spacious, and I loved the emerald marble countertops. The kitchen cupboards were also mahogany, which made one room seem to flow into the other. When I walked into the master bedroom, I just stood there and smiled. The headboard on the massive bed featured a large, ornate mirror. Ian came from behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and kissed my neck.
“Like it?” he asked.
“”Whose idea was it to get a mirror?” I asked jokingly.
“That, my dear Katharine, was all my idea. I told Felicia that I thought a mirror would make the room look more spacious,” he laughed. Since the master suite could have housed a family of five, the appearance of space was clearly not the issue.
“And did she buy that explanation?” I asked as seriously as I could.
“Probably not, but she’s a consummate professional. And I’m paying her—she wouldn’t dare question my motives. I would have told her that I love watching myself making love to you in mirrors, but that really wasn’t information she needed to know. Should we test it out and see if it was a good idea or not?”
“Lead the way.”
For the most part, the move went smoothly. I absolutely loved the new place. It was spacious, beautifully decorated, and had a spectacular view of New York City. Even though I felt a lot of sadness leaving the home I shared with Bryce for so many years, I had no regrets moving forward. That was what was most important to me: believing the decision to marry Ian was the best one for me and for my son. I also thought it was important that we started our life together in a new environment. I think it helped that I didn’t sell my apartment. Renting it out seemed to make the transition easier on me emotionally. I called Jack to tell him all about it, and he said he was planning on coming home the following weekend to check it out. The condo had four bedrooms, so all of our children could have their own room. It didn’t take long for either of us to make it feel like our home. It was incredible how easy it was to fall into a comfortable routine. It felt like we had been together a lot longer than five months. I was very happy.
54
It was a new year, and I was happier than I could ever have imagined. I had a new home—which I shared with an amazing new wife. Life can be so unexpected sometimes. Katharine and I continued to work hard during the weekdays; that was the kind of people we were. At night, we took turns cooking dinner, cooked together, or went out. It all depended on our mood on any given day. We joked about retiring one day, but we knew it would probably never happen. We loved being in the game. Working hard was important to both of us.
On the weekends, however, we liked to play. We decided that we should make a conscious effort to keep things fresh. Katharine came up with the idea for us to try to do something different every weekend. Sometimes, it was as simple as seeking out a new hot dog vendor. Other times, we would go to a museum or a park. We had thought it would be fun to discover new adventures together, and it was proving to be a blast. If we couldn’t figure out anything else to do, we would find a new place to have sex. That was always one of my favorite ideas.
Before we knew it, it was March, and spring was here. New York City really came alive in the spring; it was probably my favorite time of the year. More people roamed the streets. The trees in Central Park started filling in. There were more birds chirping, and the days were longer and brighter. Things were going great until the day I received a frantic call from Sara.
“Dad, it’s Mom. She’s in the hospital. She tried to kill herself—she overdosed on pills. I need you. Can you please come?” she begged me.
“I’m on my way, sweetheart. Don’t worry. Your mother will be all right. She’s a strong woman. Where are you?” I asked her.
I called my driver and met Sara in the emergency room at Queens Hospital Center. I was able to get there fairly quickly. I was much more worried about Sara than I was about Monica. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even given Monica a fleeting thought. Why would she try to kill herself? That didn’t make any sense to me at all. She had her pretty boyfriend, she didn’t work, and I gave her plenty of money. I couldn’t imagine what kind of stress she could possibly have in her life. When I got to the hospital, Sara was sitting by herself, sobbing. She jumped up and ran into my arms when I walked into the room.
“Ok, honey, calm down and breathe. Tell me what happened,” I said quietly.
“I guess she saw a picture of you and Katharine at some event, and it sent her over the edge. Em and I never told her you guys got married, and I don’t think Mom even knew you were dating anyone. I don’t know—maybe we should have told her. But we were afraid she might try to harass you guys or something. We didn’t want Katharine to have to deal with any of Mom’s crap. Besides, we figured it was none of her business, since she treated you like shit. The caption she saw in the paper said something about how one of the most eligible bachelors in New York was no longer on the market because he had married one of the most beautiful and respected attorneys in the city, blah blah blah, and Mom saw it and went mental! She took a crap ton of pills, and her creepy boy toy found her unconscious on the bedroom floor a couple hours ago. He called nine one one, and then he called me. And here I am. He’s with her in the room, so I thought I’d wait for you here. I can’t stand being around him. The nurse said they pumped her stomach and are just waiting for her to wake up.”
Once Sara got all of that out in what sounded like one giant sentence, she started crying into my chest. I held her for a few minutes, stroking her hair like I had when she was a little girl. No matter how I felt about Monica, I didn’t want her to die. Plus, I needed to be there for my girls. There was no way I was going to leave them to deal with this on their own.
“I’d like to see if I could get some more information, sweetheart. Come here and sit down so I can find someone to talk to.” I walked her over to a chair, made her sit down, and put my coat around her shoulders—she was shaking uncontrollably. I went up to the nurse’s station and explained who I was. She said that she would send the doctor to the waiting room once he was finished examining Ms. Jensen. Dear Lord, it never occurred to me that she had kept my name. I wondered why. So she’d have the last name of her daughters? No, she’d never really cared about them. It was probably just to keep up appearances. She was such a bitch. OK, now was not the time to think like that. I needed to be rational. Now was the time to be compassionate. Sara and Emily needed my support, not my frustration with my ex-wife.
The doctor approached us solemnly and said that Ms. Jensen had indeed overdosed on prescription pills. I briefly wondered what the hell she needed pills for in the first place. Although they had been able to flush some of the toxins out of her stomach, there was still a dangerous amount present in her system. She hadn’t been found until several hours after she’d ingested the pills, so quite a bit of damage was still possible. Sara started sobbing again. Even though their relationship was extremely strained, Monica was her mother. I held her close and asked the doctor what the prognosis was. He said that we had to wait for her to wake up and see how her brain was functioning: brain damage was the primary concern at this point. The doctor asked if we had any idea why she had done this—her boyfriend seem
ed to be completely in the dark.
“She found out that Dad got married again, and she totally and completely freaked,” Sara blurted out.
“Well, it’s a waiting game for now. We had to put her in a drug-induced coma, and we’ll keep her there for the next forty-eight hours to let the swelling in her brain settle down. Once we take her out of that state, we need to hope she wakes up on her own and still has a healthy, functioning brain, ” the doctor explained. “We’ll let you know if anything changes. Make sure the nurses have all of your contact numbers.” And he walked away. We called Emily and told her that she should probably come home. Her first response to the news was “God, she is such a drama queen!” When she heard that brain damage was possible, however, she felt bad and said she’d head back to the city as soon as possible.
I called Katharine and told her what had happened. She was very sympathetic and understood why I needed to be there for the girls. She offered to come, but I told her it was unnecessary. The next couple days were long and ridden with anxiety. The boyfriend was a nice enough guy, but not the brightest bulb in the pack. He had a difficult time understanding the explanations the doctor gave us. After the doctor finished with his daily report of her brain scans and vital statistics, I had to translate everything in terms he could understand. It was a little frustrating, but I wanted to keep things as calm as possible for my daughters. It was obvious that he loved Monica, and I was glad for that. It still pained me to be around him, since it was her infedility with him that led to the demise of our marriage. I’m not sure I’ll ever know what motivated her to cheat on me, but it was still difficult. No matter how much I loved Katharine, Monica was the mother of my children. We had a connection that would always be there, regardless of how the marriage ended.
The girls begged me to stay with them, but by day three, Katharine was getting annoyed that I was spending so much time at the hospital. After the way Monica had treated me, she couldn’t believe I was putting my life on hold for this woman. She insisted the girls meet her every day for lunch at a restaurant close to the hospital—she wanted to be sure they were eating. She also insisted that they sleep at our place every night. Getting run down or sick wasn’t going to help their mother, she insisted. Both girls had contacted their professors and were able to keep up with their studies online. Sara and Emily were both excellent students, so the professors were very understanding. Thank God for modern technology—it made it pretty easy for them to keep up with their work. Things were strained between Katharine and I, but I couldn’t help it. Monica was the mother of my children. That was something I couldn’t change and didn’t want to. Without her, I wouldn’t have Sara and Emily, and they were my world.
It wasn’t until the seventh day that Monica started to wake up. The four of us were having a glass of wine after dinner and talking about schoolwork when the call came in. The three of us jumped up as soon as we got the news. I called my driver immediately, and we rushed to the hospital. I barely said anything to Katharine as I left, which I didn’t realize until I had gotten into the car. I just wanted to know that my ex was OK so we could put this behind us and move on.
When we walked into the room, she looked angry. It was definitely not the look we were expecting. We assumed she’d be groggy and confused, sleepy, or maybe even disorientated. That was not the case at all. The girls were thrilled she was awake, but she completely ignored them.
“How dare you get married again!” she screamed at me.
“Welcome back, Monica. Nice to see you again, too,” I said with zero affect.
“Answer me, you jackass! I asked you a question. How dare you get married again?” she repeated.
“My marriage is none of your business. Our daughters have been extremely worried about you, Monica. That was a foolish thing for you to do,” I said calmly. I knew my neutral response would piss her off even more, and I didn’t care in the least.
“Don’t be all reasonable and sensible with me, Ian Jensen. You betrayed me. You knew I’d come back to you. You had no right to marry another woman. You made vows to me. Remember? You promised to love me for better or worse, and you broke those vows. You are a heartless man. I can’t even remember why I ever fell in love with you in the first place. But I had planned to forgive you, because we made a vow. You had no right to marry that woman. That wasn’t part of the deal we made,” she yelled.
“I disagree, Monica. You broke our vows when you jumped in bed with muscle man over there. Infidelity was not part of the deal we made. You destroyed those vows years ago. There isn’t a chance in hell that I would ever accept you back into my life again. Why don’t you be a good mommy and say hello to your girls? It’s been a difficult week for them.”
“Go to hell, you bastard. And as for those two, they betrayed me just like you did—they abandoned me and went off to live with you. I washed my hands of both the girls years ago; I had to. You poisoned them with lies and took them away from me. Now look at them. What kinds of daughters choose to live with their father over their mother? I’ll tell you. Spoiled ones. They haven’t given me a second thought since you all deserted me. Why should I give a rat’s ass how they feel now?” she blurted out.
Sara left the room sobbing uncontrollably. Emily stood there frozen for a minute before she said, “We were genuinely concerned for your welfare, Mother, but you have no right to speak to any of us this way. I’d like to say I’m sorry this happened to you, but I’m not. You deserve every bad thing that happens in your life.” And with that, Emily left the room, too. I was so proud of what a strong woman she had become. That had to have been very difficult to say, but she had remained poised and direct.
I followed her out and leaned against the wall. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. At that moment, I couldn’t remember how or why I had fallen in love with this hateful woman. She was spiteful and selfish, and part of me was sorry she hadn’t been successful in her suicide attempt. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the girls were hugging. Sara kept saying “she’s so horrible,” over and over again. My heart was bleeding for them. I walked over to them, put my arms around them both, and told them it was time to go home.
55
I felt like I was participating in an afternoon reality show. My husband was at his ex-wife’s beck and call, without a moment’s thought of how it made me feel. It was as if I didn’t exist. He simply bolted out of here without any consideration. I couldn’t believe it. It had been an excruciatingly long week with the three of them at the hospital all of the time. I tried to be as understanding as possible, but it became more difficult every day. Ian was very quiet all week, and I know he was worried for the girls, but our connection was severely strained. We went several days without having sex, which hadn’t happened since we’d met. I was confused. Monica hurt him deeply, and he was posting vigil by her side. What the fuck was that about?
They got back to the condo at 11:30 p.m., and I was in bed. When Ian came into the bedroom, I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want to start a fight, I didn’t care how Monica was, and I was too hurt to have a conversation with him at this point. He walked to my side of the bed, and I could sense that he was leaning over me. I felt him brush a strand of hair off my face and kiss my forehead. I heard him whisper, “I love you, Katharine,” and walk away. Tears slid down my face, but I said nothing and tried to stay as quiet as possible. It took a while, but at some point, I fell asleep.
I got up before the rest of the family the next morning, put on my workout clothes, and snuck out of the house with a change of clothes for work. I didn’t have the energy to talk about Monica anymore. I called a friend at the hospital for an update, and she said Monica was recovering nicely. I actually called this friend several times throughout the past week so I didn’t have to discuss Monica with Ian or the girls. Oh great, she was going to be fine. I was running on the treadmill and listening to loud music when I saw that Ian was calling me. Oh shit, what was I going to do? I sent the call to voicemail. I needed this
workout, and I didn’t have the energy to talk to him.
I felt a lot better after running a few miles. I took a hot shower and headed off to work. I thought about calling Ian back, but then I decided that I was still too pissed off; I would deal with it later. I turned my phone off and focused on catching up on the work I had missed thanks to all of the Monica distractions. I needed to think about something else, and work was the only thing that could help me regroup and put things into perspective. At 10:30 a.m., Suzie said Ian was on line one. I couldn’t keep avoiding him, so I took the call.
“Morning, Ian,” I said quietly and with some hesitation.
“Hey there, counselor. You avoiding me?”
“Not exactly. I just needed to distance myself from all of this Monica drama.”
“Are you sure that’s all?” he asked.
“I can’t talk now. I have a lot of work to catch up on. I got behind the past week spending so much time with the girls. I’ll talk to you later.” I didn’t give him a chance to respond; I hung up the phone and felt like crying. This was crazy. Why was I sad? I should have been pissed off. I should have told him how much he’d hurt me. I should have chastised him for spending so much time by the side of the woman who had ripped their family apart. God, I was such a coward sometimes. I wanted to call him back, but this was a discussion that needed to happen in person. It would have to wait until tonight.
I did feel guilty about running out on the girls, so I sent them a text letting them know that I was here if they needed me, and that I was glad to hear that their mother was going to be OK. Emily thanked me for all of my support and said she was on her way back to school. Sara thanked me for being a better mom than her “bitch-troll horrible excuse for a mom could ever be” and told me that she loved me. What the hell had happened last night?
