At first, we didn’t know what was happening to him. It started with a pins-and-needles feeling in his extremities, followed by loss of muscle coordination and strange muscle spasms, and I was nervous enough that I didn’t want him picking up the kids after a while. Bad enough to lose a gallon of milk in the driveway while carrying it from the car to the house. I didn’t want the same fate for my children. When Darren finally realized his condition wasn’t improving, I was able to talk him into going to the doctor. He had to undergo one test after another, and he didn’t go as often as he should for fear of losing his job. After some time, though, we realized he wasn’t getting any better, and—by the time he was alternating between using a walker and a wheelchair—I had gotten a desk job with a government agency in our little town and my husband resigned from his job. He didn’t have much in the way of disability benefits through his job, but what was worse was that what was going on with him was considered a pre-existing condition by the insurance I had obtained through my new job, so we had to keep his old insurance, and it was expensive.
We had no choice, though.
Sometime after both kids were in school, we found out he had multiple sclerosis. The diagnosis was something of a relief, because then we knew what we were up against; we knew what we had to fight. Before, we’d been grasping at straws, praying that the next test would reveal the enemy inside his body.
The last several years, he had intensive treatments, where he’d be hooked up to an IV for several hours at a time. They were draining, but he swore by them. Throughout all those years, I wound up holding part-time jobs in addition to the day job to make sure not only were his treatments and medications paid for, but I needed to find a way to pay the regular bills and also make sure my kids had everything they needed.
We never had a new car.
We rarely ate out.
We wore used clothing, purchased from thrift stores—all except underwear and socks—and the kids usually got new shoes too. We never had more than basic cable, and all our books came from the library.
We ate a lot of ramen.
My parents and his parents helped when they could, but I hated to ask for it. As it was, they would pitch in for the occasional car repair or when something broke that I just couldn’t afford to have fixed, like the time the water heater in our house had to be replaced. Other times, though, I’d buy used appliances and pray they’d last until I could afford another one.
We moved back to my old home town, too, just so I could have a support system. It was, some days, the only way I was able to make it.
No, this wasn’t the life I’d dreamed of for myself. No, I was going to be an actress. I’d gone to school for it, in spite of my parents’ wishes not to. But getting pregnant before leaving school hindered me from doing anything at that time. Darren and I had talked about it, and I was going to get back into acting once the kids were in school. That had always been the plan, but by the time his illness had come on hard, I couldn’t even try out for a community theater play. And the problem, I discovered, with earning a liberal arts degree in something like theater is that you can’t land a job that pays really well. My day job was better than minimum wage, but it was one that didn’t require a college degree. No one gave a shit that I had charisma onstage or that I was a solid character actress. They only wanted to know if I could type at least 40 WPM and answer a phone politely.
I could.
So the job I got was better than a lot of jobs I could have been stuck with. I had modest benefits as well, but I wasn’t getting rich. I applied for promotions when I could and got raises with them, but we were still struggling, still scraping by at the time my husband’s soul left this earth.
He passed just as my son was finishing his senior year in college. We’d suspected it was near, but no matter how well you think you’ve prepared for a loved one to leave the earth, you really aren’t. It was devastating. I was grateful that my son was going to be home for the summer, and I think I might have even said that to him. It was nice to have the kids around to help keep my mind off the emptiness. It felt odd to not have to do things for my husband. In a way, it was a huge relief, this vacuum left by his death, but I never would have said that out loud, especially not around my children.
I didn’t file for bankruptcy, although I might have been able to, considering his medical bills near the end were outrageous. The plus in the entire scheme of things was that my kids qualified for good financial aid, and so, even though they’d have to take out student loans, they wouldn’t have to be burdened by too many. And, after another year of working two jobs, I no longer needed to and quit the part-time one. That was the beginning of summer, just before my daughter graduated from high school.
One more summer with my kids, only this time, when they weren’t working their summer jobs, they and I did lots of things together. We went to the movies, went out to eat on occasion, went to visit the grandparents.
And now they were gone, back to school again, only my son was working on a master’s degree now.
I’d been feeling empty since late August when they’d left, and I’d taken to sitting on the porch again.
I almost wished I had a cigarette.
I’d smoked for a lot of those years. It had been a dumb decision, really, but I’d justified it at the time. Smoking seemed to be beneficial—it helped me stay awake when I needed to work extra hours; it helped curb my appetite so I wouldn’t eat as much and the kids could have more food; it seemed to keep me calm and on an even keel, especially at times when I thought I was going to crumble. But Darren had begged me to quit, hadn’t wanted me to slowly kill myself.
Which was probably in reality what I’d been doing. Oh, I’d wanted to believe I was a strong woman, but I was really collapsing under the weight of it all. Cigarettes were a slow death, a legal one, and I’d still be able to see my kids to adulthood. But my husband’s words made sense and, coupled with the requests from my kids, I agreed and fought through withdrawal to give them up.
I learned then that maybe I was stronger than I’d given myself credit for.
But since the kids had left for college again, I’d taken to sitting on the porch once more, the place where I used to suck down a quick smoke before heading in the house to do a load of laundry before hitting the hay or before I’d wash the dishes with the kids’ help before heading to the second job. So this porch and I had a long history. I felt comfortable there, usually more comfortable than I did inside. The porch was my place. I’d be out there when it was one-hundred-one degrees and the sun had been beating down or in the dead of winter when the snow was ankle deep and the biting wind was blowing, slashing at my face. It was my spot, my haven, the one place where I could be by myself before being a mother, wife, worker, and housekeeper. Inside used to be filled with laughing kids or, later on, studying kids, kids on the phone or kids fighting over who got to use our shared laptop. And it had usually also been filled with my husband, whose life slowly wasted away, year after year as he got sicker and sicker.
Yes, I felt much better outside.
The vibes tonight, though, were strange. There was something in the air, something I couldn’t put my finger on.
I was too weary to worry, too sad to care. It was mid-October, and I wouldn’t see my kids till Thanksgiving. All I had was me, my memories, and my crushed dreams, and I wasn’t sure how to pick up the pieces so I could finish living my life. I hoped contemplating in my spot would give me some answers.
It had to at some point.
Other books by Jade C. Jamison:
The Nicki Sosebee Series
The character Nicki developed out of Jade’s need to read a strong heroine, and do we mean strong! Nicki has a sailor mouth and can keep up in that department with her rough-and-tough best friend, Sean Ramsey. And don’t get her started talking about sexual freedom. She’s all about it. Granted, it stemmed from a lost opportunity at love (with said best friend), but she appreciates sex as much as any man ever thought
of. She’s still finding her way through life too, but she’s figuring it out.
Got the Life (Nicki Sosebee #1)
Nicki Sosebee wants her first headline, but she doesn’t want it to read “Reporter found dead.”
Nicki Sosebee has been working low-paying jobs ever since she finished school, but now that she’s older, she wants more. She’s a novice reporter trying to learn the ropes. Just as she’s getting her career goals on track, though, her love life gets worse and worse. Sure, she has no problems picking up good-looking guys for brief flings, but relationships? Out of the question. Maybe it’s because Sean, her gorgeous best friend, just can’t see her as more than a buddy. So when Sean encourages her as she pursues her first headline-producing story, Nicki realizes that her life’s pretty sweet…if only she can live long enough to see tomorrow’s front page.
Finger Bang
Orgasmic Meditation? Therapeutic?! Kaylee Baker is horrified when her girlfriends suggest a trip to artsy Boulder, Colorado, to check out the latest craze. What her friends don’t know about Kaylee is that she is a little repressed, bordering on frigid, and the idea of a complete stranger bringing her to orgasm—therapeutic or not—is horrifying.
Blaze Donahue has admired Kaylee from afar for quite some time, and part of the reason he’s kept his distance is because he’s had no indication that she might even be interested. But when he’s given the opportunity to offer her his own version of OM with no strings attached, he makes an offer she has a hard time refusing.
When there are undeniable sparks between the two, Kaylee runs, afraid of the overwhelming feelings she has for this gorgeous, sensitive guy. Blaze feels compelled to convince her otherwise but wonders if he’ll be able to crack through the ice surrounding this sweet girl. Can they find true love or will it just be a one-time O?
And more! Jade just won’t shut up!
You might also enjoy these
BOOKS BY JADE C. JAMISON
Substitute Boyfriend
Finger Bang
Quickies: Sexy Short Stories and Other Stuff
Old House
Then Kiss Me
MADversary
Worst Mother
Fabric of Night
Stating His Case
TANGLED WEB SERIES
1 Tangled Web: A Steamy Heavy Metal Novella
2 Everything But
Punctured, Bruised, and Barely Tattooed (companion novel)
3 Seal All Exits
BULLET SERIES
1 Bullet: An Epic Rock Star Novel
2 Rock Bottom
3 Feverish
4 Fully Automatic
NICKI SOSEBEE SERIES
1 Got the Life
2 Dead
3 No Place to Hide
4 Right Now
5 One More Time
6 Lost
7 Innocent Bystander
8 Blind
9 Fake
WISHES SERIES
1 Be Careful What You Wish For
COMING IN 2015:
Savage
Christmas Stalkings (Bullet #4.5)
Boiling Point (Feverish #1.5)
Stalk me! I don’t bite (well, not too hard anyway)!
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