Statistic

by Dawn Robertson

  “I can get you the number for child services, but I don’t have that kind of pull Aurora.” Jackson says as he starts thumbing through some numbers in his phone.

  “Get them on the line. I want him in my care when I am finally released from this shithole.” I demand. Maybe romance isn’t in the cards for me. Maybe I just need to focus on helping this little boy get on with his life now that he has been abandoned in life. I need to help him. Keep him from turning into the same kind of monster his father became.

  Or at least this time I would really die trying.

  Jackson

  A long time ago, I met and fell in love with the most wonderful woman in the world. She was everything my mother always said a woman should be. Loving, patient, nurturing and most of all, she dealt with my shit. And boy did I give her a lot of that.

  I never thought I would have to walk this world alone. But when she left, that is exactly what I have had to do. Each day.

  From that day on I tried to replace her. Repeatedly.

  Nothing worked.

  Nobody could match her.

  My love for her and life dwindled.

  My rage began to build.

  That is when I met him and our game took shape.

  I never wanted to be a monster. But that is exactly what I became. What I will always be.

  I never expected Aurora Alexander to walk into my life and make me want to be a better person, but she did. I hated her even more than all the others because of that. She made me realize there was something wrong with me. She made me know I could never have that happily ever after again. Even though I would try my fucking damnedest to get that fairytale ending.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  I couldn’t stop my own actions.

  I only hope that one day she will be able to forgive me for the damage I know I caused in her life and hope her trauma doesn’t turn her into the bitter and jaded person I became after my world crumbled.

  I hope that she can still shine in this world even though my actions will dull her bright light.

  If you read this. If anyone reads this. Please never show my beautiful Aurora this note. Please never know who I am or what I have done because I know without a shadow of a doubt that she would never forgive me.

  I want her to know that she deserves happiness. Let her know that despite the bumps and bruises in her life, she deserves to be loved and cherished. Just like I cherished the woman who walked out on me all those years ago.

  I don’t expect forgiveness. I don’t deserve it either, and I know I never will.

  I just want to be free.

  And Aurora is my freedom.

  Each day is a blessing.

  That is the motto I have lived my life by since I was released from the hospital. Every morning when I wake up in the same home I was nearly killed in, I smile because I am alive. I am here with my son, doing the best that I can for him. I won’t let what Brent did taint the person I am or dictate who I will become. That would just be giving him and what he did way too much power in my life.

  The therapy has been twice a week. I need that outlet to discuss the trials and tribulations I am dealing with in my own mind while I walk through life with a smile on my face. For one full month I have smiled even though I am pretty broken on the inside. I miss Jackson, but I would never admit that to anyone but my therapist.

  He lied to me and that is more than I can forgive right now. And boy do I have a laundry list of things and people I really need to forgive. I know while I felt the life drain from my body I went through a long list of people who I needed to bury the hatchet with. But now that I am here and existing, it is far too hard to focus on that.

  Two days after I was released from the hospital, Max was released into my care through child services. I was the closest thing the boy had to any real connection in his life. Knowing his father wouldn’t be coming back and having to discuss that with him was heartbreaking. Alas, I was probably the best person to talk with him about it. The state has continued to look for a permanent home for him in the case that I won’t be willing to keep him long term, but I don’t see that being the case.

  In his daily recovery, Liam was the best thing for him. Colin had stepped up and let Max come on some of the weekend visits, because the only thing Max had clung to in this whole ordeal was his best friend, Liam. I know it won’t be long until these boys look at each other as brothers and I am alright with that because the reality of the situation is… Max needs a mother. He always has and I think in some fucked up way, Brent was trying to replace his late wife with a group of imperfect women that would never hold a candle to her.

  I pity him and the words I spoke to him in the end, I meant. I forgive him for everything he did. I can’t hold onto that kind of hate or fear in my life hoping that some day it will wash away or that I will magically hit a point where it doesn’t bother me anymore. I am sure in the back of my mind it will always bother me.

  I feel safe once again. Something that has been a foreign feeling since the first break in at my condo. I know that he can’t hurt me again. He is buried in the Lakeview Cemetery, under a big beautiful tree covered in Spanish moss. Someplace he would have loved.

  I shouldn’t care that he is content in the afterlife, but when you share a friendship with someone, a connection like we had it just doesn’t mysteriously disappear overnight. I cared for him, and even though I know now that many things he said and did were lies fueled by severe mental illness, I just can’t hate him for it.

  Hate is an unwelcome emotion in my life.

  I’ve done my best to try and move on with my life, and even decided to try and go on another date. Wesley continued to call in the days and weeks after the attack, which was plastered all over the local news.

  ATTEMPTED MURDER: DATING SITE STRANGLER STRIKES AGAIN

  LOCAL WOMAN ESCAPES SERIAL STRANGLER

  SINGLE MOTHER MAKES UNSAFE DATING CHOICES

  DATING SITE DIVA ALMOST LOSES LIFE

  The idiotic headlines were intolerable. The details of my life that were plastered for the public to see became embarrassing and I wondered if and when life would ever become normal again for me. Not only did it impact my life and my child in the way that I couldn’t even leave my house without someone trying to take pictures of us, but the scrutiny I got when I took Max in was absolutely appalling.

  What people forget is the fact that not only was I a victim, but so was Max. He didn’t ask to be born, or dragged along on Brent’s wild ride of a life. This boy deserved every chance at life that Liam did and I would bend over backwards and give that to him as long as the state of South Carolina would allow me to. I can only hope that down the line after all the red tape is handled, that I can finalize an adoption of Max and help him to forget all of the trauma any of us have gone through.

  Wesley.

  My darling Wesley. He meant well, but all along he continued to think our relationship would start back up in where it left off in the bathroom of that restaurant bathroom. Which would not be happening anytime this century. After a nice evening of wining and dining, we parted ways. I went home to my boys who had been tucked into bed by Miss Pam.

  The one thing I came away from that date with was closure. I knew Wesley wasn’t the man for me and whatever happened between us in a moment of lust so many months ago was just that. Lust. We were two lonely, and apparently horny, people who saw a moment of opportunity. Nothing more and nothing less.

  The kind of man he was just didn’t do it for me. The showing of money and the flaunting of things he took pride in wasn’t a life I could see myself fitting into with my children. While in the back of my mind I knew he had a daughter, there was rarely much talk about her leading me to know exactly what kind of parent he truly was. The same kind Colin was when we first parted ways.

  Which is fine. Just not fine for me. Or fine for my life.

  Today, I would be helping throw a baby shower for Jillian. She is due in three months, and everyone was so anxi
ous to shower their precious little baby girl with gifts. I made quick friends with her two younger sisters to plan the event. The young girls had virtually no idea what they were doing except for when it came to ordering dessert.

  Co-parenting with another woman who I often found myself jealous of was certainly trying. I couldn’t help but think back to the way Colin treated me when I was pregnant with Liam, days that were supposed to be my happiest but turned the darkest because of him made me green with envy of the way he doted on her during this time.

  People live and they learn. They grow up and they learn how to better themselves from the wrong they have done in the past I could say that I was genuinely proud of Colin for the way he was moving on with his life in the right direction. Finally.

  As the rented hall began to pack in with friends and family to celebrate Jillian’s first child, my mind went back to Jackson and the what if’s we had said about having more children. I shake my head and try and clear the thoughts from my mind. That is all over now.

  “Stop looking to miserable,” Jillian comes up to me and whispers in my ear. She laughs as she pokes me in the side. “You need to call him and stop moping around.” she says, reminding me that everyone on earth really knew exactly what was already going on inside my head.

  I just wasn’t ready for it.

  Blah Blah Blah. I know. I am whiny and annoying. I am acting like such a chick. I get that. I can’t help but wonder how life would be different if I never met Brent, and the events of the past couple months never happened. But, life is full of what ifs. We can’t take them back or do things differently. We have one chance to get shit right and I just didn’t this time around.

  I put on a smile and mingle with all the guests. Thanking all of her family members for coming as they all whisper behind our backs about how strange it must be for your fiancé’s ex wife to throw a baby shower. But I don’t care because I am pretty sure my give a fuck button broke a long time ago.

  The presents pile up and I plaster on my fake smile for the crowd.

  The fake smile that has become a staple since I walked out of Jackson Revere’s life.

  A knock on the door startles me as I am making dinner for the boys, who are running around in the backyard, playing pirates on the playscape Jackson built for Liam many moons ago. It seems like forever since I have seen or spoken to him. The last time being in the hospital when he tried to explain himself to me. I ignored the subsequent text messages and phone calls, and damn was he persistent for a long time.

  I figured this past week he finally got the hint as the phone went silent and I was able to start processing everything that happened between us in my mind without the constant interruption of his little text messages.

  As I open the front door, I see Ann standing on my porch. Jackson’s mother looks like she has aged a decade in the month since I last saw her. She is holding a news paper, and a man I vaguely remember from the picnic stands next to her.

  “Ann? Are you okay?” I ask, as I open the door to let them both come in, “why don’t you come inside?”

  After the pair walk through the door, the man turns around and greets me.

  “I am not sure if you remember me, but my name is Craig. I’m Jackson’s partner at the department.” I nod in understanding and wait for the two of them to continue.

  “Would y’all like something to drink? Sweet tea? Water?” I am trying to be hospitable, wondering why they have both come to visit me. I try and push the dread from the pit of my stomach, but something just isn’t sitting right with me. I wouldn’t put it past Jackson to send his mother over in an attempt to win me back, but what kind of good would his partner do?

  They both shake their heads, and decline anything to drink. I just stand there watching them both and waiting for one of them to speak first. I expect Ann to begin with reasons why I should take Jackson back, but Craig speaks first.

  “Jackson is in the hospital.” he says in a monotone voice. Completely flat with no emotion in his words. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the past couple months, it is to trust my gut. When I started thinking the worst had happened when they chose to visit me at four-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon I knew that nothing good would come of it.

  “He was working on another undercover case, and one of the perp’s made him. They shot him, and he is in the ICU at St. Lukes.” I don’t understand how this man who is Jackson’s partner can stand here and speak with so little emotion about what was happening to him.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I ask, unsure of what else I should really say. I am stunned into momentary silence because I honestly have no idea what to say. The only thing that begins to run through my head is the fact that Jackson may very well die and I never forgave him. I never went to him and talked to him about everything that happened. I never let him off the hook for what he did and how horrible he felt in the end. Even if he was the one who saved my life.

  I pushed him away when I probably needed him the most. And now, he could die. Alone.

  “The doctors are hopeful, but he hasn’t woken up yet.” Ann says, and I can hear her voice shaking as she speaks the words. I don’t even know what I would do if my own son was put into that position. But, I certainly wouldn’t be able to sit on the other side of this table as calm as she has remained.

  “Aurora, please go to him.” Ann says, and my stomach turns. I’ve put this off so long and now the man that I am still very much in love with is laying in a hospital bed in a coma. If he dies, I would never be able to forgive myself for losing the month we could have had together. But I pushed him away. I was selfish and now I could very well lose the best thing that ever happened to me since Liam was born.

  “I know this is very bad timing, but a lot of things have changed over the past month. It isn’t just me and Liam anymore, Ann. Max, Brent’s son had no one to take him in and was put into the custody of child services. I took him in to live with us. He deserved better than being stuck in dead end foster homes because of the bad choices of his father.” I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye.

  “Aurora, Jackson told me all about it. He’s kept close tabs on you, and relayed most of what you have been doing to me. That doesn’t make a difference to me one bit. You could have one or four kids and I would still be here begging you to go see my boy.” Ann says, as she reaches across the table to take my hands.

  “Please, Aurora. Go see Jackson. Sit with him, and talk to him. Everything you have wanted to say, get it out. The doctors keep telling me that he can hear us all. The more we talk to him, the greater the possibility there is that he will wake up. The longer he stays in the coma, the worse off he will be. From one mother to another, I am begging you to go and try. For me.” How can I deny her that? How can I say no to a mother who is so desperate?

  I have so much I want to say to Jackson, but I know my words will fall on lost ears with him being in that state. I just need to start getting it all out. Maybe this is where I need to start my own journey of forgiveness with him?

  “Can you watch the boys for me for a little bit? There is dinner in the oven and it should be done shortly.” I rise from the table scrambling to look for my purse and cell phone before I make my way to the front door.

  “I will bring you, they have him pretty guarded at the hospital.” Craig says as he joins me in the doorway.

  The boys coming running into the house as I am almost out the door and I remind them to behave for Miss Ann and I will be back in a little while. After dinner they are instructed to get ready for bed, something they have begun doing on their own the past couple nights.

  “I want a good report from Miss Ann.” I sternly say before I join Craig in the driveway where he is waiting for me in his unmarked police car. Seeing his car, I think back to the first night I met Jackson and the obvious police car I parked next to which turned out to be his. I was so stupid and naive. Not putting two and two together way back at the beginning. I’m just a trusting person by nature, which is wh
y Colin’s betrayal was so much worse than it would have been for most women.

  The drive to the hospital is long, and Craig tries to make small talk a couple times, but my one-word answers probably make me seem like a bitch. The truth is the opposite. I am worried and nervous. Heartbroken that something like this has happened to Jackson when I wouldn’t as much as answer a text message from him. My conscious screams at me, telling me the way I handled the past month was wrong. Jackson was only doing his job. He was tracking Brent for so long, and he couldn’t take a chance on ruining all the work he had put in by telling me who he really was.

  He only lied about one aspect of his life. While it may be a big aspect, everything else he told me all that time was the truth.

  “Jackson really loves you.” Craig’s words interrupt my inner thoughts. The boxing match against my conscious I was losing because I am beginning to realize I really did the wrong thing. Handled this all the wrong way.

  “How do you know that?” My curiosity gets the best of me and I play into his game.

  “He told me.” He is silent for a couple moments while I sit and think about what he just told me. Jackson loves me, enough to tell his partner. I am only guessing that is a pretty big deal when it comes to guy code. “I know he lied. It sucks, but it is part of our lives sometimes. It took my wife a long time to understand and accept it. Granted, we met under different circumstance, but she is proud of the job I do. You seem like a nice girl, Aurora. I know you would feel the same way about Jackson if you could accept this and move on. But… it’s not my place to tell you to do that. I can only let you know that I had never seen Jackson so torn up over a woman and I’ve known him since we were eighteen years old in boot camp together.”

  For a moment I remember back to the picnic and what all the police wives had to say about the work their husbands do. How it is long hours and dangerous work. These women were proud of the job that their men did. I could see in their faces how happy they were, even if it got under their skin sometimes.