“Fuck,” he hisses. “Where is he? Who is this?” My knees give out, and I fall to my butt, sitting down. My girls crawl on my lap, and I hold them both, rocking from side to side while humming their favorite song that I used to rock them to bed with. My eyes close as I try to focus on the fact that I’m all alone, by myself. He’s gone. The man who took me out of the shitty life I was handed and gave me everything I ever dreamed of on a silver platter.
He gave me love, he gave me protection, and he gave me two brothers, but most importantly, he made me a mother. I block out the words; I block out the angry tone of Elliot’s voice. I block it all out.
“That’s impossible,” he now whispers. “He’s already married.”
He hangs up and slowly peels Daisy from me, carrying her upstairs. I hear his voice in a whisper as he walks downstairs. “I just called Ethan, and he’s on his way.” He grabs Lizzie, who had fallen asleep silently sobbing in my lap.
I’m still sitting in the middle of my living room when he comes back downstairs. “What just happened?” I want him to tell me it’s a dream, to tell me that it’s not true.
“I have no fucking idea, but by the end of tonight, I hope we all know the answers.”
“Who were those people?” I ask him right when the front door opens, and my in-laws, Judy and Adrian, enter. My mother-in-law sits down next to me, taking me in her arms.
“Oh, honey,” she says while she strokes my hair, and I cry in her arms. Another thing he gave me was a mother and a father. Someone who welcomed me with open arms, with love and support. “It’s going to be okay.”
I don’t say anything as we both cry—me for my husband, her for her son. When Ethan arrives, he sees us sitting in the middle of the living room. My father-in-law stands with Elliot, and they talk in whispers. “I came as fast as I could.”
“You need to go with your brother,” Adrian says to him. “Go to this woman’s house and grab his stuff.” His voice comes out bitter and angry. “I already called the lawyer.”
“What?” I ask, looking up at him. “What lawyer?”
“It’s not for you to worry about now,” he says with his lips pressed together. “You have enough on your plate.”
“I need to know,” I tell them, my mother-in-law’s hands falling from me.
Elliot grabs the back of his neck with his hand and starts talking. “She needs to know.” He looks at his father, who glares at him. “Apparently, he was married to this woman named Hailey.”
I gasp out in shock, my hand going to my mouth. “What?”
The thought of him having an affair is beyond anything I could understand, but marrying this woman? This faceless woman, how could he?
“They got married six months ago,” Elliot whispers and then stops when his father cuts in.
“Doesn’t mean shit. He gave them the wrong name,” he hisses. “You are to go there, get his body and all his belongings, and come back.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “Papers are being drawn up as we speak.”
“What papers?” My throat is dry.
“Nothing to concern yourself about,” he says, turning to Ethan. I look at Elliot, and he just shakes his head. “Go before it gets too late. I have Phillip meeting you at the hospital to bring his body home.”
Oh my God, the words are too much as the sob comes out, and I cover my mouth with my hand. Elliot comes over to me and picks me up, his hands around my shoulder as he carries me upstairs and places me in the bed. “Listen to me,” he says as my body shakes with sobs. “I have to leave, but I will tell you whatever you need to know when I come back.” I nod my head, tucking my knees to my chest as I watch him walk out of the room. I watch the doorway for the next five hours, flipping the pillow over four times from the tears that have soaked it.
The pain of him being gone, the pain of him not explaining to me what just happened, the pain that my daughters will never get to grow up with him. He will never walk them down the aisle; he will never have their first dance together. He is just gone.
When I finally hear the front door open, I sit up and walk to the staircase. My head’s spinning, so I sit on the steps, listening.
“I need a drink.” I hear Elliot say, opening the cupboard and taking out what I’m assuming is the scotch we kept in there.
“Who wants one?” he asks, and I hear Ethan grunt.
“So did you meet her?” my mother-in-law asks.
“Oh, yeah,” Ethan says. “We sure did,” he hisses.
“Bitch,” Judy says. “What kind of a woman takes another man’s wife?”
“Well,” Elliot now talks, “he lied to her, so I don’t really think it’s all her fault.” I walk down to the kitchen quietly as I listen to them talk. “He used his middle name and told them he was an orphan.”
“He had to have had a reason,” Adrian says, and I close my eyes. “Whatever the reason, I don’t give a shit. We are to never talk about that woman or her family. She is never to be discussed. No one, and I mean fucking no one, can know about this.”
“What are you talking about?” Ethan asks. “Dad, he married this woman, and they had a house together. He had another fucking family. How do you sweep that under the rug?” He doesn’t ask any more questions as Adrian’s hand hits the table.
“Not a fucking word. For all we know, that woman is insane and lying through her teeth. The lawyer has drawn up the papers, and she is going to be served today.”
I walk into the kitchen now, catching the four of them sitting at my kitchen table off guard. The solar system project neatly put away. The four of them look over at me. “Served what?” I look at them, one at a time, but Ethan and Elliot are the only ones who look down. “What?”
“We are serving her a cease and desist,” my father-in-law says, “and a restraining order against you and the kids.”
“What?” I whisper, my hand going to my chest. “What for?”
“We don’t know anything about this woman. We don’t know if she is crazy or if she will come after you and the girls,” he says, and Judy nods.
“We have to protect you and the girls.” Judy gets up and walks over to me, wrapping me in her arms.
“Don’t worry about this. Let him take care of it. Let us take care of you.” She hugs me in her arms as I sob out again. I let her walk me back upstairs to my bed and lie back down, thinking they are just looking out for me and the girls. They are just looking out for our safety and well-being.
This is what families do, right? They protect you, they shelter you from the pain, and they help you when you’re down and can’t stand. I have no one to ask; I have no one to tell me the difference. Little did I know … little did I know.
Chapter Five
Samantha
Standing in front of the full-length mirror in my room, I smooth down my black skirt. My blond hair is tied up in a ponytail, my cheeks are sunken in more than normal, and the blackness around my eyes indicates I haven’t slept well since this whole thing happened. Since I found out that not only did my husband die, but that he also married someone else.
I sit on the made bed and look down at my wedding band. My thumb of my right hand touches it, and the lone tear that falls out of my eye lands straight on it. “Mommy.” I look back at Lizzie, who is standing in the doorway wearing a black one-piece dress similar to mine with ballerina flats.
My mother-in-law went shopping yesterday and bought us all new outfits for today. “We need to put our best foot forward,” she said as I watched her walk in with the six bags. “We can’t let people talk.”
I turned around and walked out of the room, going upstairs. Shutting myself in my bathroom with my back against the door, I cried quietly, trying to hide my sobs. “We can’t let people talk,” I whispered to myself. The hatred I had begun feeling when I remembered my husband.
Lizzie walks to the side of my bed and sits next to me. “I hate this dress,” she says when I put my hand around her shoulder and bring her to me, kissing her head.
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br /> “I know, baby,” I whisper, “but after today, it’s going to be all over.”
“That’s what Grandpa A said.” She mentions the name she calls my father-in-law. Grandpa A because you can’t get better than an A.
“Is everyone ready?” I hear Ethan yell from downstairs. “The limo is picking us up in twenty.”
“Let’s go, baby,” I tell her, getting up and holding her hand while we walk downstairs. My in-laws are both sitting in the kitchen. My mother-in-law in a black skirt and top while my father-in-law has on a black suit. “Where is Daisy?” I ask them.
“Elliot is upstairs changing her. She spilled milk on her dress,” Judy tells me, looking at Lizzie. “You look like such a big girl.” She blinks her tears away.
Elliot comes down the stairs with Daisy on his hip, smiling at me when he walks in. “Okay, you girls go sit in the living room while us grown-ups talk,” my father-in-law says, and the girls both know to leave the room. When he knows they are both out of earshot, he starts. “Today is going to be tough, tough for us all, but we have to stand together. We have to be the family that we are.” I lean against the counter while he talks. “The situation with the other one has been taken care of, and she has been served papers.” I look at him and then at Elliot and Ethan, both of them looking down when our eyes meet. It’s almost as if they feel guilty for meeting this woman. My father-in-law continues, “After all this is done today, we are meeting with the lawyers in person, so we can go over the will, start the paperwork for the insurance, and make sure she doesn’t touch a thing that belongs to him.” I stop listening at this point, turning to look out the window at the backyard.
The swing set that he built in one day to make sure the kids could use it when he left the next day. The patio set he had delivered to us, so I could have somewhere to sit while I watched the girls while he was living with another woman. I shake my head, walking out of the room. I sit on the couch, and the girls come to sit next to me, one on each side. “Today is going to be really hard,” I whisper to them, “but we have to be strong for Daddy.” They both look at me, their eyes exactly like their father’s. “But, if at any time, you need to leave or you need me… I don’t care who is talking to me or who is around; you come and get me.”
“Grandpa A said we had to sit and wait,” Daisy whispers just as Elliot comes into the room and kneels in front of us.
“What is this meeting about?” he asks, smiling at us. The circles around his eyes are just as black as ours. He hasn’t left our house since this happened.
“Mommy said if we need her that we can go to her,” Daisy says, looking at him and then me, “even if Grandpa A said no.”
He leans in, whispering, “You can come to me too, and I’ll make sure that you get Mommy.”
“Okay,” Lizzie and Daisy both whisper at the same time, and then the doorbell rings.
We get up, put our jackets on, and one by one file into the black limo that has come to take us to the funeral home. We arrive before everyone else. “We get an hour with him, and then they will open the door,” Adrian says as Judy grabs her tissue and dabs her eyes.
I look around the funeral home. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, not sure where he is. I haven’t seen him since he kissed me goodbye four days earlier. His last words to me were, “Call you when I can.” That phone call never came.
I follow my in-laws to the big brown door that is closed. “I want to go in before the girls.” Everyone turns to look at me.
“We can keep them in the lobby,” says the lady who greeted us at the door. She told me her name, but I just didn’t listen.
I nod at her as she turns to ask the girls if they want hot chocolate. Daisy’s eyes get big as Lizzie turns to look at me. I nod my head, giving her permission, so she can go with the woman.
The doors open, and I don’t even know what to expect. I’ve never been to a funeral. Never known anyone well enough to pay my last respects. Judy and Adrian walk in first, followed by Ethan, and Elliot waits with me. I step foot into the room, and it’s so cold that I shiver. The smell of flowers hits me right away, making me turn my head. The number of flowers and wreaths shocks me; the whole room is almost full. Some wreaths blocking others. Rows and rows of brown chairs line the room, all facing toward the front of the room. My eyes land on the brown wooden casket at the front of the room. The open half showing you the white satin inside. I walk down the aisle toward him, and then my eyes land on him. Eric. I can’t take another step forward because my knees give out, and I fall. Elliot isn’t fast enough to hold me up, and my knee lands with a thud. But the pain doesn’t matter because nothing could take the place of the pain in my heart. The sound of wailing fills the room as I look up at my dead husband.
I feel arms around me; I feel myself lifted; I feel myself almost floating. He isn’t the Eric who kissed me goodbye; he isn’t the Eric who I made promises to; he isn’t the Eric who made all my dreams come true. This isn’t him.
The man with makeup caked on his face isn’t my Eric. My sobs overtake my body as I look at him, expecting him to open his eyes. Expecting something, anything but this. “I want the casket closed,” I say, my voice soft. “I want it closed.”
“Samantha,” my father-in-law starts, “it’s—”
I shake my head. “I don’t want the kids to see him like that,” I say softly. I know that for me they wouldn’t even consider it, but for the girls, they would move heaven and earth. “They need to remember him alive and smiling, not like that,” I say, pointing at the casket.
“Dad,” Ethan says after me, “I agree.”
“Me too,” Elliot says from beside me. “Close it.”
He just nods at us, then walks to the man standing in the corner. The man looks at him as they have a hushed conversation and then just nods his head. “Do you need some water?” Ethan says to me, and I nod. I don’t bother listening to what else he says; instead, I get up and go to the casket. Standing before the brown box, I look at him, really look at him. You see some bruising under the makeup, and his nose is a little swollen. His hands are folded over his stomach, resting on his black suit. The suit he wore when we got married. Why? I ask him in my own head. Why did you do it? I ask him, hoping I can hear him whisper something to me, whisper anything back. To answer my questions, to give me something; anything to make me understand why he did what he did. Why he left me with so many fucking questions and not one answer.
The man comes over to close the casket. Eric’s face disappears slowly, the shadow filling his face till the casket finally shuts. “I’m sorry for your loss,” the man says, nodding at me. “If at any time you want it open, we can open it back up.” I turn around now, looking at the chairs that will fill up as soon as the people start coming in. Ethan consoles my mother-in-law, and Elliot stands where we were just sitting, his hands in his pockets.
“I’m getting the girls,” I tell them and then walk out with my head held high but my shoulders slumped. Defeated is a word that you use so many times not really understanding what can actually defeat you. I know now, my husband dying, him cheating on me, my kids without a father, my dreams of growing old with him gone. Beaten straight down to my core, straight down to my bones.
I walk over to them as they look up. “Let’s go, girls,” I tell them as they both get up and walk to me. Lizzie takes one hand, Daisy takes the other, and we walk back into the room that holds a piece of our hearts. The room where their father lies, with no answers and no tomorrow.
We stand in that room for four hours while people come up to me and give me their condolences. I nod my head and play the part of the grieving wife. I am the grieving wife, but I’m also the wife whose husband didn’t love her enough to just be with her. The wife who knew her husband was slipping away but couldn’t catch it in time. The wife he said he would love and protect. The wife who stands here between his girls wishing that for one second he suffered horribly. The wife who has to pick up the fucking pieces and lie to her girls
about what a great guy he was. The wife who, at the end of the day, just wasn’t good enough.
We listen as people tell us how amazing he was, how much he loved his family, and how much he loved his girls. The whole time, I’m yelling on the inside, ready to stand in the middle of the room, throw my head back, and yell at the top of my lungs. But I don’t do what I want. I don’t tell them what a fraud my husband was. I don’t tell them that it was almost all lies. I don’t tell them that the day he died, they called his other wife and not me. I don’t tell them that I wasn’t the one with him when he died.
I stand here thinking about this other person—his other wife—and wonder how she would handle this. How she would be with my in-laws. Would she just let them control her and do everything for her? Would she want it to be open and weep for him beside the casket instead of standing next to it?
I look around the room at all the people who came to pay their respects, and my eyes find someone I’ve never met before. Someone I’ve never seen before, and our eyes connect. His green eyes stare into mine as I watch him nod to me and turn to walk out. As he walks out of the crowded room, I strain my neck to watch his back. I don’t have long to think because Elliot comes up and whispers, “It’s time.”
Chapter Six
Blake
I walk out of the funeral home with my head down. I make sure not to make eye contact with anyone in case I actually know them. Coming here today was something I know I shouldn’t have done, but I did it anyway.
Three days ago, I had to sit my sister down on the couch and tell her that her husband really wasn’t her husband. That he had another family. I had to do the dirty work of a coward. I had to take the brunt of her hatred when his two brothers showed up on her doorstep to claim his body. I had to be there while she slowly died right in front of me. And then if that wasn’t enough, the fucking cease and desist letter along with the restraining order were served. I wanted to get into my car that minute and find his family, but the last thing my family needed was for me to end up behind bars. So I stood in the corner and developed a plan.
Broken Love Story Page 3
