Broken Love Story

by Madison, Natasha

  “Yes”—she puts her head back—“when she’s ready.” We look up then as she comes out of the house with tears streaking her face. Crystal rubs her arms while she goes to the driver’s side door, leaving me and Hailey alone.

  “Here is the key.” She hands me the key to the house. “The real estate agent will stop by the firehouse at three p.m. to pick it up.” I grab her around the neck and pull her to my chest where she sobs.

  I hold her and comfort her till she steps away. “How did you do it?” she asks me, and I know she’s talking about Frankie.

  “Don’t do what I did. Don’t shut yourself off from the world. Live,” I tell her honestly, only now regretting some things I’ve done. “Promise me you’ll live.” She smiles as she places her hands over my hands on her cheeks. “You have to listen to me. I’m older,” I tell her, and she laughs.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she says to me as my hands leave her face, and she nods. “Promise me the same.” I nod this time, putting my hands in my back pockets as her blue eyes stay shaded and protected.

  “Get out of here,” I say to her as I walk back to my truck. “See you next month for sure.” She nods at me, climbing in the passenger side. I watch the car drive away before turning and making my way to the station. Walking in, I check in with the captain, who is getting up to get his coffee.

  I pull out my phone and send Samantha a text, not sure what time she gets up.

  Today is going to suck.

  I don’t expect her to text me back, and she doesn’t. Instead, she calls me, the sleep apparent in her voice. “It’s too early to know that.”

  I laugh, grabbing a cup of coffee for myself. “I just feel it.”

  “Does that mean I should paint the bathroom before going green in my room?” I shake my head at her, smiling. “You know what color came up when I Googled?” she asks me, giggling, and I turn the sound up then as that was the best thing I’ve ever heard.

  “No idea,” I say, thinking maybe red.

  “Seafoam green.” She laughs out loud, like belly laughs, and I have to laugh with her. “Fucking seafoam green.”

  “There it is, painting the bathroom green,” I say. “He would hate it.”

  “See and you said today wasn’t going to be a good day. Lies,” she says, and I hear a little voice, “Mommy, I’m up.”

  “Come here, baby girl.” It’s the first time I’ve heard her talk to her kids, or that I’ve heard the voice of them.

  “My alarm just rang,” she says, and I hear kissing and then giggling. “A blue-eyed monster just put her cold feet on me.” She laughs, and then I hear her again. “I’m not a monster; I’m Daisy.”

  “You’re right; it’s going to be a good day,” I tell her as she disconnects and goes to do her mom thing. She sends me a picture ten minutes later. It’s the first time she’s sent me a picture of herself, but it’s really not of her, it’s of a coffee cup in front of her lips, hiding what looks like a smile, her eyes cut off. I laugh when I see what the cup says,

  ‘It’s a great day for a great day.’

  I text her back right away.

  You might be right. Happy painting.

  The rest of the day goes by so fast, we have four calls, one car accident, and then another fucking cat call. I don’t even see my phone till it’s way after eight, and I see that I have a couple of messages. I open the first one from Crystal.

  I need you to go to Nanny’s house and kill her. This fucking house is nothing like the picture, nothing.

  I laugh and then click the picture she sent me of inside, and I gasp. I message her right away.

  Come Back Home.

  I check my second one from my father.

  Can you come over this weekend and help me in the shed please?

  I answer that one also with two words.

  Roger That!

  Then I see Samantha has sent me five messages, and I laugh when I scroll through them.

  There is no nice seafoam green.

  I even tried to combine two greens. Looks like snot.

  I can see why he hated green.

  I’m buying it anyway.

  Then she sends a picture of her hand on a paintbrush while she paints the wall.

  I guess it isn’t that bad, if you’re Shrek.

  I laugh and then call her.

  “Hey,” I say when she answers, and I hear yelling in the background. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the park. Elliot called and wanted to see the girls. So I brought them to the park.”

  “Are you with them?” I ask her.

  “Nope, I’m sitting by myself while they run around the playground.”

  I picture her sitting on the grass all by herself with the sun shining as her blond hair moves. “How is the painting going?”

  She laughs now. “According to Daisy, we should only do one wall, and I agree with her wholeheartedly. What about you? Was your day better?”

  “Yeah, Hailey moved today,” I tell her, and she says nothing. “Is it weird talking about her?”

  I don’t see her smile, but I hear it in her voice. “You mean weirder than talking to my dead husband’s fake wife’s brother!”

  I laugh. “Say that fast ten times.”

  “The kids are yelling for me. I’ll call you later,” she says as she disconnects. I look at the phone, and I’m not sure what to think. I’m not sure what is going on, and I don’t have time to think about it because another call comes in.

  This time, it takes two firehouses to put out an apartment building up in flames. By the time we get back to the house and shower, it’s too late to call her, and I see she tried to call me twice.

  She sends a message.

  Going to bed. Hope you’re okay.

  I close the phone and head to my cot where I dream of every single color of green. When I get up in the morning, I’m so fucking happy it’s the last day of my shift. I get up and look at my phone and see that she hasn’t called me. So I call her and it goes straight to voicemail. I don’t bother leaving a message, and by the time I get home, she still hasn’t called. I’m going to be honest—she’s got me worried. I wait till it’s after nine and try again.

  I call her back, and this time, she answers. Gone is my bubbly girl, and in her place is the devastated person she was before.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Samantha

  “I really hope they sleep well after that,” I tell Elliot as we walk home from the park. We, or better yet, he just spent two hours running around the park with them.

  “It’s good to see them,” he says as Daisy and Lizzie walk in front of us. “Daisy’s getting so big.”

  “No one is stopping you from seeing them,” I tell him. “I would never do that to them. Family is very important to me.”

  “I know Mom and Dad miss them also.”

  “So then why haven’t they called them? Why haven’t they shown up to see them?” I ask him as we slowly walk back. I try to keep my voice down so they don’t hear me.

  “It’s just that they don’t feel welcome anymore.”

  “Well, that’s on them, not on me. I painted the house, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t change the locks.”

  “I know, but it’s just a big change for everyone.”

  “Yeah, don’t I know it. We used to have dinner with you guys four times a week, and now you go days without calling me. Your mother and I used to go do mani and pedis every single Thursday, and now I’m sitting waiting to see if she will call.”

  I don’t get to finish because we finally get home, and the kids start to run inside. “Come say goodbye to Uncle Elliot,” I tell them.

  We make our way upstairs, and Lizzie takes a shower while Daisy takes a bath, and by eight thirty, they are both snoring.

  I collapse in bed, also calling Blake, and it goes to voicemail. I wait an hour and then call him back, and I figure he’s on a call, so I send him a text.

  The next morning, I start my routine by walking the kids to the bus stop
. Today my goal is to clean out Eric’s closet. It’s random and spur of the moment, but I think I’m up for it; I think my heart can handle it. I open the closet, and his woodsy smell hits me right away. It’s almost as if I’m letting him out. I can’t explain it. His smell is all around me; I feel him all around me. I don’t think I can do this after all, but my hand moves without me realizing what is going on. My fingers going to his shirt, a shirt I washed and ironed for him. I flick it off the hanger and fold it, putting it on the bed, and I go to the next one, and by the time I look around, all his clothes are folded on my bed. I get two plastic bins out and stack the clothes in them, putting them in the corner to be carried downstairs.

  I grab a stool and grab some of his shoe boxes from on top of his shelf. When I take down four, I step off and put them on the bed. Opening them, I see the shoes are almost brand new. “I don’t know why he bought so many fucking shoes when all he wore were his Nikes and his steel toe boots.”

  I get back up and pull the next stack down, finding a brown plastic bag on top. I open it up and see pictures of the kids along with a woman’s watch. The card is with it. Happy Mother’s Day to the best mom ever, he wrote, and a tear comes down my cheek. It’s two months away, yet he knew what he was getting me.

  My finger traces his writing, and I bring it to my chest.

  I get back up and take the remaining shoe boxes out. A brown envelope in the corner under the boxes slips off the shelf with the boxes. It lands on its back, and I bend down to pick it up. My name is written on top, so I flip the flap open and pull out two folded white pieces of paper. I open and see it’s a letter from Eric, and my legs give out. I fall with my back against my bed as I read his letter.

  My sweet Sammie,

  I don’t know where to begin, so I guess I’ll start at the beginning. When I first saw you waiting tables while I studied for my final, something inside me shifted or clicked into place; I can’t really explain it. All I knew was that I was mesmerized, and then you spoke to me and you literally sounded like an angel. Then when I asked you out, and you said yes, I thought I had won the jackpot, and in a lot of ways, I did.

  When I watched you walk down the aisle, I knew I would never love anyone as much as I loved you. I promised to love, honor, and cherish you for all the days of my life.

  I lied, and there is no easy way for me to say this. But somewhere between pledging my love for you and creating our two beautiful girls, I lost myself, or so I thought. I was going through the motions. Work, home, kids, repeat. It was as if the movie was just looping through, and I started to feel lost.

  Then one day, I ran into someone, and the spark returned. I know this is a fucked-up way to find out, and if you’re reading this, then something really bad must have happened to me.

  But I married someone else. I honestly just thought it was an affair until I realized I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t picture my life without her, but then I couldn’t let you go either.

  I’m a selfish fucking bastard, and I wanted you both.

  I want to say I regret it, but I can’t because loving you made me, but loving her completed me.

  I hope that in time you can forgive me, that you can tell the kids the good about me, that you can protect them when the bad comes. You’re stronger than you think you are.

  With love always

  Your Husband

  Eric

  The letter slips from my hands as does the envelope, but the pictures that are inside slip out, showing me who this woman is. Showing me who Hailey is. It’s a picture of them on their wedding day. The wail that comes through me fills the house, and if the windows were open, I’m sure someone would have called 911.

  I fall sideways as my body curls into the fetal position. I cry for the man I met, I cry for the man I fell in love with, I cry for the man who married me, I cry for the man who gave me two children, and I cry for myself because with one letter, he has left me more broken than I was before.

  That one letter has shown me what was right in front of me the whole time; he loved me, but I wasn’t good enough for him.

  I lie in the spot as I hear the phone ring and ignore it. I only get up when it’s time to get the girls, and no matter how hard I try to hide it, the kids notice.

  “Are you sick, Mommy?” Daisy asks when we walk in the door, and I take off my sunglasses, the redness in my eyes giving me away.

  “I’m just sad today,” I tell her as Lizzie gives me a hug.

  “I can make us nuggets in the toaster oven,” she says and then turns to Daisy. “Get your homework, I’ll help you.”

  I lie on the couch motionless as I blink and look at the picture that I still haven’t hung back up. The picture I won’t hang up. When it’s bedtime, I roll off the couch and tuck the girls in and then come back to my room. The brown envelope is out of sight tucked under my clothes in the first drawer.

  I close my eyes and rock myself, hoping that the darkness takes me, but it doesn’t, no matter how hard I squeeze my eyes. When the phone rings again, this time, I reach out and answer it.

  “Hello?” I say, my eyes closed as tears pour out onto the pillow.

  “What’s the matter?” Blake says right away. “Are you hurt?”

  “Not that you can see,” I tell him.

  “Where are you?” I hear him moving around.

  “I’m in bed,” I tell him.

  “Are you sick?” His voice is trying to be calm, but he’s failing.

  “No,” I answer, and then I tell him, “I cleaned out Eric’s closet today.”

  “Oh, shit,” he says. “Why?”

  “Because I thought today was a good day, because I thought I was strong enough, because I thought I would be okay.”

  “Where are the girls?” he asks, and I cry out a little bit because he doesn’t even know them; he’s never fucking met them, yet he cares more than their actual family does.

  “In bed. Lizzie made dinner,” I tell him. “He left me a letter,” I finally say. “A confession of sorts. He told me all about Hailey. Also left me a nice picture of the two of them on their wedding day.”

  “Prick.” I hear him hiss. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Because it happened so fast. I didn’t even know what it was till I opened it. He loved her,” I say with a sob. “Loving me made him but loving her completed him.”

  “I can’t fucking believe this,” he says. “I have to go.”

  “Okay,” I say, hanging up as I look at the wall. I don’t know how long I lie here; I don’t know how much times goes by. The phone ringing snaps me out of it. “Hello?” I say quietly, seeing it’s now a little past eleven.

  “Open the door,” he says and disconnects. I sit up in bed, shocked and surprised. I go to the front door and open it, my eyes taking him in. His green eyes shining in the moonlight, his blue shirt fitting him like a glove.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask him, shocked that he is standing on my doorstep.

  “I figured you needed a friend,” he says, and I crush my face into his chest and cry out while he holds me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Blake

  I didn’t even know what I was doing, but the only thing on my mind was getting to her. To her soft voice, her silent sobs, her broken spirit.

  Gone was the woman who fought so hard and took so much pride in painting her house, and in her place was the woman who was left behind to feel she wasn’t worth it.

  It took me an hour and forty-five minutes to make the two-and-a-half hour drive. When I pulled up, the house was black. I didn’t know if she would answer, didn’t know if she was even up still, but I knew deep in my soul that she needed to know someone cared. Someone was going to hold her hand. She answered after one ring and her voice was much the same as it was two hours ago.

  “Open the door,” I tell her, and I disconnect. I stand here waiting to see movement. I don’t at first, and then I hear soft footsteps coming down the stairs. The lock clicks on the front door,
and ever so slowly, I see her. Her pink pj top goes off the shoulder with matching pants. Her brown eyes puffy from crying.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks me, shocked I’m standing here.

  “I figured you needed a friend.” I smile at her, and she doesn’t say anything; she just crushes her face into my chest. My arms go around her, the wetness of her tears soaking through my shirt. I pick her up in my arms and walk inside. Sitting on the couch, I cradle her in my arms, rocking her as she cries.

  “I gave him everything,” she says, grabbing my shirt in her tiny hand. “I gave up everything for him,” she says quietly so as not to wake the girls. “My dream job,” she says as her sobs soften and her breathing hiccups. “I was a social worker,” she says with her head tucked into the crook of my neck. “I was going to make a difference, even if only to one child. I was going to do my best to make a difference.” I’m so tempted to kiss her head, so tempted, but I don’t. I just listen to her. “But then I got pregnant with Lizzie. I was so happy, and I didn’t think I could be any more in love with another person in my life. The moment they placed her on my chest was overwhelming; it was everything. Eric was the one to tell me perhaps I should stay home. It would be better for her, so I did it. I left my job, but I got to spend every single day with my girl. Then Daisy came, and it was an overabundance of love. My heart grew tenfold, and I thought I was on top of the world. I thought it just doesn’t get better than this. And then to be told that I just wasn’t that up to par for him.” She stands. “That I was just okay, but Hailey was the one who completed him.” She lifts her head to look at me, and I want to hold her face in my hand and wipe away the tears. I want to bring her lips to mine, but I know I can’t. “I gave him two beautiful girls,” she tells me. “They are so beautiful.”

  “They are,” I agree with her. “Just like their mom.”

  “How didn’t I know?” she asks. She’s looking at me like I have all the answers in the world, but I don’t.

  “You trusted him and believed in him. This isn’t on you,” I tell her, my hands itching to touch her.