Prude

by Hilaria Alexander

  I furtively glanced their way as I circled the bleachers and walked to where they were sitting and took the spot on my ex-husband’s left.

  He gave me a nod and said hi.

  “Hello,” I replied.

  “How are you?”

  “Great,” I said with a fake smile. Great, I was doing so, so great.

  He pretended to watch the game for a moment, but he kept stealing glances my way.

  “Aren’t you slightly overdressed for a soccer game?” he asked, leaning into me.

  Was he flirting with me? The fucker!

  “I had an appointment.”

  “Was it for work?”

  “Hmm-hmm,” I lied.

  “And I had to come to the game because you had an appointment? Dressed like that?” he scoffed.

  “You had to come to the first game of the season because you’re their father, Patrick. Don’t get me started. And where I go and how I dress shouldn’t concern you.”

  Here we go, things were going to turn shitty. In public. Aurora had suddenly come out of her smartphone-induced coma, and stopped looking at whatever game or app she was messing with. Our eyes met, and we said hi to each other.

  I turned to watch my boy on the soccer field and noticed he was looking for us in the crowd. I waved at him, and the smile that broke out on his face got even bigger when he noticed his father and I were sitting together, smiling back and waving at him. The smile on Carter’s face fell once he noticed his father’s girlfriend sitting next to us.

  Carter was the one who had suffered the hardest when his father and I divorced. I was blindsided by it too, but he was flat-out crushed. His little brother was thankfully too young to understand.

  My ex-husband’s selfishness hurt me, but it nearly destroyed my little boy, and I was never going to forgive him for that.

  I tried to set my bitterness aside and focused on the game. Carter’s team had just tied the score, and they still had the second half to win it. I kept following my kid running up and down the field, his brown hair too long, getting in the way. He kept brushing it out of his eyes. I’d have to convince him to get a haircut soon. He had been fighting me about it. He was already very opinionated for an eight-year-old, and so strong willed.

  He and his father were so alike for that matter, and yet, Carter was giving his dad the cold shoulder. I couldn’t completely blame him for that, although I didn’t try to encourage him. I wanted both of my children to have a stable, healthy relationship with their father, but it seemed I had to convince both sides. I had to convince Patrick to make time for his kids, and I had to convince Carter to give his dad a chance. Carter was only six when we got divorced, and although he didn’t really “get it” at first, as time passed, he stopped hoping his father and I would get back together.

  Eventually, he stopped idolizing his dad. I’m not sure if it was because Patrick’s absenteeism was letting him down, or because he realized his father was the only reason we had gotten divorced.

  It had been hard for me to accept Patrick moving out, and even though I never gave him the satisfaction of crying in front of him, I’d throw myself a cry-your-eyes-out party every once in a while, in the comfort of my home. Most times I tried to hide myself from the kids, but sometimes they would catch me with tears in my eyes.

  At the time of our divorce, it also didn’t help that Patrick was in the process of opening his third restaurant and kept missing his scheduled time with them.

  Unlike Carter, Noah was a little more forgiving. I liked to believe it was because he was so young when we split up. He didn’t know any better and he didn’t have any memory to measure it against. He didn’t even remember a time when we all lived together, under one roof.

  I tried to ignore the lovebirds next to me, but as I caught them holding hands, I grimaced.

  My ex-husband had no shame. Not that there was anything wrong with bringing your new girlfriend of six months to your son’s soccer game, but did he have to be flirting under the nose of his ex-wife? Asshole.

  ***

  Carter’s team won the game, and he even scored a goal. They ended up winning 4-3. For a moment there, it looked like his team wasn’t going to make it, and I thought I would have to console a crushed eight-year-old. Meanwhile, I was trying to mentally prepare myself to tell my mother about what I had just found out.

  I looked to my right to say goodbye to Patrick and Aurora, and realized that soon I’d have to tell him too. Him and everyone else. I might have been trying to forget for the last forty minutes about the shit storm that had just hit my life, but now it was time to go back to it.

  Too soon. It was too soon.

  “Patrick,” I said, trying to get his attention.

  He turned to me, and for a moment the look in his eyes gave me a sudden deja-vu of happier times.

  “I need to talk to you about something. Can we meet for breakfast sometime this week?” I asked, my voice smaller than I intended.

  “Can’t we talk right now?”

  I eyed Aurora and heard him exhale.

  “It’s not a good idea. I need to talk to you alone…without the kids around.”

  “Everything okay, kiddo?” he asked, frowning. I always hated when he called me that in the past. I wondered if he used it with Aurora too. Just the thought of him using the same nickname made me want to puke. Or maybe I was nauseous because my world had started spinning really fast.

  “Everything’s wonderful,” I lied. “I just need to talk to you about something. It’s about the kids…sort of.”

  “Honey, we have to go,” Aurora pleaded, pulling on his arm.

  He checked his phone and looked at the time.

  “Yeah, that’s right. We have to go. Text me and let me know when you want to meet for breakfast, okay?”

  His eyes met mine for a brief moment, and it took all the strength I had not to start crumbling. If he had held my gaze, I probably would have started crying, unable to hide it, unable to keep it all inside. He had always been so good at reading me. But he was distracted now, and I wasn’t on his radar anymore. He quickly turned to Aurora and said, “We’ll go in a minute. Let me say goodbye to Carter.”

  Carter finally made his way over to us, carrying his big soccer bag. He walked with a little hunch, trying to balance the weight of it. He looked older than eight years old. My little man. His face was red from running, and his hair was sweaty. It was already warm in Houston despite being only March.

  A sudden silly thought crossed my mind while Carter hugged his dad: wearing a wig in the heat was going to suck balls.

  “That was some goal, buddy!” Patrick told Carter after they exchanged hellos.

  “Thanks, Dad,” Carter replied staring at the ground, trying to avoid looking at his father at all cost.

  “We have to go now, but I’ll see you this weekend, okay? Think about something fun you want to do.”

  “Okay.”

  They hugged awkwardly, and we all said goodbye and went to our cars.

  As I looked in the rearview mirror, I caught the last glimpse of leggy, young Aurora with her fucking shiny blonde hair, styled perfectly in loose waves. She was wearing oversized sunglasses even though the sun was setting, and had the biggest pair of platforms, which made her look just like a model. What was even worse, was that the shoes she had on reminded me of the ones I used to wear in the ‘90s.

  I cringed.

  It was stupid, but I hated her. And the worst part was that it wasn’t her fault. It was all Patrick’s.

  Fucking Patrick.

  I turned on the satellite radio, and as I pulled out of the parking spot “She’s Not Me” by Jenny Lewis came on.

  Perfect timing, I thought, smiling and shaking my head in disbelief.

  I caught Aurora staring at me. I gave her a nod and drove off.

  ***

  I wasn’t sure how many times I inhaled and exhaled telling myself to calm down in the short drive between the soccer field and my neighborhood.

>   My mom was going to look at my face, and know immediately something was wrong. Very wrong.

  I hadn’t given her any details, I just told her I had an important doctor’s appointment, and I needed her to be at the store. She hadn’t asked me what kind of appointment it was. She probably just thought it was a routine check-up. I hadn’t had the courage to tell her about my Frankenboob just yet. I asked her to cover for me that afternoon until Kira got there, and she decided to keep Noah with her instead of having Patrick deal with him during Carter’s soccer match. Noah was almost four and not very good at keeping still or following directions in general. He was a ball of energy every single day. I was pretty sure that after being with grandma he’d be probably a little bit crazier than usual. My mom, like most grandparents, could never say no to the kids. Most likely, Noah had overdosed on sugary treats that afternoon.

  Meow.

  Sheeran, our ginger cat, greeted us as we walked through the door.

  “Carter, honey, don’t roll all over the carpet with Sheeran in your dirty uniform. Please go take a shower and put your soccer uniform in the hamper.”

  “Mommy!” Noah ran to me, and I picked him up. He was just a few months shy of turning four, but the kid was chunky, and he was getting really heavy. I tried to ignore the sudden sharp pain shooting through my left boob.

  “How much candy have you had, buddy?” I could smell it on him and felt a couple of grains of sugar on his fingers. If I had to guess, I’d say he just had some gummy worms.

  “None, I swear!” he lied, shaking his head, trying to hide a smile. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he started laughing. “Fine! I just had a wittle bit!”

  “Just a little bit?” I asked, shooting him an incredulous look.

  “Just a wittle. Grandma said I can have some more after dinner.”

  “Dinner. Right. I completely forgot about that.”

  I walked toward the kitchen with Noah in my arms. The house smelled like mac and cheese. My mom was busy working two jobs as I was growing up. She wasn’t the greatest cook and her repertoire hadn’t changed in the last few years. Her cooking skills were limited to what I’d call the American classics: mac and cheese, grilled cheese, cheeseburgers and hot dogs. Oh, and pizza. How could I forget pizza? My junk-loaded diet must have been the reason why I had lived all my adult life striving to have healthier habits. Yet, apparently, that hadn’t been enough.

  I wasn’t a fanatic of working out, but I made myself run because I knew it was such a good workout. All the moms in my neighborhood were obsessed with running because they wanted to be thin, and on top of that, they were crazy competitive. I wasn’t that hardcore, but I enjoyed running with them. It was a good way to release stress. It kept me motivated. It was during a run that I had started experiencing the first symptoms in my left breast. Of course, I blamed it on running, and I dismissed the stabbing pain as workout fatigue. At the time, all I could focus on was how I wanted to run a marathon.

  I couldn’t believe that was just a few weeks ago. Now, just the idea of running seemed so stupid. I put Noah down, and he ran somewhere, probably looking for his brother. He liked to torment him, like all little brothers do.

  I thought of my sister Geena. Noah reminded me of her sometimes.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said absent-mindedly, as I walked to the kitchen.

  “Hey, honey.” She turned from the stove, and gave me a warm smile. “How was your appointment?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to force the words out of my mouth.

  How do you break the news to your mother you have breast cancer? How do you tell her it’s not just the “more common” lump, but that you actually have Inflammatory Breast Cancer, one of the sneakier, more dangerous types of breast cancer? How do you mention that just in the last few days, one of your C-cup breasts swelled and your skin turned into something resembling an orange peel? How do you explain to your mom that you will get your first chemo in just seven days? How do you tell her all that without crying, because you want to be the strong person everyone always made you out to be?

  I couldn’t hold it together anymore. The façade crumbled.

  I just shook my head, looked down and started crying. She walked to me and hugged me, asking me to tell her what was wrong. The tone of her voice was worried, but she hugged me tight and kept soothing me, waiting patiently for the moment I could speak.

  I needed a minute.

  While she hugged me, the mac and cheese burned on the stove.

  We ordered pizza.