by Heidi Lowe
"I thought I had moved past this, at least partially. But it still hurts. I don't think I'll ever get over it." This has been my ultimate fear, that each time I come close to moving on, or rebuilding my life without Nikki, her betrayal will sit at the back of my mind, reminding me never to trust another person again; reminding me not to be happy.
"You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but was your wife unfaithful?" she says, wincing a little, likely afraid that she's overstepped.
"Is it that obvious?"
"To me, yes. Only because I've been where you are." I highly doubt it. I'm willing to bet my house that her ex didn't run off with her father's fiancee!
"And were you ready to forgive her before realizing she had no intention of coming back to you?" I ask.
"Is that how it was for you? You forgave her?"
I nod slowly. "I would have. I would have done everything to get us back to where we were, no matter how long it took. But you know where I was earlier today?" I sniff back more tears, staring down at nothing on the hardwood floor. "I gatecrashed a wedding...my ex-wife's wedding."
Through my peripheral vision I see her gawking at me. It's not clear what has shocked her more – the gatecrashing or the wedding itself.
"She remarried? How long ago did the divorce come through?"
"A few weeks."
"Well that's...that's just...crap!"
I don't know why, but I find her outburst and its randomness amusing. I sniff a little laugh. "That's an understatement."
"You spoke so highly of her on the blog. No one would believe she'd do something like this."
"Least of all me. God, I'm sorry for bringing the mood down and boring you with my failure of a life. I haven't even asked you your name."
She smiles. "I'm far from bored. And I'm a great listener, if you need to talk." Then she sticks out her hand. "Melanie. Ivy's sister."
Of course! That's why she looks familiar.
ELEVEN
"Her stepmother? Tell me you're joking," Melanie exclaims, shaking her head, eyes bugged out.
"She never legally became her stepmother. But it's still disturbing."
I have lost all track of time in this room with Melanie. Coming up here was her idea, and I didn't have a say in it. It's one of the guest rooms in Ivy's house, and we're sitting on the bed, shoes off, while a bowl of salted pretzels sits between us. She's doing most of the eating, and listening, for that matter. She wasn't lying when she said she was good at it.
This is the first time I've seen the upstairs of Ivy's house, and it almost seems naughty to do so now, without her permission. Melanie did assure me that she wouldn't mind that we deserted the party and snuck off up here.
"I know she's the mother of your child and all, but...your ex-wife, from what you've just told me, sounds like a jerk!"
I chuckle. In the past, I would have defended Nikki over anything. Now, however, I'm more likely to join in hurling insults at her. It's petty and childish, I know, but who I have become is a product of her actions.
"I mean, who but a jerk would treat a person like this? A person they claim to love?"
That's something I've been unable to answer myself. And believe me, I've tried.
"I think she hates me. It has to be that. But I can't imagine why."
"How could anyone hate you?" Her voice goes soft for a moment, matching her eyes as she stares at me. She sounds genuinely confused.
I clear my throat and look away, reaching for a pretzel that I don't want, in order to break the awkward eye contact. And suddenly I'm aware of how indecent our current position would look to someone else. If Ivy were to walk in now and see us – her bikini-clad sister and her recently divorced, hasn't had sex in eight months client, sitting on a bed, sharing intimate details of their lives – she would jump to all the wrong conclusions. As I recall, she'd made a joke about us getting together. She might think herself a matchmaker, when in all honesty this is completely harmless. Dating is the farthest thing from my mind; and although Melanie is attractive – those blue eyes and cheeky smile are hypnotic – I have never been attracted to butch women, soft or otherwise.
"So Ivy really didn't tell you any of this?" I say, stuffing a couple of pretzels into my mouth.
She shakes her head. "You're her client. She's pretty protective of her clients' privacy. I hate how ethical my big sister is sometimes," she says with a laugh.
The vibration and subsequent ringing of my cellphone on the bedside table startles us. When I look at the screen, I'm shocked to see that it's already a quarter past eight.
Sandra's name flashes on the screen.
"You have to go, right?" Melanie says once I finish the call, her tone weighted with disappointment.
"'Fraid so. My daughter's back." I get up, stretch a little, and slip on my shoes. "Time to return to the real world." Up here, away from everyone and everything, absent responsibility, absent the need to constantly put on a brave face in order to pretend I'm doing okay, it did feel like I'd stepped out of reality for two hours. I, too, am sad to see it end.
She slips her feet into her flip flops. "Little Emily. How old is she now?"
"Four...going on twenty," I laugh. "She's all about her independence now. Doesn't need help with anything...until she does."
"She sounds amazing."
I smile just thinking about her. "She is." My constant in all of this. My Emily. I see my sister in her every day, and it warms me. Yet there's so much of me in her, too. I wonder if Nikki sees me every time she looks at her.
"Hey, look," Melanie starts, and shifts uneasily, running her hand through her hair, which has dried completely now, "I really enjoyed talking to you. It was easy. I don't know, maybe we could talk again...maybe...?"
For the whole evening her speech has been assured, confident and clear. But now she's stumbling, and I watch her cheeks redden. It's actually cute. She's nervous because she wants to see me again.
"Oh," I say, slightly taken aback.
"It's okay if you don't want to," she adds quickly. "I know you're going through a lot."
"No, it's...we can talk again. Sure." Now I'm stumbling and bumbling. Two lesbians can be just friends. And I could do with a friend right now, especially one who knows what I'm going through. The truth is, conversation with her is easy, as she put it. Devoid of inhibitions, of many of the preconceived notions that are often present when meeting new people. I don't know what it is about her that makes me feel so relaxed.
She gives me her number and I promise to call, before bidding her farewell.
I find Ivy in the kitchen, tell her I have to go. She's wrapping some food with plastic wrap. "I thought you were already gone. I haven't seen you around. The house is big, but not so big that I would miss you."
"I've been around," I say coyly. "I have to get back to Emily. We'll talk." I blow her a kiss, and hurry away.
Emily is fast asleep in the back of Sandra's car by the time the cab pulls up outside my house.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," I say to Sandra, who also looks weary.
"It's fine. If I'd known you weren't home, I would have taken her back to mine and brought her home tomorrow."
I carefully lift the sleeping child out of the car. She looks like a little angel in her pink and white dress; like a Disney princess. She was but a twinkle in my sister's eye when Nikki and I got married. How sad it is that the first wedding she attends is her mother's to another woman.
All three of us load into the house quietly, Emily in my arms. I take her straight up to bed and tuck her in, then head back down to Sandra.
"Sorry again. I completely lost track of time."
"Forget it," she says, waving dismissively. "You said you were at a party. Did you have fun?"
"Yes, actually. It was nice. My agent had a cocktail party. I wasn't going to go, but then..."
"Then what?" she inquires.
"Nothing. I just didn't want to be cooped up at home today, that's all." Telling her I attended the
wedding will only serve to make me look even more pitiful than I already do. It was foolish of me to go, and I regret every second of it.
"How was it?" I ask as casually as possible.
She shrugs. "Yours was better."
I smile sadly. "You're just saying that to make me feel better." She doesn't know that I saw the ceremony, that I saw the trouble and expense that went into it, that I saw how happy Nikki and her new wife looked. They got the weather, the setting, and they even got my daughter. I fail to see how mine could ever compare.
"I'm saying it because it's true. It might have looked the part, but it felt kinda empty, impersonal. I don't know, maybe it's just me. Maybe it felt that way because she just wasn't you..." She yawns, waves a tired hand at me, then heads out, leaving me in the hallway with my thoughts.
TWELVE
I can't sleep through storms. I've never been able to. Howling, whistling winds; rain battering against the window, like bullets hitting glass; thunder roaring like the beat of a thousand drums; sporadic flashes of lightning illuminating the sky, like a light bulb switching on and promptly blowing out.
Instead of spending the night tossing and turning, trying in vain to get sleep I know will never come, I bury myself in a book while the storm rages around me. There was once a time when Nikki would wake to find me up, having been woken by the storm. She would laugh at me doing mundane things at ungodly hours, and insist I come back to bed. And I would, right into her arms. We would talk, her voice would soothe me, and before I knew it I'd be fast asleep.
I shake my head, shake the memory away (as though it's that simple to forget what we had), and try to concentrate on the passage I've read three times already.
My bedroom door creaks open, and Emily appears.
"Hey there." I toss my book aside, remove my reading glasses, and stretch my arms out to her. Those huge brown eyes are wide with fear. The same fear for the storm that I have, though it's impossible for her to know its origin. She doesn't know that it was a storm that sent her parents' car off the road and into a tree.
I lift her into the bed and cuddle her close, stroking my hand over her messy hair. I love the smell of her – she smells so new, like a baby.
"Did you have a bad dream?"
She nods.
"What was it about?"
"I can't remember." That's always the case.
She doesn't say anything for a while, just clings to me tightly, as though afraid I might disappear. Then I try to get her to sleep again. She usually drifts off once she knows she's safe. I sing the song my sister used to sing to her that calmed her when she was a baby – Just Imagine from the Barney show. She's still young enough to appreciate my singing, despite my awful voice.
"Mommy, why doesn't Mama live here anymore?"
I stop abruptly. Her big, expectant eyes are on me. It's been a while since she asked, a while since I had to sugarcoat and fabricate the truth of our new normal. I wonder why it's coming up now.
"She lives with someone else now, my love."
"Angel?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Because she's a terrible human being with a cold, black heart, and no soul! That's what I want to say, but instead say, "Because Angel is her wife." The words leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Staying diplomatic and respectful to a woman and union that has caused me so much harm is a job for a saint. Especially when no one has spared my feelings, has adopted diplomacy in the way they've treated me.
She sits up. "But Mama loves you."
I smile sadly at my daughter's innocence. "She did, once. She loves Angel now."
She shakes her head. "They always shout."
I do a double take, watching my daughter carefully now. "Mama and Angel fight a lot?"
She nods, her lips puckered. "Mama tells me to watch TV in the other room, but I still hear them."
"What do they fight about?"
She shrugs. "Things." That seems like the only answer I'm going to get from her – the only answer she's able to give at her age.
I fill in the blanks myself, probably with the wrong information. They're only six weeks into their marriage, but they're already arguing enough that a four-year-old is cognizant of it.
"Mama didn't shout at you when she lived here," she continues.
No, she didn't. Not to say we didn't have our disagreements, but we never resorted to shouting. We would kiss and make up (and make love) soon after, anyway, and all would be forgotten.
There's no hiding the jubilant feeling that's overtaken me now. I know it's probably nothing but a lovers' spat, nothing serious, but it fills me with joy to know that it isn't all picnics on the beach, hand-holding, and good times.
"I don't like Angel."
"Why not, honey?"
She shrugs as she lies down again, eyes heavy. "She isn't very nice."
Protective mama bear mode is activated. "To you? What does she do that you don't like?"
"She doesn't let me play in the living room, and she always sounds angry when she speaks to me."
The storm rages on, and suddenly my mood is matching it in its fury. How long has this been going on, and why hasn't Nikki done anything about it?
Then something occurs to me. "Emily, is that one of the things that Mama and Angel fight about?"
She nods and yawns. "Mama tells her off, and then they fight."
I'm still furious; and even though it doesn't set my mind at ease entirely, I'm at least somewhat satisfied that Nikki isn't sitting back and watching her new wife mistreat her daughter. We're still going to have words. Lots of them.
"Go to sleep now, honey." I kiss her on the forehead. She's halfway between sleep and wakefulness, her eyes half-lidded.
"Mama loves you...she told me..."
I know the context in which Nikki spoke those words. They didn't mean anything to me when she said them all those months ago, before choosing Angel over me, and they don't mean anything now. She'll say whatever it takes to make herself seem like less of a monster to her daughter. But we all know the truth: She never loved me, and she couldn't wait to divorce me.
Sandra stops by over the weekend with a selection of sweet pastries and coffee.
"She's actually pretty good." Sandra holds up her hands and wiggles her fingers, showing off the two-toned, sparkly purple nail polish that Emily has just spent the last five minutes applying. "She does a better job than I do, anyway. That's why I don't wear the stuff."
"You took it back from her after she was done, didn't you? She's awfully quiet in the living room. I don't want to go in there and find nail polish all over my furniture."
She chuckles. "Of course I took it from her. What do you think I am?"
"You know, the other night she asked me why Nikki doesn't live here anymore."
"I thought she stopped that."
"So did I," I say. "But I guess it must have been playing on her mind."
"You think she's still having a hard time adjusting?"
I shrug. "I'm not sure. She hasn't really had a hard time, she just sort of went along with it. One day Mama was here, with us, and the next she was with Angel. She accepted it, you know. It doesn't look as though Nikki explained anything to her."
"Maybe because Nikki knows what a load of crap the marriage is, and knows there's no point getting her daughter used to something that will be over before she hits her fifth birthday."
I regard Sandra with curiosity as she bites into her pastry. It's no secret that she doesn't support the marriage, but how can she speak with such certainty about the end of it?
"Why do you say that?"
"Because it's true. That marriage wasn't built on anything of substance, and now the cracks are showing. Big style." There's a whisper of amusement in her words. She brushes powdered sugar off her lips, her dark red lipstick untouched and perfect.
I shouldn't care about any of this. It's none of my business. But my intrigue is killing me. I want to know more.
"What do you mean by crac
ks showing?"
"Nikki tries to wear this facade that all is well, that she's never been happier, but what type of friend would I be if I couldn't see it's a mask?"
"You think she's unhappy?" I ask incredulously. "Already?"
"I don't think anything; I know it. But she doesn't want to hear I told you so. She tries to laugh off the things the crazy bitch she married does, but she knows that's not normal behavior."
"Like what?" Did that sound too eager?
"Like calling every hour, checking that she's where she says she is, going through her phone, turning up at the office unexpectedly to check up on her. Stuff like that. The sort of stuff she was doing their first time at the rodeo." She shakes her head. "That leopard didn't change its spots. It's still the deranged beast it always was."
"Wow," are the only words that find me. I wish none of this mattered to me, but it does. It gives me the opportunity to revel in Nikki's misery.
"Yeah. It serves her right for thinking the grass was greener. She's slowly realizing she made the biggest mistake of her life." She pauses for a moment, takes another bite of pastry, then adds, "I fully expect her to come crawling back with her tail between her legs any day now."
I'm so taken aback I nearly spit out my coffee all over her.
"Here? To me?" I shake my head profusely. "No way. She wouldn't. She knows that ship has sailed. That ship's on the other side of the Atlantic by now."
Nikki wouldn't have the nerve, not after everything that's happened. Not after the way she left. Surely she knows there's no place for her in my heart or my home anymore? Co-parenting with her is bad enough.
No. Sandra's wrong about that. She has to be.
"I know," she says after watching me for a long time. Why do I detect an air of disappointment in her tone? She sighs. "Tell me something. At which point did you decide there was no going back?"
I ponder this question for a moment, before responding with, "As soon as I found out that they intended to marry, that sealed it for me." I can hear the change of tone, the darkening of my voice as I force myself to relive that day when Angel turned up with divorce papers. It still hurts to think about it. "I was a mess that day. And I knew then that I couldn't ever take her back. Not because I didn't still love her, but because I knew I wasn't strong enough to forgive her."
