by Lisa Sorbe
I jerk my hand back like his is on fire. “Please tell me how we both fucked up.”
But it’s like he’s not hearing me. “Are you married?”
“No…”
He blows out a breath. “Engaged?”
I nod. “I am.”
He frowns.
The strength has returned to my legs, and I shoot out of the seat. I can’t stand being that close to him. “You didn’t answer my question.” I stare down at him, articulating each word. “Please tell me how I fucked up. Enlighten me.”
When he doesn’t respond, just keeps sitting there, the muscle in his jaw twitching, I rage on. “Was it by getting pregnant? Is that it? Because that’s the only thing I can think of. And guess what? That wasn’t my fault! I didn’t plan for Emilia. I took every goddamned birth control pill like I always did. Every single one.” I start pacing, my strength suddenly overwhelming me to the point that if I don’t move, don’t expel these boiling emotions somehow, I might smack him. And while he certainly deserves it, I’m worried if I start, I won’t be able to stop.
And I don’t want to lose control. I refuse to give him that satisfaction.
“But you,” I sneer. “You, who refused to wear condoms because you said they were too tight. You, who refused to touch me – even look at me! – after I told you I was pregnant. And you, who brought that bitch into our home and practically fucked her right in front of me!”
He doesn’t say anything. And what can he say?
“I had Emilia by myself. The driver held my hand and talked me through contractions while I waited in the hospital lobby. The goddamned driver, Julian!”
I’m pacing, practically vibrating with an influx of energy now. It’s coming up. All of it. All the shit that I pushed down for years and didn’t want to think about. But even that didn’t work, because it still manifested itself in a million other little ways.
“You fired the nanny and paid me to get – to fucking stay – out of your life!”
He bends over in his seat, his head in his hands, fingers twisting through his thick hair.
I smirk, feeling absolutely no sympathy for him whatsoever. I squat down so I can look him in the face when I say, “And that little girl whose portrait you bought? The one who you think looks like you? You lived with her for an entire year and didn’t once look her way. You didn’t even watch us walk out the door the day we left. The day you pushed us out.”
My breath is coming in quick gasps now. I’m spent, finally spent.
Standing, I point at the door. “You don’t have to go to Hell, but you can’t stay here. Get out. Now.”
Julian looks up at me, his eyes red. And when he speaks, his voice is hoarse with emotion. “I want to see her. I,” his breath catches. “I want to see Emilia.”
His words are a slap across my face.
“You… You don’t get to say her name, much less see her face.”
I take a deep breath, count to ten. And when he doesn’t move, I return to the counter, pick up the receiver to the landline, and hold it up. The cord curls down like a snake, and I threaten Julian with its venom. “You have ten seconds to get out of here, or I’m calling the cops.”
Julian rises slowly, awkwardly, like his legs can’t bear the weight of his massive body. He pulls out his wallet, plucks a card from the sleeve, and lays it gently on the counter. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
And then he’s gone.
Emilia is spending the night with Fox and Elise, who are lifesavers and who offered to pick her up immediately after I called them this morning, half hysterical. They kept the interaction upbeat, telling her they wanted to introduce her to their new dog, a coonhound-mix they adopted from the shelter a week ago named Dehlia.
So now here I sit, with my hands wrapped around a mug of tea when all I really want is a shot or two or three of tequila or bourbon or whisky or something stronger than the supposedly calming earl grey Miles is making me drink. We’re sitting on his couch, and he’s looking at me like I’m a bomb about to explode.
“I’m not a bomb about to explode,” I tell him, lifting the mug to take another drink.
Nope. Not helping. Calming, my ass.
I run my thumb over the mug, tracing the words Someone in Minnesota Loves Me and mumble, “I can’t believe that asshole is threatening me with an attorney.” And then I laugh. Laugh so hard my hand jerks and spills lukewarm tea on my yoga pants. “I wonder if it’s the same attorney who leered over me while I signed the divorce papers. Wouldn’t that be rich?”
Miles isn’t laughing. Just wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. “You have every right to feel the way that you’re feeling. And if you want to throw that cup against a wall because it’ll make you feel better, go ahead.” He chuckles as he rests his cheek against my head. “I know from personal experience how satisfying it can be to break something against these old brick walls.”
I’m sure he’s referring to when he moved in here, after losing Sasha and Jacob. Those months he spent up here all alone, so cold from the sudden loss of child, his fiancé.
A small smile breaks through, and I hand him the mug. “Maybe you should take this, because I do feel like throwing it and I don’t want to spend our last two weeks up here worrying about Lucy stepping on bits of broken ceramic we forgot to sweep up.”
Miles kisses the top of my head. “Look at you, caring about the cat. Who are you, Jennifer Malone?”
I groan. “She’s growing on me, okay?”
And she is. Lucy doesn’t hiss at me anymore. Probably because I’ve started feeding her in the mornings, but I’ll take it. A win is a win.
We sit in silence for a while, the only noise the soft hum of the space heater in the corner by the bed and the whisking whir of my fans in the corner by the doorway.
Miles is absently trailing his fingers through my hair and I’m finally starting to calm down enough to think rationally when he asks, “Have you thought about talking to him?”
I jerk away, my features screwing into a what-the-fuck-look. “Are you serious? I talked to him today, Miles.”
Miles reaches for my hand, rubs circles on my palm with his thumb. “I wasn’t there, okay? But I’m pretty sure I can guess how it played out. You,” he looks at me, lifting his brows, “yelled at him. Talked at him and not to him.”
I close my eyes. Take a deep breath. Hold it.
“Am I right?”
“Yes,” I admit, releasing my breath along with the word.
He pauses for a minute, possibly gauging my sanity. When I don’t say anything else, he continues. “And then, before you could truly get to the heart of the matter, the real meat and potatoes of the issue and why he was there, you kicked him out. Correct?”
I glare at him. “Of course. Of course I did! He totally blindsided me, Miles! He walked into my life after all these years. All these years, when I least suspected it and after I never thought I’d see him again!”
Am I going crazy? Why the hell is Miles – my fiancé – defending him?
“I’m not defending him,” Miles says, answering my unasked question.
I pull my hand from his and cross my arms, closing myself off. “Well, you’re sure acting like it. Call him an asshole, a bastard! Tell me you want to track him down and kick the shit out of him.” Tears are pricking the corners of my eyes. “I want…” I cover my face with my hands, slide my fingers through my hair, and ball my fists in the locks.
I want Julian to have never come back into my life. I want to wake up this morning and do it all over, sans Julian’s appearance. I want to be curled up with Miles on the couch, talking about the renovation plans for our farmhouse on our beautiful land while Emilia cuddles with Lucy on the pullout bed. (Because, for some reason, the damn cat adores my daughter.)
And what I don’t want is to be sitting here, arguing with my fiancé and worried Julian’s super expensive lawyer is going to work his magic with the legal system and take my daughter away from me.
Because while Julian was completely absent throughout her entire life, I might as well have been.
And that, right there, is the heart of the matter. The real meat and potatoes of the issue.
Until recently, I’ve been a bad mom. And when I look at Julian, I see myself. How I used to be. How I’ve been through most of Emilia’s life.
And, oh… I hate myself so much for it.
“Do you really want me to kick the shit out of your ex-husband?”
I sigh. I can’t even picture Miles doing something like that. “No,” I admit.
Miles chuckles. “Good. Because apparently his muscles are way bigger than mine, remember?”
He flexes and I laugh, remembering the night he carried me home from Bert’s, where I spent a good portion of the trip telling him all about Julian’s muscles. “But you’re just as strong,” I point out. “In fact, I think you’re so much stronger.” I smile a watery smile, because now I’m getting sappy over the man sitting next to me. “Ugh,” I groan. “I’m such a mess.”
And just like that, the irritation is back. The anger, the bitterness, swirling around inside me like a hurricane. I feel this way because of Julian. And I hate him.
I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.
“I know you hate him,” Miles says. Because apparently, I said that out loud. The roar in my head is so loud I can’t think clearly, like I’m losing my grip on reality. I feel like I’m in a state of sober inebriation, where my walls are down and I can’t control my emotions. But I’m coherent enough to realize what’s going on – all the feelings that are rippling through me like shockwaves – which makes it even more aggravating.
Miles tugs on my hand, and I slowly fall back into him. My head is resting on his chest, and I’m trying to contain the flurry of emotions, when Miles opens up a whole new can of shit. “You know my dad died when I was ten.”
I nod.
“But I never told you how.”
I wipe away a stupid stray tear. “How did he die?”
Miles’s chest rises as he inhales. On the exhale, he says, “My dad was killed in a car accident.”
I wrap my arm around his middle, squeeze him tight. But I don’t say anything, because I know he’s not finished. He has a point to prove, and he’s reaching into one of his own heartbreaks to prove it.
“It was just after Christmas and right before New Year’s. That week where everyone has to go back to work but is still caught up in the holidays? The entire week is like one big party and everyone just sort of half asses their responsibilities, know what I mean?”
I know the question is rhetorical, but I nod anyway.
“My dad had just dropped his truck off and was coming home after being on the road for ten days straight. He was going to be home for two weeks, and then he had one more trip after that. One more, and then he was going to be transferred to an office position in Minneapolis. We were planning to move up there that Spring. My parents had even started looking at houses in the area. And me? I didn’t even mind moving – leaving school and my friends – because it meant my dad was going to be home all the time. God, I was so fucking excited.”
My worry drifts away with his story. Because I know what’s coming. I know that little boy didn’t get to move away to Minneapolis, didn’t get to experience having a full-time dad like he dreamed of.
“We got hit with a wicked snowstorm the day before he got back, and the majority of the streets were still icy and snow-packed the night he was supposed to come home. That, of course, contributed to the accident. But the…” He stops and clears his throat. “The thing that made it worse – and is probably the reason my dad is dead instead of still alive and walking around with a limp from a bum leg or something – is because the driver of the other vehicle was drunk and driving way over the speed limit.”
My fingers clench a fistful of his flannel and I sniff back a sob.
“They guy who hit my dad was just coming back from a party. Typical holiday stuff. Blood alcohol content through the roof. There was no way he should have been behind the wheel in his condition, much less with the conditions the roads were in at the time. Funny thing is, he was practically home, too. The driver, that is. He steered that truck all the way from downtown without hitting anyone or anything. All that way, over the interstate and through blocks and blocks of neighborhoods. He ended up blowing through a stop sign and hitting the driver’s side door of my dad’s car at sixty miles an hour.
My mom felt guilty after it happened. My dad, he gave her his truck – a big Chevy Silverado that was built like a tank, I swear – because it was four-wheel drive. That way we could get around easier while he was gone. Said the only thing he needed her little Civic for was to drive to work and then, a little over a week later, drive home. That ate my mom up for a long time. Although, she never let it affect her life. At least, not on the outside. Still kept her job teaching music, kept our house a home. Me, on the other hand. I was so angry, so mad, I just… I couldn’t hold it all in.”
“Of, course you couldn’t,” I say softly, reaching up to brush my lips over his cheek. “You were just a kid.”
“Yeah, well. I let it define me. It became my identity, and I went out looking for things that would further those feelings. I drank a lot. Which is stupid, I know, considering alcohol was pretty much the reason my dad was dead. Gravitated toward some bad people who had the same type of rage I had. But, like I mentioned before, working for Bob helped. It didn’t take all the anger away, but it gave me a healthier way for me to channel it.”
I pull back, lean against the couch cushions and curl my legs over his lap. “You don’t seem at all angry now. Or bitter,” I point out. “I don’t even know how you’re telling me all this without wanting to throw something.” I allow a small smile and point to the mug on the coffee table. “Or kick the shit out of the guy who hit your dad.”
Miles chuckles. “Yeah, well. Those were my intentions once upon a time. When I got older and couldn’t sleep, I’d dream about hunting the guy down and driving my fist into his face. I’d build whole scenarios around it. Like, I’d run across him at the grocery store, follow him home and, once he got inside, I’d have all the privacy I wanted to just wail on him, torture him, pull his fingernails out one at a time. Other times, I envisioned just choking the life out of him up against an alley wall and leaving his body for the rats.”
My mouth drops. This is not the version of Miles I know. “That,” I say, trying to conceal my horror, “is intense.”
Miles’s laugh is dark. “Yeah, well. I was an intense kid. After my dad died, at least.”
I rub his arm. “You had every right to feel the way you did, though. I don’t blame you for having those thoughts. I, well, I had some similar to Julian right after we divorced. They alternated between me trashing his artwork or humiliating him in public and him crawling back to me and becoming the sort of fairytale family magazines would beg us to photograph. But they were pretty graphic, either way.”
“That’s my point, though.” He runs his hands over my legs. “Anger, bitterness, thoughts of revenge – all that shit can consume you. Warping who you are and turning you entirely into something else. Like me, for example, who dreamt of bashing a man’s skull into the side of a brick building. I actually wanted to hear the crack of it. Thoughts like those, man… They’ll take you down all the wrong paths. And if you’re not careful, you’ll end up so far from where you began that you won’t be able to find your way back.”
“You said working for Bob helped, but not all the way. What brought you back?”
He squeezes my knee. “Meeting the man who hit my dad.”
My eyes go wide, round, practically popping out of my head. “Holy shit,” I say. “Did… You didn’t hurt him, did you?”
Miles shakes his head, then nods and laughs. It’s a soft laugh, and not at all bitter. It’s almost like he’s recalling a happy memory, instead of what he’s really doing – retelling the story of the
time he met the man responsible for his father’s death.
“I was twenty, and by that time I’d been at Bob’s shop for about four years, so I’d calmed down some. Walked in the door one night after work and there he was, sitting at the kitchen table and talking to my mom. At first, I didn’t know who he was. But he was crying, bent over all weird and my mom was consoling him, patting him on the back and offering Kleenex. And then I noticed she was crying, which threw me into defense mode. Walking up to that table,” he blows out a breath, “it was surreal. It was like I knew who he was, even before either of them could tell me. I never saw a picture of the guy or knew his name – my mom kept all that stuff from me when it happened. Didn’t want it scarring me, she said. As if I wasn’t scarred enough already, right? And I never looked it up when I got older because, at least deep down, I was nervous if I did know who he was, I’d find him. I’d find him and act out everything I’d dreamed of doing to him. But somehow, when he turned and looked at me with those glassy eyes, I knew. I just fucking knew. And before he or my mom could say anything, I hit him. I punched him in the face so hard it knocked him out of his chair.”
I gasp, throw a hand over my mouth.
“I know,” Miles says, reading my reaction. “It wasn’t my finest moment. And I would have beat him more. I wanted to, had my arm cocked back and everything. But when I saw him crumpled on the ground, he looked so… sad. Defeated. I’d given him a bloody nose, and that was making him look even worse. He was so fucking frail – just an old man – and I suddenly felt like shit for hitting him. Even though, in my mind, he deserved it. Deserved that and so much worse.
My mom helped him up – I wasn’t feeling that remorseful – while I paced the kitchen. Long ending to a long story, my mom finally convinced me to sit down and hear him out. He’d come over to apologize. Not to ask for forgiveness, but to apologize and try to help us find peace. And after talking to him, really listening to him, I realized he was telling the truth. Said he spent three years in prison for what he did, and the whole time he thought of four people: me, my mom, my dad, and his wife. Turns out she died just a year prior to the incident with my dad, and he wasn’t coping with it well. Highschool sweethearts and married for thirty years until they were mugged one night in New York. He was beaten up pretty good – lost a tooth – and his wife was shot point blank in the face right in front of him.”
