Broken Together

by K. L. Gilchrist

  Tracey peered at her mother. She had said that.

  “Yeah, well, we’re older now. Time heals if you let it. I did have some good years with the man. If he needs my help, he’s got it.” Alice eased onto her feet. “You all can keep talking. I’m going to turn the heat off under these greens. If the mac and cheese is done, we can set the table and eat.”

  Change. Guess a person’s never too old for it. Tracey pushed off the sofa.

  “Where are you going?” Brian tugged her hand. “We’re going to eat in a minute.”

  “I gotta call Tyler.” She had put off the call all week. She might as well get it over with.

  While she waited for Tyler to answer his phone, she counted the cracks in her mother’s bedroom ceiling. Seven. Then the piles of Women’s Day stacked on the sagging dresser. Four. She was about to count the tubes of hand lotion lined up on the nightstand when her son finally answered.

  “Mom?”

  “Hey Ty.”

  “How’s Pop-pop? How are you and Brian?”

  “First, Brian and I are doing better, thanks for asking. But your Pop-pop is weaker than you’ve seen him in the past.”

  “But he’s going to be all right?”

  “We think so. The stroke scared us all a lot, but it scared him, too. He’s more serious about how he cares for himself. And he’s home now. He’s going to retire.”

  “He has to, huh?”

  “It’s what’s best. He’s got all his mental capacities, but his left side is weak—there’s no telling how long it will be that way. So keep praying for him. Anyway … I wanted to talk about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “About where you’re going to live and go to school before the end of the summer.”

  “You know, Dad’s been thinking I’m going to stay up here.”

  Tracey sighed as she lay back on her mother’s soft floral comforter. “What do you think?”

  “Mom, I’m not sure. At first I thought I might. But, with you and Brian and your thing? And I’d miss being around Brianna. Now Pop-pop’s doing bad. Man. I don’t want to run out on you all.”

  “Well as long as Amtrak is still moving or you get your car, you aren’t running out. You can always get to us.”

  “I know, but …”

  Tracey listened closely as Tyler described how he felt on the matter. It turned out he was torn. Not a simple decision. If they factored in Kyle’s view on the situation, it became more complicated.

  “Where’s your dad?” Tracey asked.

  “Out by the pool. He’s grilling steaks tonight.”

  “Can you put him on the phone, please?”

  “Okay.”

  Tracey waited. Her mother’s room still smelled like musk cologne and body powder. Just like when she’d lay on Alice’s bed as a girl, enjoying the feel of her fluffy pillows and blankets before Alice would come upstairs and order her back to her own bedroom.

  “Mrs. Jones.” Kyle came on the line.

  “Got a minute to talk?”

  “I’m about to put food on the barbecue. What’s up?”

  “Can you step inside for a second? I have something to say.”

  Tracey gazed around the room while she waited for another minute. Why did Alice have all those magazines? Was she becoming a hoarder?

  Kyle came back on the line. “I’m in the kitchen, now. What’s going on?”

  “I talked to Tyler about him staying in New York.”

  “Are you shipping his things or do you need me to rent a small U-Haul?” Kyle asked.

  Tracey countered. “Put the brakes on. I’m still not in agreement about letting him stay.”

  “But this is where he wants to be.”

  “No, he still needs to sort it out and decide. And he has to decide fast, because he’ll need school records and other items. It’ll be August in a few days,” Tracy said with a sigh. “If he tells me he can’t make the decision, I’ll have to make it for him.”

  “And …”

  “He comes back to Philly.”

  “How do you figure?” Kyle’s voice ratcheted up a notch.

  Tracey didn’t want to go there, but she had no choice. “I have full custody of him. You and I both know the only reason he started spending the summers with you was because you and Ms. Celeste asked me and I allowed it.”

  The custody card. She hadn’t pulled it since Tyler was eight.

  Kyle’s voice turned cold. “You really think he wants to keep living with a prissy, over-controlling mother who can’t even keep her own husband in line?”

  Ah, Kyle. Always coming at her with the below-the-belt comment. She couldn’t control that. He’d always been that way, but he was still her son’s father. God bless him and please help me to not cuss him out, she prayed.

  Tracey let her words ooze out. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess he wouldn’t have any more trouble staying with a prissy mother than he would living with a workaholic, whore-mongering, borderline drunk father.”

  Silence.

  Tracey continued. “Kyle, I’m so sorry Ty is your only child. But it’s not my fault I loved my kid enough to bring him into this world against your wishes. Now if you have any stories about other women you tried to force to have an abortion and you feel guilty and desire to confess, you can have your ‘come to Jesus moment’ right now.” Tracey rubbed her temple with her fingertips. “Otherwise, put Ty back on the phone. Thank you.”

  She heard Tyler’s voice half a minute later. “Mom?”

  “Hi.” Tracey shook off the tiny twinge of remorse she felt for saying what she said to Kyle. She spoke the truth. Nothing wrong with that.

  “Mom, what’d you say to Dad? He just stomped back outside.”

  “He’ll survive,” she sighed. “Back to you. We love you. Your church, friends and school are here. And any weekend you want to go visit your dad and grandparents you know can.”

  “So that means?”

  “Where you live? You decide. Make your choice and let me know.”

  “For real?”

  She sniffed as she climbed off the too-soft bed and made a beeline to the bathroom for a tissue. “Do this for me, though. Pray for discernment and guidance. Get on your knees, and ask God to speak to you. If you feel like He’s guiding you and New York is best, I’m not going to stop you.”

  “Okay,” Tyler drawled.

  She wiped her nose with a wad of tissue as she sat down on the toilet lid. “Listen, this is your first lesson in making a major life decision by finding God’s will. Learn from this.” She threw the tissue away. “Lord knows I will.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “I gotta go. I hear your grandmom screaming, something about Brianna needing to scrape that Play-Doh mess off the kitchen table. We’re eating here tonight. Your grandmom made ribs.”

  “Sometimes Grandmom yells too much. She used to yell and swat me for leaving my Tonka trucks on the front steps,” Tyler revealed.

  “Yeah, she’s a screamer. But we love her. Call me tomorrow.”

  “No problem.”

  “And give your Dad a hug and tell him to please stop sulking because I know he is.”

  She heard Tyler’s rich laugh before she hung up.

  35

  Tracey had expected Dr. Peter Zhang to be a suit-wearing, scholarly, soft-spoken man.

  She’d thought wrong.

  He turned out to be a slightly built Asian man with a wide smile and a thick Brooklyn accent. He always wore dark wash jeans with a designer t-shirt beneath a blazer, spoke to them as if he’d known them for years, and opened every session with a prayer to invite in the healing presence of the Holy Spirit.

  His office was a small loft on the third floor of a brown brick building in Manayunk. Everything in the office was pristine. No
t so much as one book or magazine out of order on the bookshelves. It smelled like eucalyptus leaves and was bathed in beige. Beige Berber carpet. Beige walls. Beige-colored cushy chairs and wooden tables. Beige boxes of tissues placed in different spots throughout the room.

  By the time Tracey and Brian traveled to Dr. Zhang’s office for their fourth session, they’d been on four dates. In their first session, Dr. Zhang directed them to take time together each week, no matter what. So Tracey found a babysitter for Brianna and off they went. To dinner. To the movies. To an outdoor concert at the Mann. They had a picnic and took a long walk around the Horticulture Center in Fairmount Park. Their conversations grew tense every so often, but at least they were trying. The dates proved one thing: Tracey could make time for Brian and Brian could make time for Tracey. And they were learning to laugh together again.

  “Did you make your way through chapter four of Walking Together Again?” Dr. Zhang asked them.

  “Yes,” Brian nodded.

  “Good. Keep reading. I’d like you to go through chapters five and six this coming week.” Dr. Zhang checked off something in a manila folder, then turned back to them. “Before we end tonight I want talk to you about some guidelines for your marriage, since we haven’t touched much on infidelity prevention in our past sessions.”

  Tracey flipped opened her notebook.

  “The first concept is radical honesty,” Dr. Zhang said, sitting down in a chair across from them.

  “Radical honesty?” Brian repeated.

  “Yes. Christianity itself teaches that when you speak, you should tell the truth. No lies. But, there can still be a great deal of deception going on in your marriage if that’s all you do. Radical honesty has to do with sharing information with your mate, which could potentially damage your relationship if you kept it to yourself. Secrets may not appear to hurt your marriage outwardly, but they can eat away on the inside.”

  Tracey glanced over to Brian. He had a pained look on his face, like the concept made him uncomfortable.

  “What’s this supposed to look like?” Brian asked.

  Dr. Zhang answered, “Let’s imagine you had used this guideline in your marriage in January. The very first time the young lady asked you to drive her home, you would have called Tracey and told her, giving her the chance to respond. And the next time. And the next time.”

  “Isn’t that kind of overkill?” Brian asked.

  “Yes. It’s the type of overkill that keeps a man or woman out of a cheating situation. Had Tracey known about those rides, she might have intervened by talking with you before the affair started, and you might have thought differently before cheating,” Dr. Zhang explained.

  Tracey looked out of the huge plate glass window. Rain slid down in long rivulets. Had she known about Lisette earlier, would she have worked on growing closer to Brian? Or would she have passed it off as nothing?

  “The second concept is something called ‘friends of the marriage.’ It works like this: Any friend you have must support the health of your marriage. The person can’t be willing to undermine your relationship. Dr. Jones, I’m going to use you as an example again.”

  He nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “The moment Lisette asked you if she could have you over for coffee, your immediate response would have been to invite your wife along. If you detected Lisette had a problem, then you would know that she was a person who did not see your wife as your life partner. You would have then terminated your friendship with her.”

  Tracey thought about that. Nope. Uh-uh. She didn’t know one man who would do anything like that. Except maybe her brother-in-law Ricky, but he and Charla were on another level with their union. Maybe guidelines like these were how their marriage flourished.

  She shifted in her seat. “Couldn’t he have just ended the relationship as soon as he felt the need to hide it?”

  “Maybe. Dr. Jones, what do you think?” Dr. Zhang redirected the question.

  Brian laced his fingers together. He glanced from the doctor’s face to Tracey’s. “In the beginning, I didn’t think anything at all. We were just friends.”

  “That’s the reason for guidelines like this one,” Dr. Zhang pointed out. “Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘you teach others how to treat you’?”

  “I have,” Tracey said.

  “This is teaching family, friends and co-workers how to treat your marriage.”

  “So, how do we do the homework this week?” Brian asked.

  “I mentioned two types of guidelines to protect your marriage from infidelity. Get together and create more. I’m not going to ask you to etch them in stone, just list them. We’ll go over them next week.”

  “Sit around and make up rules? No offense, but children need rules, and I’m not a child. I can govern myself,” Brian said.

  Dr. Zhang directed his words straight to Brian. “When did you accept Christ as your Savior?”

  “My first year in medical school.”

  “And when you did, did you have a problem with accepting God’s commandments and following them?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think God’s guidelines help to keep you safe, and perhaps lead you to blessings?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then I’m sure you’ll agree God created the guidelines for his relationship with man out of love. You protect what you love. So if you love your wife, you’ll make and follow guidelines to protect your union with her.”

  Brian glanced over to Tracey. She returned her gaze to the window. Balking at guidelines? Seriously? They had a DNA test coming up for a baby in the near future and he’s sitting around resisting the type of counsel that could have prevented them from being in counseling in the first place? Unbelievable.

  “A list of guidelines. Got it,” Brian said.

  “Your own list. Remember, you will come up with what works for you,” Dr. Zhang stated.

  Back at the house, after they’d paid Chablis—their new babysitter—and checked on Brianna, they opened up their notebooks in the house office.

  Tracey stretched her legs out in front of her as she sat on the futon. “This radical honesty thing is designed so we’ll always share information that could become secrets. Especially things with the opposite sex. But I guess radical honesty could also extend to things like money, household purchases, and anything else you could keep a secret.”

  Brian slouched in the office chair. “I guess,” he said, and then paused for a moment. “You know, my Dad had a couple of affairs. One of them ended right before I got accepted to UMDNJ. I think it lasted a few years.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?” Her eyes widened.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I never knew if my mother discovered his infidelity. If she did, she never told us. They never broke up.”

  “But, what we’ve learned—it contradicts all that nonsense.”

  “I know.”

  Were they deluding themselves, going through counseling and mending their relationship? Brian didn’t drink or smoke or eat junk all day long, but what if women were a coping mechanism for him? What if they were something he could rely on to soothe him when life became boring or rough?

  “Cut it out!” he said as he leaned over and tapped her on the leg.

  “What?”

  “I can practically hear the wheels grinding in your head right now. Stop worrying. I just shared something I knew.”

  “Good,” she sighed. “Because I’m not living my life turning a blind eye to a whole bunch of mess.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  She swallowed hard. Radical honesty meant she had to play along as well. “I need to tell you something.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Go ahead.”

  “Remember when we met at Rise. We’d gone out twice I think.”

  “I remember.”

 
; She sat up straighter. Her mouth, dry as cotton. “Well, in September, Kyle had come down to visit Tyler for a few weekends.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The two of us were kind of learning how to deal with each other for the first time in years. He’d finished his business degree by then. He was taking a larger part of Tyler’s life, supporting him financially and learning how to be a real dad to him, something I’d been praying about since I forgave him after he abandoned me. Anyway, I let him stay over in my apartment some of those weekends, and couple of those times, we got together.”

  “Got together?” He raised an eyebrow.

  Tracey lowered her eyes to the floor. “It wasn’t exactly a secret, because you and I hadn’t gotten serious yet, but it happened after I’d met you. And I never mentioned it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  She looked at his face again. “Because I wasn’t with him again. It was something that just happened and I didn’t—”

  “See it coming.” He crossed his arms as he finished her sentence. “And you probably figured I’d stop calling if I knew you had your son’s father visiting your house for sleepovers.”

  “Yeah.”

  Brian whistled as he sat back in his chair. “Robbed me of the chance to make a decision, huh?”

  “I guess.” Tracey searched for the right words.

  He ran a hand across his face, then turned and grabbed his notebook from the desk. “What can I say? If you kept it to yourself because you wanted to be with me, well …”

  “You don’t care?”

  “Oh I care a lot. But it’s history now, so we should drop it. We need to focus on our future.” He pointed at her with his pen. “No more secrets.”

  Tracey thought about the dance she’d had with Kyle at Crimson. Right then she felt she would burst with gratitude because she’d done the right thing pushing her way out of that. God only knew where her relationship with Brian would be headed if she’d had something else to confess.