by L. D. Davis
Chapter Three
Present
When I was a kid, I loved to be the center of attention. I enjoyed telling stories about my experiences, especially if they were funny and the laughter was at my own expense. There was nothing funny about my storytelling now, though, and I hoped to never have to repeat it again. You really don’t know how strong you are until you recount the tragedies of your life aloud, and you really don’t know the taste of your own deficiencies until you admit them in your own voice.
Earlier, Marco told me I was the strongest and bravest person he knew, but as I told him my story, I didn’t feel very strong, or very brave. I wanted to stop a hundred times and go back to hiding from my past, but that was no longer an option. This opening of my soul no longer seemed to be in my control. My thoughts and feelings about my past tumbled out of my mouth without restraint.
“Sometimes it seemed better,” I admitted and gave a small smile. “Sometimes it was sweet and comfortable, and I felt myself falling again, but try as I might, I couldn’t hang on to those moments and make them last. He always withdrew again or said something that made me feel like I somehow missed the mark. I don’t think he was aware of doing it, though. One time he jokingly called me a prude.”
Marco let out a soft snort. “You’re anything but prudish. Why did he say that?”
“Because I didn’t have tattoos or a bunch of piercings and didn’t want any, and because of the way I dressed.”
“How did you dress?”
“Well, I didn’t dress like June Cleaver. I cared more about my appearance back then. I always tried to look nice for him, even when things were bad, but the problem was that I wasn’t like Lily. Do you know what my sister looked like before?”
He nodded with a faint smile. “I’ve seen pictures. She looked like a poster child for nineties punk rock and grunge fashion.”
That was a correct assessment of Lily, before Kyle and a corporate job. Fishnet stockings, leather, heavy eyeliner and mascara, and wildly styled hair of various colors. It was a look I had tried for about two seconds as a teenager, but it wasn’t for me. It was totally her, though, but then her current style, which was a cross between trendy sophistication and rock-chic, was also totally her.
“I didn’t dress like that,” I explained to Marco. “Lily and I were both a little rough around the edges because of where we grew up, but she looked rough around the edges—in a sexy, punk way. Gavin didn’t grow up in the same environment we did, but he and Lily matched. He was inked and pierced, too—at least until he landed that job in Cleveland. Then he had to take the piercings out and make sure most of his ink was covered while at work. He tried to convince me to ‘be more daring’ with myself. When I told him that I was as daring as I was going to get, he called me a prude and laughed. I didn’t find it funny, because I knew what he really wanted was for me to be more like her.”
I reached for my wine glass on the table and took a long sip. Surprisingly, we hadn’t polished off the second bottle yet. I didn’t drink as much as I thought I would. That, I surmised, was a good thing. It meant I was comfortable enough with Marco to share my secrets without being inebriated.
“There were more suggestions and recommendations over the years about my appearance. Sometimes they were made so casually that I didn’t always catch on to the real intent until I’d had time to think about it. It was more than my appearance he had issues with, though.”
Gavin came home from work one night, excited about something. He wore the biggest smile I’d seen on him in weeks, maybe months, and he seemed full of energy. I was in the kitchen, trying to get dinner on the table with Gavi playing in the middle of the kitchen floor with the building blocks I had already put away twice. Our baby girl, Cora, was whiny and snotty in her highchair, suffering from a cold.
I was exhausted. I’d been up all night with a sick baby, and since sending her to daycare was out of the question, my mother-in-law had done me a solid and came to the house to babysit. After work, I rushed to the grocery store, because our fridge and cabinets were beginning to look like those of a bachelor pad, and then I had to pick up Gavin’s dry cleaning before I went home to cook. It had been a long ass day, and if Cora didn’t sleep again, I was probably going to curl into a fetal position somewhere and lose my shit.
Still, when I saw Gavin’s face alight with enthusiasm, I brushed off my suckass day. It was already made better by seeing him like that, instead of the distant mood he’d been walking around with lately.
“Hey,” he said after he kissed the kids. To my surprise, he kissed me square on the lips. It had been some time since we’d done anything but quick, impersonal kisses on the cheek.
I laughed a little. “Hello. You’re in a good mood.”
“I am. Guess what I got today. I’m so effin’ excited.”
“I see that. What did you get?”
He held up what looked like two concert tickets, but I couldn’t see any names on them.
“I got tickets to G. Love & Special Sauce! It’s Monday night, and we’ll have to get a babysitter overnight and drive three hours to some town in Pennsylvania, but it’s the closest they’ll be to us. Me and Lily always wanted to see them live, but somehow, we kept missing them, or we just didn’t have the money. She would be so stoked. Darren—you know Darren—he won the tickets in a contest, but that’s the same week of his honeymoon in Mexico, so he gave the tickets to us. Isn’t that cool, hon?”
My smile was frozen on my face for a few reasons. One, that was the most he’d said to me at one time in forever. Two, I had no idea who G. Love was or what the fuck his special sauce was. Three…he said my sister’s name. He talked about her as if he’d just been hanging with her yesterday, when in truth, he hadn’t spoken to her in years. Four…the blazing bright light in his blue eyes as he talked about her. I was simply frozen, wooden spoon poised over a pot, a pot holder in my other hand.
It took me a moment before I could respond. There was a tightness in my throat, because I knew I was about to disappoint him. I would disappoint him no matter what I did or said in this instance, even if I lied and said I knew who G. Love was and said I was excited. He would figure me out eventually, and he’d be disappointed once again that I wasn’t my sister.
“That’s…that’s great, Gav. Which Monday is it?”
“The ninth, in just a few days. I know it’s short notice, but it’s G. Love!”
I looked away from him so I could focus on my task at hand, and so he wouldn’t see the change in my face, but it didn’t matter. He knew. I practically felt his excitement bleeding out of him and sinking into the tiles of the floor. I heard the deficit of enthusiasm in his voice.
“You don’t…want to go?”
“Yeah, I do.” That was the truth. A night away without the kids, just me and him? Maybe it was what we needed, but the timing was bad. “It’s just that Cora is sick. Who will we get to babysit a sick infant?”
He hesitated. When I stole a glance at him, he was gazing at our daughter with a look of concern and discouragement. I turned back before he knew I was looking.
“I forgot she was sick. I was so excited.” A small amount of hope slipped back into his voice. “My parents could probably help us out, though. I’m sure Mom won’t mind.”
I knew his mom wouldn’t mind, but I would, and if Gavin really thought about it, he would mind, too. Like me, he wouldn’t want to be too far from his ailing baby. Instead of saying any of that, though, I faced him again with a tight smile.
“I guess you can call her and find out.”
He stared at me as he seemed to mull a few things over in his head. Then he winced, as if something had just occurred to him.
“You don’t know who G. Love & Special Sauce is, do you?” He was so solemn as he asked, as if my lack of knowledge about the band was up there with adultery.
I was reluctant to answer, but I finally just shook my head with an apologetic lift of my lips.
“I don’t know w
ho it is, but if you’re pumped to see them, I can be pumped, too.”
The smile he managed to give looked painful. “I don’t want you to be pumped because I’m pumped.” He stared down at the tickets in his hands. “I want you to be pumped because you love ‘Baby’s Got Sauce’ and ‘Blues Music’ and ‘Rodeo Clowns’ as much as I do.”
Gavi had parked himself right between his legs with a building block creation that looked something like a truck, but Gavin didn’t seem to notice him, or Cora’s outstretched arms as she reached for him.
Something like desperation filled me. I wanted so much to connect with him again. We had a few good months, for the most part, before Cora was born, but he had shut me out once more, just as I had begun to feel for him again. I wasn’t even sure he was aware of it.
“You can give me a crash course in all things G. Love starting tonight,” I said, unable to hide how much I wanted that to happen. “I’ll listen on my way to work, on my way home, and—”
“No.” His voice was dead, and so were his eyes when he finally looked at me again. “No. It won’t be the same. Sometimes I forget that even though you and Lily grew up together and are similar in many ways, that…well, you’re not her, even though sometimes you’re like her. It’s my fault for getting carried away. Don’t worry about it. I’ll sell the tickets.”
He stepped around our son and picked Cora up. She bumped her tiny head against his chin as she tried to cuddle up close to him. He kissed her red fuzzy hair and murmured something I couldn’t hear. Then he spoke to me over his shoulder without looking at me.
“I’ll give her a bath with that vapor baby wash and try to get her to sleep. You two can eat. Don’t wait for me. I’m not hungry.”
“Gavin, wait. I want to go. I want to.”
I knew he heard me, but he kept walking as if he hadn’t.
After Gavi ate, and after I got him into bed, I changed into my running clothes and slipped out. It was dark, and I was exhausted, but if I didn’t try to work off my negative energy, I wasn’t sure what would happen. I ran, and ran, and ran, as if I could somehow outrun Gavin’s words, as if I could outrun my pain, but when I was six miles from home, I knew I couldn’t escape any of it.
With waterfall eyes and a chest that felt like it had been cleaved open, I turned around and walked the six miles back home.
“I constantly disappointed him,” I said quietly to Marco. “No matter how hard I tried, I was a disappointment. I felt so alone, even if there were really three of us in that marriage, because Lily was always there in some way. Sometimes he would be so cold toward me, seemingly angry and hostile for no reason and there was nothing I could do to fix it. I would just leave him alone and tip toe around and hope he wouldn’t notice me. Then there were the times he was the complete opposite of that, so withdrawn from me that he made me feel invisible to him. The funny thing is, we rarely fought. Maybe if we had fought it out a few times, we would have each said what we really felt, and maybe things would have gone differently.”
Marco pushed my hair off my face, his fingers lingered as usual just below my ear. “Didn’t anyone else realize how bad things were between you two?”
“We put on a good show for his parents and the few friends we had, but we didn’t have to act for my mom, because she lived in Philly and only came once or twice a year.”
His brow creased. “Why didn’t you leave?”
“I tried to, once.”
Once again, I felt the blood rush to my face, because the next thing I was about to tell him may put me under a whole different light.
“I went back to school part-time when I was pregnant with Mandy. Gavin had been okay before she was conceived, but he’d become more withdrawn as the pregnancy progressed. It was a bad time for me, but I did make a friend, someone who made me feel better.”
Marco’s brows rose and then his eyes narrowed. “A man?”
I nodded. “Gabe and I had a couple classes together. He was a nice guy, a good guy. He carried my books for me, like we were kids in high school or something. It was sweet. My pregnancy and marriage weren’t a secret. We spent many nights studying late together, and long conversations that lasted almost until dawn. He began to understand that I wasn’t happy. I didn’t come out and say it at first. In fact, I tried to hide how sad and depressed I really was, but I gave him little pieces of the story over time until he was able to put them all together in a picture big enough to comprehend. It wasn’t even half the story, not even a quarter. It was more of a summary, or a synopsis, of my life with Gavin, but it was enough for him to understand.”
“You had an affair?” The question was quiet, and like his other questions, non-judgmental.
I looked down at my lap, embarrassed. “I guess you can call it that. We spent an entire night together. We didn’t have sex—shocker—but we kissed and held hands, stuff like that. The next day, I felt so guilty. I asked myself how many times I was going to betray the people I loved. I felt awful, not just for what I’d done to Gavin, but for letting Gabe think he had a chance.
“I told Gabe I couldn’t see him anymore, because I couldn’t risk that happening again, but then he offered to help me leave. He said he would put me and the kids in a hotel until he could get an apartment in a couple weeks, because he was still living with his parents. Then we could move into his apartment with him until after I had the baby and was able to get on my feet. He told me he loved me, and he would do anything to see me be happy, even if it meant that he’d have to keep his lips off me until I was ready. I thought about it for days. I even tried to make things better with Gavin before I came to a decision. Fixed my hair differently, tried to touch him, to do anything to make him really see and feel me, but he just seemed…irritated. Finally, I told Gabe I would go. I just couldn’t take the pain of being ignored and disregarded and feeling like I wasn’t good enough anymore.”
Nothing went as planned.
The timing belt broke on Gavin’s car last night when he was on his way home from work. It wasn’t going to be a quick fix. Until the repairs were finished, he had to use my car to get to work. I didn’t have class that day, so I couldn’t argue that I needed the car. My original plan had been to spend the morning packing a few bags and loading up the car, and then to take the kids and head to the hotel room Gabe had gotten for us in the early afternoon.
Instead, I had to wait for him to finish with work, which was going to cut it close. It would only give us about a half hour before Gavin came home. To make matters worse, Cora was sick with a runny nose and a slight fever. I couldn’t find my tablet, which would have kept Gavi quiet once we got to the hotel. I searched all over the house before I came to the realization I probably left it in my car. When I finally had a few minutes of quiet time to pack, because it wasn’t something I’d been able to do easily with Gavin at home, my mother-in-law unexpectedly showed up.
Under normal circumstances, I would have welcomed a visit from Shawna. Sometimes we would just sit in the kitchen with tea and chat while she doted on the kids, or sometimes she would give me a break and let me get some homework, housework, or grocery shopping done while she did her grandmotherly thing, but her timing couldn’t have been worse. I couldn’t very well go upstairs and pack my bags in preparation to leave her son with her in the house. So, I had to pretend everything was fine, as I always did, and sit and chat over tea as usual.
I felt guilty the entire time she was there, though. I didn’t want to ruin our relationship. It had taken us a couple years to be comfortable with each other again, for me to feel like she and Cliff didn’t hate me for what Gavin and I had done to Lily. Now I was about to abandon her son. Even though I felt I had no choice, I worried about what she would think of me afterward.
By the time she finally left, I had about forty minutes to pack before Gabe arrived, and only about sixty before Gavin rolled in. I was glad I’d taken the car seats out of the car before he had left for work, with the excuse that I might have to take Cora to
the doctor. Maybe that was why his mom had shown up. Maybe Gavin had mentioned it to her.
I peeked outside after I dropped another bag by the door. It was beginning to snow, and according to the weather reports, it would snow throughout the night, leaving the Columbus area with about four to five inches. What a night to run away.
I had just bundled the kids up in their coats and put my own on when my cell phone rang. I smiled even though I was nervous when I saw Gabe’s name. I just happened to be standing near the door and glanced out through the storm door and froze.
Gabe’s car was parked at the curb. He stood in front of it, with his headlights illuminating the falling snow and the dusk that was quickly turning to night. My heart was beating so fast and hard as my view of Gabe was suddenly obscured by the man that slowly climbed the three steps and then stood outside the door, staring in at me.
“Daddy!” Gavi cried and began to jiggle the handle on the door.
My husband’s cold gaze held mine for a moment longer before he finally looked down at his son, forced a smile, and opened the door. I stepped back as he came inside. He rubbed Gav’s hair with one hand as he held something out to me with the other. I blinked rapidly as I cautiously took the tablet from him. It was turned on, the email App was open, and an incriminating email was there on the screen. Not just the email from yesterday that Gabe had sent with all the information about the hotel and some apartments he’d found, but a chain of our previous messages was right there. All you had to do was scroll.
Gavin knew. He knew I was going to leave him. That was why he was home a half hour early, just in time to see me go. When I looked at him again, he was holding Cora and looking from my phone to my face.
