Funny how roles are reversed. Twenty-some years ago when I met Jon, he was the scrawny troublemaker whose mother had abandoned the family and whose Dad loved the bottle more than anything. He needed a friend, a normal family, and we gave that to him. Jon always said I saved him. Guess it’s his turn to save me.
Starting with giving Erin something she wants—definitely not perfume. So, I got up early this morning, let Erin sleep in, threw a roast in the Crock-Pot, and worked on cleaning the house. I know I’m not the neatest guy in the world. Okay, I’m probably one of the messiest. No wonder Erin would get frustrated with me.
Well, Jon was right about cleaning. I think Erin almost cried when she saw there were no dishes in the sink, no mess on the kitchen table, and my junk from the living room put away.
Then came the really hard part, telling Erin what I’d been doing. No, I didn’t mention Lil, I’m not stupid! But I did tell her about going to the art gallery and painting at a friend’s place. She just sat there, stoic, as I spilled my guts, crying, begging for her forgiveness.
And I realized I was no longer in love with my wife.
How could that happen? I’ve known Erin since we were in grade school. She and Jon were always my best friends, and then it grew into more. I’d loved how I could make her laugh and cry and love.
Now, it’s too much work. She doesn’t respond like she used to, and I miss that. I need someone I can share emotions with, and that’s no longer Erin.
That broke my heart, and I started to cry. I kept thinking this couldn’t be the end. It just couldn’t.
But I heard Jon in my head reminding me that Erin processes before reacting, and that I needed to wait her out. How is it that he knows her better than I do? Probably still has a crush on her.
Well, he was right. I waited quietly, tearfully. Even talked to God while I was waiting—I’ve really let my prayer time lapse over the past months.
Suddenly her arms were around me and she was saying how she forgave me and was asking if I could forgive her for not seeing I needed to paint. She even said I could have the spare room as an art studio. That was a huge concession for her as she’d been saving the room for a nursery. After two—or was it three?—miscarriages, she was ready to move on. She also volunteered to go back to work and finish her schooling later. Mom and Pop have always said there’s room at the firm for her. Then we could move into the larger home we’ve always wanted.
I lie to her for months, and she forgives me. How do I wrap my head around that? I didn’t know what to say, so I showed her the only way I knew how. Right there on the couch we made sweet love to each other, better than it’s been for years. Who knows, maybe this will be what makes me a father again. Maybe that will help heal our marriage. Maybe that will make me fall in love with her again.
Because I’m in deep, deep trouble. When I closed my eyes during our lovemaking, I didn’t see Erin. I saw Lilith.
__________
Erin’s stomach turned topsy-turvy. She remembered that New Year’s Day, all right. His confession and his lovemaking had convinced her their marriage was back on track. It had convinced her to try again.
She hurled the book across the room, and it crashed against the wall. She didn’t care if Mik came running or if Clara woke up. What she needed to do was wring Corey’s neck.
How he could make love to her while picturing . . .
That was the night Erin got pregnant.
She clutched her spasming stomach, and bile vaulted up her throat. She ran to the bathroom, making it just in time.
“Mom, are you okay?” Mik stood in the doorway, dressed in footy pajamas, cuddling her pet dragon to her chest, her makeup wiped from her face. She looked like the young child she still was.
Erin wanted to hold that little girl, make sure she never grew up, because adults are too messed up. All they did was hurt one another.
“Just an upset stomach.” Erin sat back, leaned against the bathroom wall, and wiped her face with toilet paper.
“Can I get you anything? 7-Up? Crackers? Banana?”
That made Erin smile. Mik had never exhibited mothering before. A sign of maturity in the midst of puberty?
“I would love 7-Up and a banana. Thank you.”
“You’ll be okay, right?” What looked like worry crossed her daughter’s face.
She looked straight ahead at the toilet. “Yeah. I’ll be okay.” A big fat lie. Sometimes Erin doubted she’d ever be okay again.
* * *
With her stomach finally settled, Erin lit newspapers she’d inserted between wood in her fire pit and retrieved the journal from her bedroom floor. Carrying the book out to the fire made her feel like Frodo Baggins bearing the burden of the ring across miles of dangerous, unfamiliar territory. The only way to free himself was to scale Mount Doom and throw the ring into the fire. Okay, that was a bit dramatic, but that was how Corey made her feel.
Yes, walking out the side door, she recognized she felt like a drama queen. But if she kept this journal around, it would make her crazy. She’d be drawn to read it, but then she’d despise what she’d read. It had to go, for her sanity and her family’s health.
Especially Clara’s. To think that Corey got his wish to be a father again. How could she possibly love that precious child?
Erin walked around the side of the house, and heard a door slam behind her.
“Mom? Mom! Hurry, it’s Clara!”
No!
Erin glanced at the fire burning about twenty-five feet away. She could hurl the book and run back to the house, but with her severe lack of athletic ability, she’d likely miss by twenty feet.
“Mom?” Mik was suddenly behind her. “Clara’s throwing up. Probably got your bug.”
No, dear Mik, Clara definitely did not catch my bug. Still, Erin thanked her daughter and ran back to the house. A trail of vomit ran from Clara’s bed to the bathroom, making Erin want to gag all over again.
Clara sat on the bathroom floor, her round face red and blotchy and messy. Vomit clung to her pajamas all the way to her footy-covered toes. A tiny blotch landed in the toddler toilet bowl she held in her hands.
“I sick, Auntie Erin.”
“I’m sorry, Lolli.” She found a clean place on the floor and knelt beside the child. She kissed Clara’s forehead. A slight fever. She’d check again once she got the child cleaned up.
She took a clean cloth from under the sink, ran it beneath warm water, and wiped Clara’s face and neck first.
Then the gagging began again.
Erin took the pot from Clara’s hands and held it beneath her mouth just in time to catch the majority, thank goodness.
“I want Mommy, Daddy.” Clara’s lower lip stuck out and her chin shivered.
“Oh, baby.” Ignoring the vomit-coated pajamas, Erin wrapped Clara in a hug. “I know. I know.”
“Is she okay?” Mik stood in the doorway, holding a roll of paper towels.
“Just the flu.” She slowly rocked Clara. “And she’s missing her mommy and daddy.”
Mik looked down, and wiped at her eyes. “I miss him, too.”
“Oh, honey, I know.” Erin stretched out her arm, and Mik tucked herself beside her mom, the three of them grieving on the bathroom floor. She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Your father loved you very much.”
But did he? In all the journal readings, Mik’s name had barely been mentioned. It was all about him and Lilith.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You two okay?” a whispered voice broke through Erin’s dream. She awoke on the living room floor to see Mik hovering over her. Erin shook her head and blinked her daughter in clearer. Mik was dressed and ready for school. All without Erin’s nagging.
She sat up and stretched the kinks from her back. “I think we’ll survive.”
Mik grinned. “Good. I was worried about you two. Almost gave Uncle Jon a call.”
Why would she do that?
Whatever.
“Well, I gotta go.”
Mik slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Bus’ll be here any second. Remember to eat bananas, rice, apples, and toast. No butter. And get lots of sleep.”
“Yes, Mom.” Erin saluted her daughter. “Thank you for taking care of us.”
Mik shrugged. “Just doing what you taught me.” And then she was out the door.
Imagine that. Her daughter was learning. Erin knelt on the blanket-covered floor where she’d slept all night alongside Clara. How a small child could throw up that much was beyond her. Two hours of vomiting followed by another three of dry heaves before Clara finally rested.
She pressed the back of her hand to Clara’s forehead. Didn’t feel feverish. She kissed it as well for a second test. The low-grade fever was gone.
Still, Erin could not bring the child over to the Caldwells for the day. She called Belinda and gave her the sad news, and Belinda wholeheartedly agreed that Clara needed to stay home. She offered to babysit the following day instead. Hopefully, Clara would rest this morning so Erin could get some work done. That attorney Vanessa Martin was right when she’d said that a child would pull her attention away from work.
Letting the child sleep on the floor, her stuffed crocodile at her side, Erin got up to tackle the massive cleaning job Clara had left behind. She threw all the bedding into the wash, then, armed with white vinegar and rags, she got on her hands and knees to scrub vomit remnants from the carpet. She’d wiped it up last night, sprinkled baking soda over the trail and covered it with towels, but now it needed a deep cleaning. The one bright spot was that Clara’s room was right across from the bathroom, so the trail wasn’t long. Still, it was long enough.
An hour and a half later, Erin plopped down on the couch, her arms and knees sore from the work, and her eyelids pleading to close. Clearly, no bookkeeping work would get done today. Trying to work with numbers while fatigued never turned out well.
She carried Clara to her bed with its freshly washed bedding and tucked her in with Chomper.
Now what?
She yawned, informing her of her next move. Napping in her bed never felt right, so she brought a blanket and pillow from her bedroom and settled in on the couch.
And couldn’t sleep. Really? Grrr. Surrendering, she got up, did some bookwork, checked on Clara, made a few phone calls, booked a new appointment (Yay!), and checked in again on Clara who was just beginning to stir. If Clara was anything like Mik, the day after being sick, she’d have a ton of energy and want to play the rest of the day, so Erin selected a book on her e-reader, got cozy on the couch, and mentally prepared herself for Clara’s burst of energy.
“Auntie Erin?” The child climbing up on her lap pulled Erin from her story. Thumb firmly ensconced in her mouth, she snuggled into the crook of Erin’s shoulder.
Erin kissed her forehead. Still no fever, thank goodness. “How are you feeling, Lolli?”
“I got sick.”
“Yes, you did, sweetie.” She slowly combed fingers through Clara’s rat’s nest hair, careful not to tug out the tangles. “But we got you all better.”
“Uh-huh. I wuv you, Auntie Erin.”
Erin froze, her fingers halfway through untangling a knot of hair. Was it okay to lie to a child? Well, Erin certainly wasn’t going to tell her the truth, so she kissed her cheek and forced out the words. “And I love you.”
Unlike Mik, Clara didn’t want to play, she just wanted to be held. All afternoon. She ate small bits of bananas and apples and crackers then wanted to be held again. Anytime Erin put her down to get work done, Clara would whimper, so she finally gave up. Studies showed you couldn’t hold a child too much, right? Even when Mik got home from school, Clara clung to Erin. And then thankfully, at eight that night, Clara fell asleep.
Erin’s brain was too fatigued to concentrate on bookwork, so she picked up her e-reader, her pillow, and blanket from the couch and brought it to her bedroom. If she fell asleep while reading, so be it. She stopped in the middle of the doorway and stared at her bed. Corey’s journal lay in the middle of the bed and seemed to be taunting her in a singsong voice, “Na, na, na, na, na, na.”
She thought of the firepit, but she’d burned every scrap of wood she had last night. Throwing it in the garbage wasn’t permanent enough. It was as if the book was staring her down saying, “I won!”
No. No it didn’t.
She picked it up and started ripping out the pages, tearing each into miniscule pieces that looked like volcanic ash layering the carpet.
The words “Valentine’s Day, 2015” leaped from the pages and stopped her. Memories of that day flooded through her mind. She’d never been sentimental, but being remembered on the holiday still had mattered to her, especially when they were supposedly trying to work on their marriage. But that year it was just another disappointment in a string of letdowns.
__________
Valentine’s Day, 2015
I am scum.
I tried to get my marriage back on track. Really, I did. Erin working at Belden Accounting drives me nuts. She’s with me. All. The. Time. Even at home, when I can lock myself in my studio, I know she’s there just beyond the door, and my muse is nowhere to be found. My canvases become a mess of hostility rather than works of beauty.
I couldn’t breathe.
And she wears this smiling mask all the time, too. She doesn’t know I see her unhappiness right through it.
I knew if I didn’t do something different, I’d go crazy.
So, when our receptionist brought me my mail that afternoon, including a flyer from the art gallery with a note tucked inside that said, “I miss you,” I couldn’t resist. I had to see Lil again. I had to feel alive again.
At the end of the workday, I stopped by Erin’s cubicle and told her I had a meeting that night. She may not show a lot of emotion, but her disappointment was obvious. I couldn’t help it, though. I needed to get away.
I went to Lil’s art studio. I needed to release my emotions. I needed to paint in the place that inspired me.
And, yes, she was waiting for me with all new paint supplies.
All new because in the first part of January, Jon had accompanied me to Lil’s to gather my supplies. He even stood in the room, chaperoning, until he got a phone call he had to take and excused himself. The look he gave me when heading out the door was clearly a warning not to try anything.
But how does a piece of metal resist the pull of a magnet?
Lil and I shared a heart-thumping kiss before Jon charged back in, angrier than I’ve ever seen him. I thought for sure he was going to lay me out.
That cold night in January, I believed the kiss was worth the risk because I needed to tell Lil goodbye.
And ever since, I’ve felt dead.
Until today. When I stood in the studio, life flowed through me. Lil asked if I’d do another portrait of her. After all she’d done for me, how could I say no? She stepped into the bathroom to pretty up, while I prepped my canvas and paints.
I called when I was ready, and she came out.
Wearing nothing.
Oh, man. My mouth went cottony dry as she reclined on a chaise lounge, and sweat must have oozed from every pore of my body. I concentrated hard on that portrait, trying to focus on my art and not the woman. I had to because my body was wanting something else. A kiss was one thing, but sex?
After what must have been a couple of hours, I said I needed to go. Erin would worry.
“Let her.” Lil told me as she covered herself with a robe and sat down on the chaise. She patted the space beside her. I had to resist. Couldn’t resist. Didn’t want to resist.
She handed me a plate of fruit that had been sitting on a table by the chaise. Do you think I saw that while painting? Uh, no. She asked how it was going with Erin. I lied and said, “Good.” As if she couldn’t see through that. She replied with a nod and “That’s good” which I knew meant something completely different.
I asked her what was up, and she said she sensed things weren’t good with me
and Erin. I denied it at first, but after prompting, everything spilled out of me, my frustrations with her, her nagging, her rigidness. Even her inability to get pregnant again.
Lil listened, really listened. Then helped me realize how Erin’s been using me. Controlling me. Not trusting me. At work. At home. And I just bent to each one of her wishes. Our marriage was an unhealthy relationship that was doomed to fail. Why hadn’t I seen it before?
Lil was right. How could I have been so blind? For the umpteenth time that year, I cried.
And then she kissed me.
Oh, man, I kissed back. And when she reached for my zipper, this time I didn’t stop her, and she didn’t stop me when I slipped off her robe. I completely understand my brother Zax now. There’s nothing like the rush of doing something forbidden. Our lovemaking tonight was nothing like I’ve ever had with Erin.
When I finally put on my jacket to leave, she gave me one last kiss then whispered in my ear, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
That’s when it hit me, and I wanted to cry again.
I’d just cheated on Erin.
I’d just become an adulterer.
I am scum.
__________
Holding in a scream, Erin tore the pages she’d just read from the journal and ripped them into shreds even a mouse would have difficulty detecting. Mik and Clara should never ever read his words. To think he’d put them down on paper! Their dad was pond scum. She slammed the journal shut. No, that was too nice. Bottom of the sewer scum, that was what he was.
He chose Valentine’s Day to break their vows. The very same evening he’d forgotten she’d promised to make him his favorite meal. The evening his parents were watching Mik overnight.
The very evening she’d planned to tell him she was pregnant again, he was in bed with another woman.
Why hadn’t she seen it then? Why hadn’t it dawned on her when he said he’d signed up for additional accounting classes? She knew he hated accounting, yet believed he wanted to learn more?
She was a clueless idiot. Because she’d wanted to believe he still loved her, that she was worthy of being loved. Were all spouses who were cheated on as oblivious as her? She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked on the bed.
A Beautiful Mess Page 18
