A Beautiful Mess

by Brenda S Anderson

  “You’re feeling . . . normal.”

  “For me? Yes. I feel in control and like a fool for how I behaved last night. Jon must think I’m a nut case.”

  Debbie smiled. “I think he feels much differently about you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll figure it out someday.”

  “I hate it when you talk in riddles.”

  Debbie laughed then turned serious. “About that journal. Where is it now?”

  “What’s left of it is probably in my room.” She retrieved the book from her bedroom floor and returned, carrying it gingerly as if she were holding a poopy diaper. This was much worse. “Here. It’s all yours.”

  “Do you want me to destroy it?”

  “Absolutely. I mean, maybe.” Erin shook her head, hating her indecision. “I mean, what if there’s something good in it? Something that his daughters should know? I don’t want to take that from them, but I can’t read it anymore either. All the anger I’d had toward him four years ago has returned with a vengeance, and I can’t deal with that.”

  “I’ll read it for you.”

  Erin jerked her gaze toward the door where Jon stood. All too often when she was super-focused on something, she became oblivious to what was going on around her. Thank God Mik hadn’t inherited that trait.

  “You will?” Erin held out the book, eager for someone to remove it and its evil from her house.

  He crossed the room and took it from her.

  She sighed as if a big weight had been lifted. “Thank you.”

  “If there’s anything worth keeping, I’ll let you know.” He sat in the recliner across from the couch, set the journal on the lampstand, and leaned toward her. “I also have some important questions for you.”

  Uh-oh. She sat up and backed away. That hinted of lawyer-speak. This wasn’t going to be good.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Erin ran her hands up and down her jeans, trying to calm her taut nerves. Every time she thought she was doing better, another problem cropped up like the weeds in her lawn. And when Jon transitioned into lawyer-mode, trouble always followed.

  “Want me to leave?” Debbie sat on the edge of the couch.

  “No.” Jon held up a hand. “I’d prefer having you as a witness.”

  Yep. Lawyer-speak. She inhaled a breath while stuffing away worry and any other feeling that tried to sneak out. “What do you need to know?”

  “I know that being a single mom is tough on you.”

  “No, it’s a cake walk.” She snorted. “I highly recommend it for everyone.”

  He smirked. “I’ll always love your sarcastic wit, Pearl.”

  “Ha ha.” She rolled her eyes. Maybe that was where Mik had learned to do it so well. “So, yeah, being a single mom stinks. And having to raise my ex-husband’s love child on top of dealing with a hormonal teenager reeks like a manure pit.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” John leaned closer to her. “What if you had a man around more often? Someone who could take the pressure off you?”

  “Well, sure, but I haven’t seen any ads for guys volunteering to be a dad.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing’s ever easy with you, is it?”

  “You want me to be easy?”

  Jon cursed and ran a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry, Pearl, but you do tend to make me crazy.”

  “Well—”

  Debbie’s hand on her arm stopped her from saying something else foolish. “Jon, come out and say it.” Debbie removed her hand. “The straightforward approach is always best.”

  “Okay then.” His hands fidgeted in his lap, then his gaze bore into her eyes, giving her goosebumps. She couldn’t figure out if they were the good kind or bad. “I’m talking about me, Pearl. Can I help you raise the girls?”

  “What?” She shook her head. He was making no sense. Would he move in next door? Highly unlikely. And she couldn’t afford to move near him. “How would you plan to do that?”

  “Direct, Jon.” Debbie again.

  He sighed. “Okay. Pearl, if you marry me, I can be their full-time dad.”

  “Say what?” Had he just asked her to marry him? Now she was going deaf along with crazy.

  He groaned, got up from his chair, and crossed the room. He knelt in front of her and held out his hand. “May I hold your hand?”

  In a confused fog, she uncrossed her arms and laid her hand in his.

  He gripped it loosely. “I know you probably haven’t noticed, but I’ve had a crush on you since we were teens.”

  “What?” Jon had a crush on her?

  “And I stepped aside when you chose Corey. I know you probably don’t feel about me as I feel about you, but hopefully someday the feelings will follow.” She started pulling away her hand, but he gripped it tighter. “I can be the father the girls need. I can support you. Be your partner. And you’ll always be able to trust me.”

  Now that made her angry. She tugged her hand from his. “Trust you? Really? Like when you disappeared for nearly four years when Corey left me? Oh, that’s rich.”

  He settled on the floor in front of her and crossed one leg over the other. “Let me explain.”

  “Are you sure you want me here?” Debbie started to get up, and Erin gestured for her to stay.

  “Please do explain.” She recrossed her arms.

  He ran both hands through his hair and looked toward the ceiling. “My mom left me when I was young, but not the way I’ve led you to believe.”

  Oh, sure, another dishonest man. Big surprise.

  “When I was eight, she committed suicide. In the bathtub at home. I found her.”

  Erin gasped.

  He sniffled and wiped an arm across his nose. “And she left a note just for me that said not to tell anyone. She preferred that she be known for running away with someone than having slit her wrists. What did I know other than to follow her instructions? It didn’t occur to me that the medical personnel and the funeral home would know the truth. Dad moved us from Idaho to here, a place no one would know our story, so it was an easy lie to tell.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jon.” This from Debbie, naturally.

  Why couldn’t Erin think to say something sympathetic? “I’m sorry, too.” Mimicking her friend was better than remaining silent.

  “So.” His attention focused on Erin’s wrist where the word Lulu was permanently inked. “When I found you in the bathroom after Corey gave you his news . . . ”

  Oh. Now it made sense.

  His gaze flicked to Debbie and back to Erin. “Does she know?”

  Erin covered her wrist with her other hand. “Everything.” Back then, Debbie was the counselor Erin had been seeing following the incident.

  He refocused on Erin. “When I broke into your bathroom and saw that razor in your hand, your wrist bleeding, all I saw was my mom. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t bear to lose someone I loved to suicide, so yeah, I disappeared, and I made it my goal to hound Corey until he repented and treated you like you deserve. I had no clue you wanted me around anymore. I was part of your broken past I thought you wanted to get rid of.”

  Erin closed her eyes, recalling the words she’d hurled at Jon when he interrupted her in the bathroom, saying something to the effect of completely erasing her past and memories of the 3 Sixlets. He hadn’t run away, she’d chased him.

  And he wasn’t the only one who’d misled someone. Debbie knew the truth. Jon should know, too.

  “The truth is, I never tried to commit suicide.” She rubbed her tattooed wrist. “It’s just what I led you to believe.”

  * * *

  “You didn’t?” How could it have been anything but? Jon had seen her on the floor in the bathroom, dark red blood oozing from her wrist, a razor in her hand. She’d hurled words at him he never knew were in her vocabulary as he pressed a towel to her wound while he called 911.

  She crossed her arms, hiding her wrist beneath her armpit. “When he came to me that day in
June, a month after I’d miscarried—”

  “You were pregnant?” Something else he never knew. “He’s despicable.” Made him want to wake Corey from the dead so he could blacken his left eye too. He’d punched the right one when Corey told him about Lilith and her pregnancy.

  “Corey didn’t know. Every time I planned to tell him, he was conveniently gone. It was as if he intentionally missed all our important dates, always having some lame excuse. Valentine’s Day. Our anniversary. My birthday. Mother’s Day. And after I miscarried, he missed Father’s Day. Little did I know then he was celebrating his fatherhood elsewhere. I even made a point of adding those dates to his phone so he wouldn’t forget or make other plans. Lot of good that did me. It doesn’t take a genius to know where he was. After a while, I gave up on trying to talk to him. He’d clearly given up, so why should I try? I figured if he ever touched me again, he’d figure it out. I was four months along when I miscarried. He should have noticed.”

  Oh, he had, but he’d blamed the weight gain on all the stress she was under, giving him one more reason for falling out of love with her and in love with the younger and svelte Lilith.

  “And then he shows up here, says he wants a divorce. Said he’d fallen in love with someone else and that she was pregnant. So, yeah, I was upset.”

  Upset . . . So like Erin to understate things. Jon wanted to get up, hold her as she recounted her story, but held back knowing too well that wasn’t what she wanted.

  “Mik was at her grandparents’, so I decided to gather up everything that was his in the house and throw it out. I started with the bathroom. I was tossing his razors when a thought passed through my head. Yeah, for a second, and only a second, I thought about ending it all, but I refused to do that to Mik. Then a different, more appealing idea took its place: cutting off his man parts.”

  John flinched and instinctively covered his crotch.

  “No, I wouldn’t have done it, but I felt an immense satisfaction thinking about it. And that’s when you barged in, and I accidentally cut my wrist with the razor. When the EMTs came, I didn’t discount your story because, in my screwed-up state of mind, I believed that attempted suicide was a lesser evil than castrating my soon-to-be ex-husband.”

  “And then she talked to me, professionally.” Debbie rested her hand on Erin’s arm, but Erin didn’t flinch. “And told me the truth.”

  And here he’d gone and made things worse by abandoning her just as Corey had done, as the father she never met had done. No wonder she was skittish around men. Somehow, he had to change her perception.

  But first he needed an answer to his earlier question, before he dropped the other bombshell.

  He cleared his throat and got back up on both knees. “Can you forgive me? Please? Regardless of whether or not I knew the truth, regardless of what happened to my mom, I was wrong. I should have been here for you, and I promise that from this day forward, I will always be here.”

  Erin’s face bore that stoic, far-off look he recognized as her processing look. It meant he shouldn’t press. He should let her think. But man was it hard not to say a word. He sat back on his haunches, folded his hands together, and prayed silently like he’d done outside after taking the shocking phone call, and before he came inside and asked Erin the life-changing question. He’d felt so certain marriage was the direction God was leading him in, but now he had his doubts.

  If she said “yes” to his proposal, he’d be shocked but ecstatic. If she said “no,” he’d live with it and do as he promised, to never abandon her again.

  “Okay.” She finally broke her silence.

  Okay? His head jerked up and he studied her emotion-free face. Okay what? That she forgave him? Agreed to marry him?

  “I forgive you.”

  Whew. His tense muscles relaxed. “Thank you,” he said, nearly crying at the weight she’d removed from his shoulders.

  “But . . . ”

  Oh, he didn’t like the sound of that. He knew what was coming, but made eye contact anyway.

  “You’re a dear friend, Jon, and I’m grateful for your presence and your help and I’ll gladly let you be in Mik’s life.”

  But not Clara’s?

  “But I’ve already lived through a marriage where I wasn’t loved. I can’t do it again.”

  “But I—”

  She held up a finger. “Tell me what this is really all about. I don’t believe you came here last night planning to propose. Something happened with that phone call you took outside minutes ago that put your plan into motion. I may not be able to determine what your emotions are telling me, but I am capable of adding two plus two, and the math with you isn’t adding up.”

  Of course, she’d seen through him. Jon got up and returned to the recliner. He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes, summoning the attorney side of him. “You’re right.” He dug his phone from his pocket and brought up a file that disgusted and angered him. “I heard from the Caldwells this morning. They’ve decided to fight you for custody.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “What?”

  This was where Jon really hated his job. He had to deliver the facts, even if it hurt. “They’re claiming you’re mentally unstable and unfit to raise Clara.”

  A shadow crossed Erin’s face, and her fists clenched. All her life, she’d struggled to distance herself from her mother’s mental illness, and to have someone else accuse her had to be crushing. But she raised her chin, showing defiance to the charge. “I suppose my episode last night reinforced that.”

  He shook his head. “It didn’t help.”

  “And my mom’s history isn’t a secret.”

  “Correct. Plus, they claim they have further evidence. What it is, I don’t know yet.”

  “They wouldn’t know about the suicide”—she made air quotes—“would they? Did Corey know?”

  Jon looked down and nodded. He’d told Corey, hoping to get him to change his mind about leaving Erin, but it had further cemented his plan to leave. Corey had used similar words, mentally unbalanced, to insist that was why he’d fallen out of love. No doubt, words put into his brain by Lilith, the master manipulator.

  Jon fidgeted with his phone as he waited for Erin to say more.

  She sat blankly while Debbie watched her friend out of the corner of her eye. More processing. More waiting. What was she thinking? He prayed she had more fight in her.

  But then Erin lifted her chin, the defiant look again. Was she planning to fight for Clara?

  “That’s good then. Tell them I won’t contest it. Clara will be in a home where she’s loved—”

  “No, she won’t,” Jon said more forcefully than intended and slapped the arm of the chair. “You don’t understand.” He stood and paced. “You don’t know what I’ve found.”

  “Then enlighten me.”

  “I can’t. Not yet.” Because right now what he knew was intuition and not hard fact, but he had his assistant working on it. “Please, Erin, don’t give in yet. Promise me you won’t.”

  “So, I’m to keep Clara in my home, allowing her to become more attached to me and Mik so that a month, two months, a year down the road, whenever the legal system decides to get its act together, she’s moved to a different home? When I said okay to being temporary guardian, I was told the system would do what’s best for the child. Leaving her with me is not for the best.”

  “You don’t . . . ” He rubbed a hand over his mouth and looked at Erin. “Please, just think on it. Pray about it. Don’t make a decision right now.”

  “Fine.” She raised her hands. “I’ll pray.” She looked at Debbie. “We’ll all pray, but I can’t see a better solution.”

  “That’s okay, because God sees from a different perspective.” He grabbed Corey’s journal off the side table. Maybe there was something in Corey’s meanderings that would help Erin.

  And if it would hurt her, no one else would ever have to see it.

  “But for now, I’m going with you to pick up
Clara. She’s still in your custody, and I will make certain they surrender her to you.”

  “Fine. But I have one more question for you before we go.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What was up with the marriage proposal?”

  Other than the fact that he loved her? Had loved her since their teen years. “I figured that you being married, having a two-parent household would look better to the court than you being single.” That was true, but it felt dishonest in its incompleteness.

  “Okay.” She thought again, then nodded. “That makes perfectly good sense. Then what about this mystery woman everyone talks about?”

  He couldn’t believe she still didn’t have a clue, so he crossed the floor and knelt in front of her again. “Pearl, that mystery woman is you. It’s always been you. I love you Erin Belden, and that, more than anything, is why I asked you to marry me.”

  * * *

  Feeling numb from the events earlier in the evening, and finally having time alone, Erin grabbed a spring jacket, her journal, a pen, and matches. She locked the doors to the house and brought the baby monitor to the backyard. She really needed to go for a walk, but wouldn’t leave the girls alone in the house. Retreating to the backyard would have to suffice.

  Seated on the three-person canopy swing facing her fireless firepit, she mentally reviewed the day’s events:

  Jon proposed. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around that. Even more, she couldn’t reconcile her immediate thoughts had been to tell him, “yes” and that her “no” didn’t just disappoint him.

  The Caldwells said they wanted custody of Clara. Fine. Then Clara would be loved as she should be. But . . .

  Them using the “mentally unstable” claim was uncalled for. She was not her mother! If they would have just told her they wanted custody, she wouldn’t have fought.

  Jon had said he loved her, had always loved her, and that she was the mystery woman everyone pointed to for him. Or had she imagined those words? How could she not have realized that he loved her?

  And what did she feel about him? He was a friend who’d messed up big time, but she’d forgiven him. She enjoyed having him around, missed him when he was gone. Even Mik seemed to enjoy their time together. Yeah, that was love, but not romantic love, right? Then why did she miss him now?