The faint light of Jackie’s living room reminded me of my favorite room, which played a huge part in my life. I sat there every evening, book in hand. Theo and I had brought each of the kids home to that living room, where we’d put up a pack-n-play and a temporary changing table. It was the room in which Theo first shared he had PTSD, both of us clutching each other’s hand as we leaned toward one another.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Andrew placed a coaster on the coffee table and set his mug upon it. He folded himself onto the chair next to the sofa, which left a space of several feet between us. Grateful for the room, I sipped from my mug, more at peace than I had been in the last few minutes.
“My thoughts would bore you.” The drama my life had become might scare the poor guy away and make my life easier, but instead of speaking, I lifted myself from the couch and connected my phone to Jackie’s Bluetooth speaker, finding my favorite pop station and setting the volume to low. The music’s beat would help reel in my cartwheeling emotions while the two of us chatted.
“I doubt it. We’re both parents and could swap a few outlandish stories, I’m sure. Some of the things my kids have done, well, those stories are almost begging to be shared.” He laughed out loud, probably at one of those precious memories, and each time he smiled, his dimples seemed to deepen. He cleared his throat as I sat back against the couch again, gripping my mug. “Well, if we’re gonna sit here all night, and we don’t have a baby to distract us right now, I’ll go ahead and tell you a bit about myself if you don’t mind.”
His no-nonsense approach amused me. I sipped my tea and peeked at him over the edge of my cup.
“So here it goes...let’s see...Andrew MacKinnon.”
I know this already.
“Lifelong Bloom Market shopper...”
Boring.
“Not allergic to pop music...”
But has a sense of humor.
I smiled in acknowledgment, then looked around the room as he spoke. How long would it be until the room showed hints of a new baby? The single change in the Mills’ front room was the hot pink bouncy chair tucked into the corner.
“And friend of Pete Mills...”
Normal, good guy.
“Coffee drinker, any time of the day or night.”
Nothing to see here, ladies.
“Love my work and my dog, but I can’t live without my kids.”
Oh no...
We stared at one another. Don’t say anything else, I willed him. Don’t say anything else to draw me in.
“And I’m divorced.”
Crap. Crap. Crappity-crap-crap.
Chapter 6: Theo
Staying home alone with my kids on a night when Sadie went out wasn’t a luxury I was afforded. It had taken one mistake for Sadie to put her foot down and make her new rule. “When I go out for long periods of time, we either call Brooke to come over, or you all go with me.”
The night the rule went into place still haunted me. Charlie’s wide eyes, Delia’s quivering lips. My shaking hands. When the kids had ripped through the house playing chase, they tore past the coffee table in the living room, causing a pile of books to fall, one after the other. In my world, the books became mortar shells, and the noises turned into the thud of shells landing. To this day, the details of what had happened were blurry, but images still flashed at times: scattered pages, hunched shoulders, frantic movements. And knowing my behavior scared the kids? Shame filled me. Maybe even regret.
But it was hard to come to terms with the idea the mother of your children didn’t trust you to keep them safe. Brooke might be a wonderful babysitter—the kids loved her, and frankly, no one better existed—but having someone in my home on a night when I wanted to be with the kids? Difficult. No other word for it.
After dinner, we all helped clean the dishes and the counters and then made our way into the living room. Lexie toddled to her play space and brought out the ocean floor puzzle. Charlie and Delia knew the drill: no television until after Lexie went to bed, so they each got behind that puzzle with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
“What about building something?” Charlie asked Lexie as she slipped the last piece of the puzzle into place. In his world, not a day went by he didn’t craft something, and he had spoken before about his goal to turn Lexie into the “second best builder in the house.”
“I’m game if everyone else is,” I said.
“And I’ll go check to see if any clothes need folding,” Brooke said. “It’s the least we can do for your mom.”
All three kids knew better than to groan at Brooke’s announcement.
Once all clothes had been folded and put away, tickles had been doled out, and buildings had been constructed, Delia glanced at the clock, then at Lexie, then up at me with a smile. “Popcorn?” she said.
Her way of reminding me it would soon be movie time made me laugh. Six months ago, making popcorn wasn’t on the list of things easily accomplished. The heat of the air popper and the noise of the popping kernels; everything had been too much at first. But the machine’s concreteness—something tangible in front me, touch it if I had to—helped. My mind could be convinced danger didn’t exist.
“Extra butter?” I called out to the kids, already knowing their answer.
A quick “Yes, please!” from Delia followed an “Of course!” from Charlie. Sadie allowed extra butter on the weekends—her attempt to stave off clogged arteries and high cholesterol—but even if it hadn’t been a weekend, I’d have given in. Too much time spent in hell meant I’d take as much goodness as possible. Goodness might push back against the tension that mounted on some days. Today happened to be one of them. Maybe it was appropriate Brooke was here.
I grabbed drinks for the kids, a puffed corn snack for Lexie, and another favorite game, Spot It, and I went back to the living room, serving tray piled high. Charlie and Delia were deep in conversation about something while Lexie spun in a circle. The hushed tones of the kids whispering tunneled into my ears, making me pause, and I stood there, questioning myself and my abilities. Breathe in, breathe out. One, two, three.
The whispering turned to chittering, and a clamor inside my chest grew. The tray began to shake, drops of grape juice sloshed over the sides of the cups, and a napkin fell to the floor.
“Theo? Theo? You okay?” Brooke took the tray and set it on the table, then put her hand gently on my wrist. Months before, we’d determined a light touch to my wrist pulled me out of wherever I was. “Take a few deep breaths, okay?” she said and guided me to the chair.
The pounding in my chest subsided, but a ticking in my head took its place. “I’m okay. Sorry about that.”
“It’s no trouble. Why don’t you sit here with Charlie and Delia while I put Lexie to bed? Is that okay?”
“Yes, but let me hold her just a minute, please?” I opened my arms, the universal sign for “give me a hug,” and Lexie jumped up on my lap and burrowed her head into my chest as she snuggled against me. Putting her to bed would be my first choice. “Do you think I—”
Brooke held up her hand, palm facing me. “Theo, I’d like to say yes, but I’m going to say no. It’s hard to say that to you. But I’m here to help all of you. And right now, if you stay out here and relax, that’s the best thing for everyone.” She checked her watch. “Take all the time you need with her. Okay?”
I leaned forward, kissing the top of Lexie’s head before she looked up at me and blinked. “Song?”
I’d never been much of a singer, but with Lexie, it hadn’t mattered. A minute into “The Frim-Fram Sauce,” and she’d burrowed in so tightly, it took convincing on my part to get her to go to bed once we’d finished. “Honey, I’ll c
arry you to your room, but Brooke needs to put you to bed tonight.”
Lexie smiled around the thumb in her mouth and nodded her head. When we reached her room, she flung herself against her small mattress and waved at me. “Night!”
I closed the bedroom door, the ticking keeping time in my head much like a metronome, and then stopped in my room to grab my favorite sweatshirt. Sometimes warming up helped temper the anxiety, but the chair where I’d put the clothing stood empty.
“Charlie, Delia. Where is my sweatshirt?” I asked as I moved through the living room.
“Check the office. And can you hurry? We want to watch a movie!”
“Yes, I’ll hurry. But go ahead and set things up. I’ll be right there.”
And I would have been right there, had a certain slip of paper peeking out of a file folder on Sadie’s desk not distracted me. That paper. A letter from me.
The movie’s opening credits sounded as I unfolded the paper and turned it over in my hands. Fifteen years ago, life had been so different. So good.
My hands shook as I read the letter, my eyes unable to stay on one word for too long. Forever. Filled. Home. Immeasurable. Longing. Beauty. Sleep. Image. And then: Without you, I can’t cope.
Fuck. A sinkhole formed in my chest and tremors coursed through my legs. It took all my energy to put the letter back where it belonged before emotions pulled me under, forcing me to fall onto the couch. My thoughts ricocheted. Sadie had kept the letter, maybe all the letters I’d written. I’d written those letters in the first place. We were so far from there now. What did it all mean? And the kids. They waited for me, the movie waited for me...
Fear and panic would ensue if I thought about the letter anymore, so I walked back to the kids and tried to watch the movie, fists balled at my sides, my jaw clenched. The time couldn’t pass fast enough. Soon, after I’d put Delia to bed with a sloppy kiss to the forehead, I paced while Charlie watched The Princess Bride and Brooke watched me, eyebrows raised.
“You okay, Dad?” Charlie asked for at least the fifth time.
“Yeah. I’m just tired.”
Fatigue didn’t explain the treads I’d worn in the carpet or the hole I’d picked into my jeans. That damn letter.
“Brooke, I can get Charlie to bed. It’s no trouble. You can head back.”
She raised her eyebrows again and narrowed her eyes. “I’m staying, Theo.”
“Ah, that’s right. Well then, head to bed. Will you be here in the morning?”
“I’ll likely leave pretty early, if that’s all right with you.”
“You know it. And really, I’ve got this.”
“I trust you.” Brooke reached over and smoothed Charlie’s hair against his head. “Goodnight, kiddo. Goodnight, Theo.”
Charlie and I sat for an hour more before I bundled him off to bed, hoping against hope my anxiety would begin to subside.
. . . . .
The night vision goggles did nothing to help my view. Out there, in the complete blackness, they lurked: Faces. Eyes. Limbs. Landmines. Everywhere. To the right, to the left, in front, and behind. Flashes of light blinked on and off to my right side, but when I turned my head in that direction, they’d vanished. The flashes picked up to the left, and in anger, I threw my hand out, hoping to hit at least a few, but again, they slipped through my fingers. A blast sounded—one, two, three—with each new step I took, the dust and dirt from the ground flew into the atmosphere, clogging my nose, my lungs. I pulled off my goggles with one hand while trying to hold the gun with the other. A bang thundered against a metal wall, and the blood whooshed through my body. Beat, beat, beat. My heart bumped inside my chest and threatened to detonate. The steady thrum echoed in my ears. The skin covering my sternum expanded, stretching around the heart as it emerged. Whoosh...whoosh...whoosh. Getting slower, and slower, and...a bell rang—
I woke with a parched mouth and sweat clinging to my brow. For the past several months, my sleep had not been restorative. My dreams had been laced with odd flashes of my past life intertwined with my current life: I’d used night vision goggles in the military, and the prior week, I’d visited the optometrist where my peripheral vision had been tested with flashing lights. Almost all my dreams involved a gun. Me holding it. Me using it to shoot someone. No dreams about me turning it on myself, but it was a matter of time. These dreams scared the shit out of me, but I’d not told Doc about their increase in frequency, the subjects of them, or even the fact I had them. She had to suspect something was off; she told me to “reduce the stress you’re carrying around” more than once.
I moved into the bathroom to wash my face, thinking of the stress I’d been carrying. Of course, home life being as it was didn’t help much. Sadie had been so busy, almost too busy, like she’d been trying to avoid something—me? And while we still did things as a family—trips to get ice cream or on rainy days the bowling alley—the summer had passed without our annual trip to Walloon Lake.
“Do you think that’s the best idea?” Sadie had said when I brought the subject up a few days before. “The kids are so confused about our relationship, and Charlie is enjoying camp. I’m not even sure where you stand, and I’m swamped at work. Honestly, it’s all too much. Plus, it would be a bigger drain on the finances. I can’t even dream of a vacation right now.”
Going by myself had only been a slight possibility—Sadie had been adamant about not letting me drive alone. So instead of Walloon Lake, I spent more time at the gym: lifting weights, running on the treadmill, trying all the equipment I used to loathe. Thinking about all that now, it was clear the one thing keeping me grounded was my job. The routine, the people, even the grind. A few weeks earlier, I’d articulated that thought aloud.
“It’s good to be needed somewhere,” I said to my coworker one morning, just after I’d logged into the system. The coworker, a college student with too much on her plate, scrunched up her face at my statement.
“Yeah. You don’t get it. Someday, you might.”
“I believe you. In the meantime, here comes the rush.” She smiled and fiddled with the lanyard around her neck, ready for the onslaught of morning questions that always came our way. She hadn’t heard much about my past and neither did the rest of my coworkers, and they respected my boundaries. Everyone was too busy with their own lives to care about anyone else’s.
A creak behind me brought me back to the present, but it was only the house settling into the night. As I turned out the bathroom light, my mind roamed to my job again, to all the people I saw daily, those patrons who had wheedled their way into my life one exercise session at a time. The mom with the twins who came in every Tuesday and Thursday for her hot yoga class always stopped at the desk with a cheery hello. The elderly gentleman who walked the track for an hour each morning had a quick wink for me. One of the aquatics students often placed a piece of chocolate on my keyboard before I got in. And Andrew MacKinnon, the man I’d chatted with about the Browns and beer, liked to stop and ask once a week, “Want to work on web development?”
The first time he asked back in July I’d said, “No.” But each week after, I’d listened a bit longer to what he had to say. And soon, we’d chatted about his project needs, met for coffee, and lifted weights together.
In one of our sessions, Doc asked, “Would you call him a friend?”
“Sure. He reminds me of my college roommate, a lot.” Liam had seen me through four years of college before shipping off for his tour of duty, and he’d managed to live eight years before having been blown to bits. Andrew’s humor—snarky but rarely disrespectful—echoed Liam’s.
“Then I’m glad you’re spending time with him. If you’re going to go through with this divorce, you need a support system. Sadie can’t, an
d won’t, serve as support if you’re no longer married.”
“But I—”
“But nothing. You two get along, yes, but is it fair of you to ask her for something she shouldn’t have to give?”
That comment stuck with me every day as summer marched on, as the kids went back to school, as tension came and went in my spine, as the crackle of firecrackers reminded me of bullets, as Sadie and I still managed to exist separately, yet slightly together, as I watched her move on with her life, including friends and the kids. The comment hit me again as I moved into the office, back to the letter I’d found. I pushed it into the envelope and then under a stack of papers. The same divorce papers she’d asked me to sign, again, the day before. Why hadn’t I? What was I holding on to?
Chapter 7: Sadie
Andrew was divorced. Of course he was.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to Andrew. “I’m sorry about the divorce.” What other words were there? You’re a fine-looking man, Andrew. You’ll find someone, if that’s what you want. And by the way, let me tell you the effect you have on me. None of those statements were quite appropriate to say as we sat in the dark waiting for Clara to wake.
But in the split second before he expected my answer, a bubble of recognition emerged at the surface of my mind. Andrew represented a taste of something I didn’t possess: freedom. The freedom to pursue what he wanted, when he wanted it, anywhere he wanted it. He didn’t have to sit and watch a former love fall apart, nor did he have to witness three lovely children deal with the drawn-out drama of their father’s and mother’s failures. The stress of my life brought tears to my eyes. I wanted to be free too. Of my obligations, my job, my kids, my situation. Free of my life. My napkin served a wonderful purpose—to blot at my tears under the weak lighting that hopefully shielded my emotions.
Andrew waved his hand, as if trying to push away the past, and took a sip of his coffee. “Thanks. The thing is, and yes, I realize how unimaginative this sounds, we got married too fast. My ex and I harbor no ill-will and try to keep everything running smoothly for the kids. The little guy will be starting second grade. And he’s at an age where he’s noticing everything, especially when it comes to his mom and dad.” Andrew placed his mug on the end table. “His vulnerability reminds me every day to keep the relationship with my ex-wife as amicable as possible.”
Rewrite the Stars Page 5