by Maine, Miley
“No,” I growl angrily. “No, no, no. It can’t be gone. It just can’t be. I need it to show Michael. He’s going to have to see it. If he doesn’t, he will assume that I have something to hide. He’s bound to have seen through his investigation that we do business together, so it will be suspicious if it’s gone.”
It seems like someone snuck into my office and has stolen paperwork for some reason, to make me look bad. Perhaps it’s the same people who hacked into my computers... or at least tried to. But I haven’t had any evidence of anyone breaking into my home, so how would they do it without smashing a window or something? I have a lot of security outside of my house, so it would have been picked up.
But would it be someone inside my house? The only person who’s been inside my house is...
Oh my God. My heart stops beating as I realize who could have done this. Who would have done this to me?
“Rebecca.” Holy hell, my ex-wife. It’s all starting to come together. She has obviously found something which made her suspicious and she has created a picture in her mind about what I might be up to again. “Oh, Rebecca, no. How could you do this to me? Why can’t you just trust me? I told you... I told you I wasn’t up to anything.”
The fact that she can’t believe me, or even talk to me about her disbelief, instead she walks out and takes my daughter with her, is bad. It makes me feel like we won’t ever be able to get past this. If communication is key, then we have completely and utterly screwed it up. So much so that she has gone to the police, rather than discussing something with me. She is willing to get me locked up. What does that say about what we shared? I thought it was the perfect marriage, but it seems that I was blinded. The sad thing is, knowing that she reported me to the police doesn’t make me love Rebecca any less, because I’m sure in her mind she was doing what she needed to do. She wouldn’t have done this for nothing. Rebecca isn’t a spiteful person. She never has been, that’s one of her best qualities.
I almost want to call her, to see what she was thinking when she went to police about me, but I quickly decide against it. It is obvious that she’s not going to want to talk to me now, and if she really believes I am a criminal again then I suppose I can’t blame her. I have to try and see it from her point of view and realize that she only wants to protect Jenny. That’s what she meant I suppose when she was yelling at me before she walked out.
I don’t have time anyway because Michael will be here any moment. He will be wanting to ask me questions, so I need to get all my paperwork out and ready for him to look through. I gather it up and take it into the living room before spreading it all out. It’s a lot. My eyes look over it all, wondering how long Michael is going to have to be here. How much he is going to have to see, what he’s going to have to do... it’s going to be a nightmare, that’s for sure. Not exactly how I wanted to be spending today. I wanted to be with Jenny and Rebecca. I wanted Rebecca to be wearing her jewelry, slowly falling in love with me again. I want to be doing some more festive stuff together, cementing what we have been building together.
Yet that dream has died, and the fantasy of Rebecca and I getting back together again, even remarrying, is fading by the second.
“Can’t you see, Rebecca?” I whisper to myself, wishing that she was here, and I could ask her face to face. “Can’t you see that you’re the only one for me, and that without you I don’t have anything? Can’t you see that I would do anything for you, and that I will never mess up again? Why can’t you see? Why can’t my words be enough? Why am I not enough?”
It feels like I will never be good enough for Rebecca again, she will never see me as a viable person to have in her life. My one mess up is going to haunt me for the rest of my life and take away the woman that I love for good, and there isn’t a damn thing that I can do about it.
25
Rebecca
December 29th
Who is that? I’m not expecting anyone to turn up at my house. Maggie is already here, so who is hammering on the door like there’s no tomorrow.
“Do you think that’s going to be Taylor?” I hiss quietly to Maggie because I don’t want Jenny to hear. I’m still trying to protect her as much as I can. Although I don’t know how well I’m doing. I think she might have overheard a conversation between me and Maggie just an hour before where she wasn’t exactly being the nicest about him. “What do I do?”
Maggie’s face hardens. “I will go and answer the door. I’ll make sure he doesn’t come here and bother you again.”
Half of me wants to stop her because I don’t like the idea of Taylor being pushed out of my life forever, but I resist the urge and go with the other half of me that wants me to never see him again. The idea that I’ll even have to is pretty sickening to be honest.
“Yeah, fine,” I whisper instead. Not that it makes any difference because she’s already gone and not listening to me. “You do that.”
I aimlessly wander near Jenny, chewing hard on my thumbnail wondering what the hell is going on at my front door. I don’t hear anyone, there certainly isn’t any yelling yet, which I’m not sure how to take. Is that a good sign or bad sign?
“Are you okay, Mommy?” Jenny rests a concerned hand on my knee. “You aren’t sick again, are you?”
I smile at her feeling just grateful that she doesn’t still hate me. Thankfully she’s still only five years old and has a short-term memory that can easily be wiped by sleep.
“I’m okay, darling. Thank you for checking in on me though.”
I lean down to kiss her but before I can connect with her cheek, she rests her hand on mine and stares at me with sympathy. The look of sympathy makes my heart wobble and my stomach churn with sadness. If she’s feeling sorry for me, then I really must be a mess.
“I love you, Mommy.”
Oh God, now I really am about to burst into tears.
“I love you too, Jenny. Very much.”
The conversation is a good distraction from the tension building up inside of me. But it’s still there, burning through me, pushing me to the limit. I’m like a pressure cooker, about to explode at any moment. It’s hard for me to keep the lid on, keep it all inside.
Thankfully, just the moment I’m about to pop, Maggie’s face reappears in the door frame. But her expression is stoic. She doesn’t look like a person who’s just got everything off her chest.
“What’s going on?” I gasp. “Is everything okay?”
“Officer Lee is here to see you.” She gives me a very serious glare, letting me know that whatever this police officer is going to tell me, it isn’t good news. “I’m going to take Jenny upstairs so we can watch a movie in her room.”
Jenny moans at first, she isn’t happy to be kept out of whatever is happening, but the moment she catches a glimpse of Officer Lee and she gets a sense of his terrifying aura, she takes Maggie’s hand and leaves with her. I’m all by myself with this officer and whatever bad news he has.
“Hello, Officer Lee.” There’s a real shake to my voice. “How can I help you?”
“May I take a seat?” He points towards the couch. “I think we might need to sit down as we discuss this.”
I nod numbly, unsure of how bad this is about to get. Officer Lee really does look grave, which has me riddled with anxiety.
“Okay, Rebecca, you came to me a couple of days ago with concerns about your ex-husband.” I still can’t speak so I let my head bob up and down and do the talking for me. “I have investigated this thoroughly, just as I promised I would, particularly because you had me concerned due to Taylor’s track record, and I have to tell you now that I found nothing.”
“N... nothing?” I reply curiously. “What do you mean, nothing? What about those transactions I told you about? And the weird paperwork?”
“Trust me, I looked into all the paperwork and I even had a tour of the offices to see if I could find anything there. There is nothing. There is a paper trail for everything. The business is being run in a very legit an
d legal way.”
I feel like I’ve been slammed into a wall. I’m utterly breathless and shocked to my very core. These words are positive ones, but they feel weird and heavy.
“So, Taylor hasn’t done anything wrong?” My throat feels strangled and painful. “His business really is just doing well these days?”
“It certainly is. It seems to me that whatever happened in Taylor’s past, whatever mistakes he made, he has learned from those.”
The officer telling me these words leaves me dizzy and confused. I got myself so convinced that they found something, so worked up by the idea that Taylor was up to his old ways and lying to me again, that I allowed myself to turn into a paranoid insane person. I mean, Taylor explained everything to me, and I told him that I believed him. We even ended up spending more than quality time together, and then I got into my own head and betrayed him. I snuck into his office and stole his paperwork fully knowing that I wasn’t going to understand it properly. Then I took that paperwork to the police, fully willing to get him locked away, and he hasn’t done anything wrong. This time I’m the one in the wrong.
“Oh my God.” I clutch my chest hard. “What have I done?”
The world twists and turns around me, I feel like I could collapse if I cave to the dizziness. I pushed Taylor away, wrecked our chance of us reconnecting, just because I was scared. I really could have had my family back; we could have tried again after I listened to the truth about what happened before, and I totally blew it.
“I better go.” Officer Lee stands up awkwardly, clearly not wanting to get in the middle of my emotional breakdown. Not that I can blame him, that isn’t exactly his job now, is it? “But I wanted to come here to tell you face to face what I learned. So, you know you don’t need to worry anymore.”
“Yes, thank you,” I reply distractedly. “I appreciate you coming here. Let me show you to the door.”
Officer Lee continues to talk to me until he leaves my house, but I don’t listen to any more of his words, I simply make agreeable noises when it feels necessary. My head is all over the place, I’m slowly becoming desperate with confusion, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do next.
“Maggie!” I yell as soon as I’m alone again. “Maggie, come down here, I need you.”
Maggie races down the stairs with Jenny not far behind. I almost forgot that I wouldn’t be able to tell my best friend because I can’t upset my daughter... but this is weighing heavily on me now. I need to get it out.
“Maggie, do you think you could help me make some lunch?”
“Lunch?” Maggie glances at Jenny, quickly clocking on to what I’m doing. “Oh, sure, I can help you do lunch.”
“Jenny, why don’t you find something on TV to watch while we cook?”
The television isn’t often switched on in our house, so this is an exciting offer to Jenny, enough for her to let me and Maggie have a moment to ourselves. We head into the kitchen so I can explain what just happened. Not that I’m totally sure myself, I haven’t quite wrapped my head around it yet.
“Taylor isn’t doing anything bad.” Yes, that’s the main point to take from what the officer told me. “There is no crime this time. I was mistaken. What I thought was a suspicious transaction wasn’t. He hasn’t done anything wrong, Maggie. I left him for nothing.”
“Whoa, wait a moment. You didn’t leave him for nothing,” she reminds me. “Don’t forget in all of this that he did lie to you. He has been in jail for this before. It isn’t like he’s innocent.”
But it feels to me like he is. In my gut, I’m realizing everything he’s told me before was a truth. He made a mistake, he was naive, he didn’t actively commit a crime. He wouldn’t have done it if he knew where it would lead him, what the people were using him for. I’m the one who couldn’t trust him, who would never listen to him, who pushed him away without even hearing him out. And not just the one time when we got divorced, I made the same mistake again. I walked out on him without having a conversation.
Why is communication so hard for us?
“I don’t know, Maggie.” I shake my head hard. “I’m not sure that I’ve done the right thing. It just feels wrong in my gut.”
“You’re only feeling that because you’ve just been proven wrong. I’m sure you must be second guessing your judgements.”
I understand that Maggie has my best interests at heart, but I also suspect that her opinion is tainted by her general dislike for Taylor. I don’t think she can really be unbiased because she just isn’t keen on him, and never has been.
I appreciate her advice, and I will always listen to it, but that doesn’t mean I need to follow it. I have to do what’s right for me, what’s right for Jenny, and what’s right for my family. Right now, I really don’t know what that means.
“I see that look in your eye, Rebecca,” Maggie warns. “You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?”
I can’t lie to her, so I just don’t answer. I simply give her a look which tells her all she needs to know.
“Oh God,” she groans while banging her palm to her forehead. “I don’t want you to go through this again. I will always be there for you, obviously you know that already, but it upsets me to see you so sad.” she holds up her hands in a surrendering gesture. “So, even though you asked me never to let you love Taylor again no matter what you said, I already know that you’re going back there. I would much prefer you to be careful, and look after your feelings, but if this is what you need to do, then I will be there for you.”
Hmm, now I really don’t know what to do. I’m torn between my heart and my head...Right now, it feels like they want the same thing. It’s more what I desperately want to do, but what I’m also terribly afraid to. Because this time if I go back to Taylor, then it will have to be forever. I can’t keep doing this back and forth anymore. It’s hurting me, Jenny, and Taylor.
“Just take a moment to think about it,” Maggie continues. “Consider every angle and consequence. Make sure your decision is a smart one.”
But how can I make the smart choice when all I really want is my family back? The image of us back together again, living the happy life that we once did, fills my mind, and makes me so excited I could cry.
I want that too much to turn away from it, I can’t help myself.
26
Taylor
December 29th
Bang, bang, bang.
“I’m coming!” I cry out to whoever is hammering on my door. “Hold on a moment.”
As I pull a tee shirt over my head, muttering under my breath about it being too late for visitors, anger surges through me. Haven’t I had enough unwanted visitors today? I just got my paperwork back in place in my office, so I know where it is. Michael really did want to go through all of it, and he wanted to go to the main office building as well, so it was a long and annoying time just to prove my innocence. All because Rebecca couldn’t trust me.
“Rebecca?” I blink a few times, wondering if I’m dreaming and in bed because there is no way she would be back here after what happened. She made her feelings very clear about me. But it doesn’t matter how many times I blink; she isn’t going anywhere. “What are you doing here?”
“Daddy, we are back!” Jenny excitedly screams while jumping into my arms. “We had our sleepover, and we’re back here. Until New Year’s just like you wanted.”
“Oh right... you are?” I hug my daughter tight, extremely confused. Of course, it’s an incredible turn of events because this is my time with Jenny and I didn’t want it ruined, but I don’t understand what’s changed. “Well that’s good. So, you are sleeping here tonight?”
“I am.” Jenny beams excitedly. “We both are. Isn’t that exciting?”
“You are?” I rise to my feet, too messed up inside to really understand this. “You’re staying too, Rebecca?”
She shrugs and smiles coyly at me. “I was hoping that I could at least come inside to talk to you, if that’s okay?”
I indicate for them both to come inside. It isn’t long before Jenny wants to race upstairs to play with some of her toys that she left behind after Christmas, leaving me and Rebecca alone. This is what I wanted; I’ve been looking forward to speaking with her, I’m getting the opportunity to explain myself again, but now that she’s here, it feels weird. I don’t know if I’m the one who needs to explain this time around, I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t know how to feel in this position.
“So, you wanted to talk?” I sound awkward as I ask this. “Has something happened?”
“The police came to see you today, didn’t they?” she replies guiltily. “That’s my fault. But I’m sure you have worked that out already. I did a really bad thing, which I feel horrible for, especially since you’ve been so kind to me- allowing me to impose on your ten days with Jenny. While you were out, I snuck into your office and stole some paperwork which I assumed was a link to you doing illegal things again.” She sighs heavily. “And then instead of talking to you about it, I went to the police and caused some arguments because I was afraid. I was scared that I was being lied to again that it would bite me on the ass again. I’m so sorry for that, I realize how wrong it was now.”
I can tell that she feels horrible, and all I want to do is make things right between us. I could take her in my arms right now and we could get things back on track just like I wanted. I could have Rebecca back by New Year’s Eve just as my plan aimed for... it would be so simple, but I need to consider the lack of communication and mistrust. How long will it be before we are back here again because we didn’t talk? Because she can’t trust me? Is it really worth us trying when we are destined to fail?