by Robyn Carr
When Lauren arrived, Lacey had candles lit, though the summer sun was still up. She was sitting at her small kitchen table, drinking a glass of wine.
“Hi, honey,” she said, kissing Lacey’s cheek.
“Midlife crisis?” Lacey asked acerbically.
Lauren sat down across from her daughter. “No, Lacey. This is something that has to be done and I’m sorry to say, it’s long overdue.”
“There’s wine chilled. Help yourself if you like while we sort this out.”
“No, thanks. I don’t think there’s much to sort out. I’ve moved out. I rented a small house in Alameda.”
Lacey looked shocked beyond belief. “You didn’t go to Aunt Beth’s?”
She hesitated. How much to tell her daughters was the big question. She didn’t have any intention of persecuting Brad but neither did she want to carry the whole load. She settled on trying to get by with telling Lacey what she already knew. Or should have known if she’d been paying attention. “I didn’t want to do that again. I’m able to take care of myself. And sometimes too many opinions only makes things worse.”
“You’ve been planning this?”
Lauren sighed. “Remember when I took you and Cassie to Aunt Beth’s? You were so young then. It was very spur-of-the-moment. I hadn’t planned it or thought it through but there was something that just put me over the edge. It was psychological abuse, emotional abuse. Your father was on a tear and I couldn’t take it—”
“But we know he gets like that,” Lacey said. “The life-and-death pressure he’s under...”
“There’s no excuse for abuse, Lacey. But when I thought I could break away, he threatened me and blackmailed me. I tried to fight back but it was pretty well established I was no match for him and so we went back. You begged to go back. Aunt Beth’s was small, crowded and chaotic.”
“What do you mean he threatened you?” Lacey said derisively. “Aren’t you a big enough girl to weather his little tantrums?”
Oh, how Lauren wanted to show her daughter the bruises on her upper arms from being pinched! They went away but there were still discolored spots here and there. Brad always blamed her, her behavior, when he lost his temper or treated her badly. “I always took the brunt of it to spare you girls. And I always hoped he’d mellow over time. But he threatened to do everything in his power to take you from me. Later, he refused to pay tuition for you. He said he could be forced to pay child support until a child was eighteen but not after. I talked to a lawyer who told me there would be a settlement and it was highly possible arrangements for tuition could be part of the settlement. At least half of the tuition. Your father does not fight fair, Lacey. He fights to win. I took you back. I weathered his little tantrums, as you call them. I didn’t want him to punish you girls.”
“And now?”
“I’m done,” she said. “I’ve done all I can do.”
Lacey got tears in her eyes. “What did you expect? You moved out of your bedroom! Don’t pretend this isn’t your fault!”
“He cheated on me!” she blurted.
“No,” Lacey said. “No, he didn’t.”
Lauren rubbed the bridge of her nose. One of many things she hadn’t wanted to dump on her daughters. But, she was sure they’d known. She and Brad had fought so much about it. “He did,” she said. “More than once, and he denies it.”
“You’re just being dramatic!” Lacey said. “You’ve always been like that.”
Lauren heard Brad’s voice saying those words and lost her composure. “He gave me an STD! There’s only one way to get it and I’ve only had one partner in my life.”
Lacey clearly didn’t know what to say. “Well, is he sorry?” she asked, at a loss.
“No! He won’t admit it. Come on, you know how stubborn he can be. And he’s always right, no matter what. You lived in our home. You know how often he belittled me, humiliated me, shouted at me! He accuses me of pushing his buttons, forcing him to behave badly. Do I really need to tell you that’s not true? And even if it were, that’s no excuse. Lacey, I’m almost fifty. I can’t take it anymore! I know that makes you unhappy, but—”
“You have to try harder,” Lacey said.
“I’m sorry, but no. I’ve given him all I have to give.”
“But what about the things we’ve planned?” she asked. “What about my wedding?”
Lauren was momentarily gobsmacked. “Are you and Sean getting serious?”
“Not really, but I will get married someday. What’s my wedding going to be like with you and Daddy hating each other? No family times with all of us together? What about when I have my first baby? Do I have to take turns between you and Daddy? And decide who gets to hold him first?”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Lauren said.
“Of course I’m not kidding!” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “You just can’t do this to me. We have a family. For better or worse, right?”
Lauren leaned closer so she could look into her daughter’s eyes. “You would have me stay in a place where I’m painfully unhappy so you can pretend to have a perfect wedding?”
“Well, you married him, not me!” She turned and grabbed a tissue and began crying in earnest. “You can’t just change everything because you’re not getting your way!”
“Not getting my way?” she asked. “Oh Lacey, can you really be that heartless?”
“Me? I’m not the one walking out on the man I promised to love and honor!”
“Lacey, he made those promises, too. And he never kept them. At first I thought I could fix it, our marriage. Then I thought I could live with it until you girls were a little older. Then I thought I could take it until you were through with high school. Then college. Would you really ask me to sacrifice the rest of my life so you can have a fairy-tale wedding to some completely unknown groom?”
“It’s more than that and you know it!”
“Is it? Oh right, who gets to hold the baby first...”
“If you leave Daddy and ruin my family, I will never forgive you!”
Lauren felt the tears rise in her eyes. “That would be such a shame.” She got up and walked around the small table, bending to kiss the top of her daughter’s head. “I know this is hard for you and you need some time to absorb this. But it’s time I stand up for myself and do what’s right for me. I love you,” she said to Lacey as she walked out the door.
* * *
Lauren thought about going to Beth’s house for the night. Most of her things were still in Beth’s spare room, but in the next two days the furniture she’d ordered would be delivered and she’d move in completely. Right now there was only a couch in her new home but it would be comfortable enough for one night. She wanted company but did not want Beth and Chip to see her anguish. If she even saw her sister, she would tell about her conversation with Lacey and Beth would condemn her, pronounce her a spoiled brat.
She knew this would be hard. She had been terrified. She even feared Lacey wouldn’t be sympathetic or supportive. But she hadn’t predicted the cruelty of her words—the echo of Brad’s voice.
Surely she would come around in time...
She went to a little grocery market in Alameda, her new home. She wasn’t exactly hungry but she put a couple of wedges of cheese, a box of crackers and some fruit in her basket. Then she went to the wine case and picked out a nice bottle. There was a part of her that thought she might down the whole thing, but she knew she wouldn’t. The more sensible part of her thought too much wine would only make her cry, and was that such a good idea? She threw a corkscrew and one single knife in her basket.
“Kind of a long way from home, aren’t you?”
She turned abruptly, nearly dropping the basket, which Beau caught very deftly while hanging on to his own. “Did I startle you?” he asked.
“I was surprised at the sound of your vo
ice,” she said. “You’re the last person I expected to run into here.”
“And the last person you expected to run into in a church garden or at a fund-raiser,” he said with a smile. “I live in the neighborhood. If I only need a couple of things, I like this market. If I need a lot, I hit a bigger, cheaper and more crowded store. But this is all fresh. All good.”
“You live around here?” she asked.
“Just a few blocks away,” he said. “Is this on your way home?”
“In a way. I’m renting a house nearby. Also in the neighborhood.”
“Seriously?” he asked, shocked.
She nodded. “This is my first night. Nothing in it but a couch. And soon there will be cheese, fruit and wine. Badly needed wine.”
“Oh boy.”
“Yep, this was the day. A very trying, painful day.”
He reached out and touched her upper arm, giving her a supportive squeeze. “Want to get a cup of coffee? There are lots of nice little spots around here.”
“I...ah... I really need to get out of these shoes. It’s been so stressful.”
“I understand completely. I had a go-around with one of the boys the other night. He was upset about the pending divorce, like it hasn’t been coming for years.”
“Really?”
“His mother got to him, wanting him to pressure me to try again. It was awful.”
“I think that’s what happened in my family. One daughter seems to understand completely and the other thinks I’m a monster. I’m trying so hard not to explode and list the terrible reasons this is the only option for me.”
“You don’t want to blame him to the kids,” Beau said, knowingly. “Eventually you’re going to, you know. It happens. Hang in there.”
“I don’t feel like going to a café or bar, but if you’d like a glass of wine and some...” She looked in her basket. “Some cheese and grapes?”
“I don’t want to complicate your life at such a touchy time. But I sure wouldn’t mind a glass of wine. The only person I’ve had to talk to about all of this is a priest.” He grinned. “We should do this. We have war stories to share.”
“That sounds miserable.”
“It’s going to be perfectly nice. You’ll see you’re not the only one and you won’t tell me anything you’re not ready to talk about. Lauren, it would be nice if it was simple and amicable. I’ve heard that happens sometimes. But if you ask me, it’s damn rare. I thought I could just be strong, be a big guy and weather it, but I’m having a rough ride like most people do. You know what’s good, though?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“It won’t last forever. In my case, Pamela will find someone to take her mind off me. She usually does.”
She thought about this for a second, the idea of having him over. She wished she had her mom to talk to, but Honey had been bitter in some ways, having been abandoned herself. Not only had her young husband walked out on her and left her with two babies to support alone, but Brad had never fooled her. She knew he was a bastard from day one. At least there was Beth, who could be sympathetic and supportive, but Beth had a storybook marriage. Very human and earthy, married to a cop and with money always tight, but at the end of the day, she was secure in her marriage. There was only Ruby. And Ruby’s husband was recovering from a stroke.
“I need to get some plastic cups and plates,” she said.
“Great. Then I’ll follow you.” He lifted his basket. It contained only milk, bread and eggs. “Can I borrow your refrigerator?”
“Sure.”
For the first time since deciding to leave Brad she did not feel utterly alone. It would be good to have a friend who understood what it was like to end a marriage.
* * *
Beau followed Lauren to a neighborhood he knew and to a house that was easily as nice as his, but he’d bought his as a fixer-upper before he even met Pamela. Lauren unlocked the door for them and went straight to the kitchen, turning on the overhead lights. She set out the wine and cheese and some plastic plates and cups on the counter. “I don’t even have a coffee table,” she said. The house was vacant but for a single couch.
“I’m a guy,” he said. “I can put my drink on the floor and the plate on my knees. And I won’t spill.”
“Would you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Would you open the wine while I bring in some bags from the car?”
He held out his hand for her key fob. “I’ll open the wine and bring in the bags. Where are they?”
“Trunk. And thanks. I feel like I’ve just finished a marathon.”
“I know the feeling.”
He opened the wine then made fast work of bringing in the bags. She sat on the sofa—the kind of fancy, curved sofa in a light beige he wouldn’t have dared buy for his living room with two boys growing up. “You have more furniture coming?” he asked politely.
“Yes,” she said with a laugh. “A full complement, most of it in the next two to three days. Tables, chairs, television, bedroom furniture, guest room furniture. I’m taking some time off. I did that to meet deliveries but now I’m so glad I have the days off. I’m emotionally drained.”
“How’d your husband take it?” Beau asked.
“As though he’d been expecting it for years but didn’t think I’d ever have the guts to really do it. And then he warned me—he’d make me regret it. He didn’t say he loved me and couldn’t live without me, which wouldn’t have worked in any case. He said I was humiliating him.”
Beau winced. He recovered and said, “Look, I’m sorry to pry, but is there any chance he’d become violent?”
“Physically?” she asked. “And hurt his hands?”
“Is he the kind of man who could cause you physical harm? Disable your car? Set your house on fire? Anything?”
She stiffened, instantly at alert. “He’s so good at abusing me without lifting a finger, those things never occurred to me. He’s more likely to try to keep me from getting anything from the marriage or turn the girls against me. He loves to tell me I can’t get by without him when actually, I think the opposite is true. He texts me all day, giving me chores to do for him, lists of things to buy for him, settle for him. It is said most doctors can’t make it without a good nurse and a good wife. Brad has a great sense of entitlement. I don’t know for sure but I suspect he was born with it. He was the only child of wealthy parents.”
He just shook his head.
“He’s mean and spiteful. I need to remember that.”
“I’ll come over tomorrow and install some good locks for you,” he said. “I’ll get one of those camera doorbells that you can access with your cell phone.”
“You don’t have to do that...”
“But it will help,” he said.
“So you’ve had a bad week?” she asked, only to take the focus off her for a moment.
“Predictable, but not fun. I didn’t expect Michael, my twenty-year-old, to come to me in tears practically begging me to let his mom come home. I hated looking like such a beast. I changed the locks on the house. I told them their mother isn’t forbidden to enter by any means but to please be sure someone is there. When she’s done acting hurt and begging for another chance, she’s going to get angry. And when she gets angry, she can be malicious.”
“What are you afraid of?” Lauren asked.
“I’m not sure what to be afraid of. She could take lots of stuff she doesn’t need. She’s living in a furnished flat in the city and all she needed was her clothes and she took almost all of them, leaving very little behind. She thought she was never coming back, that’s my guess. I suspect another man. A man that didn’t last. That’s been our pattern. She leaves because the marriage is troubled, she says, but I think she gets bored. A few months later she regrets it and wants to come home. Quite suddenly, every time. Al
l I’m lacking are the facts.”
“And you were expecting that?”
“I was. I told her the last time she left I wasn’t going to be welcoming her home after her vacation. I told her if she left, it would be the last time. Apparently she thought she could turn that decision around. At Michael’s insistence, we tried marriage counseling. And not for the first time.”
Lauren actually laughed. “We’ve had marriage counseling at least six times.”
“I guess it didn’t work for you, either.”
“It will never work,” Lauren said. “Brad sees himself as smarter than the counselor. He manages to control the session. He educates the therapist, diagnosing me as a chronic liar who is frequently delusional, imagining him having affairs, exaggerating things he said, picking fights over nothing.”
“All untrue?” he asked.
“My sister calls it gaslighting. He says, ‘You’re imagining that,’ or ‘That’s just another gross exaggeration,’ or ‘You’re dreaming again, Lauren.’ And, ‘Sometimes I genuinely fear for your sanity.’ And my favorite, ‘My wife is suffering from depression and anxiety and she’s in denial and won’t get help.’ He’s called me bipolar, manic depressive, a borderline personality and malicious.”
“Did you imagine him having affairs?”
“No,” she said. “Not affairs, I don’t think. I think I might’ve guessed if he was really invested in another woman. Flings, I think. And no it wasn’t my imagination. He had me almost convinced I was paranoid. Then there was proof.”
“That’ll do it,” Beau said. “Ever ask yourself, how did I get to this place?”
“I’m pretty sure I know how and it doesn’t reflect well on me,” she said. “You?”
He nodded. “I know exactly how. I loved Pam and her kids.”
“Well, I was very young and hopeful. And Lacey came along right away. The kids were still very little when I realized it was hopeless. I didn’t think my heart could break any more. Until my daughter said she’d never forgive me if I divorced her father, even though she knows how difficult he is to live with. Then I knew real heartache.”