Darling Discovered

by Mrs. Darling

  I turn to her and can only beg a wounded, “How could you?”

  Looking at me with red rimmed eyes she answers: “Honey, sometimes parenting is hard. Even when your children grow up. All I ask is that you meet him and let him explain. He took today off work and asked me to give you an address and have you meet him this afternoon. If you do this I will support whatever decision you make. But I can’t participate like this anymore. Not after hearing him yesterday. He’s heartbroken, Chloe.”

  The last sentiment makes my heart stand still. I take the sheet of paper she’s offering and expect to see the name of the beach where we were supposed to meet today scrawled. Instead there is an address I don’t recognize.

  “Where is this?” I hold up the sheet in inquiry.

  “I don’t know.” She says, looking to the left like she always does when she isn’t telling the whole truth.

  I pull out my phone and load it into GPS. Forty-two minutes.

  “Ma you promise if I do this then you let the issue go? I’m a grown woman, after all.”

  “Yes. You better get going.” Ma makes her promise trying and failing to hide her grin.

  I look at the clock and ask, “What about Emily?”

  “I’ll get her and take her to my place for dinner.”

  I groan inwardly about what I am about to do but this is part of being a grown-up with a child. I am going to have to see him at some point. Might as well bite the bullet.

  I go to the bathroom and freshen up, telling myself I don’t really care about how I look but dotting on some makeup and brushing my hair anyway. I start to leave and turn around to give my mother a tight, two-armed hug. She tenses at first like she always does and then gives in and wraps her arms around me.

  I whisper, “I love you Mom.”

  She whispers back, “Just listen to him dear.”

  Chapter Fourteen: Trust

  The entire drive I shake like a leaf. It’s a throbbing shake; an all body muscle spasm that quakes and then stops for several moments, quakes again, stops. I hear blood rushing in my head trying to drown out all that I heard from my mother this morning.

  The drive seems to take forever but is over all too soon. Entirely confused by the surrounding area my navigation leads me off the interstate that lines the coast and into a suburban neighborhood. There are large yards everywhere, fishing boats in half the driveways, elderly folk cleaning their driveway with a hose. I take lefts and rights until I’m lost.

  I see my destination approaching on the phone and look up to see a house with the correct address. It looks like a transplant from the northern states: two stories with a white wraparound porch lining the entire building. The home is painted the color of seagulls, the beachiest version of grey I have ever seen, and bright white accents are everywhere. Off of the front is an American flag moving lazily in the spring breeze and I notice a white rose bush in full bloom. It’s a stunning home situated on what looks to be quite a bit of land. But so what.

  I park at the bottom of the long driveway that could fit a dozen cars (but hosts only one other than mine right now) in case I have the address wrong. I take out my piece of paper to compare with my phone. Here it is. This address. In Leo’s handwriting. Bizarre. Entirely confused I try to decide what next. Should I knock? Call Leo? Call Mom? Leave?

  My eyes notice the sleek, expensive SUV parked twenty yards in front of my van. I see a Florida vanity plate and read, feeling sickness gathering in my throat:

  ANNAR 52

  It’s her house. Leo brought me to meet his mistress. I break out into an immediate cold sweat and put my hand on the knob to switch to reverse and- oh my God I see the front door opening- I slam my foot on the gas and back out and take one last miserable glance at the home...

  Screeeech! I slam on the brakes.

  Running down the sidewalk towards me is a woman my mother’s age if not a little older. She has graying hair tucked in a librarian style bun and there is a pen stuck through the fat middle of it. In one hand she has a clipboard and the other she is using to balance herself on sensible black pumps as she runs towards me, doing her best in the suit she is wearing.

  I watch curiously as if I walked in on the middle of a movie; confused by the plot. I shift into drive and prepare myself to get away as the harried looking woman arrives at my window and makes a motion like she is rolling an old-fashioned car window crank. I push the AUTO button to send my window down.

  The highly-thin, strange looking woman, knobby and awkward, puts her hand on a hip like she is working out a stitch and breathes for a second. She moves the clipboard to the crook of her left arm, waves a hand as if to fan herself, and extends a handshake.

  “Mrs. Donnovan? Hi… it’s sooo nice to meet you… finally!”

  I turn to ice. This is indeed the voice of the one and only “Ann.” I hear the same tone that I heard on my husband’s voice mail.

  I handshake quickly so the stranger will remove her hand from my window. With a dropped jaw I listen to her ramble while still catching her breath:

  “I am so excited... to be doing this today... phew... I can’t even tell you! Really... this has been the highlight of my year… this is something special. I hope you are happy with his choice, really.”

  I finally cut off her hitching voice and interrupt, “Excuse me, who are you?”

  “Oh, right… my goodness, I am so sorry… I guess I just got caught up in the excitement! I am Ann Armeda and I work at the brokerage with Leo.”

  She titters excitedly and pulls a business card off the clipboard and hands it to me.

  Sure enough. Ann Armeda. Realtor.

  She continues prattling.

  “Leo and I partnered up about six months ago when he said that your family was looking for something permanent at the end of a rental period. He said he wanted to do all of the hard work in looking at homes, appraisals, bidding, that y’all have a small child and you wouldn’t want to be toting the baby all over the place. Sooo I offered to help him with the leg work – he’s always so busy, I don’t have a clue how he manages it all- so that I could help make this a special surprise for his little family. Chloe Donnovan, welcome to your…” Ann plants on a forced smile and throws her hands up like an award presenter on a daytime game show.

  “…brand new house!”

  I am actually living in the twilight zone. No. Really.

  I maneuver my van haphazardly into the grass on the side of the road with no warning to Ms. Armeda who backs up, looking confused.

  I look at the business card. The woman. The house. Her car which I can now see is emblazoned with an oversized magnet on the side telling people to call her for all their real estate needs! Back to the woman. The card.

  I look at the house and it looks like what Leo and I would have chosen for our dream home. I throw the shifter into park, open the door with keys still in the ignition, and stumble out. My entire body feels numb. The realization of the situation overtakes me and I bend at the waist and vomit up my morning coffee.

  Ten minutes later after cleaning myself up and apologizing to Ann for my reaction I’m entering the door to Leo’s home. What would have been our home. It is perfect.

  I get a clearer picture of the reality of the past few months thanks to Ann’s non-stop chatter and excitement. Leo had been charged with making all decisions and taken it upon himself to find a new home for his darling wife and child. I think the words “his darling wife” and my heart feels like it is frozen in ice.

  His darling no longer.

  He apparently spent lunches and made detours during his days at work to view homes for us. I interrupt my realtor-turned-tour-guide leading me through the home and ask, “When did he close? There’s stuff everywhere.”

  “A couple weeks into February. It was a real struggle, the sellers almost backed out last minute. The rest of the time has been spent getting you guys set up. He hired a decorator. What do you think?”

  Of course. Valentine’s Day. That’s why she n
eeded to talk to him so urgently.

  “I love it.” I muster before clamming up again.

  I am surrounded by my family embodied. We are everywhere the eye looks, a little piece of each of us, a home that has been crafted from love. Leo has entirely outfitted the kitchen and I glimpse into the cabinets to see new plates and dishes, never used pots and pans. How does he know what a cook needs? As I touch the retro-homemaker apron hanging on a hook near the refrigerator tears well up for the first time since the marsh behind the restaurant on Valentine’s Day. I fucked it up. I didn’t trust him and I’ve probably lost him.

  “Let me show you the kids rooms upstairs,” the realtor says in a tone that is quieter than I’ve heard, maybe sensing my emotions.

  I swallow the pain down and follow, touching the dark wooden banister that matches all of the floors I have seen thus far.

  “Leo says you have a daughter, she’s one right?”

  I confirm her guess and look as she opens the white door at the top of the stairs.

  It’s a princess room, a nod to our little princess, pink everywhere. There’s a crib on the back wall and a white noise machine plugged in on a nearby dresser. He’s thought of everything.

  Backing out, Ann goes down the hall to another closed door.

  I walk into the middle of an almost-empty room painted a pale yellow containing only a nursery style glider and a bookshelf containing children’s books. Ms. Armeda’s words are my best dream and worst nightmare all at once:

  “Leo said there may be more little Donnovans running around in the near future so he wanted to keep this mostly empty.”

  She smiles at me wide, unknowing that it would never happen. I feel faint.

  Nothing could have prepared me for her leading me downstairs and through the back of the house to the master suite. French doors separate in front of me and she walks away, giving me space to take it all in.

  I am transported back to the Gulf of Mexico. The room has an indigo ombré paint that emulates the sun setting on the water. I can’t count how many times I have seen this exact color in the last year. It continues onto the ceiling which is smattered in tiny silver dots making it look like the starlit sky on the edge of the world where the land and water meet.

  The wood floor has a plush, sand colored rug underfoot and the windows have soft flowing white sheers just waiting to blow in a breeze. But all of this beauty is secondary.

  Taking up the majority of the master bedroom intended for the mister and his darling is a bed of branches just like the one we made love on during our trip to Vegas. The twigs and twisting branches are painted bright white to look more like it belongs on an abandoned beach instead of in a forest. The huge mattress is covered in a white comforter that would be impossible to keep clean with a child. This is supposed to be our haven; our retreat from the rest of the world. I think of being bound to that bed by my husband for decades to come.

  I’ve seen enough. I turn away from the bedroom and find the realtor looking out of one of the many sets of French doors at the back of the home staring at a glistening pool, baby fence tall and locked.

  “Where’s Leo? Is he coming here?”

  “Well, no. He asked me to give you the keys and only said that you’d know where he was.” The woman raises an eyebrow at me in confusion as if to ask why I don’t know where my own husband is. I ignore the look and head for the front door.

  “I gotta go.” I shout behind me and shuffle the woman out of Leo’s home. I lock up, take one last look at the house, and head to the beach.

  It takes me an hour to get there. I wonder the whole time if there is any real chance that Leo will be waiting for me. Forgive me. I stop at a drugstore on the way unwrap a new toothbrush, freshening up before driving to meet him.

  I can’t believe he bought a house. An exquisite new house, big enough to grow into but small enough to not be ostentatious. It was his gift to me. I know it as surely as I know my own name. Intended for today; a permanent gesture of his dedication to our family.

  He talked about maybe having another child together. A sibling for our daughter. If I had only asked him about the voice mail. Trusted him. The entire year he had been an open book, never making me dig or snoop to catch him doing anything wrong.

  Gah, why hadn’t I asked?

  Leo Donnovan paid his dues and is continuously doing so. We had been at our lowest low, seemingly impossibly down, and we bounced back. Made things not just right but even better than before.

  I gather out of the driver seat of my van and walk out into the sandy public parking lot and head to the beach access. I go directly to the spot where we sat one year ago, almost to the minute, and cross over the dune to the water.

  Leo isn’t anywhere in sight. Of course he’s not.

  I wonder what will become of the Donnovan house. Will he put it back on the market? Live there alone, sharing custody, bringing Emily to her adorable little princess room every other weekend? I move with sadness aching through me to the edge of where the dry sand meets the wet and plop my butt down, grateful for my long bohemian skirt and close knit tank because the wind is picking up more and more by the moment and it looks like a storm is headed my way.

  I take a moment to pull my wildly whipping hair into a long braid and think to my message on the mirror at the condo from that first awful night. Hold on, pain ends. Pssh. What do I know about pain?

  I took my husband’s wife and daughter away from him as a knee-jerk reaction, one that could have been prevented by a number of different decisions of mine. I should have talked to him. Alone or with our counselor. I am confident in hindsight that Leo would have walked a mile to put me at ease.

  That’s the problem with marriages and all relationships maybe. Things always seem so black and white in hindsight but what good does that do? There is no manual for a marriage; no way to guarantee success. But if there were a script to follow it would be incredibly short: Communicate.

  Communication is not just about talking. It’s about listening. Really hearing each other; seeing each other. Compromising. Knowing that you won’t always hear things that you like and that you will have to say things that may hurt your partner. But if you have a mutual respect and only say things out of truth and the hope that it will make the relationship stronger then those hard conversations are worth it. Every time.

  I lay defeated in the sand. I have about twenty minutes left before getting soaked by my calculation. I pull out my phone and look for any missed calls. Nothing. Maybe I misinterpreted his message delivered by Ann. Maybe he’s at the beach house. Maybe he’s changed his mind and saw me here and decided he couldn’t forgi-

  “Hey!”

  I hear the familiar shout and all of a sudden he is walking towards me. Mr. Leo Donnovan looks better than I even remember, wearing light khaki slacks and a long sleeved shirt that is blowing like a sail in the great wind, giving me glimpses from here on the ground of his flat stomach, lighter skin than mine because he spends his days in the office and until recently I spent mine on the beach. He arrives as I stumble to my feet clumsily, his eyes staring right into me with a hint of steel cold grey, the angry sky and angry mood reflecting in them.

  I start talking first as I adjust myself, “Leo, I’m so sorr-”

  “Stop.” He holds up his hand.

  I notice he still has his wedding band on; the one that I placed on him a year and a half ago in the Vegas sun promising my commitment to him.

  “You do realize this isn’t where we are supposed to meet, right?”

  Huh? I look around in confusion, “I have no idea what you’re talking about Leo.”

  I notice how weary he looks. The man grimaces and nods his head as if this is exactly what he expects to hear. He points over my shoulders.

  “See that big fishing pier out there? Last year we were about a mile north of it. You are sitting...”

  I flush all over, “South. Oh my God. I don’t know how I got it wron-”

  Interrupted again.


  “It’s just you, Chloe, it’s just who you are. Throwing caution to the wind. Jumping first and only then looking. So involved with what is going on in your world everything on the outside takes a backseat. Do you know how tiring that can be sometimes? How fucking exhausting that can be? Let me ask you a question. Had you even once thought of the fact that our lease was coming up on the beach rental? Wondered where we were going to live? Where your child would be sleeping at night?”

  I hadn’t. It didn’t even cross my mind once. I was living in a world of yoga and beach; vacations and gifts and kinky sex. The life of a carefree submissive. My wildest fantasy. But what I had forgotten about was that while I was busy skipping around in a frilly apron, Leo was doing the hard work, carrying me and my obligations. I had all but given up on paying attention to our bank account being certain that if I swiped my debit card money would be there. I pay attention to my hair and nails. Leo pays attention to life insurance policies and healthcare renewals and apparently our lease ending. He has shouldered the burden with only one request: trust.

  I see now why the trust is so important. I think back to my feeling like I was living in the trust fall exercise, falling back into Leo’s arms, knowing that he would be there to catch me. I wonder what a different experience that exercise would be if the catcher knew the catchee didn’t trust them to be caught. Constant doubt. Cringing; waiting for the fall. No matter how many times he caught me and set me gently upon my feet the next time I doubted again. I’d be exhausted too.

  “No. I hadn’t thought of it.”

  Despite the opportunity to scold me his only response is another question straight from my stream of thought.

  “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to lead a household built on doubt? I don’t blame you for my mistake in Atlanta. Would never. It’s a burden I will bear for the rest of my life. But at some point darlin the doubt has got to end. And I don’t know if you will ever be able to stop doubting.”