Affairytale : A Memoir

by C. J. English

  My heart exploded in my chest, but not from the running, from love, or from anger at myself for how destructive I could be, or maybe it was from running. Relief gushed through me when he wrapped me in his arms.

  “Honey, I found the arrow, you went for a walk, that’s great,” he said, as if nothing had happened.

  “I knew you’d see it. I’m so sorry for being cranky today, and I’m sorry for just disappearing.” I hugged him tighter and tears filled my eyes, again.

  “You don’t need to apologize, you weren’t cranky.”

  “Yes, I was. But I’m better now, I just needed to move my body a bit.”

  Lie.

  “Come on,” he said, holding my hand, “let’s go to that little restaurant we saw in Lahina, you probably need to eat.”

  I wasn’t hungry, being overly emotional numbed my appetite, and not eating dropped my blood sugar further exacerbating my moodiness. Since I wasn’t hungry, I ordered another drink. The most regrettable drink of my life; a drink that sent me so far back into the throws of madness I wrecked what would have been the best moment of my life. From there on, I wish I could take it all back.

  “Have you ever thought about…you know…us, getting married here?” I said while I watched him eat dinner. It was the question that triggered the spiral of out-of-control madness.

  “Not really, you?” He said nonchalantly, not making eye contact.

  I swallowed the large lump of hurt that was lodged in my throat. “I thought that maybe…we might have gotten married here this week.”

  “Really?” He raised his eyebrows and his face turned a shade of pale green. “Without our family?”

  “People do it all the time, then celebrate with their families back home.”

  He stayed silent, looked out over the streets of Lahina and the banyan tree park, “I guess I assumed you’d want your family there.”

  I shook my head frustrated, then revved the engine of the crazy train.

  “You’re scared,” I accused. “I don’t think we’ll ever get married.”

  “What? Why do you say that?”

  “Because. We’re in Hawaii. I’m going home tomorrow. We’re obviously not getting married or engaged, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful because I love that we’re here together, but you told me we weren’t getting engaged yet because you didn’t have enough money for a ring. Well this trip definitely disproves that. So I can only assume the holdup is that you’re scared.”

  “I’m not scared,” he said very matter of fact.

  “Grant, I’ve told you many times that the most important thing to me was that I wanted us to be committed…engaged, before we moved in together. That I didn’t want to move Dani in with her mom’s boyfriend. You told me not to worry, and I trusted you and now, we’re still just boyfriend and girlfriend with my daughter living with us. What do you expect me to think? Because I’m really starting to doubt all of the things you’ve told me.”

  The tension between us was thickening and I could see him retreating from our conversation.

  “Well I’m not scared,” was all he could say, without offering any other insight.

  He paid our tab without saying word, then set his hand on my lower back as we walked out of the restaurant. His touch hurt my skin, it felt like empty promises. I walked faster to break the contact I couldn’t bare to feel any longer.

  As we drove back to the hotel, silent tears dripped down my stoic face. He grazed his hand over my thigh as we drove, the way he always did, loving me. But this time I didn’t love it. I moved my thighs closer to the window and away from him.

  I blew past our hotel room door and locked myself in the cold bathroom. For half an hour I sat on the toilet with my face in my hands and sobbed. He didn’t try to comfort me. I didn’t blame him, I’d been incorrigible bitch. I would have thought he’d left the room had it not been for the dull laughter of the television coming through the pocket door that separated us. I washed the make-up off my face, stripped down to my bra and panties, dropped in some Visine, and worked up the strength to walk out.

  He immediately intercepted me with kind eyes and an open heart, “Baby, what’s wrong? Please talk to me.”

  I wiggled loose from his grip, crawled into bed and flipped vacantly through the TV channels.

  “Are you tired?” He said in the kindest voice. But I couldn’t speak.

  He laid beside me, snuggling his warm sun drenched body next to mine and reached to hold my hand. He was trying to love me the way he always did, it reminded me of how perfect, how patient he was, and how erratic and impossible I could be. How I could go from life changing mantra to evil self-absorbed bitch in two seconds flat and not be able to come out of it. I hated myself for being so uncontrollably moody.

  “Baby, don’t cry, I love you so much.” He pulled my limp body toward him, kissed my wet face, my hair, my neck, and wiped my tears. “Please don’t cry, tell me what’s wrong.”

  I had lost the ability to speak. I could only cry and I cried for the next hour as he held me, not knowing why or what to do. The harder I cried, the tighter he squeezed.

  He pleaded with me a dozen times before I found the strength to talk. I propped myself up on a mountain of pillows and looked his gorgeous face that was now twisted into a painful grimace of worry and confusion. I was pushing him away with my silence, punishing him, hurting him, and it showed on his face. I didn’t want to be that way, I was just hurting so badly I couldn’t be any other way.

  I stuttered as I spoke, “I…I just…I thought we were coming here to get married…” He looked away and let out a deep disgruntled breath. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I guess I read the signs all wrong. I actually thought we might get…I mean I’m crying because I’m disappointed.”

  “Honey, I never said we were going to get married here,” he spoke like he was desperate for me to understand.

  “I know. I know you never said that, I just thought…maybe it would be a surprise. I thought that’s why you came here early, was to plan something.”

  “But I told you I was coming here early to go scuba diving, to get it out of the way so that when you got here we could be together.”

  “I know, I know you told me that,” I said feeling so stupid. “Never-mind, I don’t want to talk about it anymore, I’m sorry for ruining our day and being so stupid. Please forgive me, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I feel so off sometimes. I promise I’ll work on it and try to get better.”

  “Honey, nothing is wrong with you and you don’t have to apologize. I want you to tell me how you feel. I guess we just had different thoughts about what this trip was going to be. I’m sorry if I led you to think it was something it’s not. Baby, I love you and hate to see you cry.”

  Just because he hasn’t proposed doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. He does love you, he does love you, remember to receive it, accept it or you will drive him away.

  But I couldn’t stop a deluge of salty tears from pooling between my cheek and his chest.

  He’d finally had enough. He scooted away from me, stood up, ran his fingers through his hair like he was being driven nuts, and walked into the bathroom. I was instantly empty inside, mortified at what it felt like to be without him. I’d been so fucking nuts I drove him away. The pain of losing him was unbearable. I wanted to run after him and beg his forgiveness and apologize again for being so crazy, but I had to pull myself together. I had to get right, get whole and emotionally stable again, he deserved that and I knew I could be that for him I just had to find it again.

  When he came out of the bathroom his face was distraught with stress. He stood at the side of the bed and looked down at me with intense blue eyes glossed over with a reddish tinge. I deserved whatever was coming. Something like, I’ve never seen you like this, I don’t deserve this, I’m not sure this is going to work…or I didn’t think you were crazy like all the rest but I guess you’re the worst of them all, when we get home I think you should move out.

&nbs
p; “This is not worth you being so upset,” he said with anguish in his voice. I started to cry even harder the moment he spoke. “I’ve never seen you like this, honey. I hate seeing you like this, it doesn’t need to be this way.”

  He walked over to the television and reached his arm way up inside the heavy wooden armoire.

  I gasped and cringed in equal measure, instantly regretting my inexcusable behavior. My hands instinctively covered my humiliated face as he turned toward me—staring at me, standing completely still except for the hand that was tossing and catching a small black velvet box. He lobbed it into the air then clasped it into his palm half a dozen times without breaking eye contact allowing me ample time to experience the full effects of total mortification.

  Chapter 50

  “WOMEN ARE MADE TO BE LOVED, NOT UNDERSTOOD.”

  —OSCAR WILDE, THE SPHINX WITHOUT A SECRET

  He sauntered toward me staring past my eyes and into my ashamed soul. I hid behind the slots in my fingers. Then in nothing but his whitey tighties and me in my bra and panties, he knelt beside me on the bed still pitching the velvet square into the air.

  His expression clearly stated three things:

  (1) You really are something else, aren’t you.

  (2) Did you really have any doubt?

  (3) I love you for who you are, crazy and all.

  “Told you I wasn’t scared,” he said as emotion welled up in his eyes. “I just wanted this moment to be perfect. That’s why I waited.”

  I’d never seen him cry, not even close, not even a teeny drop of liquid on a cold winter’s day. He was the kindest, most compassionate person I’d ever known, but he was all of those things because of logic and intelligence, not because of emotion. He simply never cried.

  Except on this day.

  “C.J., all of this is for you…for us,” he said, “everything I do is for you.” A hitch in speech revealed the knot in his throat. “I didn’t want to get married here because I thought we would want our families to celebrate it with us.” He cleared his throat and looked at me with watery eyes, “I’ve already loved you for an eternity. I’ve never wanted anyone but you, it’s always been you, it always will be you…” A single tear melted from his icy eye down his cheek. “I never knew how lonely I was until I found you. I never want to be without you, and I never meant to hurt you. Since our first night together, this has always been my plan.” He glanced at the little box, then back to me. He shook his head and shrugged as if to say…I can’t believe you didn’t know?

  “Charmaine, will you marry me?”

  Maybe tears are not a good measure of how much someone loves you, but I knew how much he loved me from the three vulnerable tears that fell onto the sheets that night.

  “Yes. Yes!” I yelled as he opened the little box.

  I was more certain of my answer than I was certain the sun would rise.

  “Baby, you deserve everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Our life together will be so great—I promise.” He said as the little box creaked open.

  He slid a modest, two sizes too big ring on my finger, I straddled his lap and wrapped myself around him. We held each other and swayed for what felt like hours.

  I’d finally made it home, I always knew he was my home but now I had the invitation I desperately needed to come inside, take off my coat and make myself comfortable—forever. He took me in, all of me—all the crazy, all the kindness, and I fell into him like a cup of water being poured back into the ocean.

  I wish I could say that in that moment all I felt was thrilling elation and pure bliss, but shame and embarrassment cast a large shadow over my heart; my behavior had been deplorable, unworthy of the man before me and I needed to get it under control so I never did it to him again.

  My chin bounced off his shoulder as I whispered, “I’m sorry I wrecked it.”

  “Honey, you didn’t wreck anything, you don’t have anything to be sorry about. This is perfect. You are perfect.”

  “You mean you planned it like this, in our underwear in a hotel room after I threw a tantrum?”

  “Yes,” he said as he wrestled me down onto the bed. “I was waiting for the perfect time and I guess this was it. Hey, we should go see if we can catch the sun set.”

  A dozen hues of blue smudged the sky like a water color painting. We burrowed into the cool sand and sat side by side arms and legs intertwined. I closed my eyes to feel without distraction the depth and breadth of what he had just given me. The man I respect and admire most in the universe had finally given me the closure I needed to be truly content.

  After you get engaged or married, people always ask do you feel any different? In that very moment, my answer was yes, without a doubt, yes. The energy between us had changed instantaneously, or I had changed. Whatever it was, I was different; we were different. We were weaved emotionally and spiritually together as a unified us; a we, an our, an, if-he-goes-I-go, an, if-she-leaves-I-leave.

  We both spotted a well-dressed couple walking toward us from down the beach.

  “Good evening,” the silver-haired man said. Then he swept his arm across the sky holding a bottle in his hand. “Now isn’t this beautiful?”

  “It’s spectacular. We love it here,” Grant replied.

  The woman on his arm flashed me a familiar smile as her husband spoke with a thick Southern accent, “We saw the two of you from our balcony,” he said.

  “We’re not weird or anything, we just thought you might enjoy some champagne.”

  Huh?

  “We bought a bottle of champagne tonight,” he went on, “and we can’t drink it all. We didn’t want it to go to waste. Thought the two of you might enjoy it.” He held the bottle out toward Grant.

  “Sure!” We said in unison as he handed us a half full bottle of bubbly and two plastic cups.

  Grant and I looked at each other dumbfounded, trying to make sense of the serendipitous moment. Then it occurred to me that it was too coincidental, too much like romantic movie to be real.

  Grant must have set this up.

  Sand fell from our clothes as we stood up to exchange pleasantries with the dreamlike couple who’d appeared out of the dusk. They were a quintessential charming southern duo, humble and hospitable. I instantly liked them. Somehow I felt like we’d known them for a hundred years.

  They were celebrating their tenth anniversary and seemed blissfully happy. By the look of their age, I imagined their love was born from a second marriage and I couldn’t help but feel like they were a vision of Grant and I, twenty years in the future.

  I examined them closely to make sure they were human. I looked at their wise wrinkles and shiny flecks of gray hair, the way they held hands, and stood pressing into one another. They were truly, unequivocally happy like a married couple should be.

  The men shook hands and said good-bye and I exchanged an intuitive smile with my future self.

  We never saw them again.

  “This is so weird,” Grant said as soon as they were out of earshot.

  “Did you plan this?” I accused.

  “Of course not, how could I have planned this.”

  “Honey, why does weird stuff happen to us?”

  “You know why, baby,” he stuffed the cork into his pocket and poured the ginger colored fizz into our plastic cups, “because it was meant to be. We were meant to be.”

  I hung my head. “I’m so sorry. About earlier. I don’t know why I’m so crazy sometimes.” My gut flipped over in agony at the thought of the tantrum I’d thrown.

  “Quit it, we never have to talk about it again. If it had happened any differently we wouldn’t be drinking this champagne right now.”

  “You mean the champagne from our future selves?”

  “Yes, you’er right! That’ll be us in twenty years.”

  I held up my cup to toast, “here’s to marrying the man of my dreams.”

  “Here’s to getting to call you my wife.”

  G+C

  10,000
>
  More days

  Chapter 51

  “TO BE ABLE TO SAY HOW MUCH LOVE IS TO LOVE BUT LITTLE.”

  —PETRARCH, TO LAURA IN LIFE

  Four Months Later

  The truth, our truth had made its way out of the darkness and leapt into real life—like a fairy tale jumping out of a story book. Nothing would ever be the same. He filled my longing, he erased the emptiness. A lifetime of incompleteness over. All of the things I had tried to fill myself with: religion, food, work, men, it was none of those—it was him. I had been waiting for him.

  In a tiny chapel with ten rows of old church chairs, I married the man who was as much a part of me as my own soul. I won his heart by being my crazy real self, and because he knows exactly who I am, how berserk, how cruel, and how kind I can be, I have to hide nothing. With him I have no secrets, no lies, I am naked.

  Our wedding was blissful. Not spectacular or stunning, glamorous or glitzy, it was romantic and blissful. The way a wedding should be when all of the ceremonious fluff is stripped away and instead of diamonds, love is allowed to shine.

  Dani walked down the aisle holding a bouquet of mini purple roses I’d tied together with twine. She was excited to be a part of the celebration, but she wasn’t thrilled that mom was getting remarried.

  “He’s nice to me, and he treats mom good.” She would say when someone asked how she felt about Grant—her feelings toward him polite, but numb. Grant and Dani had yet to find real common ground. He wasn’t interested in the latest nail polish trend and she wasn’t interested in watching How the Earth Was Made. I never forced a relationship that wasn’t there, I was fine with what-it-was, and what-it-wasn’t.

  I trusted with time they would find the right balance, and if that balance never became anything more than a mutual respect, I would be fine with that.

  I wore a small Hawaiian flower in my hair and an ivory wedding dress with a champagne sash. Strips of sheer rumpled chiffon fell in waves from bust to floor. It was the only dress I never wanted to take off.

  With the top button undone and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Grant’s pale blue shirt matched his eyes. The way he looked at me made my chest ache. My respect and love for him was as expansive as the universe itself. He held my hand as we walked down the aisle. The moment he kissed me, the moment I became his wife, was as magical and as much like a fairy tale as I imagined it would be.