by Cathy Lamb
Regan’s helmeted head fell, and his shoulders slumped. His friends patted him on the back, sympathetic to the lost frog dilemma.
The coach yelled, “Rockaford, Peterson, Lumchuko, get your butts back over here right now!”
Regan started crying.
“Oh, for God’s sakes!” Lacey said. “Give me the frog.” She tossed her Coke through the slats of the bleachers, grabbed the frog, and dropped him into the empty cup. “Now go, you three! Go!”
A smile lit Regan’s face, and he sprinted back out with his buddies.
“He’s not my brightest child,” she muttered.
“It’s an obsession,” Grandma drawled. She’d come to the game in a blue lacy dress and blue heels with a black toe. Baubles: sapphires. “He is peculiar. He must marry some sort of horsey woman or a woman who collects cats who will understand.”
“He loves animals. What’s wrong with that?” Lacey peered at the frog in her cup with disapproval. He hopped, and her head sprung back up.
“He has to be a veterinarian,” I said. “Has to be.”
“This is his second year in Introduction to Algebra and he barely has a C,” Lacey said. “He’s not going to be a veterinarian.”
“I think he’s going to live in a home in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming,” Grandma said. “And he’ll have fifty pets, and people in town will say he’s that funny animal recluse man.”
“Thanks, Grandma, you’re ever so kind,” Lacey said, totally exasperated. “Did I need to hear that?”
“Your son is an animal collector. Like some people collect . . . spoons or thimbles. Odd, but endearing. Bizarre, but somehow likable.”
“You smoke cigars and sling back Irish whiskey,” Lacey said. “You have the warmth of a corpse sometimes. You’re so tough, I check to make sure you’re not made out of leather. You have more shoes than I do body cells, and he’s odd?”
Grandma shrugged her shoulders, fiddled with her sapphire necklace. “I adore him. I adore odd. He told me he wants me to create a line of animal underwear.”
The frog jumped out of the cup. I had to chase it down across the bleachers.
Regan sat down at my kitchen table and slung the hippo-sized cat onto his lap. I brought him some apple pie that Cassidy made me and two glasses of milk. He inhaled it. I cut him another slice. The cat sat quietly on his lap while Pop Pop bobbed about like a drunken sailor.
“Thanks, Aunt Meggie. I was starving. I could barely stand. Feels like I haven’t eaten all day.”
“But you did eat, right?”
“Hardly at all. Four eggs and toast and bacon and cereal for breakfast, then two sandwiches and three apples for lunch, then two slices of pizza and three bananas for snack. I was starving.”
He looked plaintively at me with those innocent green eyes. He had no idea how he sounded. “Glad you’re fed. That cat is not a small cat.”
“No, it’s a tiny cat. Feel her. Doesn’t weigh anything. Hardly a pound. Look at her, Aunt Meggie!” He held the cat up with one hand. The cat bent into an upside-down U shape. “Breadsticks won’t bother you, and she wants a home and family.”
“Why don’t you keep her then?”
His face crumpled. “Because you know we already have a bunch of cats and Mom says I can’t have any more or she’ll be called that weird cat lady, or something like that. I don’t think she’s weird. Cats have good spirits. Please, Aunt Meggie? I’ll come and visit her. Can I visit Jeepers right now? And I want to say hi to Mrs. Friendly and Ham the Hamster and play with Pop Pop now that I’m fed and watered.”
I didn’t laugh out loud when he said “fed and watered” because he said it in all seriousness. Poor guy. “Let’s bring this cat upstairs to see Jeepers. Jeepers likes to be alone, so I’m not sure how they’ll get along.”
We introduced Breadsticks and Jeepers.
Immediately they rolled into a cat fight—hissing, clawing, screeching, fur flying. We had to leap in and separate them, which was a struggle because twice they wriggled out of our hands. Pop Pop watched, tongue out, darting back and forth, panting and grinning, like he was some bookie who would win a bunch of money depending on the outcome of the fight.
“Aunt Meggie, this isn’t a problem after all,” Regan said after he tossed Breadsticks the hippo cat back over his shoulder. Jeepers scurried under my bed, still hissing. “I’ve solved this problem with my brain. You keep Jeepers upstairs and Breadsticks downstairs. That’s a good idea, right?”
“Ah, perfect. So give them a list of rules and read it to them? One stays up, one stays down?”
He looked confused, baffled. “Uh . . . well . . . if that’ll work, that’d be good. I don’t know if Breadsticks speaks English.... Okay, I gotta go. I have math homework and Dad has to help me, because I don’t get this math at all. This is my second year in Introduction to Algebra—I told you that, right—and it’s . . .” He looked pained. “It’s so hard. It’s like trying to read space alien language. I love you, Aunt Meggie.” He gave me a big hug. “Good-bye Jeepers.” He bent down to smile at the hissing, trembling Jeepers under the bed.
He climbed down the ladder with Breadsticks still slung over his shoulder, then bent to say good-bye to Mrs. Friendly and Ham the Hamster. “Good-bye, Pop Pop.”
Pop Pop barked, and Regan barked back.
Regan set Breadsticks down and she darted under the couch, meowing. I hugged Regan before he left. “Uh, can I take a small piece of apple pie with me for a snack on the way home? I need more feeding.”
Pop Pop barked after he left, then looked at me and barked again. He always wanted an answer. I barked back.
Ham the Hamster rode on her hamster wheel. Who knew where she was trying to go.
Mrs. Friendly stuck out his tongue. Breadsticks meowed pathetically.
My tree house had become a zoo.
At eleven o’clock that night, through hail and rain, I had to take Jeepers and Breadsticks to the pet hospital. Breadsticks had not obeyed the new rule about staying downstairs. Obviously she didn’t understand English. The cats got in another fight and both needed stitches. Pop Pop, the dog bookie, seemed to enjoy the action.
On my way home at one in the morning, I saw Blake on his deck on the phone. I am sure he saw me, as he turned when I turned into my driveway.
He still had not cashed my check for his truck.
I felt like I owed him, which I truly didn’t like. It made me nervous and off balance.
But I had to smile, a tiny smile.
It was so . . . chivalrous.
I hate to sound like a swooning maiden, but chivalry was so romantic. It wasn’t the gift of the money, it was the gift of the generosity behind it.
My defenses were coming down, I could feel ’em.
Two months after Aaron came home from another stay at yet another clinic, I cheated on him.
I cheated on him for four weeks.
I was in Boise finishing up filming a documentary about a young man with cerebral palsy and how he had raised $100,000 for the Red Cross.
I met a man there named Henry Russell. Henry owned sixteen tire shops across the western states. I met him in a Mexican restaurant the first night. He was tall, broad, friendly. He was not married. I never would have done what I did if he were married, and yes, I do know how shallow and hypocritical that statement sounds.
I told Henry I was married the first night. By the third night I was crying over an ice-cream sundae that he insisted I eat. I told him about Aaron’s mental illness, how I hadn’t known before I was married that he suffered from it, how he’d been committed multiple times, how he’d tried to kill himself. I did not speak about Josephine, that pain too private and raw.
I met him every night for dinner, sometimes a movie, a dessert. He always insisted on paying, which I found so romantic. He was gentle and kind and completely, utterly, mentally stable. He was fun and made me laugh.
He was, essentially, great.
I had never been treated with such respect,
such warmth, by any man I’d dated. I was beyond desperate for love, attention, affection, and a friend, and the time with Henry saved me.
Being with Henry made me realize that I wasn’t the problem; it was Aaron. Intellectually I knew it, but emotionally I was too exhausted and battered to internalize it. Henry made me believe that I was worth something, that I was a person worth laughing and talking with, and holding hands with at the movies. He made me see that I did deserve more in a marriage.
I slept with him starting the fourth night. I went to bed with a mentally stable man who hugged me all night, then I woke up to a mentally stable man who brought me coffee in the morning. He had a modern log cabin for a home, and he made things easy. He wanted to continue seeing me. I told him I couldn’t. He cried. So did I.
He wanted to get Aaron stable and healthy, and then he wanted me to leave him. I had blown through all of the money I’d saved for years on Aaron’s care and supporting his films that had never made money. I was almost totally broke. Henry offered to pay for long-term treatment for Aaron. I could not accept that gift.
I had given Henry my phone number. As Aaron regularly went through my phone when I was home, and I couldn’t have Henry calling me, I bought a new phone and pitched the other one.
That was the end of Henry.
I cried all the way home on the plane, a blubbery mess.
I cried because I felt terrible for hurting Henry. I had loved being with him. I cried because I had known from the start, had told Henry from the start, that I was going home to a husband, that I could not leave Aaron. Still, who was I to play with someone else’s emotions, even if Henry was a grown man and knew what the end result would be? I had hurt him. He hadn’t deserved it, and it made me feel worse.
I wondered deeply about myself as a person. How could I cheat on my husband and not feel guilty? What was wrong with me? Did I have no moral code? No ethics, no conscience? Was I a horrible person?
I finally came down to two questions that summed up how I felt.
Should I feel guilty for cheating on my marital vows because it cheapened what and who I had vowed to be in front of God and family and friends?
Yes.
Should I feel guilty for cheating on Aaron?
No.
Aaron had broken our vows on our wedding day. He had promised to love, honor, and cherish me, and he had not done that. He had lied by omission about his mental health issues and previous suicide attempts, which I had a right to know about before we were married. His rages, his mind control, his coldness, the continual silent treatment and the withholding of sex, put me in a tornado of sickness with him. I was trapped in our marriage because of his mental illness, his suicide attempts, and his threats of doing it again.
Would I cheat again? Never. I won’t marry again, for one. But if I were in a relationship that was so bad I was tempted to cheat, I would break it off. That I know for sure.
I don’t condone cheating at all. I don’t condone it for myself. I believe I’ve mentioned that I hate myself.
But here is what I’ve learned, through my own experience: If you are mean, nasty, oppressive, or abusive with your spouse, he or she may well cheat. If you stop speaking to your spouse or withhold sex, repeatedly, for weeks or months on end, they may well cheat.
So who cheated who first?
Now whose fault is that?
I Skyped with Kalani after my morning beer, fog clouding my window.
“Bad day, bad day, Meeegie.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “Bad.”
“Why?”
“Lots of the sewing machines broke. Ya. Broke.”
“Did you get someone in there to fix them?”
“Ya, I did.” Her face darkened. “It a man.”
“Was that a problem?” I asked, but I knew. Kalani is not a fan of men.
“Ya. He tell me how much money to fix machine and I say okay, you get butt in there and you fix.”
“And the problem was?”
“When he done, he make double the price. He try to cheat Kalani.” She put her balled fists up. “No one cheat Kalani. I get cheated by mean husband who bit ear off. See my ear? See my nose? Wrong place, nose. Scar on chin. Knife. I no cheated by men again.”
“And what did you do?”
“I tell him, no I pay price I say I pay no more. And he yell and say, then I take machines with me and I say, no, you no take machines. Here the money I say I pay. You go. Go now.” Her voice pitched.
“And what did he do?” Now I was getting nervous.
“He turn and he take out pipe and he start hitting machine to break and I had to get shovel and hit head.”
“You hit him with your shovel?”
“Yes. In head. He knock down on floor. Me and ladies, we drag him outside. He no bother me again.”
I was alarmed. Very, very alarmed.
“Kalani, you need to make sure the doors are locked. Don’t leave the building without other women around you. No one is to leave alone. Do you understand?”
“Ya. I understand. But I Kalani and I strong.” She brushed the tears off her cheeks. “Why men mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s a mystery. We need black magic for them.”
“Black magic. Ya.”
We stared at each other for a while until she pulled herself together.
“I’m sorry this happened to you.” I was saddened, and scared, for Kalani.
“Ya, I know you sorry. We seeesters, so you sorry. I sorry, too.” She put her tiny fists in the air. “But machine fix and no man cheat Kalani!”
The fog hadn’t moved.
That night the cheating repairman snuck back to the factory and tried to burn it down. A worker from another factory nearby saw him skirting through the shadows pouring lighter fluid around the entire building. He was stopped and the police arrested him. I would not want to be in one of their jails.
“Are you okay, Kalani?”
She nodded. “Ya. I okay. In my factory, almost all women. So, no problems. All good. I wish whole country, all the business, run by women. Better that way. More peaceful.”
“I hear ya, Kalani.”
“Ya, I hear you, Meeegie. Hey! I show you new neg-la-jays!” She grinned. “You see? Tiny. No cover butt at all. Only lace. Don’t know why you Jersey American lady like, but we make anyhow! I love you, seeester.”
“Love you, too, Kalani.”
A few days later, as if cursed across the ocean, three sewing machines quit and for some inexplicable reason the heat wouldn’t work. The rain poured down and a corner of the roof started to leak, so we had to get a roofer up there. When he was up there it started to hail, so he came in.
Our bank loan application that would have floated us another few months was denied again. The banker was apologetic. We’d worked with him for years. “I can’t, Meggie. I’ve seen the numbers. Your debt load is too high. I can’t. Good luck.”
Pop Pop threw up, and the doggy day care called and told me I had to come get him. He was now in my office, grinning. Two nights ago the cats got in another fight. Back to the vet I went at midnight for more stitches.
I was working twelve- to fourteen-hour days. I was constantly rushing, on my phone, on conference calls, meeting with the design staff, the production staff, sales, managers, etc.
The good news was that I was loving what I was seeing. Our lingerie was stunning and seductive. We would be incorporating many of the ideas, in one form or another, from our employees’ lingerie. We were using “baubles” more, in honor of Grandma. Sequins. Beading. Some embroidery. Sparkly stuff. We were implementing Hayden’s tassels. We were also in a heightened state of work frenzy because of The Fashion Story, and people’s part in that, and I was loving how that was pulling together.
My mind was in a tizzy, almost burning up the wires in my own head. When my brain wasn’t crackling from stress, I daydreamed about Blake. Blake laughing, Blake hugging me, Blake naked.
By coincidence, when I took a rare run to a cof
fee shop so I could clear my head after a particularly rambunctious meeting, I saw him.
He was with other officers, across the street, yellow crime tape stretched across a storefront. I later learned that a jealous husband had shot his estranged wife. He had broken the restraining order she had against him.
Blake was taller than the other officers, commanding, clearly in charge.
At one point, as if he could sense me, he looked across the street and we locked gazes. I wanted to walk over and hug him.
Within seconds, one of his officers came up to talk to him and he reentered the shop. I went back to Lace, Satin, and Baubles and lay flat on the floor with Pop Pop. I was reeling with both lonely loss and unbridled lust. Loss and lust together. Never good.
Pop Pop climbed on my lap while I sat on my leather couch late that night. It was getting colder and colder, the temperature dropping. I had seen a few snowflakes, and the streets had been slick in the mornings.
Breadsticks crawled up on my lap, too. Both Pop Pop and Breadsticks were now sleeping with me. Jeepers hid under the bed, hissing. Ham the Hamster kept running, and Mrs. Friendly stuck out his tongue. I hoped he was enjoying the white moonlight in my rafters, but he never said.
Pop Pop started snoring. Breadsticks meowed.
The joy of animals, I have learned, cannot be underrated.
I noticed that Pop Pop never tried to water the tree in my tree house. For that, I was thankful.
Blake’s lights weren’t on that night until eleven o’clock.
When I knew he was home, I went to bed with my zoo.
I was drowning in a river of blood. Aaron picked me up out of the river with his rat claws. Higher and higher he flew with me, cackling, then he dropped me back in the river, where the red swallowed me up. At the bottom of the red there was a closet. I didn’t want to open the door. It opened up anyhow, and behind the sponges and detergent, I saw what I didn’t want to see.
I curled into a ball, hands over head, and drowned.