by Sidney Wood
Chuck thumped down the stairs hurriedly with his gym bag slung over a shoulder. Slipping on his outdoor shoes, he swept the door open and rushed out. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” The door slammed behind him, shaking the house.
Ulie flinched and a dark cloud settled over her. Part of her wished Chuck would get hurt at the gym or have an accident on the way home. Anything would be better than enduring what he’d do to her that night. The callousness of her thoughts frightened her. Ulie didn’t wish harm on others, not even assholes like Chuck. She took the wishes back. “This is what wives do, right? We suffer silently.”
Returning to the present, Ulie noticed Miranda had already devoured half of her food, and she hadn’t even tasted the first bite. She passed a fork-full of lasagna through her lips and slowly chewed, trying to enjoy it. The zesty pasta quickly lost its flavor as Ulie imagined the evening that lay ahead.
Miranda licked her lips and stood, reaching for the serving spoon to get another helping.
Ulie watched silently. Something she read many years ago came back to her. She couldn’t recall the exact words, but it went something like, “A daughter learns what is normal in marriage by watching the way her father treats her mother.” Ulie cringed, vowing to never let Miranda know about the nightmares that occurred in their bedroom.
“Garlic bread?” Ulie asked, extending the serving tray to Miranda with a cheerful smile.
Chapter Six (July)
Noah frowned in the mirror, straightening his tie for the umpteenth time. He walked out of the restroom and veered left toward courtroom 301. The hearing would begin in five minutes. He paused before the tall wooden doors and took a deep breath. He exhaled. Setting his jaw, Noah walked in and sat alone at the plaintiff’s table.
Glancing to the right, he observed his ex-wife whispering to her attorney. Her boyfriend, a slimy piece of work sat behind her. Noah tried to control it, but his eyes narrowed, and his mouth contorted in a Clint Eastwood-like sneer. Noah looked away, focusing on his reason for being there. “I’m going to put an end to the bullshit Luke is going through,” he whispered.
His ex-wife allowed their son to miss school nearly every day on her custodial week. Not only were Luke’s grades suffering, but now Noah had trouble with attendance on his week as well. That morning, Noah had to force Luke out of the car and physically escort him into the school.
He had enough.
His ex would listen to Noah, or the judge would make her listen. If that failed, Noah planned to take full custody, once and for all.
Glancing at the Defendant’s table just before the Judge walked in, Noah couldn’t believe he had ever been in love with that woman. “What the hell was I thinking?”
Noah didn’t know her well when they married. He rushed into the relationship, driven to “win” her, which seemed to be a common theme in his life. Whether taking on more work than he could handle, or wooing an attractive woman, something inside him didn’t like saying no, even when cooler heads warned him of the troubles lying ahead.
In the beginning, his ex-wife had been fun and independent. The two of them spent their first weekends together exploring Southern California from San Diego to Los Angeles and the relationship quickly became physical. Just off his first combat deployment, Noah immediately fell head over heels, completely missing the red flags hiding behind her smile. Gradually, he began to see some of those warning signs as she blasted him with increasingly erratic behavior. Luke’s birth gave Noah someone else to focus on and protect. That is when he began to see the situation clearly. Noah stopped making excuses for her strange behavior. He no longer lied to his family and friends when she disappeared or when she locked herself in the bedroom for days. Her bipolar nature exhausted him. It made being home difficult, even to care for Luke. After leaving the military, Noah had less time away to decompress and his fuse burned down.
Things came to a head one night, when like so many nights before, Noah arrived home late. The military demanded long hours, but his ex-wife obsessed over each incident. She often made snide comments about him cheating. On that night, she berated him in the usual fashion while he took off his boots and tried to tune her out. When she didn’t get the reaction she wanted, she called Luke into the room. As their son stood wide-eyed and scared, she said, “Daddy doesn’t love us. He never did. He doesn’t even want to live with us anymore. Tell him, Noah. Tell your son the truth.” She grew angrier and taunted Noah. “Why don’t you hit me? You know you want to. You know what? Just fucking leave! Go! Go to your whores and leave us alone! That’s all you want anyway! Leave!” As she yelled, she dug her nails into Luke’s tiny shoulders, making him cry and squirm.
Noah had never come so close to hitting a woman in his life, and that is what finally broke him of the notion that marriage had to be final. He didn’t want violence and jail to be the examples he set for Luke, yet that scenario became more likely the longer Noah and his ex-wife stayed together.
The clerk called the court room to order, and Noah stood at attention as a middle-aged judge walked in.
Judge Mariscal had black, shoulder length hair that bounced slightly as she walked. Her helmet of hair reminded Noah of a bell atop a pole, especially since it appeared to move independently of the rest of her body. She flipped a file folder open, scanning the pages and looked over her designer glasses at the parties. “State your names for the record, starting with the plaintiff,” she ordered in a surprisingly masculine voice.
Noah cleared his throat and followed her instructions. His ex-wife did the same, adopting the meek voice she always used when trying to make a good first impression. “If only the judge could have heard her at home,” Noah thought.
After the introductions the judge got down to business. “Okay Mr. McCormick, what seems to be the problem? Why are we here today?” Her brows furrowed, and she leaned forward aggressively, still peering over her glasses.
As he had rehearsed on the drive to court, Noah laid out his concerns to the judge. Despite losing his bearing and letting his frustrations show, he got through it without stumbling or forgetting any major points. Judge Mariscal grilled his ex-wife on several of the complaints and raised her eyebrows in disbelief when Luke’s mom made light of the situation.
But it didn’t all go in his favor.
Despite feeling positive in the beginning, by the end of the hearing Noah wanted to roar in frustration. He gained nothing. The entire exercise had been a waste of time. At the request of his ex-wife’s sleaze-ball lawyer, the judge set a status hearing for 3 months down the road to see if any improvements had been made. Judge Mariscal’s concern about his ex-wife at the start of the hearing gave way to a larger concern over Noah’s temper by the end. In fact, the judge admitted that she considered ordering him to have an assessment done for anger management. It may have had something to do with the Eastwood scowl he presented throughout the hearing.
Swallowing his pride, Noah loosened his tie and walked out of the courthouse. Luke would be out of school soon and he wanted to take him out to eat. Grabbing a burger with Luke always picked him up, and Noah badly needed a boost. Luke’s behavior that morning didn’t warrant a treat, but Noah overlooked that. It was his last day with Luke for the week, and the burger was dinner, not a reward.
Hopping in his truck, Noah checked his phone before keying the ignition. To his surprise, he saw that Ulie had started a new game. The boulder of tension he carried out of the courthouse immediately broke apart, falling at his feet like dust. He had worried she might stop playing after winning. He wouldn’t blame her if she had. Noah knew he had put her in an uncomfortable position. The indiscretion ranked minor in the grand scheme of things, barely qualifying as a flirt, but it still tripped him up with guilt when he thought about it. When he sent his reply about being her plaything, he crafted the message deliberately as a provocation. He wanted her to say something even more sexual.
“There’s right, and there’s wrong,” he thought. “A man should not tr
y to tempt a married woman.” He knew that. He believed it deep inside, yet when faced with an opportunity he always ignored that belief and forged ahead. Rather than caring about her and respecting her situation, he responded selfishly and thought only of his own gratification.
Noah started the truck.
As the motor rumbled to life, he checked the mirrors. He wished things were different, wanted to BE different. “Ah,” he muttered. “Stop overthinking things.” Shifting to drive, he pulled forward, away from the curb.
After their burgers, Noah took Luke home to gather his things. The drive to Noah’s ex-wife’s house went by too fast.
“I love you bud,” he said as Luke hopped down from the truck.
If Luke responded, Noah didn’t hear, but he wasn’t expecting anything. He just wanted his son to hear the words from him. Luke slammed the truck door.
Noah knew they faced a doozy of a week after his day in court. For his part, Noah always kept Luke out of their adult business, but he knew his ex-wife wasn’t as thoughtful. He watched from the truck as Luke walked up to the door and punched in the code. With a wave, his son pushed the front door open and vanished inside.
By the time he arrived back home, Noah had seven messages and four missed calls from Luke’s mom.
Shutting off the ignition, he swiped through the text messages, ignoring the voice mails. Just thinking about her grating voice soured his mood.
“I don’t appreciate you lying about me in court today!” read the first message.
“You know what? You’re a stupid fuck if you think I’m going to let you walk all over me like that!” said the second.
“I’m throwing away everything in Luke’s room that came from you! You can explain why! Go ahead and tell him why his dad is such an asshole while you’re at it!” read message number three.
The remaining messages were less coherent and riddled with curse words. Growling, Noah threw his phone onto the seat beside him. It bounced off, landing on the passenger side floorboard.
Many of the gifts his ex-wife threatened to toss were irreplaceable. Noah had purchased them for his boy while on deployment overseas. Some of them were even from Iraq, and he sure as hell would never go there again. He sighed, running his hands through his hair and rubbing his face.
“What a day,” Noah mumbled, noticing that his mouth had gone dry.
Twisting the key, he brought the truck back to life and reversed out of the drive.
Twenty-three minutes later he walked out of Brown Jug with two six packs of Irish Death under his arm. The scowl from earlier remained, but it had relaxed by a few degrees. Determined to ignore anymore messages from his ex, Noah steered toward home. It was a perfect night to kick back and drink a few.
Four beers in and buzzed, Noah’s shoulders dropped, and he breathed easy. The tunes were up, a thick steak sizzled on the grill, and he hadn’t heard another peep from his ex-wife or her wimpy boyfriend. Cracking open a new can, he downed the first third walking to the barbecue grill on his fenced in patio. He lifted the lid, waving away the escaping smoke and flipped the ribeye. Noah imagined that first fatty bite of seared meat landing on his tongue; his mouth watered. He inhaled the sizzling aroma and drained another third from the can.
“It’s going to be a good night.”
On his phone, Noah leaned against the deck railing and pondered his next move. “You know what? This lady is too quiet.” He touched the message icon, typing, “This game is a whole lot more fun when we talk to each other. I’m an idiot for screwing that up…” Send.
Resting his phone on the railing, Noah peered into the woods. Moose were frequent visitors and he wondered if he might catch a glimpse. Distracted by thoughts of Ulie, he quickly lost interest and glanced at his phone.
Bubbles danced at the bottom of the message window.
Noah grinned. “That’s more like it.” He tipped the can to his lips for another long pull.
A moment later, her message appeared. “No arguments here…you’re an idiot.”
Laughing at the dig, Noah typed, “It goes with the territory! I’m a guy, so you can bet on any given day I’ve DONE something stupid, SAID something stupid, and THOUGHT about doing or saying a bunch of stupid things.” Send
After a long pause, the bubbles started bouncing in the message window again. Noah whistled as he plated his steak and closed the patio door. As he rummaged through the junk drawer for a steak knife, his conscience gave him a nudge. “What am I doing? She’s married.” Finding the knife, Noah wiped the blade on his jeans and tipped the beer back to finish it off. “She might be married, but so what? Lots of people flirt online. Besides, if she’s unhappy at home, I’m doing her a favor.”
Checking his phone, Noah read Ulie’s new message.
“Okay, that’s cute. You made me smile. You seem like a really nice guy. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
A stirring in Noah’s jeans surprised him. The message was completely free of innuendo yet knowing a connection had been established excited him.
“Fire away,” he typed. Send.
Her reply came almost immediately.
“Are you married?”
The crotch in Noah’s jeans tightened.
“Not for a while now,” he answered. “But you are, right?” holding his breath, he hit send.
The bubbles danced for a few seconds, then stopped. They started and stopped several more times as Noah ate his steak. His eyes kept darting back to the screen, needing to know the answer.
“I am…but it is complicated.”
Noah frowned and shifted in the chair. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully before typing a response. “I understand complicated, believe me. I’m a good listener if you want to talk.” “No, that’s too soft.” Delete.
He tried again. “I remember complicated. How about I help you get your mind off things for a bit?” He nodded. “That’s better.” Send.
“What did you have in mind?”
Noah got up to retrieve the last beer as he contemplated his options. He didn’t want to push too hard and turn her off or act too cautious and let her interest fizzle. Rather than sitting at the table, Noah scooped up his phone and dropped lengthwise on the couch. Kicking one knee up, he typed, “For starters, tell me why we never dated in high school.” Send.
“That’s an easy one. You never asked me out. I also recall being into older guys back then. Sorry about that.” Another message appeared right after. “If I had known how you would turn out, I definitely would’ve dated you lol.”
The exchange stimulated an involuntary twitch down below, and Noah shifted to a more comfortable position.
“That sounds fair. If I had known how you would turn out I probably would’ve asked you out every day until you said yes.” Send.
Alone and buzzing harder, the thrill of their conversation affected his body more than he thought possible. “I can’t even see her,” he said.
He imagined her voice in his ear, whispering the words. Noah’s free hand slowly slid across his abs as he read Ulie’s next message.
“I admit I looked through your FB pics. Your profile pic is hot! (sorry if that’s a little much)”
Noah’s head spun. His lips were suddenly dry, and he took another drink as he re-read her message.
“Don’t be sorry. I peeked at yours too and I have a request. Can you post more pictures of you? It’s not really okay for me to say this, but you’re easy to look at and I want to see more of that gorgeous smile.” Send.
He had to shift again as the stirring in his groin pressed forcefully against his jeans.
“Now I’m really smiling! Is it me or is it getting hot in here? Lol, don’t answer that. I should go, but I look forward to chatting more soon. Goodnight.”
“Damn.” Noah sighed and typed a reply. “Have a great night Ulie. Sweet dreams.” Send.
Closing his eyes, Noah let his arms fall to his sides and exhaled, the tension ebbing from his limbs. Ulie had responded e
xactly as he hoped, and the exhilaration of her attention burned away his resolve to respect her marriage.
Noah’s entire body went limp. Well, almost. One stubborn part refused to lie down. He groaned. Their playtime had ended too soon.
Chapter Seven (August)
Peeking through a gap in the curtain, Ulie watched Chuck’s taillights bob down the driveway and out of sight. Her pulse quickened.
In response to Noah’s most recent message, she decided to reward him. In the month they had been messaging, Noah treated her with respect and care, always placing her comfort above his needs and wants. He never pressured her, yet somehow, his gentle way coaxed her into wanting to share intimate secrets and desires with him. Ulie’s face flushed red, her cheeks hot as she thought of the words he wrote.
Noah had let slip that she had been on is mind, even appearing in one of his dreams.
Intrigued, and a little bit suspicious, Ulie had replied, “Oh? Now I have to know what happened! Send me the details, man! Lol.”
What he sent exceeded all her expectations. She had Noah pegged as a nice guy, but never a writer. “He fixes motorcycles for Christ’s sake!” Ulie didn’t think him dim; she simply didn’t associate his casual demeanor and masculine charm with a gift for swooning with words. And she did swoon, at least a little.
Noah sent, “Good morning, my beautiful secret… That’s how I think of you. I hope you don’t mind. You asked about my dream. Here it is, exactly as I remember. I hope it doesn’t disappoint.”
She sat, gawking as she read on.
“Ulie, you entered my thoughts sweetly and sincerely, as if you had always belonged there. You were in my bed, fast asleep and buried amongst fluffy pillows and a giant down comforter that I don’t own. I lay beside you, awake and watching closely for the first signs of consciousness. As you slept, I marveled at the gentle rise and fall of your chest. I could see your heartbeat subtly tapping a rhythm on the side of your neck, and I hungered to kiss that pulsing spot. I can still recall the intensity of that desire, and I’m not sure how I fought the urge to surrender.”