Tethered

by L. D. Davis

  I mutely shook my head.

  “She’s not stupid you know,” Emmy said and looked at me as if I was the stupid one. “I don’t know what is happening between you and Emmet. For that matter, I don’t even know what is happening between you and your husband these days either, but whatever it is, keep the drama away from my wedding day or I will cut you.”

  Her expression softened and she reached for me. I put my hand in hers and suddenly felt like I was going to bawl.

  “Don’t go down that road, Donya,” Emmy whispered, shaking her head softly as her eyes burned imploringly into mine. “Take it from me. You do not want to go there. It will tear everyone around you apart. Do whatever you have to do to end this before it can really get started.”

  I shook my head as I blinked back tears. “But we didn’t…”

  “Cheating isn’t always physical, D. An affair of the heart is so much worse than a physical one. When you’re ready to talk about what’s going on between you and Jerry, I will listen, but in the meantime, you need to let Emmet go.”

  Casey and Mayson stepped into the room and the conversation halted, but Emmy gave my hand a squeeze and gave me an encouraging, yet sympathetic smile. I excused myself, found the restroom and locked myself inside to cry.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Emmy’s and Luke’s wedding was incredible. My own wedding was much larger and grander, but their quaint wedding was more personable and their vows were built on the purest, real love while mine was built on false pretenses. There was no comparison – Emmy had the better wedding.

  After the bride and groom were announced at the reception and were seated at their table at the front of the room, I went to find my own seat and cursed when I realized the seating arrangements. Jerry, Rosa and I were at a table with Mayson and her mom, Tabitha and Emmet, Casey, and Owen. The only open seat was between Jerry and Owen. At least it was Owen and not his father, who I had been actively avoiding since I left the spa the night before. When I had picked up Rosa, I kept conversation to a minimum and averted my eyes. I knew that he knew that I was pulling away from him, but with Casey right there, he didn’t challenge it. It was easier to avoid him while getting myself and Emmy ready to get married, but sitting two seats away from him at the reception was going to be harder to accomplish.

  The second my ass hit the chair, Jerry passed Rosa to me. I was so accustomed to the handoff that I didn’t think anything of it until I felt Emmet watching us. I dared a quick glance and found him looking at me and Jerry with his brow furrowed. Then he looked at Rosa and his expression softened some before he turned his attention to Mayson after she asked him a question. I sat quietly looking around the room while Jerry sat quietly on his phone.

  Soon dinner was being served, but I pushed my plate away so I could feed Rosa first. She liked to feel included and eat when everyone else was eating or she squealed like a banshee, but since there were no high chairs, I had to hold her and feed her. Again I felt Emmet watching me on occasion, but I avoided meeting his gaze. I chatted with Owen while I fed Rosa and jumped into Mayson and Tabitha’s conversations from time to time. Even after I finished feeding Rosa, I didn’t eat, because I would spend more time taking food out of her little grabby hands. Jerry was now chatting with a couple of Luke’s friends at another table, talking about the upcoming baseball season. When he finished with his dinner, he told me he was going up to the bar, and together him and the men went to the bar.

  Emmet suddenly stood up and walked around Owen. Without a word, he took Rosa from my arms. His expression was dark.

  “Eat your dinner,” he said quietly. He found a smile for his son and reached out his hand. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go look at the fishies.”

  Before taking the kids to the large aquarium at the back of the room, Emmet cast me a brief look that was heavy with his past words. He’ll never give up anything for you.

  I pulled my plate closer, picked up my fork, but only pushed the food around on my plate.

  “Where is your bracelet?” Casey leaned toward me and asked quietly while the other women were deep into a conversation that had them laughing loudly.

  I looked at my naked wrist. “It just didn’t seem like a good idea to wear it,” I answered honestly. I grabbed my purse and pushed away from the table. “Excuse me.”

  I went outside and joined a couple of other guests in the front of the building for an after dinner smoke. I was smoking more and more since I had Rosa. At home, the moment she went down for a nap, I would grab a cigarette and stand at a window in the kitchen and light one up. At night after she was in bed, I would take the baby monitor out onto the back deck with me and smoke and drink a whole bottle of wine.

  When I went back inside, Emmy and Luke were just making their way to the floor for their wedding dance. I scanned the room in search of my daughter and was relieved to see Fred had her and not Emmet. I stood between Fred Jr. and Charlotte at the edge of the dance floor and watched the couple dancing as close as Emmy’s pregnant belly allowed them to get. She looked more at peace with herself and the world than I have ever seen, and anyone looking at the way Luke was looking at his new wife could see that the man was deeply in love. Had I looked that way when I married Jerry? Did I look at Jerry as if he was my one and only and I would need no one else ever again? Did he look at me as if he would happily drown inside of me?

  The song ended and I clapped obligingly. When Freddy asked me to dance, I almost said no. I wanted to go sit in a corner somewhere and think about my life, what was wrong with it and how to fix it, but this wasn’t the time or place. This was my best friend’s wedding day and she deserved every bit of happiness I could conjure and share with her.

  “Sure, big brother,” I said to Freddy and gave him my hand.

  I immersed myself into the festivities, dancing, eating too much cake, laughing and chatting while actively avoiding Emmet. I allowed myself to enjoy myself for Emmy’s sake, and maybe for my own, too.

  *~*~*

  Sleep did not come for me that night. I lay in bed beside Jerry, staring up at the dark ceiling as the minutes and hours ticked by. I was unable to shake the images of the night from my mind. Harsh words that played like a broken record. The night had been going so well, and then Emmet and I were over that line again…

  I had danced with Luke and we had a candid conversation.

  “I just want you to always be conscious of your actions, Luke,” I had told him. “It’s very easy to find yourself standing on the wrong side of the line without ever meaning to cross it.”

  I had made a mad dash off of the dance floor soon after that. I needed to get out of the building, away from Emmet and his wife, and Jerry. I had followed a stone path to the back of the building, away from the other smokers, away from the wedding celebration. I should have known that Emmet would follow me. It didn’t take long for him to come up behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was him.

  One of his strong arms encircled my waist. He plucked the cigarette I had just lit from my lips and tossed it away. He wrapped his other arm around me and I shamelessly let my head fall back on his shoulder. He pressed his cheek against me and there we stood, just like that, for several minutes as the sun sunk below the horizon and full darkness fell.

  Emmet kissed the side of my head and his arms tightened around me. His mouth moved close to my neck and I knew he wanted to kiss me there. I wanted him to kiss me there and I hated myself for it. I turned in his arms to face him.

  “Emmet.” His name passed through my lips in a breathy whisper. My palms were flat against his chest as if to keep some distance between us, but he had already pulled me close again. My hands on his chest only prevented my breasts from pressing against his chest.

  One arm released me and then my eyes closed when his fingers lightly touched my cheek. He traced a slow swirling pattern to my lips where he paused for a moment before I felt his fingers move across my bottom lip. I opened my eyes and looked into his green eyes. My right
hand slid into his coat, across his hard chest and stopped above his heart. His fingers moved languidly down my neck, under my coat and across my collarbone. He traced a line over the naked swell of my right breast and across my chest until he reached my heart. He flattened his hand over my heart.

  “Do you still feel me?” he whispered.

  “Always,” I whispered back.

  “You are a part of me,” Emmet said.

  “You’re a part of me, too.”

  His hand moved to my neck and he slowly angled his lips to line up with mine. I felt his breath on my mouth, but I didn’t pull away. My lips parted slightly to give him the access we both wanted needed, and had been deprived of for too long.

  “Emmet!” Fred’s voice was like a whip, snapping into us and forcing us to release each other and take quick steps back away from each other.

  I stumbled in my hastiness and Emmet reached out to steady me as Fred approached like a deadly storm about to put lightning bolts in our asses.

  “Dad, I -” Emmet started, but Fred held up a hand to silence him.

  “There are not enough excuses in the world to explain away what you were about to do out here,” Fred growled. He got into Emmet’s face and said “Your wife and son are inside looking for you and you are out here with someone else’s wife!”

  “Dad, I wasn’t -” Emmet stammered.

  “You weren’t what?” Fred demanded. “You weren’t about to push your tongue against her tonsils?”

  Fred Grayne is a man of impressive size. He was a Marine in his younger years, before Emmy and Emmet were born. Though he was in his early seventies, he had not gone soft. He still had a thick, muscular body and strong hands that could crack a skull. His temper didn’t flare often, but when it did, it scared even his grown sons. Emmet’s body tensed at Fred’s close proximity and his hands were balled into fists at his sides as if he was prepared to fight even though Fred has never given him reason to feel like he had to defend himself. But I couldn’t blame him I had never seen Fred this angry before.

  “Your mother and I tried to warn both of you,” Fred said, glaring at us. “We warned you that Donya’s career and your schooling would push you apart and you both were so damn headstrong and think you knew it all.”

  “That was a long time ago,” I objected softly and then winced when he glared daggers at me.

  “And your inability to use your head then is having a calamitous affect now,” he growled. “You two had plenty of opportunities to fix your relationship. Emmet, when you graduated from law school, it was your bonehead decision to move hundreds of miles away. You could have sat for the New York and Connecticut bars. I know Donya was still traveling and busy, but her main residence was in New York. You could have made it work then, but you moved to Florida.”

  Emmet looked away from his father with his brow furrowed.

  “I maybe pushed him away,” I said in a small voice.

  “Real men fight for what they want!” he snapped at me. “And you…”

  “Leave her alone,” Emmet demanded.

  Fred ignored him and said “As soon as you knew you were going to retire from modeling, you should have gone to him. Instead you married someone you didn’t want.”

  “I loved Jerry,” I said defensively.

  “That may be, but he wasn’t the one you wanted. I walked you down the aisle, Donya,” Fred said harshly. “I felt your hand shaking on my arm. I heard your anxious breaths and saw your tight, fake supermodel smile meant to appease anyone looking at you.”

  Emmet looked at me now with questions on his tongue, but he remained quiet.

  “I had just found out Casey was pregnant,” I said helplessly. I was startled to feel tears on my cheeks. I wiped them away and said “I would have canceled the whole thing. I begged him to ask me not to marry Jerry, but he couldn’t because he had just found out he knocked Casey up.”

  “He shouldn’t have had to ask you not to marry Jerry!” Fred shouted.

  “I begged you not to marry him,” Emmet said angrily. “I was on my knees begging you not to marry him!”

  I shrunk back from the angry, yelling men and choked on a sob. Having both of them bitterly angry with me was too much.

  “But she did,” Fred said, looking at his son. “And you married Casey, and that should have been the end of it. You both made your decisions, as poor as they may be, and now you have to deal with it. If you’re not happy in your marriage, fix it, or get out, but this…” he pointed at the ground between us as he looked back and forth at us. “This is unacceptable behavior. You are married with children. Casey is a good woman and does not deserve this from you,” he said to Emmet. He looked at me and said “I don’t know what is going on between you and Jerry, but don’t cheapen yourself this way.”

  Emmet’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he stared at the ground again. There were too many emotions churning inside of him for me to get a fix. Suddenly he turned his back on us and took several quick steps forward. He halted for a moment and his hands flexed at his sides. He started to look back over his shoulder, but snapped his head forward and stormed down the sidewalk. The tether contorted and quivered and groaned in protest. I put both hands on my chest in an attempt to keep my heart from bursting from my ribcage and splattering red on the white snow.

  Fred put his hands firmly on my shoulders.

  “When you were still practically a little girl, you asked me how you would know if you were doing the right thing,” he said earnestly. “What did I say to you?”

  “That I’d know when I was doing it,” I said as tears continued to pour from my eyes.

  “Does this feel like the right thing, Kiddo?” he asked in a harsh whisper.

  I shook my head and then a loud, keening sob broke free. Fred held me tightly and rubbed my back.

  “Kiddo, I’m not telling you to ignore what your heart wants, but this isn’t the way to do it. You are my sensible child and I expect you to be sensible. Do you understand?”

  I nodded my compliance.

  Fred stepped back and pulled a handkerchief out of the inside of his tux jacket. He wiped away my tears, and like I was a little kid again, he even wiped my nose.

  “Let’s get you back inside so you can get my beautiful granddaughter to bed,” he said with a heavy sigh. He offered me his arm and I took it, much like I did when he walked me down the aisle.

  By the time we made it back inside, Emmet and his family were gone.

  Jerry stirred next to me, bringing my mind back to the hotel room hours later, and the man beside me. I rolled on my side to look at his dark profile. There was a time when I couldn’t get enough of looking at his handsome face and long eyelashes and touching his strong body. I couldn’t remember the last time I paid it any mind. His reaction to Rosa was unacceptable, but maybe I didn’t help matters any. Jerry relished his time with me before I got pregnant. He soaked up every minute, even if he knew I was in the stands watching him play. Maybe if I gave him more of myself, he would soften again and maybe whatever it was that emotionally blocked him from his daughter would start to fall away.

  When I stripped away my clothing and straddled my husband that night, I knew my reasons were selfish. I wanted to feel better. I wanted to push away the pain in my chest, but I thought it could be a start, too. Maybe things could change and I could be happy with Jerry again.

  I shut off my brain and allowed my body to succumb to a physical pleasure that only proved to further scar me emotionally.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  I had just fallen asleep when Rosa’s cries came through on the baby monitor. I waited to see if Jerry would go to her this time, but he rolled over, nudged me in the side, and told me Rosa was crying.

  Sighing, I rolled out of bed, and stumbled to the nursery. My baby stood in her crib, nose running, cheeks flushed, and tears dampening her cheeks. She had been sick for days – we both had, and even though we had gone to the doctor’s when she first got sick, there seemed to be no improv
ement. She had been asleep for a couple of hours, but then I couldn’t fall asleep because I had been coughing. I was pretty sure I had bronchitis but I hadn’t had time to take myself to my doctor.

  “Hey, pretty baby,” I said to her as I reached for her. When my hands made contact with her body, I felt the heat of her skin through her pajamas. I quickly picked her up and put my hand to her forehead. She was burning up.

  I rushed over to her dresser and grabbed the thermometer. I took her temperature and my heart dropped. 103.3 was entirely too hot for anyone, but especially someone Rosa’s size. I raced into my bedroom.

  “Jerry,” I called his name as I looked around for a pair of shoes or slippers to put on. “Jerry!”

  He rolled over, grumbling, and pushed up on his elbows.

  “I need you to get up and take us to the ER,” I said hurriedly as I struggled to push my feet into a pair of sneakers. “Get up!” I cried before racing out of the room with a crying Rosa.

  I took her back into the nursery and gently laid her down on the changing table so I could change her diaper. Dusky sat at my feet, looking up at Rosa and whining with worried eyes for a moment before wandering back out of the room.

  “And get a couple of her juice cups from the fridge please!” I called out to Jerry through the open door. “And maybe grab a few snacks incase she’s feeling better enough to eat later.”

  I quickly stripped her out of the diaper only to realize I had no wipes. They were across the room on top of her dresser. Jerry appeared in the doorway then. I didn’t pay much attention to his facial expression, but I probably should have.

  “Give me those wipes, will you?” I asked, with my hand extended but my face turned back to Rosa.

  I heard him pick up the box of wipes and a second later I felt something hard slam into my side. I looked up just in time to see the sippy cup soaring through the air. I gasped and turned my body to block Rosa and the cup slammed into my back. I looked over my shoulder in absolute shock as the second cup flew through the air and slammed into my upper arm. Jerry wasn’t a pitcher for the team, but he had a very strong throwing arm. I knew whatever he threw at me would leave a bruise. And he wasn’t finished…