by Annie Jocoby
“I don’t understand. She acted like she didn’t drink at all. She also acted like it was her very first party.”
Pamela sighed. “Yes, she always pulled the innocent act with people. She never wanted to admit that she had a problem, so she always acted like she didn’t know the first thing about drinking and partying. But, trust me, she did know. She had been drinking since she was 12. Her father got her into it. Please, Ryan, please stop feeling that you were responsible for what happened to her. You’re not responsible. She was. She was, dammit.”
Her words gave me absolution, in a way, but I didn’t feel exactly redeemed. “I appreciate the words, Pamela. I’ve been carrying around this guilt for all these years, although I haven’t exactly acknowledged it to anybody. Except for you, right now. I’m not sure that I feel any less responsible for what happened now then before I met you. So, I still want to apologize for what happened. I, I, I was different then. So different. I was bent on destruction myself. So bent on destruction. Rachael seemed to be a victim of my casualness in how I treated people and life in general.”
“I understand that. I know that you’ve known a great deal of pain. You carry it around with you, and it’s evident in everything about you. It’s in your eyes, in your stance, in your words. You need to have a lighter load. I hope that my words can give that to you. Whatever it is that has happened in your life that has given you this heavy heart is something that you probably need to come to terms with. But you don’t need the death of my daughter on your conscience as well. I hope that I can unburden you about this. I loved my daughter very much. But she had her father’s genetics, unfortunately. Brilliant, but a complete alcoholic. Always was.”
Then she took another sip of her wine and stared pensively out the window. “I lied to you, when you came in. Sort of. I mean, my husband isn’t here, that’s true. But the reason why he’s not here is because he’s homeless. He’s one of those guys who hold signs up in the street, begging for excess change. That would’ve been Rachael’s fate if she would’ve lived. I can almost guarantee it.”
At that, I felt immense sadness and regret. Sadness and regret that I would soon be leaving this lovely, and lonely, woman. This woman whose lamentations rival my own. She was one of those people who Thoreau spoke of when he said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation. To tell the truth, I exemplified that quote as well. Quiet desperation. There were bright spots in my life, of course, and Iris and Dalilah had much to do with that. But, inwardly, there was a quiet desperation that was always there, buried beneath the smiles and jokes I told. I tapped into this while I sat there that day with Pamela, whose pain mirrored my own.
And, somehow, that day, I started the process of truly healing.
I stayed the night in the guest bedroom upstairs, and, the next day, I gave Pamela a hug goodbye. “Thank you,” I said to her. “You can’t know how much you’ve helped me.”
“I’m glad. I see you. I see that you’re really a good person. Your pain runs deep, and I see that, too. You don’t deserve to live with that dark cloud above your head. You need to let the past go. You can’t change it. But it can change you, and not for the better. So, please, let it go. Rachael, Mia, everything that has led to the desperation in your eyes – let it go. Move forward. Regrets serve no purpose in this world. Remember that.”
I nodded, then felt the cathartic tears well up in my eyes again. I was ready to return to my beautiful wife and my beautiful daughter. I was ready to own up to my crappy way that I treated the one person who has had my back virtually my entire life. The shooting was the catalyst for all of this, and I started to think that facing death the way that I did at Andrew’s hands was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I was ready, but there was one thing that I needed to do before I could face my wife, daughter and best friend with the open heart that I truly needed to let all of them in again.
Chapter Eighteen
Iris
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. I mean, I had a feeling that Nick was feeling this way. But why did he have to articulate it? Why did he have to say it out loud? As if I didn’t have enough to deal with, now I had to deal with the fact that the man that I’m attracted to, who also happens to be my husband’s best friend, was telling me that he was falling in love with me.
And I was still living under his roof.
“Nick, why do have to do this to me?”
“I’m sorry, Iris. I just can’t stop thinking about you. I wish that I felt differently, believe me. I mean, I can’t do this to Ryan, but I can’t keep it in any longer.”
“Well, it can’t happen. Ryan is still my husband. I know that it doesn’t seem that way right now, and it certainly doesn’t feel that way to me, but he’s my husband and your best friend. So, please, get back to the office, so that we’re not around each other so damned much, and give me and Dalilah some space.”
Nick hung his head, evidently embarrassed for putting his feelings out there. “Sorry, Iris. I…” Then he put my head in his hands and kissed me. I started breathing heavily, unable to push him away. He was intoxicating, and his kiss was tender and gentle. I felt my resolve against him melting away as I put my arms around the back of his neck, letting my tongue explore inside his mouth, as his was mine.
Then he pulled away from me. My heart was in my throat, and I just stood there, mesmerized. I felt the urgent stirring in my nether regions that I haven’t felt in such a long time. It was then that I realized how much I was craving Ryan’s affection and love-making.
But I couldn’t transpose that urgency and craving to Nick. That would completely destroy everything that Ryan and I had worked so hard for.
“I’m so sorry, Iris. I had to do that. I’ve been wanting to do that pretty much since you and Dalilah arrived here in this house. I’m in love with you, and I don’t know what to do about that.”
I just stood there, looking at him like an idiot. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I could barely catch my breath. I finally said “Uh, I need to go to bed. I, I, think that I need to not be here anymore. I need to find a-a-a hotel until Ryan comes home.”
Nick shook his head. “No, you can’t do that. I put that out there, but I won’t act on it. You’ll be ok. If you want, I can bring my bimbos over here.”
I nodded my head. “That would actually make me feel better.” I felt my hands fly up to my mouth, touching where Nick’s soft lips had just met mine. “I really need to go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Ok. Please don’t leave. I’m sorry for saying those things to you, and for kissing you like that, but I really want you to stay.”
“Ok. I’ll stay.” I was playing with fire, and I knew it. My resistance to Nick was lowering with every day that Ryan was emotionally distant and Nick was showing his sensitive side. At the same time, I didn’t really know what else to do but to stay there with him. I couldn’t go to my parents – they didn’t have room in their tiny duplex for myself and Dalilah. And going to a hotel was just depressing.
And I really couldn’t go home. I didn’t even know where home was anymore. Home was not where Ryan almost died and Andrew did die. That place was probably literally haunted. I knew that Ryan and I would get a new home as soon as he was back on his feet, but who knew when that would be? Who knew even when he would be coming home? Or if he was coming home?
Once again, my mind wandered into the very worst-case scenario. And that was that Ryan was permanently changed, for the worse, by his near-death experience, and that his feelings for me were gone. I knew that something like that was possible. Perhaps he had taken stock of his life and realized that what he had with me was a chimera, and it evaporated when he came out from under his anesthesia. It just disappeared.
What then? We’d be divorced again, and I’d be raising Dalilah alone. And I couldn’t do like before and just refuse to take any money from him. I had to think of my daughter this time.
I never thought that I would be
put this position again. The position that I had to think about life without Ryan.
And suddenly I was very, very, very scared.
∞
The next day, though, some very good things happened. Things were finally looking up! One was that I got a call from the prosecutor’s office.
“Hello? This is Cindy Johnson.”
“Hey, Cindy. What’s up?” I was very casual, because, frankly, I no longer cared about Rochelle and her fate. If she walks, great. If she gets life in prison, even better. What happened to me at her hands was such a distant memory, even if the media was still involved. I still got phone calls from various media outlets asking for comments. I had no idea why – I never gave anybody any comment, ever.
Yet they kept trying.
“I wanted to tell you that Rochelle Anderson is going to plead guilty.”
“Great. To what?”
“Assault in the second degree.”
“Groovy. That means that she’ll be out tomorrow, basically, if she gets credit for time served while she was awaiting trial.”
“Well, she probably will be out by the end of the year, at any rate. I’m sorry, Iris. I wish the case was stronger.”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking that I didn’t know how much stronger the case could get. But I also knew that, with me and Ryan both being elusive witnesses, and Rochelle having a world-class attorney on retainer, there probably wasn’t a whole lot that Cindy could do. “Listen, Cindy, don’t sweat it. I could care less about it anymore. That was several lifetimes ago.” I wanted to tell her that I’d been raped since then, lived in a drug house, birthed a female Einstein/Degas combination, divorced and reconciled with my husband, almost lost said husband to death and now feared losing him to some unknown force.
I could roll with anything that happened to Rochelle at this point.
“Ok. I was really nervous to call you about this, but I guess you’re ok,” she said.
“Cindy, I’d be ok if Rochelle never served a day in prison. I just can’t spend mental energy on the matter anymore. But thanks for letting me know.” Then, when I got off the phone, I realized how much better I felt. I didn’t have to go through the bullshit trial, especially because that trial would probably have been televised on some obscure cable station. I really didn’t want to deal with that, in the middle of all the other chaotic crap that was going on in my life.
So Rochelle pleading was a mixed blessing.
Another mixed blessing arrived in the form of Alexis. She came to stay with us when she finally got out of her rehabilitation facility. This turn of events was a very good thing at this point, because she took Nick’s focus off of me and provided a good distraction for him. Because, even though Nick and she were on the outs, I figured that they could at least provide a good sexual outlet for one another.
If only I had one as well.
Alexis arrived with typical fanfare, driving her Porsche. She had a little dog up front, a Yorkshire terrier with a pink bow in her hair. When she got out of the car, one could never guess that she was just released from a mental health facility, and was dead broke. She carried the latest Hermés Birken bag, and she was dressed as fashionably as usual with her Leboutin pumps and designer clothes. She stepped out of her car, her doggie in her arms.
“Hi, Nick,” she said. “Uh, I know that I was supposed to stay with Ryan and Iris, but I haven’t been able to get ahold of Ryan. Do you know where he is?”
“Oh, geez, Alexis, how long do you got? ‘Cause you missed a lot while you were away.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come in with me. I have a lot to tell you. A lot.”
Then she finally addressed me. “Hey, Iris. I see you’re here at Nick’s house. If I said I wasn’t a bit confused, I would be lying.”
“Follow Nick into the house,” I said. “He’ll explain everything.”
So, for the next hour, Nick caught Alexis up on what happened.
“Oh, shit,” Alexis said. “I really have missed a lot. How are you holding up, Iris?”
“I really don’t know just how I feel, to be perfectly honest with you. I’d feel about a million times better if I could talk to Ryan more.”
But that was not to be. I tried, and failed, to get in contact with Ryan since he had been gone. And I was feeling more and more uncomfortable as I looked at Nick, and, every time I looked at him, I found that he was already looking at me.
Chapter Nineteen
The next few days were unbearably tense at Nick’s house. Alexis continued to stay with us, and I took it upon myself to ensure that she was med compliant, as Nick apparently refused to do so, reasoning that he wasn’t her baby-sitter.
However, I had experience with this, as I was always making sure that my own sister was med compliant, so I didn’t mind doing this for Alexis.
So, for once, Alexis was not the source of the anxiety. It was Nick, and he was being insufferable to me.
Nick apparently overcompensated for his feelings for me by making me feel like I was a virtual slave in the house. He no longer had the affection that he had for me during the past weeks where we bonded. He went the other way and was cruel, more cruel than he had ever been before. He yelled at me about the slightest things. If I didn’t clean the kitchen while I was cooking, I got yelled at. I was berated for forgetting to get the mail from the mailbox, as I was assigned this job when I moved into the house. I went to the store and forgot one item on the list, and I was harangued about this.
“Goddamned, Iris, get your head out of your ass. It clearly says on the list that you were supposed to get Milk Bones for the dogs, yet where are they? Huh? Now, get your ass back to the store and don’t come back until you have them. Got that?”
Or it was “you’re trying to get all of us sick by getting chicken blood all over the counter, aren’t you, Iris? I’ll just send you the hospital bill for my salmonella poisoning, k?”
I wanted to protest that I was about the clean up the chicken blood when he stormed into the kitchen to bitch at me about it. But he was on a roll, so I knew that my protestations would fall on deaf ears.
I felt like I was walking on eggshells every single day. And Dalilah was back to her tantrum mode, which made things that much worse. Nick no longer was willing to help me with her, so I held her for hours, walking around the house with her screaming in my ear. I’d bounce her up and down and stroke her back, but nothing eased her screaming and crying.
“Shhh, baby, please calm down. Please, for mommy?”
But nothing could calm her. And she apparently didn’t wear out like most infants would. Her capacity for screaming and crying seemed boundless.
Ryan, where are you? I need you so badly right now.
Now Alexis was the one who kept me somewhat sane. She was remarkably in good spirits, even though her future was extremely bleak.
So, I found myself wishing that I could be anywhere else but under the same roof with Nick. One small comfort was that the bimbos reappeared, each more stereotypically gorgeous than the last. Beautiful guys appeared as well, sometimes with the bimbos, sometimes by themselves. Nick had a veritable revolving door, apparently not caring one whit about the impressionable 10-month-old prodigy he had under his roof.
I wondered how Alexis felt about Nick’s bedroom escapades, so I asked her.
She just shrugged. “It’s Nick, what can you say? He’s worse than usual, though, because he’s hurting. He’d do anything to get his feelings for you out of his system, but it doesn’t seem to be working too well.”
I found myself curling up into a virtual ball, into the fetal position almost. I tried to will myself not to crack under the strain, but it was becoming more and more difficult to do. These past few weeks, where Ryan was recovering, and shutting me out, I had Nick to bond with. Nick to talk to, Nick to cry to. Now Nick had made it clear that he would no longer be my source of support, and I felt like I was completely, and totally, alone.
To make matters worse, Alex
is was apparently clued in to how Nick felt about me. “I know that this is hard for you, Iris, being here with a man who is in love with you, while the man that you love is god-knows-where.”
“It’s repayment for how I treated Ryan after Andrew. Karma. I put him into a state of virtual panic, now it’s his turn to do it to me. I hate how this feels, but it’s probably comparable to what I did to him.”
Then I drew a breath. “How, how, how do you know about how Nick feels about me?”
“It’s obvious. So, I asked him, and he told me. He told me that he’s never met a woman like you before, and that you’re the one that he’s been waiting for his whole life.”
I started to feel the walls close in on me. “What? What does that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged. “He loves that you’re devoted to Ryan, ironically enough. He also loves that you’re strong enough to get through some of the worst things that a person could experience without going into a rubber room. Most of all, though, he loves your lack of artifice. Nick has never known a woman who hasn’t tried to rob him blind, myself included, I’m afraid. He sees that if he had a life with you, he would never have to worry that you’re just after him for his money.”
I shook my head. “A life with me? Why is he even thinking along those lines? I belong to Ryan, and only Ryan. Yes, it doesn’t seem that way right now. I don’t even feel that way right now. I feel that Ryan and I are each on one end of a wide chasm, and there isn’t a way for us to reach each other. But, regardless, I belong to him, and I always will. Even if I never get to the other edge of the chasm, and we are actually permanently broken, my heart will always belong to him.”