by Shey Stahl
“When you stop acting like one.” I arrange a plate full of carrots and a heaping splat of ranch to go with it knowing neither of the kids will touch a vegetable unless there’s ranch to drown it in.
“Oh, spare me the fucking bullshit.” He snorts, annoyed. His hands drop. He crosses them over his chest. I know my words struck him. I can see it in the way his body stiffens. The way his voice hardens and the way he’s denying everything I say. “And you know, this thing where we are constantly blaming the other is getting really old. I’ve missed a game. Big fucking deal.”
You want to slap him across the face, don’t you?
You and me both, honey.
“Like three weeks ago when you forgot it was your weekend with them. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
He looks confused at first, like I’ve slapped him in the face. His jaw ticks and he exhales, closing his eyes. “I’m not!” His voice is sharp and accusing. “I told you I wasn’t sure if I could make it.” His cold eyes, eyes I don’t know, glower at me, hold my stare longer than I should allow him to.
“I can’t keep doing this with you,” I tell him, wanting to grab his hand and stuff it inside the garbage disposal until he tells me he’ll never promise them anything again. “Grady stands up for you, Austin. Always. He believes you’re going to be there and when you’re not, you’re making a liar out of him and yourself. And then there’s Cash, in the shadows, doubting your honesty because he knows he can’t count on you.”
Something I knew for years.
He says nothing at first, his eyes darting from mine to the wall and the photograph of the boys and us on their first Christmas. “You’re acting like a fuckin’ bitch, ya know that?”
Don’t punch him in the face with the kids nearby. Don’t. Plus, you know he’ll fight back. Remember when I slapped him across the face? Oh, well, you weren’t there yet so I’ll tell you. He shoved me. Hard. “So I’m a bitch because I’m telling you the truth? Because I’m trying to make you see you’re breaking their hearts?”
“They’re kids,” he says with a groan. “They’ll forget.”
They won’t.
“That’s your answer? They’ll forget?”
Again, he throws his hands in the air. “Christ, Alyson, you overanalyze everything to the point you make yourself crazy.” After a moment, something in his expression changes and he shakes his head. Oh, I don’t like where this is heading.
Not.
One.
Bit.
He steps closer, his coldness radiating from him but if I look closely, there’s a smirk threatening. “Tell me though. . .” He pauses, waiting for me to meet his eyes. “How long has Ridge been back in town?” The question—asked through his low, labored voice—sends my breathing into what feels like I’m running a marathon.
I knew this was going to come up eventually. He knows my past with Ridge. It was like a competition between the two of them growing up, and they always knew where the other one was at. “Couple days.”
I answer that pretty well, don’t I? My voice doesn’t even waver.
His face is unreadable. Carefully, he walks over to the liquor cabinet for a bottle, which has me fuming. It’s not his house anymore and he has no right to touch my booze. He doesn’t even look at what it is before he unscrews the cap and takes a drink straight from the bottle, squinting at the burn. “I bet you fucked him already, haven’t you? Probably couldn’t wait to spread those skinny legs for him, could you?”
At least he said my legs were skinny. But I doubt I’ll ever forget the look on his face when he says those words to me. It’s one of disgust. The meaning behind them, the blazing eyes, makes me flinch at his tone.
“Do you hear yourself right now?”
I can’t believe he’s even going there, but then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. “You didn’t answer my question,” he replies, glowering at me.
I grind my teeth together. “What do you think?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“You’d be wrong, again.”
Settling the bottle down, he stalks over to me, pushing himself against me, pinning me to the counter near the stove. My eyes shoot to the door, looking to see where the kids are. They’re out of view, by the fence tossing the ball back and forth though Cash keeps glancing in our direction. “Have you forgotten you’re still technically my wife?” he whispers, our chests pressed together. “People are going to start talking around town.”
“In what world am I still your wife?” He stares. No answer. “You filed for divorce. Not me. And now we’re legally separated.” My hands rise to his chest, attempting to push him back but he resists, fighting against me. “And you don’t think they’re already talking when they see you walking around town with her?”
His brow pulls together, cold blue narrowing. “Her name is Brie.”
“You say that awfully seductively.” My face heats with the words. “Rolls off your tongue easily, doesn’t it? Probably about as easy as it was to get in her skanky pants?”
“You’re just jealous my tongue isn’t on you anymore,” he spits back, amusement flashing in his eyes.
I gag. “Nope. I’m not.” I shove him back away from me. “But I bet it’s been on her for years, hasn’t it?”
He catches himself against the kitchen island, rage racing through his veins at the accusations. “What’s it to you if it has been? Does it really matter anymore?”
And then he’s quiet, staring at me in shock that he’d just admitted to me he’d been with her long before I found out in July.
Austin regards me with uncertainty, my face the focus of his indiscretion. Chewing on the words, his brow caves, eyes glazing over with what looked like tears threatening. Bullshit. “I’m. . . not having this conversation with you today.”
Every muscle in my body tightens. “When? When was the first time?”
His lips part and he heaves in a long-winded breath, then blows it out slowly. “It doesn’t fucking matter. You kicked me out.”
There’s a night in July. . . A blistering hot day where he didn’t come home and I followed him, only to find his car parked at my best friend’s house. It’s a night that shattered my heart into a million pieces. The two people who I trusted the most, betrayed me, together.
I’m right back there, emotionally.
Silence spreads throughout the house.
His brow furrows and then draws in another heavy breath.
My thoughts feel numb, noises around me too loud to decipher where they were coming from. It’s the beating of my heart as I ask, “Was that the first time?”
Say yes. Don’t do this to me.
And then he says, “No. . . .” And his answer collapses my breathing into gasping, because of the realization. He isn’t who I thought he was.
“When. . . was the first time?”
He doesn’t look at me as he slides his hands into his pockets of his jeans, his head hanging low. His lips part and I know it’s coming, the answer, the devastation. “I fucked her a week before we got married.”
You’ve destroyed any love I had remaining for you.
He gives me a moment to ask more, accuse, react, and then he nods, muscles in his jaw locked.
You son of a bitch. You were cheating on me and made me feel like the one who caused this.
I didn’t think hearing he cheated on me the entire time we were together would hurt like this, not after the initial shock of the news, or him asking for a divorce, but it does. It hurts just as bad because I married Austin because he was the stable one, the one who had his life planned and knew what he wanted out of life. Sure, I was pregnant, and that’s why we got married so soon, but I loved him despite the unplanned pregnancy and knew in my heart I wanted to marry him, someday. But this man, he’s not who I thought he was, or maybe he was never who I thought he was.
My voice breaks, tears falling when I tremble over the words, “How many others have there been?”
He
’s looking out the window, leaning into the island, watching the boys. His eyes cut to mine, a sideways glance that’s brief. “Just her.”
Just her?
So she was special enough that it was just her?
I hold back a sigh, biting back so much. And then I’m angry. Fucking pissed. Is murder legal in California? If I buried him in the backyard, would the stray cats eventually eat his remains?
Wanting to scream at him for attempting to make me feel guilty, a wave of emotion hits me, it nearly knocks me off my feet, utterly unexpected. Kind of like him telling me he wanted a divorce. No, let’s work it out, just bam, fuck you, I want out. Not that I was going to work it out given the cheating, but still, I wasn’t expecting to get divorce papers on our kids’ birthday.
Gathering a deep breath in my lungs, it’s everything I can do not to go Fight Club on his ass. “So while I was at home raising your sons, you were fucking my friend the whole time?”
My eyes focus on his Adam’s apple protruding in his neck, bobbing as he swallows hard. “Not the entire time.” He hesitates, taking in my expression. He knows what ever he says next will hurt me just as bad. With every word, he’s destroying any love I may have had left for the father of my children. His next words bring so much anger I forget where we’re at and the tiny hearts we made together. “Only every once in a while.”
My eyes drift to a knife on the counter. Tempting. If this was like the Saw movies, which body part would I cut off first? His dick. Definitely his fucking dick.
I nod, my focus on the plate of carrots and ranch. I lift my eyes to his. “So why marry me then?”
He’s staring at me now, tight jaw, pain in his eyes, his hands forming fists. “I don’t want to fucking do this with you right now.” His shakes his head back and forth, refusing to argue. “I don’t see how any of this is relevant.”
“You’re a fucking pussy, you know that? Can’t even admit to your wife that you screwed around on her.”
“Like you wanted to fucking marry me anyway!” he yells, coming right back at me. “You and I both know had you not gotten pregnant, it would have been over between us the moment Ridge Lucas showed his face in town again.”
Valid assessment, asshole.
“How dare you try to put this bullshit on me when you were fucking around!” I yell, feeling relief from the words delivered harshly, my pain, my anger, filling the room. “I never had sex with Ridge. May have wanted to, but I didn’t. I chose you, and look where that got me. In the middle of a nasty divorce and friendless!” I shout back at him. “You’re a sorry son of a bitch, you know that?”
Austin says nothing to me. Nothing.
There becomes a point in a divorce when you scramble for understanding. It gets ugly, remember? You blame. You blame anything and anyone because accepting the fact that you did anything wrong isn’t possible.
Turning away from me, his hand runs through his hair and then hanging loosely on his hips. He’s facing me again, his back to the door. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’ve been fucking Brie as long as I’ve been with you. There. I said it. Happy? Nothing’s going to change the fact that it’s over between us. It has been for years.”
Behind him, my stare goes to two sets of eyes, devastated by what they’ve just heard.
Austin turns and sees the boys standing there, having heard most of our conversation.
He leans in to whisper, “Was that your plan? Turn them against me too?”
My eyes stare, my mouth tightens. I’m being stubborn, unwilling to give up. “You’re doing that on your own, Austin.”
When Austin filed for divorce, he claimed he didn’t want to make this ugly, but I knew it wasn’t going to work out that way. Not with the resentment we both had.
I lean down to them, grabbing their hands. I feel horrible. They shouldn’t have witnessed that. “Boys—”
Cash shakes me off and steps forward, shoving Austin back. “I hate you! Leave. We don’t want you here, and Mommy doesn’t either.”
His shouted words are like a punch to the stomach.
Austin isn’t expecting that. He stares down at his son, and then he looks at me for a long time without saying a word. And I think, that’s it, he’s going to explode on him. The planes of his face, his expression, he’s hurt.
I swallow tears I won’t let run, wanting to pull Cash and Grady into my arms when Austin takes the plate of carrots I had and sends it flying toward the wall. It shatters on impact, and he jabs his finger in Cash’s direction. “You have no idea what it’s like to be a man and have responsibilities. You’re kids!” he shouts, and then walks out.
He’s showing them a side of him, as ugly as it is, it tells them everything they need to know about their father and his priorities.
They watch him leave but don’t say anything.
When the door slams shut and the tires squeal on pavement, Cash turns to me, breathes, slow and deep, his face full of emotions no little boy should have.
My eyes sting, and I can’t stop the tears from falling. “I love both of you,” I tell them, my honesty real, and I can’t stop the words from trembling against my lips.
Their small flickers of lashes, long and dark, catch, and two sets of sad blue eyes meet mine. “I know, Mommy,” Cash whispers, wrapping his arms around my neck. “I love you.”
I blink, lips dry, my voice cracking. I feel angry and humiliated, but I’m not going to make excuses for what they saw.
Once I leave the field, I head back to the track, unable to shake the thoughts of Aly and what a piece of shit Austin is. Who promises their kids they’re going to show up and then doesn’t?
What a tool.
It takes a lot of self-control on my part not to one, kiss the hell out of Aly, and two, hunt Austin down and drag his ass to that fucking field and force him to sit and watch his kids play football.
My anger has subsided when I pull into the fairgrounds and weave through the pits until I’m at my trailer I’ve tucked away from the entrance for some privacy.
I thought the race would have been called given the rain this morning. I make those decisions, right?
Nope. Glen does. He’s in charge of the track preparation and with his and Cliff’s, head of our track safety crew, assessment of the track at two in the afternoon, they’ve decided to go on with the weekly races.
Glen’s standing by my trailer with Cliff, who’s on a tractor getting ready to head out for track prep, something we’ve essentially been doing for the last three days, but with the rain this morning, we have to start over.
“How’d the meeting go with Madalyn?” Glen asks.
I sigh, wanting to forget this morning with her, but sadly, I can’t. Running my hand through my hair, I sit down in the chair outside my trailer. “She asked me to sell her the land.”
Glen hooks his hands on the straps of his overalls, raising his bushy eyebrows. “And you said?”
I raise an eyebrow, twisting my neck to eye him carefully. “What do you think?”
He smiles, nodding and pats my back. I set my helmet down on the table outside my trailer. “There’s a reason why he left this place to you, Ridge,” he tells me. “You’ll understand when the time is right.”
Will I? I’m not sure I ever will.
As the day progresses, it’s race night at Calistoga Speedway and the odor of exhaust and rubber mix with the smell of beer, tri-tip, and kettle-corn and grilling hamburgers. It makes me think of Aly and Saturday nights under the grandstand, my racing heart, her shaking hands. It brings back memories of sitting on tailgates, stealing kisses under the grandstands when her brother looked the other way, and the way she held on tight to my hoodie.
My eyes find the track that captured our childhood and held it captive. It’s buried deep under those red clay ruts. I’m clinging to the catch fence like the tear-offs after the race.
In this moment, I miss Calistoga and the feeling it gave me. I miss my dad and him chasing me through the infield, b
arely able to walk. I miss the adrenaline of this place. The fan, crowded tightly in the metal bleachers, cheering on their favorite drivers, roaring with anticipation of what the race gave to them.
Nothing lasts forever.
Now what am I left with? Memories of what it used to be?
A man bumps me from behind, his shoulder brushing mine. Our eyes catch, but I look away, shaking the memories with it.
Walking toward the office building, I notice the stands are filling up and it’s looking like it’s going to be a good night for business.
The track has been here for a long time. There are grandparents in the stands who first came as children.
Over the last few years, my dad had done a total transformation on the half mile. It’s one of the most famous dirt ovals on the west with a new catch fence all the way around the track. A massive amount of work had been done to the racing surface. It’s wider and now features a better degree of banking allowing for a smoother transition in the corners.
Owning a dirt track isn’t going to be easy, and as I stand in the infield pits, it’s apparent to me.
With an inexperienced owner, fluctuating land values, high liability insurance, the sagging economy, complaints from neighbors (and my mother), competition from other venues, problems with the Environmental Protection Agency, I know this place isn’t going to be easy to operate. The EPA can be harsh and they’ve always given us a hard time here. I understand why, too. Up until just a few years ago, some dirt-track owners poured used motor oil on the dirt to keep down the dust. Hell, at a closed-down track in Florida, developers had to abandon plans to build on the site after the EPA declared that all the oil had soaked into the dirt making it toxic.
I’m not saying we did that here, but still, you get why the EPA might be up your ass on any given night because of that.
Then there’s rain. Despite living in California, it can still be a problem and one rain-out is catastrophic for revenue. You work six days a week getting the track ready. Our tracks on the west coast are usually open just one night a week, about thirty-five Fridays or Saturdays in all, from March to November—and one shower ruins it all. The fans don’t come, but the bills continue to accumulate.