Tree Climbing For Beginners

by Joyia Marie

  Harold remembered a brief conversation about Helen bringing some help until she had a better handle on the whole motherhood thing, but he assumed she meant a nanny or another nurse. He also assumed it had ended years ago. Apparently, he had assumed wrong.

  Even after the debacle with the loft, Harold opened an account for the household expenses and given Helen a debit card for it. It was for gas, food and other incidentals. He might not make the father of the year, but he was determined to care for his kids at least financially.

  Helen balanced the statement of that account and his only involvement was to transfer funds once a month. Harold took care of the bills like the utilities, the mortgage, and car payments. It seemed to work well and Helen never complained. She had credit cards at the clothing boutiques for clothes and he settled those bills as well. They had a comfortable life.

  Chapter Eleven: Harold

  Harold stopped as he pulled into the parking lot at the factory. He was late so he had to park out a bit. His father didn’t believe in assigned parking, but Harold noticed he always got the parking spot closest to the door. Harold didn’t know if the employees left it out of respect or that his father just got here that early.

  Harold grabbed his briefcase and hustled to the door. He’d have to move if he wanted to get a cup of coffee and get to his desk on time. At promptly nine o’clock, his father would make his rounds like a prison guard at the penitentiary, and woe betide anyone would wasn’t at their desk hard at work.

  He managed to grab a cup of coffee and get to his desk right before his father rounded the corner. He booted up his computer and scattered some papers on his desk to look like he was there longer than 30 seconds.

  He heard a crinkle in his pocket of his suit coat as he removed it that reminded him to look at the kids’ schedules when he had a chance. The plan was to have Helen safely ensconced at home by this afternoon, but just in case he needed to know what the kids had on the docket for today.

  He knew there was something. There was something every day. He remembered from the horrified glance that he had gotten last night. He heard of Hollywood starlets whose schedule wasn’t so tightly packed. He wondered whose idea all that crap was, Helen’s or the kids.

  He knew the kids had a lot of stuff going on and they seemed to always be heading somewhere, but the only things that really penetrated his consciousness were the things he had to show up for. Helen was good about keeping his schedule up to date with all the games, plays and recitals they kids had.

  She might not embrace technology, but she respected the fact he did. She’d shoot him emails with updates, all he had to do was hit a button, and it would be added to his schedule. Jillian was less than enthused when he had to cancel one of their trysts for one of the kids’ activities but on that, he wouldn’t budge.

  Even though he intended to leave Helen and eventually make Jillian his wife, it didn’t mean he was intending to desert his children. He worked too long and too hard just to bring them into the world to drop out now. It would be just as easy to go to a game from Jillian’s apartment as it would from the house.

  Jillian had backed off complaining when he told her it might be better to deal with Helen after the kids graduated. In his perfect scenario, that is what would have happened. He only would have been in his mid forties and Jillian in her late twenties. Plenty of time to make a life together. He wouldn’t even mind starting over with a new baby with Jillian. Okay, he’d be in his sixties by the time this tyke graduated, but so had his father and that turned out all right.

  He didn’t understand what the rush was anyway. He saw Jillian every day at work and almost every night. He thought Helen might start kicking up a fuss at his sudden spate of ‘working late’ but she’d just give him a considering look when he got in and go back to whatever she was doing.

  The over the bed table was a staple in their bedroom now and he’d often find Helen typing away when he walked in. She’d give him a look that reminded him of Tonya and he’d slink into the bathroom to wash off the smell of Jillian’s perfume and the stink of shame.

  Funny how Jillian’s perfume seemed to get stronger the longer they spent together. When he first met her, she wore a light floral fragrance that tickled and tantalized his senses. However, over time, it had morphed into a deep, sexual musk that announced itself from a mile away.

  Harold learned to avoid Helen until after he took a thorough shower. He tried showering at Jillian’s but all her soaps had the same fragrance so he learned to move quickly throughout the bedroom and hope for the best.

  Every night, by the time he finished his shower, and returned to the bedroom he’d find Helen asleep or at least faking it. She slept so quietly it was hard to tell. Her laptop would be closed and the bed table pushed to the side. He’d slip into bed and fall quickly asleep his dreams filled with Jillian and her wonderful body.

  “Cutting it kind of close today, aren’t you, son?” his father asked before walking in and sitting in the visitors chair in front of the desk.

  Harold felt his armpits moisten. It wasn’t unusual for his father to drop by his office several times a day. However, he usually stood in the doorway said what he had to say and moved on. A sit down visit usually meant he needed to ‘discuss’ something with Harold. This meant he was going to lecture and Harold was expected to nod and comply.

  Harold reviewed his behavior and couldn’t think of any of his father’s myriad rules he had broken to warrant this visit. The sweat in his pits was joined by the sweat on his forehead when his father jumped up and shut his door before sitting back down. This was serious and Harold had no idea what it was.

  There was no way for Harold Sr. to know Helen had flown the coop and Harold wasn’t sure that would require a sit down visit. Harold Sr. had never been too sure about Helen though the birth of the twins seemed to make the old man friendlier toward her.

  She didn’t seem any surer about Harold Sr. or Gwendolyn, Harold’s mother. Most of the time she seemed to regard them with this patient amusement as if they were characters on a TV show. That patience would disappear if they interfered too often or too deeply with the younger Peterson household.

  “Yes,” Harold said slowly when his father cleared his throat. “I had to run the kids to school,” he said when it appeared his father was waiting for more.

  “Where is the mother of theirs?” Harold Sr. asked presumptuously. Harold had a flare of anger. It was his kids and his wife and he’d love to tell his father to take his sticky fingers out of his life. “Off at the loft of hers, I bet,” Harold Sr. said scornfully. Harold Sr. had never been a patron of the arts and still seemed confused as to how a writer had grafted herself onto his family tree.

  “Bad idea that,” Harold Sr. continued when Harold merely nodded. There was no way he was going into last night right now. Not until he had a better handle on what exactly was going on. “Doesn’t pay to let the wife have too much freedom. Don’t see why you didn’t end all that years ago. Seems to me as much time as she spends there writing, I would have heard of something she wrote by now.”

  “She pays for it herself,” Harold said as he always did. His father would have a litter of kittens if he thought Harold was supporting Helen in her ‘indulgences’ as his father like to refer to her loft.

  “As you always say,” Harold Sr. said. “But you never say with what money. How much could those articles or what have you be paying? I’m sure that money could be better spent inside the household rather than on that little loft of hers.”

  Harold nodded to show he agreed with him, but he still didn’t know how to change things and now the change was out of the question. He had no idea how much Helen made from her writing. It was years since they filed joint taxes. He carried the kids on his return as he was the one paying for them, but Helen’s finances were a mystery. She wasn’t one for fancy jewelry or cars and her only luxury was that loft.

  “No need to keep beating that dead horse,” his father said shocking Haro
ld.

  Usually his father could go on for hours about Helen, the loft, the role and duties of a wife. Harold had the speech memorized. That didn’t stop his father from feeling the need to deliver it on a regular basis.

  “I had another reason for stopping by,” his father said, his cheeks slightly flushed.

  Harold raised a brow and wondered what could embarrass his crusty old father. He had delivered a baby out on the manufacturing floor when a female worker misjudged her contractions for false labor. By the time, she realized that this really was it, she was in full labor, and there was no time to get her to the hospital.

  Harold Sr. rolled up his sleeves and delivered the child before the ambulance even got there. He handed the child to the paramedics, gave the mother a pat on the shoulder, rolled down his sleeves, and continued with his day after a trip to the washroom to wash his hands.

  Delivering the baby hadn’t embarrassed the old man. Having the grateful mother name her child after him did. He said it was nothing but Harold thought he saw a pleased gleam in his father’s eyes at the news.

  Harold arched a brow at his father when he stopped. Most of his conversations with his father involved him looking interested and not missing his cues to nod, shrug, or smile. Other than that, his participation was minimal at best.

  “Son, I’ve been hearing rumors about you,” his father said, leaning slightly forward and lowering his voice. Harold moaned inwardly and kept his face blank. He had a suspicion his assistant knew about him and Jillian and here was proof positive.

  “Rumors about you and that little blond girl in sales,” his father said when Harold said nothing.

  Harold hoped he was wrong and learned long ago that his father was crafty. Harold had confessed to misdeeds for years before he realized when his father came to him and asked if there was anything he wanted to tell him, he was fishing. After that, he learned to wait and find out what he was being accused of before jumping to conclusions.

  Harold’s mind reeled as he wondered what to say. He knew he’d have to tell his father sooner or later, but he was hoping for later. He was hoping to present his parents with a fait accompli like the French say. This was not how he wanted to have this discussion with his father.

  His father calling her a girl, didn’t bode well either. His father was scornful of the idea of a middle life crisis and thought the men leaving perfectly good wives for women half their age were stupid.

  “Look, Son, I’m not going to ask you if the rumors are true or not,” his father said earnestly. “But you have to see how this looks and if that wife of yours gets wind of this there is not telling what she might do. I love my grandchildren and I would hate to never see them again if that wife of yours gets a wild hair and divorces you and takes them off to parts unknown. You see how that mother of hers is. I’m sure the daughter is just as much a world traveler.”

  “Son, if the rumors are true, that blond girl isn’t worth your family. Your wife is worth ten of her even with that writing business. She’s kept a nice home and given you two great children. Don’t throw that away for the pleasures of the flesh,” his father said flushing on the last.

  That is as close as his proper father would come to discussing sex. Delivering babies is natural, but sex is private. Harold learned the facts of life from his friends at school. He was still waiting for his father to have ‘the talk’ with him. Then again, after Helen and Jillian he could probably tell his father a thing or two.

  Harold looked up when his father stood. His father was old, he realized. He had just turned 80. Right now, he looked every day of it. Harold hated worrying his father but wasn’t sure how to stop. The train left the station or Helen left the house, however, one chose to put it.

  “Look, son, I’m going to go and let you think about what we’ve talked about,” his father said as he moved his bent body toward the door. “Just make sure you think any decision all the way through before you do anything rash.”

  Harold nodded weakly and smiled a silent promise to do just that. He’d never been able to lie to his father, but he had no control over what his father assumed. His father looked at him for a long moment before he nodded and left Harold’s office, shutting the door behind him.

  Harold felt like he had just woken up from a dream. What was he thinking? There was no way his father would ever accept Jillian as his wife. Not if it meant he might lose access to his grandchildren.

  Harold might take comfort from the fact he had the kids right now, but whose to say when that might change. Just like Helen dumped them on him she might swoop in and decide to take them to her loft or further afield.

  Helen lived in five states by the time she graduated high school. The only reason she ended up here was she went to college here. This wasn’t home and he wasn’t stupid enough to think time had changed that.

  The impropriety of the vice president and a sales rep getting together would make his dad disapproving even if Harold kept the kids. His father had definite ideas about right and wrong and his son diddling the blond girl in sales would definitely be wrong in Harold Sr’s. book.

  Harold shook off the pessimistic thoughts. He loved Jillian and his father would just have to understand. His father hadn’t liked Helen all that well in the beginning and now here he was her champion. That was probably based on the fact she had presented him with two grandchildren.

  Jillian was ready and willing to do the same. It would be rough for a while, but he’d get through it. He tried to cheer himself with that thought, but somehow it didn’t sound as simple as when he talked to Jillian about it, as they lay sated in her bed.

  Harold pushed the problems out of his mind and got down to work. He was surprised that Jillian hadn’t been camped in his office, though why he would never know. He didn’t know any more now than he did last night. Helen hadn’t called to enlighten him, which came as no surprise. To Helen, her leaving would be all the enlightenment he should need.

  He resolved to track Helen down on his lunch break. He wouldn’t call her or he could see her lighting out just to make things difficult. He didn’t know why she was doing all this in the first place. She loved her kids as hard as she’s had fought their conception.

  He couldn’t complain on her mothering skills, but he meant to bring up the heavy meals back before he started taking most of his meals with Jillian. Now that he’d met Mrs. Gunderson the hearty meals made more sense.

  He thought Helen was on some kind of kick and hadn’t said anything not wanting to discourage any domestic urge she might have. Before the twins, her meals had consisted of take out and stir-fries and then they switched to what he endured for the last twelve years.

  He couldn’t believe how blind he had been. Right after they came home with the twins the house was a wreck. Helen’s mother was nowhere to be found and Helen actually growled when he mentioned his mother coming for a few days. Helen barely tolerated Gwendolyn and only a supreme lack of caring had gotten them this far.

  The stuff Gwendolyn wanted to do like showers and wedding and nurseries, Helen could give less that a hoot about. He had understood after Helen explained her bohemian upbringing. Her mother and father were hand-fasted, which was not enough to keep the man from pulling a runner and never been seen since.

  Helen had her doubts the man her mother claimed was her father was her father. She had an old picture of John Dudley and she looked nothing like him. Harold had agreed when he saw the picture.

  It was obvious she took her coloring after her mother, but the facial features were different and not like those of John Dudley. Helen used the last name as it was the one on her birth certificate but she never seemed fully satisfied as to her paternity.

  Therefore, she was content to let Gwendolyn handle all those rituals that Helen knew nothing about. At least not intimately enough to put them on. She could have picked up a book or looked on the net, but Helen was content to let Gwendolyn run the show.

  Unfortunately, this gave his mother the idea tha
t Helen was a pushover and only strenuous lobbying on his behalf kept Helen from letting his mother know just how wrong he was. He learned to keep the two women separated unless it was something Gwendolyn was putting on. Then the old lady was so busy fluttering around, making sure everything was okay that she left Helen alone.

  Harold worked steadily through the morning and soon his assistant was peeking in asking if she could bring him anything back as she was going to lunch. Harold hastily stacked all the papers on his desk and put the kids’ schedules that he still hadn’t looked at back in his pocket. Until he put that in his computer, that paper was the only thing to let him know where his kids were supposed to be.

  “No, I’m headed out myself,” Harold said, getting up from his desk. “I may be a little late back from lunch.” He winced when his assistant gave him a knowing look.

  “Okay, Mr. Peterson,” Grace said with a sly smile and a flutter of her fingertips in goodbye. Harold resolved to clear that up. If he could convince her he wasn’t having an affair then she’d take care of the rest of the company.

  Harold exited the building, glad the office wasn’t far from Helen’s loft. He dropped by for lunch back when they were courting. She used to set up picnic lunches on the sealed concrete floor. He remembered looking at her and wondering what she saw in him and how soon he could make it permanent before it was gone.

  Harold was experiencing a different kind of wonder as he stared at the empty lot where the row of lofts Helen used to live in used to be. What the hell… he thought in stupefied wonder.

  Harold snapped out of his trance when his phone chimed reminding him it was time to get the kids. He had managed to get that programmed into his phone and it looked like he’d need to get the rest of the kids’ schedules in as well.

  He took one last look at the tattered sign and noticed a piece had torn off and fluttered away. He felt like that sign was a symbol of his life. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours and he felt as ragged as that sign.