by Joyia Marie
She was right. Beauty is one of the most reproduced photographs of the modern age. Wearable Art put it on T-shirts and another company has mass marketed it on coffee mugs, mouse pads, prints and everything else you can imagine. For a while, I thought that picture would drive me crazy but now I just see it as a testament to my mother’s talent.
The original is currently in the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History just inside the entrance. It is the first thing visitors see when they enter the building. It is on permanent loan and I think mother is going to donate it in her will.
We pulled up in front of Peterson and the parking lot was about half full. Raphael parked, then looked at me. “You sure about this, Helen?” he asked in his rumbly voice.
“Yeah, if he was intending to sign he would have done it after our phone call yesterday. I want this over with or at least started to be over with and I need those papers signed to make that happen,” I said as I got out.
I was wearing some black jeans and a camouflage T-shirt, Raphael had gotten me on some holiday. My curls were flying wildly and I had my sunglasses planted firmly on my face. I had on black Doc Martins, which I hoped Harold would recognize as my ass kicking boots and not give me a whole bunch of flack. I wasn’t getting his reluctance to sign.
The security guard waved us in with a grin and I’m sure he was on the jungle drums the second we hit the elevator. The word would go out that the first Mrs. Peterson slash Dudley was in the building and she did not look happy.
By the time we got to Harold’s office, we were collecting looks wherever we went. I‘m not sure what they were expecting us to do but phones were ringing all over the place. It may have been seeing me out of ‘uniform’.
The few times I was in the office, I wore one of the matronly outfits Gwendolyn pushed on me. Back then, I cared what these people thought now I just hoped they stayed out of my way.
I bypassed Grace, who was trying to stop us or at least find out why we were there, but Raphael gently pushed her back into her seat. “No calls,” he said before he followed me into the office and shut the door. I marched up to Harold’s desk and planted my fists on it. I was glad to see the divorce papers sitting there but not as pleased when I saw they weren’t signed.
“Okay Harold, I have given you every opportunity in the world to get this done. This is the last time. I’m going to ask you to sign these papers and let me run them over to my lawyer to get his party started,” I said staring at Harold’s sweaty pasty face.
“If I don’t?” he asked in an admirable show of bravado.
“Then…” I drawled leaning a hip against his desk and studying my fingernails in a show of nonchalance. “I’m going to step out and let Raphael ask you to sign the papers.”
I gave him a gritty smile, which widened as his eyes bounced between Raphael and me. He looked trapped and that is exactly what I wanted. This was over. He and I were over and he was just holding up things to be a prick.
I was done. I gave him 14 years and two kids and he traded them or tried to trade them in for a blackmailing bleached blond bimbo. Trade approved, but I wasn’t going to be sitting on my hands waiting for him to get on the good foot and let me go.
“You can’t do that, that’s intimidation which would make the papers invalid anyway. Any contract signed under duress is automatically invalid,” Harold said bravely.
Did I mention Harold and I used to watch the criminal procedural shows together? We used to argue the cases before having mediocre sex. Hey, it worked for us.
I gave a low scream before pulling at my curls. What the hell was wrong with this man? He started this, he wanted it, he all but demanded this, but when it’s time to pull the plug and call time of death, he’s balking?
I looked at his resolute face and knew I had to get to the bottom of this or this morning’s work would come back to haunt me. The last thing my skeletons needed was some ghosts to keep them company. The closet was only so big.
I plopped down in the visitor’s chair in front of his desk with a sigh. “Raphael, can you give us a minute?” I said quietly.
I looked over my shoulder to watch Raphael leave without a word. He was sticking to his role of silent muscle, which I appreciated. I saw Grace and Harold Sr. at the door, but Raphael shut the door in their faces and left me alone with my husband for the first time in two weeks.
“Okay, Harold, what’s really going on?” I said, looking into Harold’s pale eyes. He dropped his eyes and fiddled with the papers not saying anything.
“Come on Harold, we’re burning daylight, talk to me so we can get this done,” I said impatiently as he continued to sit and fiddle like a kid in the principal’s office.
“Maybe, I’m not so sure I want to get this done,” he said sulkily.
I sighed and dropped my face into my hands. Good grief, not this again, I thought. “Harold, we’re over. It’s over. Poke it with a fork, it’s done.”
“How can you be so sure?” he shouted. “How can you always be so sure about everything all the time? That’s your problem, Helen, there’s no bend in you. It’s always your way or the highway. This time I’m taking my time and making sure this is what I want.”
“I must say you picked a funny time to get cold feet. May I remind you that you started this? You had the affair. You all but waved that affair in my face until the night you actually waved it in my face. You were in love, Harold. You wanted to be with Jillian, Harold. You wanted to run off and be with Jillian, Harold. You wanted a divorce, Harold. So guess what? Wish granted. You get Jillian and your divorce.”
“Along with the kids,” he snarled.
I looked at him in amazement. I reached up and pulled off my sunglasses to get a clearer look at this man. Who the hell was this and what on earth had I ever seen in him I wondered.
“Is that what all this is about, Harold? You’re dragging your feet because you don’t want the kids? Problem solved. I’ll take the kids. Not a problem. I had hoped…” here I stopped, then shook my head. “It doesn’t matter what I hoped. If having the children you wanted with you is such a burden, then yes, I’ll take them and happily so. You win, Harold, you get to go off and live your adolescent cheerleader fantasy with Jillian and forget about your kids. Good for you.”
I got up and stomped toward the door before I burst into tears. My poor babies, what was I thinking leaving them with this asshole. I reached for the doorknob and in a scene curiously like the night I left, Harold grabbed my hand holding the doorknob again. This time I was not in the mood to be so kind.
“Let me go, Harold. You’re getting what you wanted, just like you always do, but this time you’re the loser. I will take my children and raise them to be awesome individuals and you can ride off into the sunset with your bitch. Shred those papers and my lawyer will have the papers giving me sole custody will be on your desk by close of business today,” I snarled.
I thought I heard an exclamation on the other side of the door, then someone was scrambling at the doorknob from the other side. That stopped and I hear Raphael's rumble as he talked to someone. I think it was Harold Sr.
“No, wait, talk to me. I didn’t mean it like that. You know I wanted the kids, I’ve always wanted the kids even when you didn’t. Tell me what you hoped,” he murmured into my hair.
I turned around and stared up at him and for a brief moment I saw the man I fell in love with. The man who used to listen to me burble on about my imaginary people as if I was Sherazade with my thousand tales of a thousand nights, and he the prince.
He stared down at me and his hand reached up and twirled a curl around his finger as he used to do when we were lying on that blanket on the floor of my old loft. He was fascinated by my curls and played with them constantly.
“You look just the same,” he said in amazement, before dropping his head. I turned my head at the last moment and his kiss landed on my cheek. Like I said, we were done and no brief trip down memory lane was going to change that.
He sighed, then backed up. He looked at me then sighed again, “but you’re not the same.” I shook my head and watched as he went back behind his desk again. “Come sit down and talk to me. Tell me what you hoped,” he said calmly with an inviting wave of his hand.
Chapter Fifty-Five: Helen
I walked back over and plopped back down, my nerves screaming for coffee. I looked around and saw the coffee maker on the credenza was empty. Harold smiled at me then ordered us some coffee. “That hasn’t changed. I think my coffee expenses have dropped significantly since you left.”
I gave him a weary smile and waited impatiently until Raphael came in with a coffee tray with a small pot of coffee, two cups, and coffee accoutrements. I raised a brow at him and wondered how he wrestled it out of Grace’s hands. Raphael was a Marine but Grace was a gossip nonpareil so I would have bet even money on that throwdown.
“You alright?” he murmured as he handed me a perfectly prepared cup of Joe.
“Yeah,” I murmured back. “We okay on time or do you need to get back?”
“It’s good, Sheila is opening I told her I was taking the day off,” he said and I looked at him in amazement. Raphael never took the day off. He might take a half a day here and there, but 6 days a week, he was in that salon in some capacity.
“It’s okay,” he said and gave me a firm pat on the shoulder. He looked at Harold and I’m not sure what Harold got out of that look, but from my seat, the look said ‘fuck with her or those kids and die’. I think that’s what Harold got as well as he sunk down in his chair with his own cup of coffee.
Raphael gave me another reassuring look before exiting the office to take up his post as a guard. No one would be getting in until he or I said so. Harold was on office arrest until I said differently. Although what we still needed to talk about was a mystery to me.
I don’t know what I was thinking. You can’t force someone to be a parent if they don’t want to and Harold didn’t want to. He wanted some kind of weird bragging rights for having had kids, but the heavy lifting of the day-to-day, not so much. I was finally ready to admit defeat.
After all, this was what I wanted. Not what the kids wanted or even Harold wanted. He’d see them as much during visitation as he ever did while we were all under the same roof. If he didn’t take advantage of visitation? Then, I’d have to love my kids twice as much to make up for Harold. They’d be fine, we’d be fine, and Harold would be the loser.
“So what did you hope?’ Harold asked after Raphael left, softly closing the door.
“What?” I said as I sat there and sipped coffee, reorganizing plans in my head. The twins could come with me to the motel. Mrs. Gunderson could check in on us there or take some time off until the loft was done, which should be soon at the rate Aiden was pushing the men.
“You’re doing it again,” Harold said in irritation pulling me out of my thoughts.
It was cool as I thought I had a workable plan. Carting the kids to school every morning would be a grip, but I’d make it work. I wouldn’t make them change schools in the middle of the year and I needed to find out what school district the loft was in anyway.
“Helen, talk to me,” Harold shouted, almost startling me into spilling my coffee. I set the precious beverage down and looked at Harold in confusion. What the hell was his major malfunction? He was getting what he wanted. No need to talk it to death.
“What would you like to talk about Harold?” I said slowly as I picked my coffee back up to give my hands something to do other than to reach across his desk and choke the life out of him. I was so done with this man.
“Why did you do this? Leave the kids with me, ? I thought it was just to screw up me and Jillian, but today you made me wonder, so tell me what you hoped,” he said patiently.
“What does it matter Harold you made your position abundantly clear. You want Jillian, Jillian doesn’t ‘do’ kids so the kids have to go. Case closed. I’ll take the kids and you and Jillian can ride off into the sunset and make little idiots together. Maybe you’ll want those kids,” I said sarcastically.
“Wait, wait, wait, I never said I didn’t want my kids. The only one who ever said that was you. As far as Jillian ‘doing’ kids and lord knows I wish I had never told you about that, she knows if she’s going to be with me then she will learn to‘do’ kids,” he said firmly rising a tiny bit in my estimation.
“What is this ride off into the sunset bit. You act as if I was planning on going somewhere with Jillian. Where would I go? My job is here, my family is here, and my home is here. I still planned on being in the kids’ lives just not as primary caregiver, but I had never been the primary caregiver before so why would I expect that? I thought you did this to screw up Jillian and me and maybe now so you’d have some free time for the guy from the soccer game, but it doesn’t sound like that so tell me what you’re doing. Why did you do this?” he asked, his voice still patient.
I sat there and thought. Why had I been so convinced Harold would disappear if I didn’t nail his feet to the floor? Was it because that’s what my father had done and my grandfather had done? Harold wasn’t Grandpa John or even my father, John he was Harold.
While he was a bit of an absentee father, I couldn’t even blame that on him. He parented the way he was parented and his father wasn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy, help the kids with homework and projects kind of father.
Some of that might be due to Harold Sr. age when Harold was born and some of it might because that’s the way he was parented. Just as creativity and missing dads were in my gene pool, maybe distant fathers were in Harold’s.
“Helen,” Harold said, pulling me out of my confusing thoughts. “Talk to me? Did you do this just to screw me and Jillian up? What did you hope would happen?”
I wished he’d stop talking about my ‘hopes’, in the clear light of day they sounded a little juvenile and manipulative. Harold was Harold and there was nothing I could or would do to change it. His relationship with the kids was his relationship with the kids and I needed to keep my busy fingers out of it. If he flubbed it, then on his head be it. He and the kids would have to work that out.
I gave him a mischievous grin and said, “Okay, okay, in the beginning, the very beginning, I did do this to throw a spoke in your wheels with the lovely Jillian. But you started it, walking me into the bedroom, sitting me down, and spilling all that crap on me. With that big shit eating grin on your face like I was supposed to give you a hearty pat on the back and wish you the best of luck.”
Harold had the grace to look embarrassed, which made the rest of it come out. “I had intended to give you a couple of days of carpool, soccer practice and Mrs. Gunderson before I came back and let you go on with your life then I started thinking.”
“What, what did you think,” Harold said with interest. He sounded the same way he used to sound when I would bounce story ideas off him. I gave a sigh, I had missed that, but that too was over, long before this happened.
“Harold, you were an absentee father. Yes, I understand why. You were trying to prove to your father you were worthy of his legacy which I personally find abhorrent but hey what do I know? So I raised the kids, and kept the home fires burning until you made it, but then It seemed like the second you did then this thing with Jillian started,” I said, my mind back there.
“So you knew from the beginning?” he said, his pale face flushed.
“Yeah,” I said sarcastically. “Come on Harold, working late? Really? You make paper not the flu vaccine. There are not that many paper producing crisis in the world. So yeah, I knew. I didn’t know who but I knew there was a who. I didn’t know her name until that night I left. However, I did know she was a blond who was shedding like a husky in the summer.”
Harold looked at me confused and I wanted to pat his pointed little head. He and Jillian was a match made in idiot heaven, so far be it from me to stand in their way. Maybe it would be a good thing to have the twins out of the line of fire when their passion f
inally got to run free.
“Why didn’t you say something? Why did you… ” here he stopped looking embarrassed.
“You mean, why didn’t I fight for you? Why didn’t I leave my babies at home alone and track you down to your love nest? Or better than that confront you here at work? Is that what you mean, Harold?” I asked with a lifted brow.
“Yeah, I guess, you never said anything, no matter how many nights I was out late so I thought you didn’t know. I had worked a lot of late nights when I was working my way up the ladder so I thought you thought it was just an extension of that. Then when you told me the other day that you knew all the time, I began to wonder if you just didn’t care enough to… I don’t know fight for me,” he said, his face flushed but his tone resolute.
“Harold, you are my husband, not my possession. Bottom line I have too much pride to go the jealous wife route. I was not going to make a fool out of myself all over town about you and whoever. You know as well as I do that would have gotten around then gotten back to the kids. The kids were and are my primary focus. Therefore, I could sit and wait until they were out of school before confronting you about this. Trust me, there was a confrontation coming just on my timetable, not yours,” I said firmly.
“Damn, that was my plan as well, but Jillian started putting pressure on me and I thought that it would be okay. I would still go to the games and such and see the kids, but I’d just do it from Jillian’s instead of the house,” Harold admitted.
I bit back a smile at having my suspicions confirmed. For a second, the jury was out on whether Harold was a selfish prick to break up his home for his side piece but with Jillian at his back, I could see it happening. Harold was not strong. I knew that when I married him, he and I was okay with that. I just never figured on a Jillian.