Tree Climbing For Beginners

by Joyia Marie

  “Okay, well,” I said setting my empty coffee cup down, “we can ‘coulda, shoulda woulda’ this all day but it won’t change anything. I’ll get the kids tonight and take them to the motel with me. I’ll make sure they get back and forth to school and make sure you have a copy of the games so you can be there.”

  “There you go again,” he said in frustration, standing up since I had. “You make these unilateral decisions without even consulting me. Contrary to what you might believe, they are our kids so WE should make the decisions about what happens to them. Now sit back down, have another cup of coffee, and let’s talk. You still haven’t told me about what you hoped.”

  I sat back down and got another cup of coffee and wished he was this persistent about keeping his wedding vows as he was about hearing about my ‘hopes’. I also wished I had kept my big mouth shut.

  My hopes were my hopes and none of his business especially since it appeared the lovely and talented Jillian was the one pulling his strings. I guess I should be glad he’s giving me a chance to fix this instead of signing the papers and shipping the kids off to boarding school.

  , Harold Sr. probably had a big part to play in that. Between Harold Sr. and Jillian, I’m not sure who’d I back. Harold Sr. held the purse strings, but Jillian held the pussy. So six of one, half a dozen of the other, which would carry more weight? Your guess is as good as mine.

  “Helen,” Harold prompted me and I felt like growling. Good grief, he’s like a dog with a bone I thought.

  Then I let it rip, “okay Harold you really want to know what I hoped? Why I left my kids to your tender mercies?” I asked cryptically.

  Harold nodded slowly, as if he wasn’t sure at all but was determined to hang in there. Again, my respect for him rose the tiniest bit. Harold didn’t confront. He avoided as long as possible, then tried to avoid some more. This must be so far outside his comfort zone as to be giving him a rash.

  “Well,” I said, leaning back in my chair and setting my coffee down to free my hands, “what I hoped,” I said making air quotes around the word ‘hoped’ “was to give my children the one thing I never had. A father. My father ran out of me when I was a baby as you know.”

  “If that was your father,” he muttered reminding me, I had shared my fears with him back when I used to trust him.

  “Nope, John Dudley is my father. Or I guess I should say J. Dudley,” I said with a new pride. Both my parents were famous photographers. How cool was that?

  “Your father is J. Dudley?” Harold said, getting something for the first time. Vivian and Grandma Gert were famous in the art and art appreciation crowd but J. Dudley is famous with everyone. He takes pictures of celebrities so he’s a celebrity himself.

  “Wow,” Harold said when I nodded with a pleased grin. “But why are you so sure now? I’ve seen J. Dudley and you don’t look anything like him.”

  “Yeah, well, Vivian cleared that up for me. , I look like my paternal grandmother who died not too long after I was born. She’s going to dig out a picture and show me, but I believe her.”

  “Vivian's here?”Harold said, looking at the door in a panic, as if she might come bursting in at any moment.

  Harold has always given Vivian a wide berth and much respect. Before we got married, Vivian pulled Harold aside at the rehearsal dinner and said something to him which bleached him out whiter than the shirt he was wearing.

  After that, he walked softly around her, he pulled his mother aside, and suddenly the question who was walking me down the aisle was settled. My threat about Vegas was that one last shot across the bow when she cornered me alone and had to try just one more time. I don’t think her heart was in it, but she couldn’t let it go.

  I don’t know what she said, I never asked. I was just glad Harold and my mother got along, such as it was. All the rest was gravy and I recognized a mama bear defending her cub. Where do you think I got my mama bear tendencies from?

  Chapter Fifty-Six: Helen

  “Yep, probably in a dark room somewhere. You know how she is when she comes in off the road,” I said to calm him down.

  The last thing I needed was him running for cover by trying to run out of that office and straight into Raphael. As I told Harold that day at the salon, Raphael was not happy with him and was just aching to show him how not happy he was. So far, I had kept Raphael on his leash, but if Harold tried to escape, all bets were off.

  “Okay, and congrats on getting the paternity thing cleared up. I know how much that bothered you. But back to what you were saying. The kids had a father, they had me, even if I left so why the big push to leave them with me?” Harold asked and put like that it didn’t make a lot of sense.

  “Harold you have to remember in my family once a man is out of the house, he’s gone. Grandpa John left never to be seen again and my dad did the same thing. How was I to know you wouldn’t do that too? I get it now, you’re you and not them, but at the time this seemed like the only way to make sure you stayed in the picture,” I said earnestly, leaning slightly forward in my chair to impress my sincerity on him.

  “You can’t really blame your grandfather. A gunshot scar would make the holidays a bit awkward. Your dad, I can’t speak on that as I don’t know his reasoning, but he must have had some that made sense to him. But, Helen, I’m not going anywhere. I would never desert my kids even if it looked like that is what I was doing that night. My kids are everything to me even if I don’t show it the way you do,” Harold said with his own measure of sincerity.

  Suddenly, I believed him and I thought we could work this out. I’d have to pay for another set of divorce papers, but as long as I knew my kids would have some kind of access to their dad, then I was good. I guess I always kind of expected this and that’s why I made sure to have a comfortable home for them to come to.

  “So you never heard from your grandfather again?” Harold said casually, his thoughts elsewhere.

  “We heard of him. Grandma Gert got the news about five years after he left that he was dead. There were husbands that believed as strongly as she did in the sanctity of marriage and were much better shot,” I told him, not believing I hadn’t told him this before.

  I thought everyone knew the sad end of Grandpa John. Ah well, tipping is not for the faint of heart. I am starting to believe it should be considered an extreme sport like snowboarding from a helicopter or running with the bulls in Pamplona.

  Grandma Gert was saddened by the news, but cheered up considerably when she found out he had failed to change his life insurance beneficiary. She was still listed so she used the money to send her girls to college. Her painting wasn’t paying as much then as it would later in life so the money came right on time.

  “Okay, well, I think we’re good here,” I said standing up again. It wasn’t yet noon, I was already exhausted, and I’d need to get a nap before getting my kids. I have to admit to a thrill of happiness. I had missed having my kids with me every day and I’d be happy to have them under my roof again.

  “Go ahead and shred those papers and I’ll have my lawyer draw up some more with me as primary custodian,” I said.

  “Why do that, when I’m signing these right here,” Harold said as he put action to words. I think I heard a muffled ‘yes’ outside the door, but I could be sure I was still too caught up in my own amazement.

  “But Harold, why?” I asked after he shoved the papers into the envelope and handed the envelope to me. “You didn’t want this. I’m good with having the kids as long as you’re not going to pull a runner like my father. What about Jillian?”

  Harold waved me back into my chair which was good as I felt like I was about to fall down. All this wrangling to end like this? I felt slightly lightheaded. I thought I heard a muffled groan outside the door and wondered if we’d be calling an ambulance for Harold Sr. before this meeting was over.

  Ah, well, eavesdroppers never hear what they want to so he should get away from the door. I’m surprised Raphael didn’t have a bett
er handle on this then I wondered if I needed to check on my friend. Harold Sr. was old, but he was wily. Would wily outmaneuver Marine, I wondered.

  “Raphael?” I inquired thought the closed door from my seat.

  “Yeah?” Raphael said from right outside the door.

  “Everything okay out there?” I said glad to hear his voice. I had this ugly picture of Grace and Harold Sr. overpowering Raphael and tying him up with the cords from various pieces of office equipment. The imagination can be a nasty thing from time to time.

  “Five by five,” he said calmly.

  “Okay, we’re almost done in here,” I said hopefully. Actually, I had no idea, but I did know I had a lot to think about and I wasn’t sure if here was the best place to do said thinking.

  “Take your time, I got this,” he said still calmly and I had no doubt.

  There was a reason he was riding my six today other than the fact I knew he scared Harold. He would take the necessary action without getting crazy. He wouldn’t harm Harold Sr. but he would keep him out of the office.

  Although I got the feeling, he and Harold Sr. were taking turns at the keyhole with Grace standing by hoping for a tiny listen. Ah well, not as if this was going to be a secret for long either way.

  “Okay, Harold, explain,” I said, channeling my inner Raphael. “What’s with the 180, you’ve been trying to get me to take the kids since this began. So what’s up now?”

  “Then, I thought you were doing this to punish me for Jillian and to mess up me and Jillian. Now that I can see, you’re doing this for the kids, and who’s to say you’re wrong? I have pretty much missed out on the first twelve years and the next six are going to pass in the blink of an eye. I would like to have the kind of relationship you have with our kids. Bottom line the kids were my idea not yours, so it’s not fair to try to saddle you with them now. I still feel bad about using your grief at Grandma Gert’s death to get you to agree,” he said quietly.

  I looked at Harold’s sincere expression and decided to give him a little honest of my own. “Harold, if I didn’t want to have kids, I never would have, Grandma Gert or not. I had never thought about kids, but I guess I knew in the back of my mind, I’d have some, but when you came to me almost demanding them, like by becoming your wife I owed you offspring, I dug in my heels.

  “Grandma Gert’s death gave me a wake up call that it’s not promised to any of us and I wanted to have kids before I missed out. I had hesitated because of my career, which you never took seriously, but meant the world to me. But her death also gave me a graceful way to give in without having to say I was wrong. It was easier to let you believe you had convinced me into it,” I admitted.

  Harold looked me at me for a long moment, then gave a big sigh of relief as if a huge weight had just fallen from his shoulders. “Wow, that is good to hear, I’ve felt guilty about that for years. Especially when the Leslie Vandersmoot thing started and you had to keep that under wraps. Which I appreciate, believe me, my mother never would understand,” he said.

  I just looked at him. Did everybody in the whole wide world know this secret? But wait a minute if he knew then why was he acting so perplexed about how I was paying for things? I thought his mother might be a lot more understanding than he thought, but decided to leave that alone. If having my mom at 60 reading my books gave me the shivers, I’m sure having Harold’s 80-year-old mother reading them would give Harold heart palpitations.

  “How did you know?” I asked the one question to spring to the top of the stack.

  “Well,” he said shamefacedly. “One day I came home and you had left your computer up and I saw a manuscript with the name Leslie Vandersmoot as the author. I looked it up on Google and saw she wrote erotic romance.

  “Then why did you keep expecting me to give up my loft?” I asked in confusion. Surely, Google would have clued him in to how lucrative LV was.

  “How much money can something like that pay?” he asked in bewilderment. I looked at him open-mouthed and wondered if I should tell him. Again, I held back, too much information in the hands of an idiot was a dangerous thing. Look at his lady love Jillian.

  “It keeps me in jump drives and coffee,” I said and left it at that.

  His smile was slightly condescending, but I let that go as well. He’d live a happier life that way and I knew Jillian would. They needed to win and if picturing me as a struggling writer with a construction worker for a boyfriend worked for them, then it worked for me.

  Poor Harold he was in the exact right profession for him. He could look at a tree any tree and tell you what type of tree it was, what kind of paper it would make and how many pounds of such paper it would produce but anything outside that he was clueless. A hundred thousand dollar painting on the wall and a millionaire author for his wife and he had no idea.

  “So you really want this?” I said, holding up the signed papers. He nodded with a big smile and I felt better. We could review it later, maybe switch to a shared custody thing, but he deserved his shot. I had had the twins for the first twelve years, he deserved the last six if he could handle it. The man I saw before right then could.

  “Cool, I’ll drop them at my lawyers and we should have this wrapped up in a couple of months,” I said standing up for what I hoped was the last time. I was starting to feel like a jack in the box.

  “Sounds good, I’ll tell my lawyer to expect to hear from your lawyer,” he said standing up and coming around the desk.

  We stood there looking at each other for a long minute. It was hard to believe it was over and with no bloodshed. He was my husband and soon he would not be and that was sad. I guess he felt it too, because he opened his arms and I walked right into them.

  We shared a long goodbye hug before he released me. I bucked up, while we would no longer be spouses, we would always be co-parents and that relationship was the most important one anyway.

  “So you and that guy at the soccer game,” he said, looking at anything but me, “that serious?”

  I almost didn’t answer as it was really none of his business and I still had the papers to file. I didn’t want Harold changing his mind and grabbing them and shredding them in a fit of jealousy, but as my co-parent, he had the right to ask.

  “Not yet, but we’ll see,” I said as honestly as I could. It was the best answer I could give him right then.

  “If it becomes serious, you tell him he better treat you right or he’ll have me to answer to,” Harold said with a smile.

  I smiled as well, but probably not for the same reason. The thought of the pale and thin Harold trying to take the buff and bronzed Aiden to task was hilarious, but I took it in the manner it was given and smiled wider.

  “You tell Jillian the same,” I said as I moved toward the door. I think that warning would have a little more bite than Harold’s and Jillian would understand I was still watching her.

  “Will do, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about. For some reason I think you make her nervous,” Harold said innocently.

  As well I should, I thought and gave him a bland smile. I gave him a cheery wave, then opened the door. Raphael and Harold Sr. almost fell in. Good grief, didn’t they hear me coming? I was wearing boots not ballet slippers so it wasn’t as if I was sneaking up on the door.

  Harold Sr. caught himself and tried to play it off as if nothing had happened. “Helen,” he said, then moved past me into the office.

  Lately it seems like that’s all he says to me and he thinks I get a lot more out of that than I do. I really need to get my ‘strong and silent’ to English dictionary. I get the feeling a lot is being lost in translation.

  “Harold,” I said as Raphael and I exchanged an amused glance.

  Raphael didn’t even bother to look ashamed for being caught snooping. He may not tell all but he wanted to know all and that included snooping when necessary. Then his look got serious and he examined me more closely, for what I don’t know.

  If Harold had fantasized about
raising his hand to me, Raphael would have been through the door. Just in time to find me bouncing him off every wall in that office. I may not believe in gunplay, but I would snatch a knot in Harold’s ass, if he got crazy. Just part of my home training, I guess you could say.

  When I smiled up at Raphael and waved the signed papers, he smiled and nodded to the two men in the room. They nodded back, afraid to do anything else. They knew Raphael and his history and knew he could do something a lot worse than rat their hair if he felt it was justified.

  I gave the men a wave, then left the room. I smiled at Grace, who was practically chewing her lip off with curiosity, but she was too well trained to come out and ask. I left, Harold could tell her what he wanted if he wanted. He and I were finally done and I had the paperwork to prove it.

  Getting out of Peterson paper was as much of a parade as coming in with everyone watching Raphael and me. The bolder ones spoke and I returned their greetings glad I would probably never see these people again.

  I was coming to understand normal was seriously overrated. Who had this kind of time to wonder about what people they barely knew were doing? I could dish with the best of them, but my heart was never in it.

  As Grandma Gert used to say, people mind their own business when they have business worth minding. I usually had business worth minding with my kids or my work or my family.

  We finally reached the parking lot and Raphael’s SUV. We hopped in and he asked where to.

  “Ms. Smithfield’s office” I said in triumph and laughed like a maniac when he took off in a spurt of gravel.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven: Helen

  I stood in the motel room and stared at my cell phone as if it had the answers to all life’s questions. Unfortunately, it didn’t have a store of bravery as well or I wouldn’t be staring at it, I’d be making the phone call I was anticipating and dreading all week. I was finally ready to call Aiden.

  It was weird thinking about not talking to him when he has been on my mind constantly. It’s as if he took up residence in my head and from time to time steps forward just to remind me he’s there. My libido’s been have a blast in her fantasy life.