“David—”
“No, I’m not a child. You may be brilliant when it comes to the minds of children, but I’m an adult. I’m a grown ass man and my mind and the things I need are far more complex than what a child needs. Don’t pretend you know what’s good for me and what I need to move on. You don’t know jack shit!”
“I’ve seen a lot, with children and adults. Sometimes adults behave more childish than a nine year old.” She cocks her eyebrow at me. So she thinks I’m being childish. “Your age doesn’t change the fact that you need to process this, accept it and learn to live with it.” She throws her hands up in the air. “You being an adult doesn’t mean you don’t need the same thing a child may need when it comes to coping with the loss of someone they loved. A child, like Clare has a hard time comprehending why things happen. They can’t always process the reality of death and loss. As adults, we ask why things happen. Why does the universe feel fit to shit on our lives. To take things or people away from us, when we have done nothing to warrant it. But we understand the process of death. We may not agree with it, but we understand it. Children don’t. They don’t realize that we are born, we live and then we die. Some from natural causes, some from disease, and yes, some from accidents. That’s why it’s up to us adults to be there and help them through it. That means you,” she walks over to me and pokes her finger into my chest, tilting her head up to meet my stare. “Need to get your shit together so you can help that little girl. Because like it or not,” she pokes me again, “you are all that she has left,” her voice raises and she stomps her foot. I can see her chest rise and fall while she tries to contain her anger.
“Fuck you.”
A look of shock forms on her face. “No, David, fuck you.” She turns around and walks out of the kitchen.
“It’s about time you left, since you were never welcome here in the first place.”
She peeks her head back into the kitchen. “Oh no, hot shot attorney, you are so mistaken. I’m not going anywhere but into your bedroom.” Then she turns and walks away.
12
Olivia
I know they say you shouldn’t poke at a bear because all you’re going to do is piss that bear off and David, well he is a six-foot-four fine ass bear and I can’t help but poke at him. He pisses me off. More than any other man has ever pissed me off. He knows just how to work my nerves. Yeah, so, I may not have that much experience when it comes to men. Hey, I’m no nun, but the scars and regret from my past haven’t allowed me to live and love like I should. Especially at the age of thirty-five. I should have a husband and 2.5 kids by now, but I don’t. And well, if I can’t fix myself, then I need to fix everyone else. It’s my cover, it’s how I cope.
I make my way through the house. I need to find his bedroom. I need to be in his space before he has a chance to stop me. I know I don’t have much time before David comes out of his shock and comes after me. I take a chance and head right for the door at the end of the hallway. I’m just about out of time because I can hear his footsteps getting closer. The banging of his heels on the hardwood floor indicates that he may not be running but he sure is walking with determination. “Olivia, stop.” I hear him call from the beginning of the hall. I turn the knob and push open the door, revealing his bedroom. The sanctuary he shared with his wife.
Her perfume, or what I think is her perfume, tickles my nose. It’s light, and airy. Not too flowery. It has a calming effect on me as I breathe it in. I step inside and immediately feel David behind me. I can feel his breath on my hair. He’s pissed. He’s angry, well good. He needs to be. He needs to get this anger out once and for all so he can be the man I know he is. The man who Destiny looks up to, who she admires. The man, no, the father that Clare completely adores. I will make sure he’s everything he needs to be.
“You don’t quit, do you?” his voice is full of anger. “You don’t know when enough is enough. How can you not know that? How can you be a therapist and not know when you have pushed someone past the point they want to go?”
“Am I pushing you too hard, David? Do I need to put my kid gloves on? Because I believe a few minutes ago you were ranting and raving about how you aren’t a child. About how your needs are more complex. I didn’t think I needed to treat you like a child, since you have stated so boldly, that you aren’t one. Am I mistaken?”
“Get out!” He throws his hand up and points towards the door. He has yet to look around. To see his wife’s nightgown lying across the bed. To see her slippers on the floor next to her side of the bed.
I cross my hands over my chest, I’m not going anywhere. “Please,” he says. His head falls down in defeat. “Please don’t make me do this.” He glances around briefly. “This is all too much for me.”
“I know.” He looks at me through his lashes. “I know this all sucks, this beyond sucks. You’re experiencing more loss than a person should ever experience. I know you feel like the only thing you see is the darkness. The pain, the grief and the sorrow, but there is more. There is so much more than what you’re allowing yourself to see.”
“Oh yeah, like what?”
“Life.”
“Life?”
“You have life. You have your life, you have the life of your daughter and you have the life of your son. A son. You have so much more to look at than just the pain. Every day you live, every day you move on, you’re showing your daughter that she can do it too. She’s a reflection of you.”
“No, she’s a reflection of her mother.”
“That might have been true, but five months ago that changed. It’s you that she looks towards to make her smile. It’s you who she needs to make her feel safe.”
He walks over to the bed and picks up Kate’s nightgown. I know he’s going to do what he did with the sweater and sure enough, I watch him inhale her scent. “She always thought this nightgown made her look like a cow. She said how unflattering it was.” He laughs at the thought. “How can a nightgown be flattering?” He waits for me to an answer, but I only shrug my shoulders in response. “She was beautiful. There wasn’t anything that could ever be unflattering on her.”
He lays the nightgown down and smooths it out before standing up and putting his hands in his pockets. He seems so tall, well I know he’s tall, but he just seems to be such a presence right now. His blonde hair is slightly grown out so it does a little flip at the collar of his polo. The fabric stretches along his chest and arms showing off his great physique. The blues of his eyes seem brighter; maybe they get like that after he cries.
“You were right, smells bring back so many memories. They’ve all seem to hit me at once, you know?” I nod in agreement. I do know, far too well. “This was always her favorite room.”
I glance around and take in my surroundings. It’s far from your typical bedroom. It’s more of a suite. There’s a large sitting area with bookshelves full of books nestled next to a fireplace. The couch and chair both look comfy and inviting. The bed looks relaxing and comforting, plush, but not too soft. “She loved to read, wow did she ever love to read.” He walks over to the bookshelves and I follow as he runs his hands over the bindings. “It was almost like an obsession with her. Her heart was into all kinds of romance. She would tell me about them. Boy, I think I’ve spent hours of my life reliving the love stories that she fell in love with. Second chance love stories were her favorite. She loved the idea of finding love again when you didn’t think it was possible.”
*
“Do you believe in second chance love?” Kate looks up from her book when she asks me the question.
“Like you can love two people?”
“Well not exactly. Let’s say like in this book. This woman has three young children and her fourth on the way. Her husband died recently and she is trying to get herself and her kids over the grief so she books a trip. Well, while she’s on this trip she meets a man. Of course this man is hot and irresistible.”
“Of course.”
“Oh stop it, Davi
d.” She bats at my arm. “So she meets this man and he goes all in with her kids. He helps them, he plays with them, and in the few days they spend together—she falls for him. She doesn’t realize just how much, until she goes back home. Once she’s home and goes about her days dealing with all the things life throw at her having all those kids she finds that she misses him. That she may even love him.”
“Well, first of all. How can anyone fall in love with someone in just a few days?”
“Well I think I fell in love with you the moment I sat my butt down on that concrete bench.”
“Well, I’m the exception.” I give her a wink.
“So you think?”
“I know.”
“Come on, be serious. Do you think you are capable of loving another woman if the chance came that I were no longer around?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are it for me, Kate. There will never be another who will hold my heart.”
*
“Do you believe in second chance love?” I know he’s having a memory. I can see the look on his face. His lips tug at the corners giving way to a slight smile. Clare is right, he looks good with a smile.
“No, I don’t.” He looks me in the eyes, his answer is said with so much conviction.
“So you think you’re going to live the rest of your life without love?”
“I have love. My children love me. My family love me. Kate, she loves me.”
“Kate isn’t here any longer. Will you go the rest of your life without the love of another woman?”
“Yes.”
“You are so full of shit.”
“Why the fuck would you say that?” He walks up to me. His size should intimidate me, but it doesn’t. “You don’t know me, or what I want from life. You have no place telling me that my feelings are wrong. That my decisions are wrong, because they are mine to make, not yours.”
“You’re a good looking man, a successful lawyer—well will be once you decide to work again.”
“Wait.” He cuts me off. I know I’m working on his last nerve and I’m being a pain in the ass, but I just want him to get all his anger out, to finally feel he’s been angry long enough so he can move on and heal. “What was that? Are you digging at the fact that I’m not working now? My wife died, Olivia. I have a newborn son who will never know his mother. I have a daughter who lost her best friend. I have every right to take some time off. I don’t know why you’re having a hard time wrapping your head around that fact.”
“I’m not.” He must not be listening to me because he continues with his rant.
“You know that night, that night at the club when we first met. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be out while my kids were at home with my mother. But Destiny wanted me to go, to meet her friend. I dreaded it too. I dreaded having to see the pity in your eyes when you met me. I know my sister talked to you. I know she told you about the shit storm that I’ve been dealing with and the last thing I wanted was to hear that you were sorry for my loss. That you were going to pity me. But you didn’t. When you didn’t mention one thing about Kate or the fact that my wife was dead, I felt relief. Hot damn did I feel relief. I thought well, this chick is cool, that she isn’t so bad. But little did I know that your lack of mentioning my wife wasn’t because you were a decent human being, it was because you are a total cunt.”
13
David
“David!” my head swings around to see my sister standing in the doorway of my bedroom. I look in front of me and I realize that I have Olivia by both arms holding her up to meet my gaze. I’ve laid hands on a woman.
“Livie?” Her name came out of my mouth in a question.
“Put me down, you big brute. And it’s about fucking time you use a name I’m good with and not one that reminds me of my mother. Fuck you very much.”
“What in the hell are you doing?” The look on Des’s face is one of complete horror. I slowly lower Olivia to the floor.
“I’m sorry. Oh shit, Liv. I am so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I do, it’s called pushing your buttons. It’s called not using kids gloves.”
“What?” Des looks confused.
“I have to tell you, Des, after spending the past few hours with this one.” She thrusts her thumb at me, “Working with whiny kids is a cakewalk. Oh and, David, See-You-Next-Tuesday has always been one of my favorite names to be called. You asshole.” I watch as Olivia walks from my bedroom.
“What the hell is a See-You-Next-Tuesday?” I’m completely confused.
“It’s the polite way to say cunt.”
“Oh.” Well, shit.
I watch Des leave my bedroom to follow Livie. I can’t believe I’m such a fucking dick, that I actually grabbed Olivia like that. What scares me the most is that I didn’t even realize what I’d done. What the fuck would have happened if Destiny hadn’t come in when she did? What the hell type of man was I turning into? Fuck, I need to get my anger under control. I need to do something about this shit before I lose it around my kids. I will never forgive myself if I did something towards them. Breathe, David.
“I don’t give a shit how hard you were pushing him, Olivia, there is no excuse for him to have his hands on you like that. He was holding you like you were a rag doll. And now you say he was shaking you on top of that. This is utter bullshit.” My sister is pissed, and for good reason too. I’m pissed at myself too.
“Des, I know how to handle myself. I’ve been up against some pretty big teen boys and I’ve always come out on top. A few seconds later and I’d planned on kicking that fucker in the balls. Believe you me. I was gonna make him go straight back to puberty, do not pass go!”
I step out from behind the wall where I was listening. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Des so pissed off. If it were possible, she would have steam raging from her ears at this point. Olivia, she looks just like Olivia. She didn’t look pissed, she didn’t look shook up. She’s completely calm. “You look like shit,” Olivia says to me.
“I feel like shit. I’m so sorry, Liv. I got out of control.”
“Don’t worry about it. Things happen. Sometimes people push us and it’s up to us to decide how we handle it. You just decided wrong. But don’t worry. I’m not gonna hold it against you.”
“Thank you. You will never know how sorry I am. I am not that man. I—I have never been that man.”
“Damn straight you aren’t. Our mother didn’t raise you that way. She didn’t raise you to put your hands on a woman.”
“He knows, Des.” Olivia was defending me. After everything I did, she was defending me.
“I’m sorry about the word, um, the name that I called you. I’m not sure I’ve ever used that words towards a woman.”
“It’s okay. It’s a heat of the moment thing. So.” She turns towards me, “How do you feel?”
I think for a minute. How do I feel? “Better. I actually feel better.”
“Yep, my work here is done. I’m out.” Olivia grabs the keys from her pocket and walks straight out of the kitchen slamming the front door.
Do I feel better? I feel less angry, I know that for a fact. I’m not sure when it happened but I feel like the anger has left me. Just like that, I was about to explode and now I feel better than I have since Kate’s death. Is that what Olivia’s goal was? To push me until I broke?
“That chick is a pit bull. Wow, she packs a punch.” I try to lighten my sister’s mood because I know her, and I know that she isn’t only pissed at me, but she’s disappointed in me as well.
“Tell me about it.” Destiny turns towards me and leans up against the island. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you this morning.”
“I understand.”
“I would have been here if there were any other way. If it were one of my group kids I would have had Liv take it, but it wasn’t so there was nothing I could do.”
“I get it. Don’t worry about it.”
“So how do you really feel?”
“Are you asking about this very moment, or are you asking over all?”
“I think I know you feel like shit right now because of just went on with Olivia, but I want to know how you’re handling being home.”
“I have to tell you, I wasn’t handling it well. I knew I was angry about Kate’s death and how it’s turned my world upside down, but I didn’t know just how angry I was until Olivia pushed everything on me.”
I knew Des was the one person that I could talk to who would understand. She wouldn’t judge me. She wouldn’t think I was any less of a man for feeling like I’m failing at my life. I need to be honest with her as much as I need to be honest with myself in order to heal and move on.
“Sometimes, we just need that one person to push us in a direction we aren’t comfortable with in order for us to open our eyes.”
I walk around the kitchen and stand at the windows that look over our patio once more. “I was so scared coming here. I thought I would see Kate everywhere I looked and it would be too much for me. It would prove to me just how broken I am. Because believe me, Des, I’m a broken man. I’m grieving more than I ever thought I would. The light that everyone keeps telling me I will see is so far down the tunnel that I don’t even see a flicker. I have so much anger that she was taken from me, from the kids. I’m filled with worry that they’re going to suffer because of an accident. I blame myself because I should have seen the truck. I should’ve been the one protecting her, not the one who lead her to her death.”
“David, don’t. Do not blame yourself. If you do that then you’re leading yourself down an even darker path. You don’t need to add that guilt to your plate when it’s already full.”
“I was wrong. I shouldn’t have been hiding at Mom and Dad’s all these months. I was a coward. I should have been here at home with the kids trying to live instead of hiding from the facts. I shouldn’t have let my fear overshadow what the best thing for the kids is. Kate is in every room of this house. Instead of being in fear of it, I should’ve embraced it because it’s here that I feel her. It’s here that will help me get through it all. This is where we need to be.”
Love After Pain Page 6