by Leddy Harper
I swallowed hard and tried to blink the tears out of my eyes so I could see him better as he continued his story of loving me, telling me things that I had never heard before. Not once had he ever told me all of these things.
“I wanted to ask you to marry me on your eighteenth birthday. You were an adult and I was an adult, but I knew we were both still in high school, and had you said yes, I wouldn’t have been able to wait until graduation. I bought a ring and hid it in my sock drawer, pulling it out and looking at it every day. I couldn’t wait to ask you to be mine forever. I told myself I would wait until the night we graduated, but as you know, I didn’t. As you know, I asked you right after the final bell rang, dismissing us from our last class of high school. But what you don’t know is that I hadn’t anticipated asking you right then. You came out of class and met me by the door. You said, ‘well, we are officially adults,’ and I couldn’t come up with a single reason to wait any longer. You said yes and I didn’t think it was possible to have been any happier.
“And then I watched as you walked down the aisle in your dress. I found happier. And then we went back to our apartment and I watched as you walked out of the bathroom, out of your dress, and I found happier. Three years later, you gave me a stick that you had just peed on, and I found happier. You gave me life with Livvy and again with the boys…happier doesn’t even describe that. What I felt each and every day with you made the word happy feel wrong. Because the way you made me feel was some form of happy on extreme doses of steroids.
“You left and all I wanted was to be happy again. I would’ve settled for the boring kind. A lesser kind of happy from what you had given me for nine years. I would have settled for contentment. But I knew I would never have that without you.”
I sobbed uncontrollably, unable to catch my breath or even see him through the clouds of tears. I knew I had hurt him, but hearing him explain it with those words, comparing it to how he used to feel, made it a thousand times worse.
He leaned over me once more and wiped my face with his thumbs, clearing my vision so that we could see one another. “And then you came back. For the last week, I have fought with myself. Part of me was desperate for you—craving you and the happiness you could give me. But another part of me wouldn’t let go of the pain. Because even though you had the ability to make me feel completely and utterly happy, you also had the ability to make me feel so broken and empty that I was practically dead on the inside. That part of me longed to be healed, but I just couldn’t let go of the damage you could cause.
“So I’m sorry for coming across so hot and cold all week. I wasn’t doing it intentionally. I wasn’t doing it to hurt you or to get back at you. I guess I was struggling with my feelings and not doing a very good job at keeping them to myself. But to answer your question… Do I love you? My heart wouldn’t have died the day you left if I didn’t. It wouldn’t have been resuscitated when you came back if I didn’t. But I don’t think I can accurately describe what I feel for you as love. It’s love on extreme doses of steroids.”
I stopped him from saying any more by grabbing his face and pulling it closer to mine. Everything seemed to slow down as if happening in slow motion. I hadn’t felt his lips on mine in over two years and I wanted to savor that moment for as long as possible. The moment his lips touched mine, everything went from slow motion to a complete standstill. Time froze, the world stopped moving, and the air had been completely sucked from the room. I knew I was still alive because I could hear my heart beating in my ears and feel it in my fingertips as I held onto his face.
A loud inhale was the only sound I heard before he opened his mouth, forcing apart my lips and filling in the space with his tongue. It was slow but deep, gentle yet passionate. I couldn’t recall any other time I had ever been kissed like that. It literally made me see things behind my closed eyelids. It made me feel things down to the tips of my toes. And it made me lighter, brighter, hopeful for the first time in years. The grey clouds were long gone; I couldn’t even feel them looming in the distance. In their place were sun and chirping birds and warmth that pooled deep within my stomach. That warmth turned into a knot, burning me from the inside out. That was when I felt myself begin to pull away from him, pushing at his bare chest. I hadn’t even realized I had done that until his lips separated from mine as he stared down at me, taking in shallow breaths against my skin.
His head dropped, bringing his forehead to my chin before he scooted down the bed slightly. He stopped moving once his body rested between my legs with his head lying against my quivering stomach.
“Now it’s my turn to tell you how I feel,” he started without looking at me, keeping his head on my abdomen. “I understand why you felt the need to keep yourself from having more children. And I support that. But I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me sad. Had I known that I would never see you carrying another child of mine, I think I would have paid more attention when you were pregnant with the boys. I would have touched your stomach more, kissed it more. I probably would have been one of those weirdos that covered it in plaster to hang on the wall. I would have taken more pictures of it.” He finally picked his head up and looked at me. “I don’t have to tell you how incredibly sexy I find you, but I have never seen you look more sexy than you did when you were pregnant. Maybe it was the knowledge that it was my baby inside of there, I don’t know. But…” He lowered his head once more and placed a kiss on my stomach over my shirt. “I can’t even describe to you the love I felt knowing we created something out of our love and you were taking care of it for me.”
There are no words to explain the sadness that ran through me at that moment. The grief that filled me came pouring out, flooding my eyes and stealing my breath. I covered my face with my hands, hoping to hide some of my pain from him, hoping he couldn’t see the regret that blanketed me and threatened to suffocate me.
I felt him move and then the bed dipped next to me. His arms came around me, pulling me into his strong, warm embrace. With my head buried in his shoulder, I cried, letting it all out as he ran slow circles around my back with his fingertips. He pressed tiny kisses to the top of my head from time to time and whispered in my ear how much he loved me. He did that until I no longer had the strength to hold on and fell into a comfortable sleep, wrapped up in his arms.
My eyes opened to the early morning light barely illuminating the room. It took me a moment to realize where I was. No matter how much I had wanted to be back in this house—in this bed—I didn’t think it would ever happen. It was a pipe dream. But there I was, waking up in the bed I had shared with Donnie, in the house I had shared with my family. My kids were down the hall and Donnie was…not next to me.
I pulled myself up slightly to look around and found him sitting on the floor next to the bed. His back was to me and he was hunched over, looking at something. The sun had barely come up and made it difficult to see what he was doing or what he was looking at so I pulled myself across the bed to him.
He turned his head when he heard me move and looked into my eyes. He looked sad and my heart sank, worried that he had changed his mind about us. I didn’t want to give him the chance to tell me how we had made a mistake by trying to work things out so I climbed off the bed and sat behind him, laying a hand on his bare shoulder.
“What are you looking at?” I asked when I noticed the pile of photographs around him. I noticed they were of me. Some were of me by myself, some were of me with the kids, and some were of me and Donnie, dating all the way back to when we were teenagers.
“I can’t help but see the change in you in these. In most of these you’re happy and carefree…it shows in your smile. And then I get to the boys’ first birthday party. There are only a few pictures when you’re alone and didn’t know a camera was around. Those pictures show a blank face, a lost person,” he said in such a sad tone that it made the room feel darker.
I crawled to his lap, pushing the pictures out of the way, and held onto his face so that h
e couldn’t look at anything but me. “And this is the face of a found person. You found me.”
His mouth quirked into a small smile just before he pressed his lips to mine quickly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. All of our talking last night just made me want to look at these. I still don’t know how I didn’t see it.”
“I don’t know if it would’ve mattered, Donnie. Even if you had seen it, I don’t think it would have changed anything. I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone. So please, stop blaming yourself. We said last night that we’re going to move on. We’re going to make things right and be honest with each other from now on. We have our entire lives to take more pictures, ones where I don’t look lost.”
He kissed me again. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Why are you up so early? Are the kids up?”
“They’re still sleeping. I guess I’m not used to sleeping next to someone anymore. It’s funny because I didn’t think I would ever get used to sleeping next to a cold space. For the longest time, I wondered if I would ever be able to sleep alone without waking up a thousand times in the middle of the night when I’d reach out and no one was there. But somehow, I got used to it. And now, no matter how much I loved having you next to me again, I guess I’m just not used to it.”
I wanted to say something—so many things—but kept my mouth closed instead. I wondered if that meant Beth hadn’t shared his bed like I had once thought. Questions flooded my mind… Did he not want me there? Had I waited too long? What else had he grown accustomed to since I’d been gone? But I kept them all to myself, not daring to ask them out loud.
His voice interrupted my thoughts, cutting me off from saying something I knew I shouldn’t. “How did you sleep?”
“Not as good as I do on my air mattress, but you know…” I teased with a grin.
He smiled back at me briefly before his face fell. “The kids will be waking up soon. I don’t think it’s a good idea if they wake up and you’re here. It’ll just confuse them,” he said as if he weren’t asking me to leave. But he was. He was kicking me out before the sun even finished rising.
“I was actually looking forward to seeing them when they wake up.”
“I know,” he whispered. “But they won’t understand. We have a lot to work through, Edie, and it’s going to take us some time. As much as I want you back here, we have to work up to that. And the kids won’t understand you being here some mornings and not others.”
I nodded, understanding what he meant. I didn’t like it, but I understood it. Without looking him in the eyes, I pulled myself off him and stood, heading to the door. Before I reached the handle, his hand grasped my upper arm and spun me around, making me look at him again.
“But I would love it if you came in after bedtime and snuck out before they woke up. Just the thought of watching you do the walk of shame across the street every morning from the window excites me,” he said with a devious smirk.
I couldn’t help the butterflies in my stomach or the pulsing heartbeat between my legs. “Keep talking like that, Mr. Leery, and the kids will wake up and not only find me here, but they’ll find us both naked in bed. And I’m sure they really won’t understand that.”
He laughed on an exhale and bent down to give me one last chaste kiss on the lips. “We’re having lunch at my parents’ house today. Come with us.” He wasn’t asking, he was telling me to.
“I don’t know, Donnie. What if they—”
“You’re here for good now, remember? You’re not leaving. And if we’re going to make this work…if we’re going to fix things, then you’re going to have to face them at some point. Be it now or later, you’re going to have to see them and answer to them as well. They loved you like a daughter; when you left, you hurt them, too. Might as well get it over with now.”
“Okay,” I relented with a wavering breath. “Okay, I’ll go.” I couldn’t say anything else because the smile on his face had silenced me. I pushed away from him quickly before I lost the nerve and quietly left the room, tiptoeing down the stairs and out the door.
Once I was across the street and behind the closed door of my rental house, I finally exhaled, crumpling to the floor. So many emotions ran through me and they were all fighting to take over. I was relieved, terrified, excited, and nervous. And they all flowed out of me as I cried in a ball on the floor. They were happy tears, worried tears, and tears of extreme disbelief. I felt like at any minute, I’d wake up and realize it had all been a dream.
Once I pulled myself from the floor, I frantically began to get myself together. If I were going to face his parents, I had to reign in the emotions and straighten myself out. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy…his parents probably hated me for what I had done to all of them. But I couldn’t let that hold me back. I had to lift my head high and show the world that I was a stronger person from before. I was a better person. And I wasn’t going to go anywhere. I was there to stay.
* * *
I sat on the back patio at my in-law’s house and watched the kids play in the back yard. They still had the same swing set that they had purchased just before Livvy turned one, and I watched in a daze as she swung back and forth in the swing, kicking her legs out and tucking them back in. I watched, remembering when I used to swing her in the red plastic baby swing when she was little.
I didn’t know how I felt as my mind went back and forth from that memory to the present. Swinging her on the swing set used to bring me so much joy. She’s laugh so hard she’d hiccup and throw her head back. Now, she held on to the chains on either side of her and stared up at the sky in silence as she went forward then backward, no longer needing someone to push her.
I wanted to know what went through her head, and if my actions affected that in any way. I worried about the damage my absence had caused her and her brothers, and hoped to God that it wasn’t permanent. They were still so young that I at least had a chance of repairing any damage I’d caused, but that couldn’t have been said for everyone else.
Once we made it to Donnie’s parents’ house, I quickly followed Livvy to the backyard, avoiding Allen and Dorothy Leery. I knew how rude I must’ve seemed, but my churning stomach didn’t allow me to act any differently. I needed a moment in order to gather my thoughts and courage before facing the two people that had been my own parents since I was fifteen. I needed to find my confidence before facing the hurt and betrayal I had left them with.
Donnie stayed inside with the boys while I sat on the patio, so when I heard the slider open and then close, I assumed it was him. It wasn’t until the scent of gardenia filled my nose before I realized it wasn’t Donnie, but his mother instead. My heart raced in my chest, my hands began to shake, and the threat of tears burned my nose and eyes. I couldn’t look at her. I knew if I did, I would lose every ounce of composure I fought desperately to hold on to.
“They grow up so quickly, don’t they?” she asked from her seat next to me.
The sight of Livvy swinging by herself began to turn fuzzy, alerting me that I had lost the battle against my own tears. “Yes, they do.” I didn’t have the strength to say more. In fact, I didn’t have the strength to even say that, but I had to answer with something and allowed the choked words to escape.
“You’ve missed a lot, Idelette. And a lot of that you won’t ever be able to get back. But the one thing you have on your side is that they are young, and forgiveness comes easy to them.” Her insinuation hadn’t gone unnoticed. She had let me know without so many words that her forgiveness wouldn’t be earned so easily. But I already knew that.
I remained silent, unable to form words that would mean anything to her. Anything I thought to say sounded like nothing but excuses. And I wouldn’t offend her by offering them out loud. She was entitled to her thoughts and feelings regarding my departure, and I wouldn’t insult her by attempting to change that.
“Donovan filled me in about your return and his decision to work things out with you.
I can’t say I’m surprised about that, though. The one thing I am disappointed in is your ability to uproot everyone’s lives with your impulsive decisions. The kids were doing fine, Donovan had finally started to seem like himself again with Beth, and life had just started to feel normal again in your absence…and then you decide to show back up.”
My tears no longer held stagnant in my eyes. They fell over my lashes and streamed down my cheeks, leaving behind a cold trail only to be covered by fresh, warm tears in their wake. I no longer cared, no longer fought to keep them at bay. It proved to be wasted energy.
“You’re lucky, Idelette. You’re lucky those kids are so young—”
“I know this, Dorothy. I know how lucky I am.” I cut off her cold words and finally turned to face her. Her large eyes and gaping mouth did nothing to deter me from finishing what I had to say. “I know what I do and don’t deserve. And I know better than anyone the devastation that my actions caused. I don’t need you to remind me of this. I have lived it every day, and I will continue to live it…every second with every breath I take. I am fully aware that my kids have grown up a lot in the last two years, and that I’ve missed a lot of important milestones that I won’t ever be able to get back. No one knows this more than me. But what I also know, that you don’t seem to get, is that had I stayed, I would’ve missed so much more than that. And those consequences would have been far more devastating than the ones we all face now. So please, Dorothy, if you feel the need to lecture me, keep it to yourself. There is nothing you can say that I haven’t told myself a hundred times already.”
I felt free, liberated after speaking my mind. I didn’t feel ashamed like I thought I would have after standing up to her. I loved that woman more than my own mother, and because of that, she had a way of tearing me down more than my own mother ever could. And after years of feeling inadequate in her eyes, I finally found the strength to stand up for myself.