For Life

by L. E. Chamberlin

  Feet pounding the pavement, muscles protesting at being used so hard, I try to clear my head my head, but a jumble of memories and dreams of the same woman, spanning more than twenty years, swirls inside my brain. Maybe I’m delusional, but after everything that’s happened this week, something inside me believes fiercely in the possibility of a second chance with Cassie.

  If I crash and burn, so be it. I’ll try again and again, for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes. The fact is, I could cast away my love for Cassie a thousand times, but like a boomerang it just keeps coming back to me.

  Cassie

  With my own needs out of the way it’s time to take care of everyone else’s. I shower and dress quickly and head downstairs to brew some coffee and start on breakfast. I pull the pallet of eggs from the fridge and dig until I find two bricks of scrapple. I haven’t had it in years, but this morning there isn’t anything I’d rather have than the favorite salty breakfast meat of my childhood. I set up the griddle and crack eggs into a mixing bowl, then slice the meat and out it on to brown.

  Caden appears first, lured by the smell of frying pork. Funny how I can shake him for a full five minutes before he even stirs, but if he smells food he’s out of bed in a flash. Pulling out a container of orange juice and pouring himself a generous glass of it, he swallows it down without taking a breath and fills his glass again.

  “Leave some for everyone else,” I admonish him. “And where’s your retainer?”

  “Having my juice first. Can’t brush your teeth and then have orange juice. That’s like…” He screws up his face in imitation of the OJ-after-toothpaste look.

  I pull him in for a hug and release him just as we hear the back door open. Grady and Ares appear in the kitchen, Ares panting and Grady covered in sweat. I try not to react to how good Grady looks, especially not in front of our son, but his long-sleeved black running shirt clings to him like a second skin, defining every muscle in his chest and arms. When he bends for Ares’ dish I watch those muscles bunch and ripple in his back and I almost drop the whisk I’m holding.

  I thought I could keep myself under control, but I hadn’t counted on seeing him all sweaty before I’ve even had my second cup of coffee. My gaze wanders up his well-defined calves to the sturdy muscles of his thighs. I admire the sleek coating of dark hair that diminishes slightly just past his knees, on the insides, and my throat tightens as I allow myself to imagine where it thickens again at his groin.

  I return to whisking the eggs, trying to keep my breath steady as he moves past me to the sink to fill Ares’ water dish. Do not look at his ass, I will myself.

  “I hope I didn’t wake you up,” he says, still breathing deeply from his run.

  Well, technically…

  “Nope,” I reply cheerfully. “Didn’t even hear you.”

  He’s worked himself hard this morning - punished himself, if Ares is any indication. The poor dog looks like he’s ready to collapse. Grady’s dark hair is soaked and curls at his neck, which is coated with a sheen of sweat. As I watch him a drop trickles down his temple, and I fight the urge to lick my lips.

  Instead I thrust a kitchen towel in his direction and quickly turn my attention to my eggs.

  “Got up pretty early,” he says. “Scrapple sandwiches?” His eyes light up as he surveys the preparations on the counter. He seems pleased that I’ve remembered his favorite. “That’s perfect. I’m starving.”

  “Good. You need to eat quickly.” I motion with the whisk to Caden, who’s already made himself toast and is munching it standing up while checking something on his phone. “That one over there will suck down every bit of this if you don’t fight him for it. He’s like a locust. And God forbid he’s got a friend over, they strip the whole place bare. There isn’t so much as a heel of bread when they’re done.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware.” Grady grins at his son.

  “I’m a growing boy,” Caden pipes up without looking away from his phone. “My friends are growing boys, too. We can’t help ourselves.”

  Grady raises an eyebrow at me and I burst out laughing. “That’s been your excuse since you were about three.”

  Caden looks up from his phone and deadpans, “I’ve been growing that whole time, Ma.”

  “Your son,” I tease Grady, and my face flushes as I realize what I’ve just said. Your son, I used to remind him when Caden was a toddler, getting into everything, making my heart stop a hundred times a day because he’d grabbed for something he shouldn’t have or outwitted some childproof lock I had. Your son, I used to whisper when we peeked in at him while he slept, his arms flung out and tiny chest rising softly inside his colorful pajamas. But I haven’t said those words in a long, long time.

  I turn my back to Grady and hear him tell Caden to go wake his sister up. I silently plead with Grady to go change, hop in the shower, something. Instead he walks over to me and stops on the other side of the island. The clean musk of his sweat wafts around me and I stifle a groan as my body reacts greedily to his proximity.

  “Cass.”

  At the sound of my name I turn, definitely not ready for whatever he’s about to say to me but desperate to get it over with.

  “I’m sorry for last night,” he continues softly, looking me right in the eyes. “I was in a bad place. I don’t want you to think I took advantage of our—” He pauses, searching for the right word. “I shouldn’t have touched you like I did.”

  “It’s okay.” I brush it off too quickly, trying not to be disappointed. Granted, I don’t know what I would’ve done if he said something else, if he insisted on hashing out our feelings or tried to kiss me in the middle of making eggs. But I’m still slightly hurt. I would’ve liked for him to at least have wanted to kiss me in the middle of making eggs.

  “We don’t have that kind of relationship, so I apologize.”

  As if I needed his reminder. I take a deep breath, look up, and reply, “I know you were in a bad place. That’s why I hugged you. I didn’t feel like you took advantage in any way. So please, don’t worry about it. Yesterday was hard for all of us.”

  He searches my face for a minute before he nods in agreement. “I just didn’t want things to be awkward.”

  “Things are less awkward between us than they’ve been in years. Really. We’ve had a good couple of days. Besides, you’re family.”

  Grady’s silent for so long I peek at him. He’s staring at me so strangely.

  “What?”

  “We’re not family, though. Not anymore. You made that pretty clear, Cass.” Not blaming, just speaking the truth.

  “I know how I’ve acted, but we are. That doesn’t change. Our kids are almost eighteen, but even then…” I shrug. “We’ve got graduations ahead of us. Weddings. Grandkids. In a way they’re going to need us more than ever. Carl’s funeral made me think about all of that. I don’t want us to be strangers. I want us to be friends, real friends. I want us to be able to bury the hatchet and move on. And I’m sorry for…” I don’t even know how to describe how I’ve been. “I’m sorry for ever treating you like you were the lesser parent.”

  And there it is. The evil little pod of blame I’ve held onto for a long time bursts open, spreading its dust around us. I’ve never admitted that to myself and I sure as hell never expressed it to Grady, but that’s how I’ve felt all along. I felt it plenty the night I waited for him to finally get home from the bar so I could tell him to leave. I felt it the day my attorney drafted the custody agreement. I felt it every time Grady couldn’t or didn’t do something I wanted him to do, regardless of whether or not his reasons were legitimate. In my own head I’ve lorded it over him for too many years to count, and it’s time to stop.

  He’s shocked into silence by my admission.

  “Be my friend,” I say softly, touching my fingertips to his. “I’m sorry.”

  He clears his throat. “You’re not the one who should be apologizing,” he replies in a hoarse voice. “Cass, the way I treated you—�
��

  Caden barrels back into the kitchen with Chloe shuffling behind him, and we snatch our hands apart. Grady reaches out and tugs Chloe’s messy ponytail and she spares him a sleepy half-smile before mumbling, “Hi, Daddy. Morning, Mom.”

  She stopped calling me “Mommy” when she was about twelve, but she still calls Grady “Daddy.” I try not to be jealous. The fact that she said “good morning” to me is exciting enough. Sometimes we go through entire mornings without her verbalizing once.

  “I’m gonna bring Nana some tea and toast,” Caden tells us.

  “She doesn’t want to come down for breakfast?”

  Caden shakes his head. “I asked.” He lowers his voice. “I think she’s… uh… having a rough morning.”

  I plate the sandwiches and Chloe serves while Caden makes his grandmother her breakfast and takes it up to her room. Grady slips upstairs to change and check on his mom, and I pour juice and turn off the griddle. Ten minutes later, the four of us are sitting around the table, eating scrapple sandwiches like we do this every day of our lives.

  * * * *

  I watch my kids closely to see what their reactions will be to this unprecedented shared meal. Caden inhales two sandwiches and is working on his third while Chloe tells us Grady in great detail about her friend’s new guitar. Neither of them seem even remotely disturbed by us eating breakfast together, even though Caden can’t possibly remember it ever happening and Chloe was very young when we last did this. My stomach feels as though a thousand sparrows are flapping their wings inside of me. I can’t tell if I’m exhilarated, terrified, or just going crazy. The past twenty-four hours have been like living in some alternate universe. I keep expecting to wake up and be back in Ohio, with Chloe refusing to interact with me. I should be driving to yoga and listening to Sandra telling me about her latest fuck-buddy, not eating breakfast with my ex-husband and son and uncharacteristically chipper daughter.

  Before long the food is almost gone, but no one makes a move to rise from the table. I see Grady’s cup is empty and ask if he’d like some more coffee, and he thanks me when I refill it. After a couple sips he speaks. His voice is purposely casual, and I realize he’s been as anxious about this meal as I’ve been.

  “Since your grandma’s not doing too well today I thought maybe we’d give her some space. Maybe go for a hike or something. What do you guys think?”

  “Sure. What are you gonna do, Mom?” Caden asks.

  “Your mom can come, too,” Grady says. “If she wants to.”

  That gets their attention. Chloe and Caden both stare at me curiously. I can’t tell if they want me to come or not.

  “Cass?” Grady prompts.

  “Uh… Sure?”

  Both kids grin. Chloe’s smile is so big the dimple in her cheeks pops, which shocks me. I think the last time she smiled that wide for me she was about eleven. That was the year she stopped holding my hand in public.

  Grady looks pleased. “Good,” he says. “Your mom cooked, so let’s clean up and then we’ll get showers. Chlo, you’re up first since you take the longest to get ready.”

  They start clearing away the dishes, leaving me in a state of shock. My first thought is that they’ve barely batted an eye at the four of us spending time together. My second thought is that I’ve been doing way too much for these kids. They do their share of household chores (if I nag them), but the fact that I could be getting them to clean up every time I cook is a novel idea. I immediately make plans to free up an extra half hour of my day.

  As I head for the laundry room to get a load of towels from the dryer, my ears are treated to the banter of the kids mixed with Grady’s deep laugh. A pang of something hits me so deep in the gut that I nearly lose my breath. What could have been. What should have been.

  There have been times in the past, especially around the holidays, when I’ve gotten so angry I couldn’t see straight. Although I’m the one who closed the door on our marriage, I’ve always blamed Grady for what I never got to have. Mornings like this, which other families enjoy all the time and probably take for granted, were my due when I married him and gave birth to my children. I didn’t ask for the world. I never needed him to be a rich man or important outside of our household. I could happily have put up with any of his smaller faults if it hadn’t been for the one very big, very important flaw: he didn’t put our family first.

  That was all I ever wanted - a man who put us first, who protected us without question, who provided for us without complaint, who loved me without a divided heart. Instead we took a backseat to his band, and we were shortchanged by his drinking. The memories hurt, but our words before this morning’s breakfast have done a lot to heal. I realize it’s my words, not his, that have been the most cathartic. Letting go of the past has given me more comfort than his apology, mostly because if I’m honest, I already knew he was sorry.

  I haven’t been completely oblivious. I didn’t know he quit drinking altogether, but I did know he left the bar and stopped playing every weekend with the band. Grady’s respected in his field, and you don’t get that way by being a fuck-up. My interactions with him over the years, no matter how brief or businesslike, have always been responded to with kindness. A few times he even offered to do something helpful for me, like when I needed a new roof and he found me an honest contractor so I wouldn’t be taken for all I was worth. Or when he noticed the driveway was cracked and he and a couple buddies came over and repaired it while I was out of town. I recognized those gestures for the apologies they were.

  And yes, it was nice to hear him say he was sorry. It was more than nice. It ripped away some weight in me and freed up space in my lungs. I was grateful and it felt right to tell him he was forgiven. But then last night…

  Last night was just an emotional fluke, I tell myself. We were both exhausted and sad, and we reached out to each other in a moment of weakness. But if it got us talking, then it wasn’t a complete mistake. I said what I needed to say to him, and whatever comfort he got from it was well worth it.

  And your happy little wakeup this morning? the sly voice in my head reminds me. But that, too was a fluke. My body had biological needs, and that’s all it was. I’ve been too long without a man. Masturbation is nothing to be ashamed of, I remind myself, and neither is fantasy, even when that fantasy is about making out with your ex. Your very hot, delicious-smelling ex…

  I snap open a towel to break my ridiculous reverie and then fold it into a neat square. I fold all the towels, losing myself in the satisfaction of a simple task done well. Life should always be as easy as folding a load of towels, I muse. Instead, it’s damn messy, but I’m proud of myself for trying to finally put this nonsense to rest and build a normal, healthy friendship with Grady.

  And when the other thoughts creep toward the front of my mind, thoughts about last night and this morning and what it all means, I shove them back as hard as I can. It's not a rekindling romance, it's a parenting partnership, which is fine, because that's all I need from Grady.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Cassie

  “I think it’s awesome that you guys can hang out like this. So healthy for your kids.” In a quiet corner of the yard, my high school friend Janie and I are catching up. It’s been close to eighteen years since we’ve spent any real time together, which seems insane to me since we haven’t stopped gabbing and laughing since she walked in the house. It's as if no time at all has passed since we were passing notes in class and spending hours at the mall together.

  It’s a crisp Saturday night, and since there were a bunch of people who wanted to see Grady and me and the kids, Grady threw a small get-together. A lot of the guests are people we went to high school with, many of whom haven’t seen us or the kids since we moved to Ohio, like Janie.

  “I promise you, the divorce was messy. Things were bad. You wouldn’t even have recognized Grady the night he left.”

  “Crazy,” she muses. “He seems exactly the same to me now. More settled, of course
, but otherwise…” She trails off and gestures toward Caden with her cup. “And that one looks just like his dad. The spitting image. You’re going to have trouble with him. Look at Kimmy.”

  Janie recently married Dan, one of Grady’s old football buddies. It’s a second marriage for both, and their entire “Brady Bunch” family, as she describes it, is here. Despite being almost Chloe’s age, Janie’s daughter Kimmy is clearly smitten with my son. She’s painfully shy and has never had a boyfriend, according to Janie, but she’s radiant from Caden’s clumsy attention. I thought my youngest was just being himself - open, friendly, and sweet - but as I watch, I realize he’s tentatively flirting with Kimmy.

  “I can’t watch this!” I protest. “He’s a baby!”

  Janie shakes her head. “Keep telling yourself that.” She takes another sip of her spiked cider and smiles. “He’s not as cocky as his dad was in high school, but he’s just as cute. Speaking of which, Grady looks amazing.”

  “Damn him, he does,” I agree. “And so does Dan.” Together we watch the two men chatting animatedly next to the grill. Dan’s natural bulk is still mostly muscle, and his hair has just a touch of gray at the temples. There’s no denying he’s still attractive.

  “How the hell do they do it? I’m at the gym five days a week, I haven’t eaten a French fry in a year, and somehow I’m bigger than when I was pregnant, for Christ’s sake,” Janie complains.

  “Screw that. I do yoga, but I can’t stand working out. I have an extra ten on my ass and it’s just gonna stay there. Hell if I’m giving up French fries over it. I’d rather be lonely. I have a cat and a vibrator, so I’m good.”