The Comfortable Shoe Diaries

by Renée J. Lukas

  “I don’t know,” I finally said. “Whenever he breezes in, we’ve changed our plans. Like Christmas Day.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve seen how hard it is to be a parent. He’s their father. Where is he? Where is he ever?” My voice was hoarse.

  I could see the pain in her crystal blue eyes. I felt lower than crap for causing her to look that way. But I couldn’t help it. Wasn’t it too important a day to be anything but honest?

  “Wow.” She turned away from me. “I didn’t realize he had such power to get between us.”

  “He doesn’t,” I replied. “It’s me. Maybe I’m not strong enough. But the reminders are everywhere. You don’t get it.”

  “I’m not constantly reminding you about him.”

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “You don’t have to.”

  She couldn’t understand. I was reminded that she’d slept with this man every time I saw her kids. Their school pictures lined the walls of our house. Photos of the kids with their dad in each of their bedrooms—I’d pick up the photos from time to time when I was dusting. I’d look at the happy expressions on their faces and realize that I was part of that happiness being broken. I knew our future was different and happy in a new way, but there it was again. The past. It was part of all of them but me. And my past was something they didn’t share with me, either. This Marc in the photos, sometimes with a mustache, sometimes without, he was the one who shared these memories that I didn’t. Sometimes he was posing at a school award ceremony, proudly, while a much younger Megan I never knew, was holding a math or reading trophy. He was in the soccer game photos, sharing a fiber bar with Ellie, as they watched their children together. And he was sticking bows on Matthew’s head during their first Christmas. They were a family.

  “I don’t mean to drop a bomb on you,” Ellie said quietly. “But he told me just now that he’s planning to stay in Massachusetts. He’s going to settle down, get a steady job and stay near enough to see the kids part of the week. He said the kids are excited.”

  “So that’s what you talked about.”

  It would have been different if they had just split up the way I did with Văldemort. We didn’t have children together. All we shared was a cat. When she turned into someone else, I never had to see her again or put Ellie in a position to see her. But Ellie had children with this man. He would be forever a part of my life, a man I never asked for or invited into my life when I met this beautiful woman online. So the question became, how much was I willing to accept? Could I adapt to this?

  Ever since I’d met Ellie, I’d been adapting—from the way she had to load the silverware into the dishwasher to the way we had to shovel snow down a long driveway. This was manual labor I never wanted to experience, much like zip-lining through the Amazon. I had to adapt to waking up at six to help get the kids ready for school. I had to remember who liked crust on their sandwich bread and who didn’t while Ellie fought with Matthew, telling him that if he wore shorts to school in thirty-degree weather they’d call Social Services on her. And sometimes all at once everyone would stop arguing to make a face at me to let me know my cat had just made a royal dump in the litter box. All of these details filled up so much of my days for the past three years. I had to adapt. I had to compromise.

  But Ellie had had to compromise too. I knew I was neurotic and had enough explosive quirks to light up the sky on the Fourth of July.

  But Marc—I suddenly imagined the three of us in bed together. I’d never asked for a relationship with two people. And while he had ridden off to Arizona to fulfill his boyhood fantasies of seeing the West and hitting the open road, he had two children who were growing up without him. Megan was struggling through the turbulent teen years without him. Matthew was starting to watch football games and asking where his dad was. But ever since Ellie divorced Marc, he had abdicated his role as a father or at least it looked like that. When she divorced him, she assured him it was nothing that he’d done; she was, in fact, a lesbian. It wouldn’t have been fair to keep him locked in a marriage with a lesbian. But at the time, while he must have been loading his boxes into his beat-up Chevy, I’m sure he wasn’t feeling like she was really doing him a favor. He was in pain and needed to get away for a while. But for three years? And he’d so obviously gotten his midlife crisis sports car, to boot.

  Then I’d remember the photos in the bedrooms, and I’d think he must have been a great dad back then. So I suppose this was good news, at least for the kids.

  I took a deep breath, inhaling the salt and wind. There was one immutable truth—I needed to decide if I could handle this man being part of the landscape of our life together. Marc would always be an awkward presence, reminding me of what had come before. And now he was going to be around every other week.

  I looked at Ellie in the raspberry haze of a Cape Cod afternoon, the glow of the sun on her smooth, fair skin. I wanted to touch her cheek, to let her know that everything was going to be all right. But I wasn’t sure of that now.

  “He’ll see them every other week,” she said. “If you think about it, it’ll give you and me more time to be alone together.”

  I knew she was trying to make it all okay.

  “Ellie, what if you had to see Valerie every week as we transferred our cat from one house to another?”

  “Why would you transfer a cat?”

  “Sharing custody of the cat. What if we did that and she lived in the same state?”

  “How do you share custody of a cat?”

  I shoved her. This wasn’t a time for jokes.

  “It would probably be weird,” she admitted.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “I’d thought about three-ways before, but not this kind.”

  “Shut up!” She shook her head, refusing to smile.

  “I do love you,” I said. “I do. It’s just getting more complicated.”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “I’ve got tons of nice glassware, several pounds of crab and lobster meat, a band and a backyard here that’s going to be transformed into a tiki hut party in about three hours. So if you can figure out what you can handle, do you think you could do it in the next three hours?”

  “I don’t give a crap how many pounds of lobster there are!”

  Nathan stepped out on the deck, then went promptly back inside.

  “This is a slightly bigger decision than lobster,” I continued. “You’ve just sprung this thing on me, and I’m supposed to get on board quickly, like everything else!”

  “Are we back to that?” Her eyes were shiny.

  “I don’t know. But you’re not being fair, telling me how drastically our life is about to change right before we get married.”

  I could tell by her face she knew exactly what I meant. But she couldn’t change it.

  “He just told me. I wasn’t trying to spring anything!” She smiled bitterly to herself. “You know what? I’m going to be right there.” Ellie pointed to the shoreline in front of us. “Right there at sunset, ready to marry you for better or worse. I hope you’ll be there.”

  She left me on the deck. The lump in my throat was swelling. I’d made so many mistakes. How could I be sure I wasn’t about to make another?

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “A Rebel, A Loner”

  “Whale watching? No, I’d puke.” Joanne flipped through brochures at the Lighthouse gift shop. She had wanted to get me out of the cottage for a little while, and I welcomed the opportunity to clear my head. Her heavy Canon hung around her neck and reminded me of Ellie. They had similar perspectives through the lens. If there was a historical house, many would shoot it straight on, but Joanne and Ellie would shoot the old-fashioned iron door or a portion of the uneven wood fence. They seemed to revel in the imperfections, while I always took photos that I hoped would be perfect or I’d photoshop them later.

  Joanne and I got to the top of the observatory where you could see for miles in every direction. The sun-kissed marshes, beaches and forests we
re the stuff of artists, like we’d stepped into a live painting. There was nothing like a Cape Cod afternoon.

  After Joanne shot a few pictures from the balcony, she carefully screwed the lens cap back on.

  “Are you getting cold feet?” she asked.

  “I know I love her.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets and let the wind smack my face.

  “But you’re worried about doing the wrong thing,” Joanne said. “Who could blame you after that psycho? And the one before with the anger issues? You were like a loser magnet for a while. It’s no wonder you want to be sure.”

  “Thanks, I think. But it’s not that.”

  “You’re sad about leaving Florida?”

  “Hell, no,” I laughed. “Seriously, I miss you guys. In the winter especially, I feel like I’m in Siberia. That’s when I miss you most.” I paused. “It’s her ex-husband. I’m going to see him a lot more now. I just found out.”

  “Ugh.” She said it all. “So a couple of hours before your wedding you’ve learned you’ll be in a relationship with three people?”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that.” I tried to convince myself if I just focused on Ellie all would be well.

  Joanne found another shot, unscrewed the lens cap and started clicking again. “It’s gorgeous here,” she sighed. “The history, the seasons. I’m sorry about the ex.” She put her camera away again. “You’ve never had a girlfriend who, you know, did it with a guy.” Joanne tried to be delicate.

  “Not just did it,” I corrected. “But loved him. It was hard to get my head around that, but she explained it, and I got it. I’m still getting it, I guess.”

  “What did she say?” Joanne would always be the protective big sister.

  “That something was missing from her marriage, that her life was somehow not whole. She had crushes on girls since she was five.”

  “That was you!” Joanne exclaimed. “Remember that girl in kindergarten?”

  “I try not to,” I laughed.

  “Mom said you talked about her constantly. It was kind of cute.”

  “Cute,” I repeated. It was funny how parents didn’t care about sleepovers with other girls when you’re growing up, but boys aren’t allowed in your bedroom under any circumstances. If they only knew.

  “So you know Marc’s not a threat,” Joanne said. “Then what’s the problem?”

  It was a good question. But there was a problem.

  “Maybe I just can’t be happy without having a problem with something.”

  “That’s a family trait,” Joanne responded with a distant gaze.

  “Is that why Nathan’s in the doghouse?”

  She gripped the railing to steady herself. “He’s not in the doghouse. I’m just trying to keep the spice in our marriage.”

  “Oh.”

  “After ten years, you have to work at it more. I tried all kinds of things. I got Cosmo and Glamour and Ladies’ Home Journal. I even stooped to reading those online articles I swear I’d never read: ‘Five Things He Won’t Tell You He Wishes You’d Do in Bed.’ Crap like that.”

  “And…no spice?”

  “A little. I don’t know. Maybe it’s more about me feeling unfulfilled. I mean, c’mon, I don’t want to be one of those rich wives who’s so bored she ends up cheating with the pool boy.”

  “You don’t have a pool boy.”

  “Not yet.” Joanne winked in a devilish way. “I still think Nathan’s cute. And don’t you think the gray around his temples makes him look distinguished?”

  “I guess.”

  “What?” She frowned. “You don’t think he’s handsome?”

  “Yeah, I do. But you have to understand. Ever since I first met him, I’d think he was doing the nasty with my sister. I really don’t want to picture it, okay? I’m sure you try not to think of Ellie and me.”

  Joanne laughed. “I don’t know. She’s so pretty I might do her.”

  I slapped her shoulder.

  “Is anyone in her family coming besides Bryan?” Joanne asked.

  “One sister has jury duty in Chicago, her brother in Napa has a winery to run, and the other sister in Texas thinks she’s going to hell for breaking up her family and turning gay.” I rolled my eyes. “She was turned by some evil woman.”

  Joanne put her arm around me. “It must hurt sometimes.”

  “It hurts all the time. You learn not to think about it all the time though, or you’d end up on antidepressants.”

  “Are you going through with it? Sydney?”

  “I don’t want to be anybody’s wife.”

  “Then call yourself something else.”

  “Maybe.” I went down the spiral stairs to the gift shop where Fran and Morgan were hanging out. They must have needed to get out of the cottage too.

  “Hey, bride-to-be,” Fran joked. She was dancing around in camouflage shorts. “Look, I’m going commando!”

  “No, you’re not,” Morgan said quietly.

  “Camouflage pants?” Fran replied.

  Morgan pointed to Fran’s clothes. “They’re shorts, and commando is when you don’t wear any underwear.”

  “Eew.” Fran suddenly seemed embarrassed. “I thought it was military-type stuff.” Then to the mixed crowd in the gift shop she shouted, “I am wearing underwear!”

  The lady behind the counter looked relieved.

  Morgan scooted us toward the corner. She had some serious news. “Ellie’s acting weird,” she announced. “We came to lend an ear if you want to purge, you know.”

  “Madame Zoe could help,” Fran chimed in.

  “I don’t need Madame Zoe,” I said. Then, “Who’s Madame Zoe?”

  “A palm reader right on Commercial Street. She told me when my chakras were out of alignment,” Fran said happily.

  “What if you just needed an oil change?” I asked. “Oh, come on. It’s a joke. You sound like Ariel.”

  One major rule about some lesbians is that they take their psychics, Tarot readings and astrology very seriously. Once a woman refused to go out with me because she was a Gemini and her moon in Cancer collided with my insensitive Aries ram, making it likely that we’d kill each other within the year, she said.

  “Oh,” I’d told her. “So I guess going for pizza is out of the question then.”

  Joanne followed me down the stairs and saw my friends.

  “She’s under a lot of stress,” Joanne said protectively.

  “Maybe a pre-wedding massage?” Fran persisted. She was like a constantly enthusiastic Chihuahua who had too much coffee.

  “Shut up, Fran,” Morgan said. “She doesn’t want to be asleep at the ceremony.”

  “Stop saying that to me, or I’ll drop-kick you, I swear!”

  “You guys,” I laughed. “You do sound like Ariel.”

  There was a brief silence. Nobody talked a lot about Ariel anymore. She’d met up with some other chakra-loving women who owned some farmland. No one had seen or heard from her in two years. One of the conditions of her new living arrangement was that she get rid of all electronics, including cell phones, I guess. But let’s face it. If everything had to be natural, the only way we’d hear from her would be smoke signals, and we’d never read them because we’d just think it was smoke from a chimney. So we feared that Ariel was lost to us but didn’t want to open that can of chakras at this time.

  “Why did you guys get married?” I asked. “You were already living together.”

  They were both quiet.

  “I don’t really know,” Fran answered.

  “Yeah,” Morgan agreed. “We didn’t need to simulate a straight ceremony to prove we’re committed to each other. I kinda thought not being married gave more meaning to our relationship. But it became legal in Vermont. Everybody got excited. So we said what the hell.”

  I stared blankly at both of them. The air was sucked right out of my balloon.

  “That’s it? I thought there was some romantic reason, you know, a good reason.”

  �
�You dumb ass!” Fran whispered loudly to Morgan. “Did you have to say it like that?”

  “First of all, don’t call me that.” Morgan was miffed, yet again. “I guess it feels more official now. And we have more rights and benefits.”

  Before I could ask…

  “Don’t ask me what they are ’cause I’m not sure. One thing I am sure of, it’s nice to come home to that same someone you can count on, the one who will always be there.” It was Morgan’s soft underbelly showing, a rare side reserved for a very few. I was honored.

  There were some people who needed to be married, to wake up each morning to someone pouring them coffee. Then there were people like me, more likely to have a TV dinner while watching sitcom reruns and go to bed alone. Maybe I was a loner. I didn’t even sleep with my cat after I heard it could cause a disease.

  “I’m something you count on?” Fran was about to skewer the soft underbelly. “Like a pair of good shoes or a pet?”

  “I never said that!”

  While they bickered in the corner, Joanne gave me a hug.

  “How long have those two been together?” she asked.

  “Ten years,” I answered. “Fighting the whole time and Fran always threatening to leave. It works for them.”

  The sun had begun its slow descent toward the water. I had to know what I was going to do. There wasn’t much time left.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Riding the Roller Coaster”

  White lights strung around the cottage could be seen for miles down the road. I entered beside my sister, noticing the blinding light over the front door too. It reminded me of the time Joanne had convinced me to ride a roller coaster, The Monster of Regret—not the real name, but how I’d always remember it—and we’d walked up the stairs while the loudspeaker woman reminded anyone who was pregnant or had a heart condition not to ride it. At this moment, with each step forward, I felt about as certain as I did back then.

  “Where’s Ellie?” I panted. “I need to talk to—”