by Leanne Davis
“Is it so bad?”
“What?”
“Watching Julia?”
Tracy whipped her head around from scraping the leftovers off the dishes, which she recently started doing. “What? Why would you ask that?”
“You seem so put out by her. I know it isn’t what you want right now, but is it Julia?”
She set the dish down and looked at Donny, who leaned against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. He had now become a familiar sight in her kitchen.“It’s not Julia. I love her. I really do. She and Olivia are my nieces and I intend to always be part of their lives. I want to be the best aunt ever. But you have to understand, I’ve raised my babies already, Donny. I don’t want to start over. I don’t want to do it again. I liked having more freedom. Not having to take ten minutes to get out the door and strap a kid in the car seat. I liked seeing the end of the baby phase.”
“You’re so good at it though.”
She shook her head. “You over-inflate my skills. I think Vickie’s given you a skewed outlook. I’m not all that original.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Yeah, well when Vickie comes home, you have to find a way to make it work. Vickie has to learn to take care of Julia. She keeps calling me ‘Mommy’ or ‘Mama.’ I can’t get her to stop.”
Donny’s mild expression vanished. “Really?”
“Well, what did you expect? While you two are getting your shit together, she’s spending ridiculous amounts of time with me and my kids. She hears my kids calling me Mom and doesn’t know the difference.”
“It feels like this will never get worked out. Do you know what I mean?”
She leaned on the counter, her shoulders stooping as she looked down at her half done dishes. She knew exactly. “I know. It has to all get easier, doesn’t it?”
“I hope so.”
“Besides, your relationship stands a real chance of getting worked out.”
“I really can’t believe this happened to both of us.”
She didn’t answer. Rain beat against the window and she lifted her head to stare outside. Was he for real? He dared to compare his paltry, two-year relationship to her dozen-year marriage and the pain it was causing her? “No offense, but no one was totally shocked when something happened with you two. You did marry Vickie, after all.”
“Well, I didn’t expect to be visiting her at rehab. And I didn’t expect I’d have to deal with an addiction.”
“You didn’t blink long enough to learn anything about her to know better or not. You were thirty-two years old, not twenty. How could you not have known better?”
He didn’t answer at first. She slowly turned and saw his jaw was locked. He met her gaze for a prolonged moment, and one eyebrow lifted up. “Wow. Not holding back tonight. Why don’t you tell me what you really feel?”
“You think what we’re going through is the same thing? It’s not. Not even close. You know where your spouse is. Yours is coming back. Yours even has a chance of fixing things and making it right. Mine is gone. Lost. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. It’s not the same thing at all.”
“No. I guess I meant, we’re both disillusioned about our marriages.”
“You can’t compare Vickie and you to Micah and me. You were together like, five minutes. You don’t know if you even love her. It’s just not the same thing.”
“Okay. Not exactly. But it’s not like either of us are living in marital happiness ever after, now are we?”
Agitated, she started to pass by him. He stopped her with his hand on her arm. “I’m trying here, Tracy. I’m trying to keep all this going. Maybe I don’t have the same history as you, but I had the same hopes and expectations of a working, enduring, long marriage. I’m disillusioned too.”
“It’s not the same thing. Comparing my marriage to yours is like saying a teenager is the same as a toddler.”
“Meaning, yours is better? Or more tragic? What?”
“No, just that our love was the real thing. We had an entire life together that went on for over a decade. A decade, Donny. You have an infatuation gone wrong. You have the oldest story in the book: girl gets knocked up so you marry her too soon. It’s just not all that unpredictable.”
He blinked several times, locking his jaw again. “So you’re allowed to grieve and I’m not? Because you’ve decided I don’t love my wife as much as you loved your husband?”
She nearly stomped her foot in frustration. “No. It’s just I get tired of being compared to you and Vickie. This is not the same. Being left after a dozen years isn’t like having someone walk out on you after two years. Being in love with the wrong woman isn’t the same as losing the love of your life!” She jerked her arm away from him. “I get tired of everyone lumping us together, ‘Oh, poor Donny; Vickie, you know, is in rehab, and he has that little baby to raise and all.’ Well maybe it is poor you, but it wasn’t totally random; and you can blame some of it on your own bad judgment. And I’m the one raising that poor, little baby.” She passed by him and started down the hallway, but he was immediately behind her. She could feel him closing in on her.
He grabbed her arm and spun her towards him. “You think you’re somehow better than me? Why? Because my spouse didn’t screw over about a dozen people before leaving all of them in the lurch? Because my spouse has a problem she can’t help? Or because yours is just a cowardly, evil bastard who left you and your kids as easily as some people abandon their pets?”
She recoiled as if he just lifted a hand to slap her face. “What? Vickie is somehow better than Micah? Screw off, Donny. I’m tired of cleaning up her messes. I have my own stuff to deal with; and I can’t even do that, can I? There is always Vickie. And you. And your child.”
“What did I miss here? Don’t I help you? Don’t I help Ally with her math homework, when you can’t do it? Didn’t I fix a half dozen things around here that you couldn’t fix? I might not be Mr. Mom, but I do a hell of a lot around here, trying to make up for it. What the hell is your problem?”
“You! You’re my problem. You try to make your problems mine. I told you from the start I didn’t want to be involved. But anything I say falls on deaf ears. That’s how it always is with you.”
He leaned his face towards hers. His coloring grew more vivid as his breathing escalated. She fisted her hands and refused to cower. He pushed her nearly into the wall, essentially blocking her in and pushed his face right into hers. “Julia’s a baby. What do you want me to do?”
She shook her head furiously. Tears quickly filled her eyes and started to fall. He swore under his breath. “The tears again? How much can you cry, Tracy? He left you. He fucking left you. And you stand here, criticizing my spouse? Have you looked at yours? Why do you still cry for him? How can you cry for a man who left his own kids and you?”
She pushed her hands through her hair, her face falling in distress. “I don’t know, okay?! I don’t know what I should do. I don’t know anything. I don’t know why I cry. I don’t know why I don’t want to watch your baby. Or don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I don’t know why he didn’t love me enough to stay and serve his term in prison. Or even why he did what he did in the first place. I just don’t know. But mostly, I don’t know how to live without him!”
Donny didn’t answer her shrill reply. They stared at each other, their faces barely a half a foot apart. They both were breathing hard as if they’d just come in from a long run. Her hands were flat on the wall, and her body was pushed back against it. She started to cry harder. The only sounds between them were her occasional sniffs and sobs. He slowly leaned over and put his hands on her waist to draw her closer. She responded by throwing her arms around his neck and clinging to him. His body was warm and close as it pressed against hers. But most of all, he was there. Now. With her. When no one else was there. She cried harder. Longer. She clung to him as he held her. His mouth brushed close to her ear in soft, shushing sounds. He lowered his hands down her back, rubbing,
comforting, and trying to calm her down.
She shook her head on his chest until her tears subsided slightly, and inhaled a long gulp of air. “I don’t know why it hurts so much still.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have attacked you. I’m just… so damn angry. You’re sad. I’m angry. Daily, I feel like I could hit something. I’m sorry, but you are just an easy target.”
She laughed a bitter, unhappy sound. “Yeah. Well, you’re an easy target for me too. I guess we’re even. I’m sorry I said those things.”
His shoulders shrugged under her hands. He was wearing a sweater over a shirt and she could feel the heat of him through it. It felt… good. His shoulders were wide and his muscles felt so much more masculine and reassuring than being held by her mother or a sister. She tried to mentally banish the thought. Donny could not feel good. He felt like… well, like hugging a brother. A brother whom she was not related to. But still, nothing more than a brother.
A big, warm, caring, and sometimes downright frustrating to argue with, brother. “We can argue pretty good. Remember when all we used to do with each other was act casually polite?”
He laughed softly as his hands dropped down to her waist. She stepped back, feeling suddenly strange for succumbing to his embrace. He smiled nervously and pulled his hands completely away from her. “Yeah, I remember those days.”
“It feels like years, not months.”
“I have to sell my house. That’s why I’m so angry.”
She shut her eyes. When she opened them, she regained her composure and had her emotions back under control. “I’m so sorry. Do you really have to?”
He nodded. “I can’t keep my business afloat. I need to pay off the loan. Selling the house will do it. I need the business more than the house right now. I can always rent a house. Besides, I owe your parents money for the rehab and…”
“And Vickie had already spent everything, which resulted in taking out a second mortgage on your home, before my husband completely knocked down the teetering house of cards, which was all you had left.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
She shook her head and stepped away from him. “We are so pathetic. We have to scream at each other in order to feel better, huh? I think it’s a draw. What do you think?”
He finally lifted the side of his mouth in a grin. “I think you’re right. We’re Loser One and Loser Two.”
She shook her head. “No, we’re not. Our spouses are. Not us. What are we going to do?”
He shook his head. “Keep getting up, and doing what we’ve been doing. Can you give me another two weeks for Julia? My mom will be home then and she can take over.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I love her. I just feel like I’m all over the place. When she calls me ‘Mom,’ it sends me off the deep end. I don’t want her to think I’m her mother. Vickie is. I don’t want her to forget that.”
He stared at her and she dropped her gaze. It suddenly felt different, almost intense. “No, I don’t want that either.”
She watched him gathering Julia from upstairs along with all her things. His house. He lost the one asset he had before Vickie and it was because of Micah. She and Donny both lost so much. Was it any wonder they spent half the time rooting for each other, like a team cheerleader, and the other half clawing at each other’s throat? They were both so miserable, neither could completely cheer the other one up.
“What you’ve done for Vickie? That’s the right thing.”
He turned with Julia in his arms and smiled strangely. “I wish it felt like the right thing,” he softly replied before he left.
****
Donny stared hard at his house as he drove up. Julia was asleep in the back seat. He hated to move her and possibly wake her up. She’d, no doubt, be fussy. His heart dipped as he gazed at the front of the house. Soon, there would be a for sale sign on the front lawn. He leaned his head on the steering wheel. What did it matter if he sat there in his driveway all night? There was no one waiting for him; and Julia was clean, fed, asleep and warm. Which was mostly due to Tracy’s excellent care of her.
What happened with Tracy tonight? They went from being friendly help-partners to nearly clutching each other like crazed weasels. And now what? He suddenly decided that being with Vickie didn’t feel right at all anymore.
Being with Tracy did.
That was the only time he felt real. Normal. Better. Even when they fought, he felt happier than he did around anyone else. Was it because they were both so miserable? And both victims of their spouse’s poor behavior?
But to grab her so intimately and drag her close to him? That was not the right thing to do. He should not have been holding a soft, curvy woman against his body. And it didn’t matter in that moment if the woman also held the title of his sister-in-law. He should not have held any woman but his own wife that way. He certainly didn’t grab women he worked with, or conducted business with in such a manner. So why his wife’s sister? No. He never should have done that. He mentally cringed and shied away from even thinking about it.
Yet… Tracy remained on his mind.
He shook his head, trying to dispel all the wrong thoughts as well as the strange stirring in his chest of something that felt close to emotional attachment. No. He could not have any emotions about Tracy. He could be grateful to her and even feel sorry for her and pity her. And he could be there for her kids, which her own husband asked him to do. But to harbor any romantic feelings for her? No. No how. No way.
He leaned back in his seat and slowly unclicked his seatbelt before getting out of the car. As the door shut with a slam, he lifted his sleeping daughter out and began trudging toward the dark, empty, soon-to-be-sold house. The awful thickness that impeded his breathing and made his chest hurt got worse. After eating his micro waved dinner, he couldn’t wait to fall onto the bed for a short, fitful sleep before getting up to go over to Tracy’s all over again. As usual. He was there all the time.
****
“You look better.”
“I didn’t know I looked bad,” Vickie snapped. He shuffled his feet and slowly waited to take a seat near Vickie. They were in the living room area of the rehab facility. He had not seen her in over a month. That length of time was recommended before visits were encouraged. Vickie only got one phone call a week, during which she readily complained that it was like being in prison. They were crazy to keep her locked up like a criminal.
Every time she started in again, Donny patiently waited until the end of her rant and asked, “And then what? If you leave, what are you going to do?”
She had no ready answer, because she wasn’t ready to leave the facility. Admission was all on a voluntary basis. She could have walked out the door anytime. However, it was two hours away from her home, so if she walked out, there was no way for her to get home, and they refused to provide her with a phone call. So Donny hoped a little common sense could prevail with Vickie.
“I didn’t mean you looked bad. You just look fresher. More rested.”
She shrugged. Wearing little makeup, her hair was pulled tidily back into a hair tie. She had on jeans and a casual top with flats. She didn’t look like herself. But Donny thought it was a nice change, to be honest. She shook her head, the long ends of her hair falling over her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m a little nervous to see you.”
He smiled as he leaned forward and put his hand out. She finally set hers in his. “Me too.”
“You? You always seem so sure of what you’re doing and who you are.”
“I do?” he asked her with mild surprise. He never knew she saw him like that.
“Yes. You do. Not like me. Your confidence is something I wish I had. I pretend to have it, but you really do have it.”
He smiled sadly, thinking of the strange combinations of feelings in his chest last night over Tracy. He focused his gaze on his wife. “I really don’t, Vickie. I really have nothing figured out, and I don’t feel sure of anything anymore.”
&nbs
p; “Since me?”
“No. Since having a child. That changes everything.”
She nodded. “How is she?”
Calling Tracy “Mom.” But he couldn’t say that. It was too mean. And wrong, despite being the truth. “She’s good. I think she grows bigger by the day.”
“Do you think she’ll forget about me?”
“No. Of course not. Don’t worry about that. Just try to get better. So… how are you? Really? Is this place… what’s the word? Working? Good?”
Vickie stared at her hands before she lifted her face with a small, slightly amused grin. “You’re not often unsure of yourself. Especially with me. It’s the right place for me and my problem. There are people here who get me. Who understand me when I say things. That’s nice. I don’t feel guilty all the time. Or that I’m failing you. Or that I’m simply a failure in general.”
“I know it isn’t your fault. I know it’s a disease. I’ve read a lot about it, especially since you’ve been gone.”
“I imagine you have. Yes. It is, one I have to manage. It’s easier in here. I wonder, though, how will I translate this? How do I stay this way? How do I…”
“Isn’t it supposed to be one day at a time? You don’t drink for this one day. You only have to worry about today and the present. Not next week or next year or next decade?”
“You sound like a poster child for recovery.”
He smiled sheepishly. “No. Actually, I sat in on an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I told them why I was there. I said I was trying to understand my wife’s addiction.”
“Do you now?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She shrugged too. “The thing is, neither do I. I wasn’t abused. I wasn’t raped. I wasn’t raised by neglectful, horrible parents. There is nothing in my history to predict why I became this way. I have no good reason. It almost makes it worse. So many in here tell tragic stories, and you can easily see why they turned to drugs and alcohol. I can only say… what? My parents didn’t expect enough out of me? They spoiled me? I was too well taken care of? It just makes no sense why I ended up this way.”