The Jade Emperor

by Suzanne Jenkins

  “Get the kids together,” he growled after Ben and Liz left.

  “They’re just eating,” she replied, lifting her wineglass.

  “Do it before I explode. Hurry up.”

  Sandy looked at him and could see he wasn’t kidding. Something was majorly wrong.

  They said goodbye, rushing out the door.

  “Are you okay?” Kelly asked, following.

  It was the last straw for Augie. “No, I’m not fucking okay. You think this is normal, all this bullshit with my father and his whore sitting at the table with my kids? What about their bastard son? What’s going on there, Mother? He couldn’t take his eyes off you all night.”

  “Augie…”

  “Save it,” he said, getting in the car.

  He waited until the last child was buckled in, but without waving, they were gone.

  Now, the weekend fast approaching, Sandy feared the worst. She’d suspected Augie was seeing another woman for some time, someone he worked with, a single woman with no attachments who could focus all her energy on him. She planned on carrying on as usual, just like Kelly had all those years, playing happy family, obviously a sham. Sandy’s mother had picked up on it right away, years ago when they were getting serious about each other and it looked like marriage was in the future.

  “Augie’s father is a loose cannon,” she’d announced, shocking Sandy.

  “Mother, why would you say that? He doesn’t say a word.”

  “Just my point,” she persisted. “Wait. Something will happen someday to wake the sleeping lion. Just make sure you’re not around.”

  Now Sandy wondered if the sleeping lion was the entrance of Lee and Titan, or if there would be more to come. Rising from the couch, she took her glass back to the kitchen. Whether or not he came home, the kids would be up at the crack of dawn. So glad it was Friday, she’d fill the weekend with activity and fun, just like Kelly.

  At five in the morning, Augie was at the apartment of his girlfriend, lying naked next to her, both of them snoring. He’d slept through the night, an unlikely event lately, and having to pee, he sprang out of bed in a panic.

  “Oh shit,” he said, grabbing for his glasses. “I fucking can’t believe it.”

  “What happened?” she said, yawning. And then seeing the time, echoed him. “Oh no, get up! Just tell her you fell asleep in the car.”

  She jumped out of the bed and started racing around, trying to make everything alright for Augie. But it was too late.

  “No, Kate, I’m telling her this morning. I’m tired of sneaking around. I want to be with you all the time. Can I move in here with you? I’m not going to have anything after I get done paying child support and alimony.”

  “Of course you can, but you need to make sure that’s what you want. I thought you loved Sandy. We’ve talked about this. You don’t want to have any regrets.”

  “I can’t stand her,” Augie said. “I mean, she’s lovely and kind, but I married my mother. She’s a clone of Kelly. If I go to her, she’ll probably tell me to keep seeing you but just come home at night. Ha! I don’t want that. I want us to be together. I’m not waiting until I’m sixty-five like my dad did to be with the one he loves, no matter how disgusting I find it.”

  Out of the blue, he started sobbing. “See? This is just great,” he cried, throwing his arms in the air. “I’m a lunatic.”

  “No, you’re not a lunatic,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed with him. “You’re just wound as tight as can be. Do you want coffee, or do you think you should get home?”

  “I’d better leave,” he answered, reaching for a tissue. “I’ll be back with a suitcase later. Make excuses at work for me, will you? I need a day off.”

  Kissing her goodbye, he left her standing in the bedroom. That early in the morning before the sun had a chance to melt the frost, his car windows were covered. He’d given Sandy his ice scraper, so using a credit card, he cleared just enough so he could see to drive.

  It was silent, eerie that early, no one out yet, no traffic on the roads as he drove with the window down, the freezing air helping to clear his head. Entering his neighborhood, the pride he used to take in having surpassed his parents’ standard of living no longer existed. Just like their life, with its secrets and intolerances, his life was not above scrutiny. He didn’t love his wife, the mother of his children, just as his father didn’t love his mother. It was no secret; Augie being the oldest had seen the most, things Kelly thought she’d kept hidden. The things she’d hoped were unseen were obvious to the child.

  An early, vivid memory witnessing his father pushing his mother on the couch during an argument had set off Augie’s battle with insecurity. As an adult, he’d have talks with himself about how ridiculous it was to allow something relatively minor to have such a huge impact.

  In spite of the effort he’d put into being as unlike his father as possible, he was following in his footsteps, walking out on his wife for another woman. At least Kate was decent and honest, not a manipulative swindler. Only time would tell if Titan was really Steve’s son.

  Pulling into the driveway at five-thirty, he was relieved the house was dark. Sandy was too levelheaded to stay up all night waiting for him. She hadn’t even tried to call him.

  Carefully opening the door, he went straight for the kitchen to make coffee. If he didn’t stay on top of it, he’d end up in bed with the covers over his head. Looking out the window into the backyard, the solar lights around the covered pool shone through a thin covering of snow. The cold weather was getting old. What would it be like to live in Florida or southern California? He’d never allowed himself to imagine he could live anywhere else but this town with his family nearby. They were part of its history. The first day of his junior year in honors English came back to him. The teacher had looked at Augie and then back at his name.

  “You Steve Boyd’s boy?” he asked.

  Feeling the heat moving across his face, Augie nodded. “Yes sir.”

  Waiting for an insult that never came, Augie noticed the teacher took a special interest in him during the semester, congratulating him on his papers, almost in amazement at how well the boy did. Augie mustered up the courage to ask Steve about it.

  “Were you in honors English, Dad?” he asked.

  Steve bellowed. “I could barely write my name. No, I wasn’t in honors English. You gonna rub my nose it in it because you are?”

  “No, not at all,” he said, sorry he brought it up. “My teacher asked if you were my dad.”

  “He probably can’t believe I have a kid who can read,” he said, reaching for the remote. He turned the TV up, dismissing Augie, his apathy painful.

  Now, Steve wanted to be his friend. “I’d like to get to know you. If you’d give me a chance, maybe I can make it up to you.”

  Augie didn’t really want to get to know Steve. They had nothing in common. Well, except the infidelity part. He poured himself a cup of coffee and took it to the table, looking out at the sky as the sun just peeked over the horizon. The inky black sky above faded to turquoise, to a thin line of orange. Sitting down, despair flooded over him.

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” Sandy said, standing in the doorway.

  She walked over to the table and looked down at him. With her fingertips, she gently lifted his chin to look into his eyes.

  “I was worried about you,” she said. “I guessed you went to your girlfriend’s house, so I didn’t call. I didn’t want to upset you any more than you already were.”

  “Sandy, I’m sorry,” he said.

  Moving self-consciously away to the coffee pot, she couldn’t believe this was happening. Pouring coffee into a mug, she walked back to the table.

  “Is it serious?” she whispered, sitting down across from him.

  “Yes. I’m going to leave,” he answered.

  “Oh, how sad,” she said, her lips trembling. “Is there anything I can do? I mean is your mind made up?”

  He had the decency
to wait before he destroyed their lives with four words, I want a divorce.

  “It is,” he said. “At least right now. I don’t expect you to wait around for me.”

  “You don’t have to leave,” she said. “This is your home no matter what.”

  The words sent chills down his spine. “You need to get your own life,” he answered.

  “I have my life for now. I’ll be raising our kids,” she said. “Unless you planned on taking them along, too.”

  “Ah, no, they’ll be better off here.”

  “When are you leaving?” she asked, wondering how she could think it would be okay for him to stay there, unfaithful; it would be unbearable if he hung around all day.

  “I’m packing up some of my things this morning and moving in with her. I won’t have the money to get a place until the baby is eighteen.”

  That struck her as funny and she giggled. “So you’re not going to ask me to sell the house?”

  “No, not this morning, anyway. The thought of the work involved actually makes me sick. I don’t want to disrupt everyone’s lives that much. I hope we can work out a custody agreement without going to an attorney.”

  “We’ll see,” she said. “I’m numb right now.”

  “I know,” he said again. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why do I feel like your mother has something to do with this? Not directly, of course. Her pathetic tolerance of Steve’s treatment of her and you kids, this behavior is just the tip of the iceberg, if you ask me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop saying that,” she said. “You’re not sorry at all. This is what you want, so do it. The sooner you get out of my face, the better.”

  He pushed away from the table, a little hurt and embarrassed. “I’ll start packing now.”

  “You do that,” she said, shocked at how quickly her feelings had shifted.

  Looking at the clock, it was only six. She’d be counting the minutes until seven when she could safely text Liz. Ben would be getting ready for work. Worries about how this was going to impact her relationship with Augie’s sister-in-law increased until she was frantic, switching between anger and tears.

  Avoiding going back to the bedroom, she prepared the children’s lunches for the day and went through their backpacks, looking for notes she might have missed. She thought about what it would be like doing everything she already had to do, and adding Augie’s chores to the pile, and it suddenly felt overwhelming. She hoped he wouldn’t change his mind about the house; she decided then she’d fight him to the death to keep everything exactly the way it was for her children. Sounds from the living room alerted her that he was nearby, but he didn’t say goodbye. The door opened and closed, and she heard the sound of his car starting, the crunch of his tires on the little piles of snow still left. So that was it.

  Forgetting to call Liz at seven, she ran up the staircase to make sure her children were awake. They were growing up so fast. It had been so nice to be able to stay home and be their mother. With the youngest in school and with Augie gone, she might change her mind and look for a part-time job. There were a lot of possibilities.

  Old show tunes kept going through Kelly’s head as she woke up Friday morning. Then she remembered they’d watched Jeopardy last night, and the category was music from Broadway.

  “I’ve never watched this show once in my life,” she’d said, laughing.

  Titan sat at one end of the couch, she at the other as they watched together. He was leaving in the morning, returning to Chicago to tie up loose ends.

  Having him at the house had been wonderful. She stared at the bedroom ceiling, thinking about him, how companionable he’d been for the past couple of days. In that time, the alarm bells had gone off in her family. Maxine told her about Steve lurking over on the next block, and Augie’s comment Wednesday night about Titan staring at her still resonated. Kelly decided her family couldn’t stand to see her happy.

  There was absolutely nothing untoward going on between Kelly and Titan. They ran together a few times, more fun than effective because half the time she was dragging him along, and the other half was sitting at the café, eating Belinda’s flaky pastries and drinking pots of coffee. Since Karen was immersed in her new relationship which quickly monopolized every free minute she had, and of course Steve was with Lee, Titan filled a void.

  Having a male buddy was almost as nice as having a child who wanted to do activities with her. It reminded her of busy days running her children places and how their friends and their friends’ parents energized her. She was definitely a people person.

  The children were spread far apart in age; for twenty years there was always someone to go on bike rides, or inline skate, or have picnics or shopping trips with her. When Alice left for college, Kelly floundered for months. Karen and Eve traveled every chance they had. That left Augie’s children; Kelly planned weekend excursions for her grandchildren, becoming so immersed in their lives that if she didn’t see them or at least talk to them on the phone every day, she felt sick. Since Lee and Titan had shown up, she’d spent little time with her grandchildren, the omission another source of guilt.

  Titan didn’t need her, but her company had taken the gruesome pain of Jean’s death and made it tolerable. He told her as much. “I was going to kill myself. That was my plan. I even thought I might do it in your garage. But after that first night with you and Ken when we had so much fun, it’s seemed silly and selfish. I’d hurt my mother, and that was about it. No one else cared enough.”

  Although he laughed about it, his admission shocked her. She imagined finding his body, having to call Steve so he could tell Lee, the coroner coming, the few lines in the paper about his death. She shivered thinking about it.

  Stretching in bed, Kelly enjoyed the few extra minutes of laziness. Beaver let her know it was time to move, grunting as he tried biting his hind leg.

  “Okay, buddy. It’s you and me this weekend. We’ll get the kids over here on Sunday, hopefully.”

  After her morning routine, she opened her bedroom door and almost ran into Titan. He was still dressed for bed with sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I keep singing tunes from Anything Goes.”

  “Ha! Me too! Whose idea was that anyway? Let’s get coffee.”

  “Do I have to go to Chicago?” he asked, the hesitation in his voice obvious.

  “You tell me,” she said. “Do you? What’s pending?”

  “Monday I have to make an appearance at the clinic. I’ll never sell it if I’m not there at least part of the time. The house is listed, and it can stay furnished until it sells.”

  “So you don’t really have to go until Sunday night, unless you fly in, and then you can leave Monday.”

  “Jeez, I never even thought about flying.”

  He left the kitchen while she let Beaver out, watching the dog walk around the yard, sniffing and peeing on everything he encountered. Opening a cupboard door, she reached for coffee, aware that tasks she did over and over again had become so important to her that even the brand of coffee she bought had to have an appealing label, this one a stylized tree with curlicues covering it. Kelly found joy in the details. Perhaps that ability to appreciate even the smallest thing was one of the saving graces of her life.

  Titan returned with his computer and set it on the table, going for the door to let the dog in.

  “He was scratching at your door last night,” he said. “I was tempted to let him out.”

  Looking at the dog, Kelly frowned. “You traitor,” she admonished. “You want to sleep with Titan, go for it.”

  Waiting for the coffee to brew, she got the toaster out and, with bread and eggs, made sandwiches.

  “I hate having to get up at four in the morning, but there’s a seven a.m. flight out of Metro. I have to be there at six.”

  “You’ll make it if you leave here before five,” she said. “Zero traffic as long as the weather stays nice. I doubt if sec
urity will be that busy first thing.”

  She placed the sandwich and cup of coffee in front of him, feeling very maternal doing so.

  “I’m glad you’ll be here. I was wondering what I’d do all weekend while you were gone.”

  So what followed shocked her, so much so she almost wept. Without missing a beat, he was out of his chair, taking her in his arms, holding her so close she could feel his heart beat. Bending down, almost a foot taller than Kelly, Titan kissed her, a passionate, urgent kiss filled with sexual desire and need. Kissing him back, Kelly began to shake. She had not been kissed like that in a long time, maybe a decade.

  They backed off for a moment, taking a breath, and Kelly threaded her arms around his neck, standing on her toes. She buried her face in his chest, the push-pull of judgement fighting desire powerful.

  “I think we have a situation,” he said, his voice soft, his motive tender.

  He wound her ponytail around his hand repeatedly, the tug on her scalp mesmerizing. Having been in charge for all the years of her marriage, Kelly surrendered. She’d take her cues from Titan on this one, so stunned by the developments over the last two minutes that there didn’t seem to be any solution possible.

  “I don’t want to leave for an hour, let alone a day. I’ll commute until everything is settled.”

  Nodding her head, Kelly was afraid to speak. Wanting everything neat and tidy, she wondered how they were going to tell their family. Jean had only been dead a week. Out of respect for her, Kelly felt compelled to put the brakes on, but wouldn’t say anything unless prompted.

  “If I have to stay overnight, will you come with me?”

  She thought of her regretful call to the hospital to get her job back, the decision not to retire could always be rescinded. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  So that was it. They didn’t yet talk about them as a couple, about anything regarding their relationship.

  “I think I just lost my appetite,” she said. “Nothing personal.”

  “Me too,” he replied, laughing. “We’d better eat though. Now that I’m home for the weekend, what should we do? Let’s go where we don’t have to hide.”