by Nicole Conn
“He has a lot of you, Barry. He’s kind. Generous. And he’s got your wonderful smile.”
He glanced up to Elena. They shared a moment.
“That’s one thing we didn’t mess up.” Barry sighed and then his voice became sharper. “And it’s gotta stay that way. You got it?”
She nodded, obediently.
“I’m gonna get ready for bed.” He waited for her expectantly.
“I’ll be in, in a sec. I’m going to check on him first.”
*
Elena stopped before Nash’s closed door, trying to figure out the best way to approach discussing the day’s events, wondering if she should be harsh and serious, when all she wanted to do was scoop him up in her arms and hold her baby close. But he wasn’t a baby. He was nearly sixteen. And she wanted—no, needed—for him to understand the difference between right and wrong.
She slowly opened the door, and whispered, “Nash?”
No answer. She walked further into the darkened room and could tell by Nash’s body language and the way he was breathing that he was awake and trying to pretend she wasn’t there.
“Nash.”
She sat next to him, put a hand through her son’s curly hair and as she touched him, he flinched away from her.
“Honestly, Nash...what were you thinking? You know better than—”
“NO! What the hell were YOU thinking!” The vehemence and bitterness caught her off guard.
“I’m sorry?” Elena tried to get her bearings. “What...what are we talking about here?”
“You.” He turned to her then, slammed the light on in the room, exposing his tear-stained face. He spat, “You and your dirty little secret!”
The air was sucked from Elena’s lungs. She closed her eyes. Of course he knew.
“I read her letters.”
“What...what letters?”
“Your girlfriend’s oh-so-pornographic letters.” Nash sat up in an accusatory posture. “God, I even liked her.”
It took a moment to register for Elena, but when she realized he was referring to the letters Peyton had written her while they were in Hawaii, she bl>waii, sanched, her mind racing back to the contents, trying to remember how graphic they actually were…knowing they were terribly graphic.
“Nash.”
“Yeah...that was a thrill ride.”
“What were you doing going through my things?” Her voice was shrill.
“Hey, don’t turn this around on me. It’s like Tori said, it’s almost as if you wanted us to find out.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I would never want either you or your dad to find out in such a painful way.”
“So now the question is, how are you going to tell him? Because let me tell you, Dad would never get over reading something like that.”
Elena sat there stunned. In a moment her idyllic love affair with Peyton suddenly seemed petty and ugly and all wrong. But she loved Peyton, how could it be wrong? She wasn’t quite certain what tack to take with her son. She looked at him then, put a gentle hand upon the blanket where his thigh rested.
“Nash...sweetie, I wasn’t looking for this. God knows, I don’t really understand it. And I certainly didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late…”
“You are going to tell Dad!”
“Yes, well, I certainly had planned on him knowing before you.”
“So, then, what?” Nash started tearing up again, and Elena could see not just the pain but the terror written all over his face. “Are you’re going to get a divorce?”
“I…I’m not sure, Nash. I’m not sure what I’m doing.”
“Then stop. I think he’s an asshole half the time, but this’ll kill him. It’ll blow his whole ridiculous facade. How’s he supposed to guide his fawning flock when his wife’s sleeping with the enemy?”
Elena shook her head beginning to tear up herself.
“Nash, I need for you to understand something. I have never cheated or been dishonest with your father before...this.” Elena looked Nash directly in the eyes so that he could see her truth. “But, I’ve never been in love with him, either.”
He greeted this statement with bewilderment. “Then why, Mom, why stay with him all this time?”
She held him close, placed his head upon her shoulder.
“Why do you think?”
He lunged for his mom, holding onto her for dear life. The minute he began to sob, she began to cry as well. She held him, her little boy, her sweet tr.
As he calmed, she kissed his forehead, and then rubbed his head until she heard his breathing calm. She held him long after he had fallen asleep.
“My son has severe autism and my wife left us when Julian was three.” A slender man in his early forties, Anthony sits thinking back to this painful time.
“And my husband couldn’t deal with our daughter’s Down syndrome,” says Julie, a frail beauty, whose life of hard knocks has certainly taken its toll.
“Shane’s Inspiration is a full access park for kids with disabilities and my son loves to go and swing, but he also has seizures, so he has to be in one of the belted swings at all times. He’d go for hours if you’d let him.” Anthony turns to Julie. “That’s where we met.”
“Angelina, my daughter, also loves to swing—anything with motion makes her giggle with delight, so I put her on the swing next to Julian, Anthony’s son. Julian started singing "‘Down by the Bay.’ Julie begins to get emotional, “And I couldn’t believe it…my daughter, who has never sung, joined in—not in tune or anything, but began singing—for the first time in her life at five. And she just kept on singing—wildly off-key, but kept up with him for a good forty-five minutes.”
Anthony is beaming at his wife. “And that’s how we met. Our kids. Their connection is so incredible. They can lay snuggled and cozy like puppies the whole day. They are the soul mates, and we’re—well, we’re the lucky beneficiaries.”
“You don’t know,” Julie sighs. “How it is to be with someone who loves your child and accepts them for exactly who they are. No more walking on eggshells or apologizing. My ex…well, he was just plain embarrassed by our daughter. You just don’t know how amazing Anthony is. He plays with the kids all the time, eats them up like candy. He just completely gets it. Gets them. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner.”
Anthony looks at his wife. A tear rolls down his cheek.
After the longest night of her life, Elena walked in to see Tyler at his editing bay. Long after Nash had gone to sleep she had paced, and then would intermittently stop in her tracks, sit in the darkness, hoping stillness would bring an answer, and then despairingly return to pacing. She couldn’t hurt her son, she didn’t want to destroy her family, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Peyton. No answer came without deep pain and anguish to any one of the people she most dearly loved.
She had put on a brave face in the morning, made a special breakfast for everyone and sent them about their day. Then she jumped into her van as fast as she could, dashing to Tyler’s.
Tyler was in the middle of editing what she could see was a very poignant Soulemetry webisode, but when he realized she was standing there, he hit the pause button on his Final Cut editing system.
“Gotta tell ya, there’s a reason that that’s one deeply meaningful cliché…” Tyler got up and took his friend in his arms, “…love truly can conquer pretty much any situation out there.”
“Do you really think so?” Elena sniped. “I feel like it’s about to devastate everything I know.”
Elena withdrew herself from Tyler’s arms, paced around his room, arms akimbo. “What am I doing? Look at all the people I’m hurting.”
“Oh, sweetheart, the sad truth is, life happens, and you should only be so grateful life decided to send a thunderbolt down between your eyes or you might never have lived it!”
Elena sighed, and Tyler stopped his friend from continuing to pace.
“Listen, my angel. Barry knows without your guil
t you would have left him ages ago. It’s made me crazy ever since it happened. I don’t mean right after, but when he could see the writing on the wall. And he has, believe you me. He just never mans up and gives you an out. Enough is enough.”
“I…I...” She didn’t want to cry again. She wanted to be strong. To find a workable solution. Not to feel impending doom heading her way. “I...I don’t want to talk about it.”
Elena remained shut down, angry, but Tyler wasn’t having it, made her turn to face him.
“I’m so, so sorry, Elena. No one wants to talk about it! But we’re going to talk about it here and now!” He was implacable.
“Tyler—”
“No, Elena. There is nothing that’s right or just about any baby dying from SIDS.” He put his hands to her arms. “I’m sure there isn’t a parent alive who wouldn’t blame themselves—and you’re such a momma bear I’m sure you believe there must have been something you could have done differently to save Sarah. But there wasn’t. I know you’ve beaten yourself senseless with blame—punishing yourself endlessly by staying with preacher man. Nothing...nothing you could do could prevent what happened. It was your little girl’s time. But make no mistake, for however little time she was here with you, she was here for a reason and to make you the person you are today.”
He took her by the hand, sat her down, his voice gentle, soothing. “So you commit to Barry, and you do all these awesome things at the church to balance the scales. And maybe that’s part of your journey—whether you want to believe in this stuff or not.”
Elena finally allowed the tears to come that she didn’t dare let surface when she had told Peyton about Sarah. Now, after Nash, after her life blowing up in her face, she couldn’t have kept them from coming anyway.
“I loved her...God, I loved her so much, Ty...”
Elena then broke down completely, sobbing, releasing, finally allowing all of it to come tumbling out, her grief at holding it all in, at keeping Peyton a secret, all the clandestine meetings that were wearing her to a frazzle, betraying her family, feeling guilty, but still loving Peyton with every breath in her body. All of m" ody. Alit came out.
She took the tissue Tyler offered her. Blew her nose and tried to reassemble her face.
“We all have our destiny,” Tyler stated gently. “She is part of yours.”
“But...I didn’t have a choice in some of that,” she stated, nearing a point of no return. “I do here. How can I do this to my family?”
She could barely take in the events of her life. If she left Barry she would break Nash’s heart and ruin his entire world. If she didn’t, she was going to have to leave Peyton, something she simply couldn’t bear. Losing Sarah suddenly felt so fresh, and she didn’t think she could survive another such loss. How could she ever recover from the pain of losing the only adult she had ever loved? She began to cry again, unable to stop for several long minutes.
Tyler simply held her, rocking Elena in his arms. “There there, beautiful woman.” He spoke with love and tenderness, “You can’t rewrite history. But you know what you can do? You can reframe the present: Barry’s let off the hook—I’m sure even he has a soul mate somewhere out there. Nash wouldn’t have to constantly face the schizophrenia of your marriage. And you—what a gift you’ve been given. I’ve never seen you like this.” Tyler put a hand to her chest. “Alive, joyous, full of passion. Peyton makes you breathe.”
At that very moment Lily popped in, her glasses crimped on her nose, reviewing contracts, so involved in what she was doing that she didn’t even see Elena at first. She was mumbling, “Tyler, doll, I told you this morning, these papers had to be signed by five o’clock sharp! Oh!”
Lily stopped, glancing from Elena’s tear-stained face to Tyler kneeling at his friend’s knees. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”
“Lily, as you can see, Elena’s having a rough day.”
“Hi, Elena...” Lily wasn’t the most graceful person in these situations, tending to stay away from negotiating anything that involved actual contact with emotion. She was very good at what she did because she remained detached and disconnected to the situation so that she could remain focused. “Ty, I’m so sorry but I just need your signature on this merger.”
Elena blew her nose.
“I know my timing sucks, but if Tyler had just taken care of this, this morning, I wouldn’t be interrupting your—well, this. It’ll only take a minute.”
Tyler shook his head. That was his Lily, all high-powered and vogue elite, but without an ounce of social grace when it came to the plight of human frailty. Tyler rose, but then turned Elena’s chair to the monitor before her. He kissed her forehead, hit the play button and exited.
Elena barely glanced at the familiar face of Tyler as he sat in his homemade studio speaking directly to the camera in his “host” role.
“And for those of you debating the Soulemetry qualities of that special someone, let’s just run down the ol’ soul mate criteria that must exist for this person to be a true Twin Flame.
“Remember, first, sometimes this person comes in an unusual package—maybe not your usual type. Secondly, you met under unusual circumstances, perhaps freakish randomness. Third, you are desperate to be with that person.”
By this time Elena was not only listening she was ticking off all the qualities she knew existed in her relationship with Peyton. “Fourth, and this one’s key, everything feels completely brand new, yet absolutely familiar. Yes, that person’s eyes really are a window into your soul.”
Tyler took a dramatic pause. “And, finally, this connection has fundamentally changed you. Significantly, altered you to the core.”
Even through her tears, Elena smiled. Everything on Tyler’s list was true.
*
Elena walked as briskly as she could, knowing she was already late to meet Peyton at the park after she had had to cancel yesterday because Nash kept dogging her, following her every movement. If she stood up, he’d interrogate her. “Where are you going? Are you going to see her? Is that what you’re doing? Just tell me. Tell me the truth!” Until Elena thought she would lose her mind.
The day before, when she had set up this meeting with Peyton, she had made it into her car and begun to back up and there he stood behind her at the end of the driveway, arms folded. He terrified her. Shook her to her very foundations. Like her son was now her judge, jury and executioner. But finally, finally, he had left with a friend to go to the movies. After he had safely been gone for ten minutes she had phoned Peyton and asked her, rather desperately, if they could meet at the park.
She stopped when she saw her, standing at the bridge that overlooked the brook. So handsome. So beautiful. Once again Elena was struck by Peyton’s entire being, and couldn’t resist running to her, wrapping her arms about her, finding Peyton’s lips, and the moment she did she felt safe, on solid ground, and could feel the rightness of who they were together and the exquisite warmth and feeling of being alive, startlingly alive when she was with her, all of it flooding back over her in the same breath.
Peyton gently but firmly tried to push Elena aside, but Elena held her close and Peyton too sank into the smells, the silky softness of Elena’s lips, the ungluing that always happened the moment Elena touched her.
*
Millie was powerwalking, up to six miles a day, which was really great because it also meant she could jam in all her afternoon calls on her headset as she plowed through her miles, checking her BlackBerry, steady as she goes, walking her pink-bowed Chow, Snowflake Angel, managing the universe according to Millie with precis1em with pion and efficiency. She was proud that she could literally handle anything. Everything. The more she had to do the better off she was. She was going to change the world. And they were going to be good changes. Changes that not only needed to happen to save the very fabric of marriage, but would put her in position to pen her memoirs. She’d tie it up and promote the heck out of it, take part and delight in every talk show from Oprah to
her absolute favorite, Glenn Beck—okay so she had a little crush on him, but it was nothing. Nothing, really. She really could begin to position herself as the next Dr. Laura—helping all those poor unfortunate misguided fools who had lost their way—
What was she seeing?
No.
NO. It couldn’t be.
Two women kissing. At this park. A family park.
Millie almost tripped over Snowflake Angel as she gaped, watching these two women really going at it. I mean get a room already! Millie was beyond incensed that these two people had the audacity to exploit their filth at this park, this park where kids, children and her innocent Snowflake Angel roamed. If people weren’t safe here, where were they safe?
Elena!
Her horror soon turned to fascinated repulsion. She scrambled to collect herself. She could barely breathe. Barely could catch her breath as she lunged for her cell phone.
Elena Winters. In the park. Kissing.
Kissing a…a WOMAN shrieked in her brain.
She dropped her phone.
She scrambled to pick it up, tangling her feet up with Snowflake Angel, tripping to her knees, but jumped back up as she nabbed her BlackBerry and began to dial.
*
Peyton gently but firmly pushed Elena from her.
“Is he…is he okay?”
Elena nodded yes, not with great confidence, but enough so that Peyton felt relieved. She took Elena’s hand, smiled weakly, and then led Elena to several large flat boulders below a huge oak tree.
As they sat, Elena studied Peyton, traced a finger over her face.
“I’m in love with a woman.” Elena’s voice was filled with wonder and awe. “It still amazes me. At times I feel it’s all been a dream. But then when I’m with you…it’s all so real.”
Peyton tossed Elena a bleak smile.
“Look, Peyton…I we. Peytonknow this last week has been rough...”