Is This All There Is?

by Mann, Patricia

  “Sam, please, let’s talk about this later. I mean… I’m sure Grandma has to get back to… uhm… ” Suddenly it occurred to me that I had no idea what story Rick gave his mother about why he needed her to watch our kids. My brain froze.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Sam had to ask that question just when it hit me that I didn’t have the first part of the story down and now I had to come up with the second. One lie at a time, I told myself, and try not to make the web too complex or you’ll never be able to crawl out.

  “Oh, he uhm, he said uhm... ” I felt my mother-in-law’s eyes fixed on me, waiting intently for my response, but I kept my focus on Sam. “Stop picking at your cast!”

  I looked in her general direction, but not at her. “He had to run to the office. Some urgent paperwork that wasn’t filled out properly and… I don’t know, they needed it for tomorrow. Not sure when he’ll be back.” I didn’t sound very convincing, even to myself. I picked Jack up and sniffed his behind, hoping he’d provide me with an excuse for a quick getaway. No such luck.

  “Hmmm… Rick didn’t mention anything about going into the office when I saw him earlier,” my mother-in-law said.

  “Yeah, I know, it was unexpected. They uhh… they called and he ran off just before you got here.” I sniffed Jack again.

  “You need a bath honey, smells like you wore more of your dinner than you ate! I know you have to get going, Lucy. I better get these kids into the bath. Thanks for watching them for us.” I watched her gaze fall on the two almost empty wine glasses on the table.

  “Rick wasn’t drinking before he left was he? He never drives when he’s had wine.”

  “Oh, that… that uhm… was from earlier. Don’t worry, he was fine when he left. Come on, Sam, let’s get the bath ready. Thanks again, Lucy. I’m sure you have to…”

  “No, I don’t have anywhere to go. Why don’t I help you get the kids bathed? I can stay until Rick gets back.” Please go, I pleaded in my mind. Please. I can’t do this right now.

  “Uh, okay, well, uhm do you want something to eat?” Even as I was saying it, I realized how ludicrous a suggestion it was. It was late. Well beyond dinner hour. Offering her food was some kind of automatic pilot malfunction. She giggled nervously and looked at her watch.

  “You just relax, Beth, honey, I’ll get the boys into the bath.”

  The evening dragged on. I thought I would go crazy. I thought she would never leave. The kids were overtired but refused to go to sleep. I cradled Jack in my arms on the couch as she sat with Sam, running her fingers through his hair.

  “Come on, Sam, it’s really late. You have to go to bed,” I said.

  “No, not while Grandma Lucy’s here.”

  “Sam, please.”

  She stood up and looked at her watch.

  “I guess I should go so you can get the boys to sleep.” I hoped the tremendous internal sigh of relief was not visible.

  “What time did you say Rick was coming home?”

  “I really don’t know. He didn’t say.” I shrugged my shoulders and realized my acting skills weren’t about to win me any awards. She knew something was up.

  I considered the possibility of letting go and telling her everything. I could ask her to stay until after I put the kids to bed and cry on her shoulder. She’s a woman. And she’s always been kind to me. Maybe she’d understand, show some compassion. She’s divorced. Maybe she would have some wisdom to share about how to prevent that, or maybe rather, how to survive it.

  But all that came out of my mouth was a polite goodbye as I walked her to the door, with Jack on my hip. Watching her walk away, I wondered why in all the years of knowing her, I had chosen to never let her into my inner world. She wasn’t so bad, this woman who had raised my husband to be a solid, decent human being. This woman who would accept any small opportunity I allowed her to love and dote on my children. And now it was probably too late. She would learn what I had done and then the door would be closed on me.

  I started to question why I had chosen Dave to open my heart to, while I shut out so many of the people around me. Maybe there was actually something safer about Dave, because I could keep him at a distance. I could hide the parts of myself I didn’t want him to see. I could create a false identity and shield him from the moments like this one, when I was totally lost and couldn’t hide it from the family members I was forced to spend time with. But even with this blossoming awareness, I longed for him. I wanted him still. I saw his face in front of me, reminding me of the escape route he was offering, “Leave him. I want you to leave him and be with me.” But this wasn’t the time to make any decisions. Too much was still unknown. And Jack was wriggling and crying from exhaustion.

  “Hey guys, Daddy might not be home for a while, wanna cuddle together in my bed?”

  “Cudew, cudew,” Jack mumbled.

  Even stoic Sam couldn’t hide his delight at this suggestion. He had long begrudged his little brother for being allowed to sleep next to me, having completely forgotten the years that spot was his.

  Hours later, wedged between a snoring Sam and Jack with his little arms wrapped around me and his warm breath on my neck, I lay awake, wondering if I would ever be able to sleep again. I got lost in the forgotten high of my children’s warm bodies against my own, their minds and flesh satiated from the books I had read and the longer than ever back rubs I contorted my body to give them simultaneously. Suddenly I was short of breath. My chest exploded with sheer terror at a thought that strangely had not occurred to me until that moment. What if he tries to take them away from me?

  Chapter 29

  I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t push images of Rick and myself in court battling over custody out of my mind. I squinted at the alarm clock. 1:00 a.m. I wondered where he was. Maybe closing down some bar, pouring his broken heart out to a sympathetic bartender. Maybe sound asleep at his friend Matt’s bachelor pad. Maybe in bed with some other woman to get back at me.

  I went into my office and sat in front of my computer, scanning the new email messages. I realized I hadn’t read any emails other than Dave’s for a almost a week. My head had been so clouded with Dave, I wasn’t even responding to my students. I used to pride myself on replying to every student email on the same day it was sent. One unopened email was titled “urgent question about the test tomorrow.” It was dated five days earlier.

  My eyes drifted to the most recent message, one from an unfamiliar university address with a subject line that read, “Reminder about Tuesday’s Faculty Lunch.” I didn’t know anything about a faculty lunch. My heart rate started to climb when I noticed that the email had been sent at midnight. My first emotion was elation, because he was reaching out to me, and after the weight of Rick’s wrath, I was comforted by the thought that someone who loved me and wanted me was out there. But my excitement quickly faded as I read the disturbing and desperate message.

  “I have to see you. I already miss you. I can’t live without you in my life. You have to leave him and be with me. Meet me at the Starbucks near campus Tuesday at noon.”

  It didn’t make sense that he was smart enough to use a fake subject heading and university address, but dumb enough to leave a message like this in the email. Hadn’t he figured out that Rick had read all our emails? Didn’t he know that I had been proven incapable of permanently deleting exactly this type of damning evidence?

  I let my head fall into my cold hands and listened to the complete silence around me. After a few minutes of running through possible responses in my mind, I started to type.

  “I can’t ever see you again. Please don’t contact me.” Delete.

  “You said you were going to give me time and space. Please keep your word.” Delete.

  “Yes, I’ll meet you at Starbucks, but only to say goodbye.”

  My pinky finger hovered over the delete button but I didn’t press it. I didn’t hit send either.

  I focused on the long straight grains sprinkled with dark swirling circles on my kno
tty pine desk. When I looked up, I noticed that the little cardboard framed picture of Jack and Sam at Chuck E. Cheese’s was crooked, pushed back from its usual spot by a disorganized stack of paperwork. The hair on my arms rose up as I realized that Rick had rifled through that stack of papers and shoved it up against the photograph, leaving it askew.

  I turned back to the computer and imagined Rick reading through my emails and seeing this pitiful message from Dave. I had to face the fact that he would be hearing and seeing every message sent to and from me through the various technologies I relied on to stay connected to the world, and to Dave. There was no hiding anymore. The thought of not being able to communicate anything to Dave without Rick finding out made me want to jump off a bridge into the parched LA river. The game was definitely over. The idea of it wasn’t fun anymore. It was sinister and cruel now. As angry as Rick was, he was also wounded and my continued contact with Dave would be like stabbing a fork into an infected gash.

  The sound of the garage door opening startled me and I deleted both Dave’s email and my last attempt at a response.

  I tiptoed slowly to meet Rick and stood right in front of him, searching his face for signs. Signs of what, I didn’t know. Just anything. Some indication of what was going to happen. His breath smelled like stale cheap beer. He stared at the floor.

  “I think I’m done,” he said.

  I moved closer, looking into his eyes, pleading without words. He met my gaze, and I could see he had been through his own hell in the last few hours. I wanted him to kiss me, to take me in his arms and tell me everything would work out, even if we split up.

  He looked away again.

  “Yeah, I’m done. Can’t do it anymore.”

  I moved even closer and shook my head. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. He swayed as he moved to walk away. I blocked his path, shaking my head more forcefully. He pushed me aside. I pressed my body against his, preventing him from walking away. I put my arms around him and held tight. He struggled to extricate himself.

  “Stop it, Beth.”

  I grasped him tighter, burying my face in his chest. Tears streamed out of my eyes and soaked his worn brown leather jacket. I wanted words to come, something to make it better. But I was mute.

  “Come on, don’t do this. I can’t… I don’t want to… ”

  I slid to my knees, still holding on to him all the way down. My arms were around his calves now and my face between his thighs. He tried to step out of my grip, but I wouldn’t let him. He would have to hurt me to get away. He stopped trying and stood still. I held on, sobbing into the soft ripples of his jeans. He was still for a long time. I stood back up without letting go and wedged my wet face into his armpit. He didn’t put his arms around me, but he didn’t push me away either.

  I looked into his face and saw two wet streaks running from beneath his eyes to his chin. I closed my eyes and kissed his cheek, leaving my lips there as I waited for him to pull away. He didn’t. I moved my mouth to meet his lips. They were unfamiliar to me but I started to remember them, their shape, their taste. I wrapped my mouth around the soft curve in the middle of his upper lip. He didn’t move at first, but then he responded with hesitance, like a dog that had been beaten warily coming back to his owner for a tummy rub.

  We kissed each other gently and I let my body relax. I ran my hands along his arms and the back of his neck. I tasted the beer but there was also a sweetness, like cotton candy. We peppered each other’s faces with kisses as he guided my body to the couch. We fell into it, side by side. Our kisses were different than they had been years before when our lips knew each other well. There was something so much more vulnerable now.

  I recalled something Shelly told me after a couple’s retreat she went to long ago.

  “It’s easy to kiss a stranger,” she said. “But with the person who sees the best and the worst of you, the one who smells your morning breath and your vomit when you have the flu… well, that’s the scariest kind of kiss.”

  Her words ran through my brain over and over as my hungry mouth explored his tongue, his cheeks, the forgotten spaces between his chin and neck and ears. I was trembling. I couldn’t remember feeling this exposed, this bare, not even when he watched as a tiny human head emerged from the gaping bloody hole between my legs. I didn’t know if he was going to leave me, but still I wanted to love him, to open myself to him completely, even if it would be the last and only time.

  Suddenly he pulled away from me and stood up.

  “No, I can’t. This isn’t right.” I leapt up and clung to him again. He pushed me down on the couch and stared at me, breathing heavy. I stared into his eyes as I gripped the bottom of my pajama top and lifted it up over my head. He watched me, our eyes locked.

  He looked hungry, ravenous. Still angry too, but aroused. I stood up very slowly and slid my pajama pants and underwear to the floor. I stepped out of them, trying to be graceful. I was completely naked, standing in front of him. He broke our gaze as his eyes fell on my breasts, which were rising and falling with my rapid breaths.

  He pushed me down to the couch hard enough to say that he was in control and that he was still enraged, but not hard enough to hurt me. I laid my arms down at my sides and waited, completely submissive. Goose bumps erupted on my exposed flesh.

  “I’m… I’m sorry. I love… ” He put his hand over my mouth.

  “Just don’t say anything.”

  He pulled his pants and underwear down to his ankles and climbed on top of me. He grabbed a handful of hair from the back of my head and pulled it tight. I let out a little gasp of pain but he silenced me with more pressure from the other hand, which was covering my mouth again.

  I closed my eyes and drifted into another world. I saw Dave’s face, then Rick’s, then Dave’s again. They shifted shape and form and became one person in my mind. For moments of time I forgot which one of them I was actually with. He was pounding into me, it was rough and raw, not loving or gentle, but still it felt good. My body wanted it. My soul wanted it. It seemed like the most important thing in the world to do, for me, for Rick, even for Dave. It felt like I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to do for the first time in a long time.

  When it was over, he quickly covered himself back up while I remained naked, panting and dripping with his sweat. I opened my mouth to speak.

  “I said don’t say anything.”

  “But we need to figure out… ”

  “No. I can’t figure anything out. I can’t even stand the sight of you right now.”

  I heaved and choked on those words.

  “But, Rick, the kids... they’ll know something’s… ”

  “Shhh. Be quiet for a second.” He closed his eyes and grunted.

  “Just act normal for now. They don’t need to know anything yet. Just pretend everything is fine. You’re good at that. We’ll talk about what’s going to happen when I figure it out. When I’m ready.”

  Chapter 30

  I yanked at the weeds with everything I had, as if it was me they had been strangling instead of the grass beneath. My lawn looked worse than ever with its empty patches where the offending plants had been, but I knew the seeds I was about to spread would take just a few weeks to sprout. And with the warm spring sun, the sparse rows of daffodils and tulips I had planted would fill out nicely in no time. The gurgling noise coming from the baby monitor clipped to my jeans stopped after a few seconds and I was relieved that Jack hadn’t woken up from his nap yet.

  The feeling started in my ankles this time. A subtle throbbing and then a tingling sensation traveling up my thighs, then along the middle of my back and into my neck. I tried hard to ignore it and stay focused on my gardening projects but the pull was too strong. I dropped a fistful of weeds and raced into the house. In a futile attempt to prolong the inevitable, I paced the kitchen while eating two peanut butter Girl Scout cookies, chewing as slowly as possible and savoring the rich salty sweet flavors. I reached for a third
then stopped myself. I could be strong in other ways, I told myself, if not the one that mattered.

  Moments later, sitting in front of my computer, I repeated the same command that I failed to obey for eight of the fifteen days since I had been caught.

  “No contact today. No contact today. No contact today.” Each time I repeated the mantra, I felt more manic and less able to resist the temptation. The daily struggle was becoming more vicious on both sides, with the “no contact” side leading to a surprising increase in productivity: home improvement projects, more frequent playdates, regular exercise and more.

  I sat down at the computer and re-read his message from yesterday.

  “Please meet with me. We can figure this out. I love you.”

  I closed the email and went to check on Jack. Still sound asleep. Again the small sane part of my brain shouted at the crazy part, this time trying to muster more ferocity.

  “No contact today. No contact today.”

  But my hands paid no attention to my plea. They signed on to the instant message program. My eyes, feeling almost detached from my body, registered his instant message screen name.

  I sat back and waited, breathing heavy, my fingers tapping the wood desk like little spider legs. My palms started to sweat and I fanned myself with a legal pad. My head felt as if it was about to explode.

  “I love you, Beth.” Relief and disgust. Desire and anger.

  “You have to stop this, Dave.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “You have no idea what I’m going through.”

  “I do. I want to help you.” I raised and lowered my eyebrows over and over to massage the tension bunched up in my forehead.

  “There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing left for us to say. We have to let it go.”

  “Beth, no. You’re just saying this because you’re afraid he’s reading what we’ve been writing.”

  “No, I don’t think he’s reading our messages at all. It’s worse than that. I don’t think he gives a shit anymore. He won’t even talk to me.”