“I do take the hottie,” the groom belched in a botched impersonation of Elvis. “I surely do, as my one and only wife, forsaking all others, ’til death do us part.” He fished a black velvet box from his pocket and voila, the box flashed a glittering diamond wedding ring.
“And do you, missy, take Elvis to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I dooooooo,” Vanessa sang out.
“By the power invested in me by the state of Nevada, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride, Elvis.”
“Ooooh, I feel faint. Elvis has never kissed me before!”
“That’s because he’s dead, Sugah. Do not forget to sign your real name, Elvis, on the marriage certificate. Next!”
The groom moved closer to the camera. His eyes were laughing at me.
“Asshole!” I threw the popcorn at the stilled video, and the groom had his mouth frozen open. “I hope you choke on popcorn! You got married again, you stupid bigamist!” I flipped him off, pushing my middle fingers at the screen. “Suck me, man! You want to mess with my life, huh? Come on!”
I danced on bare feet like a champion boxer, punching at the groom as he placed a ring on the bride’s finger and then covered the lens with his hand.
The film went black.
A jackass of interest mailed the video from Canada.
Was I being blackmailed?
Chapter 20
WIFE
My hubby (Yes, I now think of Brad as hubby like old comfy shoes.) picks up the telephone on the eighth ring.
Farm-girl love shyness slams my heart against my lungs. “I, uh, got your flowers, Brad. Thanks so much for your pleasant surprise.” The roses are yellow like the color of a chicken’s beak. A large note card is clipped to a leaf, with words written, scratched off, written, scratched off, etc., until finally, the note reads, How about going with me to the dance Saturday night, the yearly ball the doctors are having for charity? Like the other flowers he sent, the note is unsigned.
“Uh, Saturday night sounds lovely. I’m looking forward to the dance.” Brad has never asked me to the ball and I do a little kitchen dance. Yes! Yes!
“Good. Good.” I can hear him swallowing and loosening his tie. He is as nervous as I am, as if we are going to my missed high school prom.
“Well...I know you are busy, so I’ll hang up now,” I offer. Will you bring me a corsage, a flower that hugs the wrist?
“Bye. Have a nice day,” he responds warmly.
“You, too, Brad.”
The phone clicks and I rush to buy a Cinderella dress, not a kid’s princess ball gown, but a low-cut, butt-hugging, thigh-rising, I’ll make my husband proud, red glittery dress Cinderella would wear if she knew how good sex is with Prince Charming. I even get a sassy new haircut.
Something wonderful will happen after the dance. Brad is going to say he really does love me and he wants us to try for a baby. We will conceive in love the boy Brad always longed for.
Really, my joy and future plans are well thought out with a clear head. Brad may have reverted to his old psycho self a while back but he has not had a relapse since then. He is a good father and no longer taunts Traci to tears. He does not yell at her if she asks help with her homework. “That’s right, Sweetie, you’re really smart,” he says and kisses the top of her head instead of asking me, “Traci doing well in school? Is she smart at least? Did the kid inherit my brains?”
I trust Brad but Traci is always watching her father, as if waiting for him to turn into someone else. She is blameless, however, because of the couple of days here and there when Brad turned back into Mr. Hyde again. He had sat stiffly in his chair, diagnosing Traci’s flaws. “You should feed Traci some calories. That little girl is skinny as a flagpole. She has dishwater-blonde, stringy hair. Poor kid should have inherited my handsome looks. Does she show any sign of aggressive behavior?”
No. Aggression is Brad’s territory, at least the old Brad.
“Does she show any wildness?”
Wildness is the former Brad.
Everyone deserves a fifth chance, even a waffling daddy. Traci struggles to understand that because her father is adopted, he frets over his unknown bloodline and what he may have passed on to her. Traci does not know the pain of abandonment as Brad does. She really needs to believe Brad has changed, as I do.
I even put the screwdriver that was under my pillow back in the junk drawer. I had stuffed it back under my pillow after Mr. Hyde returned the first time but now that man is gone for good.
Chapter 21
WIFE
My hand brushes Brad, groping for him in the darkness, unable to believe that my prince sleeps besides me. The Texas Doctors’ Ball was like a fairy tale and I drift off to sleep around three a.m., reliving the dance like a favorite movie, and replaying scenes in my head.
We dance every slow dance and Brad holds me tight. I push my body closer, shoving my leg in between his. Everyone else in the room fades until we are the only couple dancing. Everything moves in slow motion. The dance has a dream-like quality. At times, when the music stops, we dance and when the music plays, we simply stand in the middle of the dance floor ignoring other dancers. We talk about everything, about nothing, about the entire world.
A scream wakes me. “Traci,” I mumble to Brad.
The bed is empty on his side. There is an indentation on the pillow and a note.
I run up the stairs to where the screams are coming from—Brad’s room.
Traci stands in her father’s closet, her arms frozen at her sides, and screaming bloody murder.
“What’s wrong, Traci?”
She rolls up in a ball and rocks. “My daddy is gone.”
“Oh, Sweetheart, Daddy isn’t gone. He probably just went out somewhere. Maybe he’s playing golf or downstairs in the kitchen,” though this is doubtful. Traci screamed so loud she would have woken the dead and Brad surely would have come running to see what is wrong with her.
Traci stands on her bare toes, reaching for the hanging clothes. She panics, sliding shirts across the wooden pole. She shoves pants, and suits crowding the clothes over to one side of the closet.
Traci runs over to the hamper in the corner and throws dirty clothes out, her eyes frantically examining each piece of clothing.
She knocks knickknacks off the shelves and looks under trophies.
“Traci, what are you doing?”
“I’m looking for the clothes daddy wore from Philadelphia, the new shirt and suit. The old suits never talk to me.”
“Don’t be silly, suits can’t talk.”
“Willard,” she says
“Who is Willard, Traci? Have you been talking to strangers?” I shake her, thinking she has ignored my warnings.
“My horsey is finished,” she explains as if this makes everything clear about why she is upset.
Traci drags me to her bedroom and points at the rocking horse with a big blue bow around the neck, a sparkling brand new wooden creation smelling of varnish and paint. My heart twists at the finished horse, and I fall in love with my husband.
Brad made the horse so sad looking. The horse is a kid’s toy for heaven’s sake, not a display for a mortuary to rock your way to the afterlife.
“I don’t want Willard. I don’t want the horse!” Traci screams and pounds her feet against the carpet.
“Calm down, Traci. Quit having a fit.”
I rock Traci on my lap in a corner chair until she is calm.
Brad’s golf bags are in his closet, so he is not playing golf. Oh, well, he will be back soon. Brad finished Traci’s horse; else, I would be peeved at him for not saying where he was going, or when he would return. His travel bag is missing just like a few weeks ago.
“You keep looking so sad, Traci, and your face is going to stay that way,” I say at the breakfast table.
Traci merely plays with her cereal.
I rip open Brad’s note, which he left, on my pillow.
I am sorry for everything.
What does he mean everything? Is he writing about the other day when he was so cruel, or is Brad sorry for everything that happened before Philadelphia?
I analyze every word spoken between us recently and come up with nothing else for him to apologize for.
I will go crazy sitting in this house a moment longer.
I buckle Traci in the car and drive to Town Lake.
We sit on a bench watching the ducks swim.
I resist the urge to phone Brad and nag him with 20 questions.
Chapter 22
WIFE
Brad returns after supper, swinging a travel bag.
“Hi,” I say in a flippant voice, making light of his vanishing and all will be well. He needs his space especially given his dark mood. His eyebrows are down as if scowling at his thoughts. He plops his bag on the floor and gives me a frigid stare. He then shows me his back.
His footsteps creak on the stairs, the sound making me cringe. My heart caves into my back and I slump on the sofa. Now why is he so angry with me? We were dancing two nights ago, and making love.
Quick, sit up straight. He is coming down the stairs. You have been sitting slumped over for 20 minutes like a pathetic wilting flower.
Brad walks back downstairs, whistling. He is dressed to kill, so the saying goes when your husband is spiffed up as if he has a hot date. Collar up, looking cool, hair slicked back, and smelling like a French whore, Oh De Lay Me Cologne.
Ugliness wells up inside me, my fingernails feeling like claws. After our beautiful night at the Doctors’ Ball, I cannot help but act like a jealous shrew. “Where are you going, Brad?”
“If you must know, miss busybody, I’m going to see what Barbie’s been up to lately. Remember Barbie, my lover since high school?” Brad drools at the mouth when he says her name.
Bam! I slap him, scratching his eyelid with a fingernail.
“Cheating twat!” He shoves me against the arm of the sofa.
My hip, I am limping.
He yanks open the door to the garage, spins, and points a finger. “You don’t own me, got that, Ronni? You have never owned me. I go where I want, do what I wish and to whomever I desire. I never answer to any one so do not ever, ever ask me again where I am going. I have not interrogated you about the last months because I do not care, nor should you. That’s our arrangement, remember?”
Brad slams the door and the house shakes.
I rush to the garage and throw myself on the hood of his black Mercedes, and beg like a bleeding heart. “Don’t go, Brad! Barbie doesn’t care for you!”
“Get off of the car, Ronni, before you get hurt,” he growls.
He revs up the engine and I jump off the car. He looks mean enough to run me over and I jump to the side fearing being smashed against the wall like a bug.
I slide down the wall, hugging my legs and moaning, watching Brad drive away to another woman, Barbie, the thorn in our marriage.
I shuffle into the house and again read the note Brad left on my pillow early this morning.
I am sorry for everything.
“I haven’t asked you about the last three months because I don’t care,” Brad had said.
I am sorry for everything.
Rip. Rip. Rip. Until there is nothing left of his apology but pulp.
I hate you, Brad for making me want to be with you. The light is off in my closet and I rock, crying like a little girl. My heart physically hurts like at Mama's desertion when I was ten or when my little brother died the next year. I forgot how painful loss is...how a heart can beat with agony. Even though my husband is a doctor who fixes other people, Brad can never fix me because he is the one who broke me.
Traci walks into the closet and rocks beside me. “Are you okay, Mommy,” she whispers.
I shake my head, yes, but my lower lip trembles, and tears rain down my face.
She takes my hand in her little palm. “I’ll pray to God to please bring my daddy back home again. Please. Please. Please. That man wearing his shirt is not my daddy. That man did not carve the rocking horse. Why did he have to come back?”
“I don’t know, Traci.”
“Come with me, Mommy.”
Hand in hand, we walk to her bedroom.
Traci climbs on her rocking horse, the one she claims her real daddy made her, not the man who made her mommy feel sad.
Traci rocks, claiming the horse is magic. Her daddy made her a supernatural horse so that she could ride over the mountains and across the hills to find her daddy and beg him to come home again.
I hate Brad for what he is doing to our daughter. My husband is mentally ill and needs help. His changing moods are abnormal. My best friend, Riley, pesters me to find a man who can make me happy. Riley has been married two times yet she is still looking for the fairy tale. As a child, I waited for a knight in shining armor to rescue me. Every night I cried into my pillow and prayed Mama would come back to us. My little brother died right before Christmas. I tried my best to save Johnny but I was only eleven. By the time Pops got him to the hospital, Johnny had double pneumonia. God did not save my little brother; neither did God ever send a knight to rescue me.
The only truth is that love hurts.
Chapter 23
WIFE
It is around nine the next evening when the garage door opens and Brad’s car pulls in.
He is singing loudly, a Rolling Stones song, Let’s Spend the Night Together.
My heart drops to my feet.
“I’m home,” he hollers.
Traci flies down the stairs, and wraps her arms around his legs.
He swoops down like a bird of prey, picks her up, and hugs her.
I am shaking like a leaf. “Put her down, Brad. Come to mommy, Traci,” and I hold out my arms to her.
“I knew you’d come back,” Traci says and squeezes Brad’s neck.
He unwraps her clingy arms and sets her down. Brad stares defiantly at me and reaches into a shopping bag.
I jump, expecting him to yank out a baseball bat. I grab Traci and pinch her shoulders.
He holds out a stuffed white seal to her. “I brought you a gift, sweetheart.”
It appears that nice Brad is back, yet I take a step back as he reaches into the bag again.
Brad holds out a dozen pink roses. “For you,” he says smiling with sparkly eyes.
I smack his face with the roses.
The flowers land at his feet rose petals floating to the floor.
He wipes his cheek where a thorn drew blood. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
I grab Traci’s hand and we play tug of war with our daughter.
“I’m staying with Daddy!” Traci yanks her fingers from my grasp.
I run up the stairs to the bedroom, and slam the door.
Oh, God, would he harm Traci?
I peek out the door.
Traci and Brad walk towards her bedroom, holding hands. “I missed you, Daddy. Why doesn’t Mommy like the flowers you gave her?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Well, I love you.”
“I love you, too, Traci.” Brad speaks loudly for my benefit. A lump forms in my throat. How can he be so sweet to Traci after what he did?
“Why don’t I tuck you into bed, and then I can speak to your mother,” he says.
“Mommy’s mad at you.”
“I have no idea why.”
Brad is talking bullshit, unless he has memory lapses.
“Ask Mommy why she doesn’t like you.”
“I’m afraid to.”
I tiptoe down the hallway and tremble outside Traci’s door. I hide a screwdriver behind my back. I have never liked guns, especially with a child in the house. Now, I wish to have a pistol.
Traci insists Brad tell her a story. He spins a tale about a misunderstood prince who is all alone until he finds a princess to love.
“Am I that princess?”
“You are, Traci.”
“And did they live happily
ever after?”
“They did.”
“Good night, Daddy,” she says in a sleepy voice and with a loud yawn.
Quick, I scurry on silent feet back to my bedroom.
He pounds his feet loudly as a warning that he is coming, and there is a reckoning between us.
I slam the door and with shaky fingers lock it.
He knocks.
“Go away!”
“Let me in, Ronni.”
“Drop dead!”
He pounds his fist against the door.
I cuff my hands to my ears. “Leave me in peace! Go away, Brad!”
He shoves at the door.
Bubba Simpson claimed Brad beat up his wife. Oh God, he is breaking in!
I run to the bed and snap my eyes shut, pretending to sleep. My senses are on full alert and I am peeking through my eyelashes. He is standing over me, rubbing his shoulder.
“We need to talk, Ronni.”
I sniffle into the pillow, cursing a show of weakness. “I can’t ever trust you again, Brad.”
Good. There. Silence. He will leave me alone now. Ugh! Go! The smell of his sweat mingles with whiskey, peanuts, and a killer aftershave. I want to scream at him to get out of the room but fear to pop a bottle of rage. Beneath the blankets, I grip the screwdriver, my breath raspy. There is a picture in my head of Brad slicing Barbie’s throat though this is an exaggeration since Brad used his fists, according to Bubba.
He snaps on the light so the room is no longer in half-darkness from the hall light.
Odd, Brad has no marks on his fists so maybe he did not hit his lover hard or wore gloves, if Bubba’s accusations are true. I flip my back to him and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. He must not see my tears. Brad hates weakness.
He strokes my cheek with a clammy paw.
I flinch and roll to the edge of the bed. “Don’t touch me, Brad. There is something seriously wrong with you.”
“I’m not...who you think I am.”
“Who are you then?”
A shutter drops across his eyes, closing off any expression, any lie, and any truth. “I’m the man who’s been making love to you the last few months, the man who wants to love you now, the man who needs you.”
Dishonor Thy Wife Page 8