by Phoebe Fox
He bobbed his head once, sharply, as if making a resolve. “All right. All right, then.” He carefully placed the small rubber mallet he was holding on the side of the tub and then stared down at it as if it held the secrets of life. His lips stayed closed, but they moved as if he were tasting something bitter, something unpleasant he was too polite to spit out.
And then his words came out short and sharp and clear and impossible to misunderstand: “I had an affair.”
Of all the things I had expected my father to tell me, that was nowhere on the list. Not my father, who loved my mother so much that sometimes, growing up, Stu and I had felt jealous, left out of their circle of two.
“N-no...” I stammered nonsensically. “No, you didn’t.”
“Stop it, Brook Lyn. Some things are true whether you want them to be or not.” His tone shut me up, and he looked down at his hands, as if their idleness were a mystery to him.
“It was a long time ago. You were so young... Stu was just a baby. Your mother... Your mother was—she is—the best mother in the world, whether you see that or not. Everything she does, she does for you kids. And at the time...” He choked on a breath. “At the time I didn’t understand that. I wanted back that part of her I had when we met... But that energy went into you kids, and I...”
My father lifted his head and wiped his face, though his cheeks were dry. “I don’t need to go into that with you. Who it was and how it happened doesn’t matter—it didn’t matter then, either. It was stupid—the stupidest thing I ever did. I almost lost your mom over it. But I didn’t. She forgave me—finally. It took a long time, but your mother tried to understand, and she forgave me, and she stayed with me. She didn’t leave.”
He looked at me for the first time since he’d started his terrible story. “I don’t know what’s going on with your mother right now. I don’t know...what she needs, I guess. But I’ll be waiting for her to figure out what that is. I’m not going anywhere, and if she decides, after she figures things out, that I’m what she wants...I’ll be right here. No matter what. Because I love her. Because I will always love her. You understand what I’m telling you?”
I felt inexplicably angry. Angry at my dad for being no better than any other man. Angry at my mom for leaving so long after she’d forgiven his transgression. Angry at Kendall, who bailed out not at the first sign of trouble, but without any sign of trouble. Angry at the world because nothing and no one was as it seemed, and you could never fully trust anyone, and in the end maybe love didn’t mean much after all.
“It’s not fair,” was what tumbled out of my mouth.
My father put his hand on mine, just for a moment, before leaning down to pick up another tile and handing it to me. “Whoever promised life was fair, doll?”
We worked the rest of the job without speaking any more of what my father had said. I wasn’t sure of his reasons—whether he was sorry to have confessed, or didn’t want to talk about it further, or that he’d simply said all he intended to say on the subject. I only knew my own—that I needed to process it, to figure out what it meant, whether it changed my family or my history or my relationship with my dad—or my mom.
By the time he left the bathroom tile was in place, and even without grout it looked polished and beautiful and elegant—but it didn’t matter to me anymore. I saw my father out the door and stripped off my stained work clothes and showered, and then tumbled into bed before seven o’clock without even walking back into the bathroom to admire the results of all our hard work.
I lay there for a long time, just thinking—about my dad, what he’d told me. How it must have felt to my mom when she found out what he’d done. How lost and betrayed and hurt she must have been...and, with two small kids at home and no job to support them, how helpless and scared. I thought about how that might shape a person.
And I thought about Michael. For the first time since the last time I’d seen him—when I’d gathered up all the notebooks and clippings and ads I’d brought over to talk about the wedding and let myself out of his apartment, saying, “So I’ll meet you at the bakery at four for the tasting—please don’t be late this time”—I let myself think about the man I’d loved so much it actually ached in my chest. The man who’d left me just a few short weeks before our wedding.
If we knew that the last time we’d see someone was the last time, it would change everything—the way we looked at them, took them in, made a connection. We wouldn’t be so blithely caught up in our own problems and concerns and stupid to-do lists that we’d miss making eye contact, sharing a smile. That we’d overlook the fact that they might be having problems and concerns of their own—life-shaking ones—that could affect the path you thought you had charted together.
That was what happened to me and Michael, I guess. We had dated for two years, and I’d never known anything like it. I literally could not get enough of him when I was with him—I wanted to touch him, be next to him, be reassured that yes, this tall, good-looking, talented, smart, funny man had chosen me, wanted to be with me. And yet I battled those insecure impulses, and was so proud that I managed to keep my independence, that I didn’t get clingy, or even let him realize how desperately I wanted to, how heavily my fear of losing him pressed in on me.
Whenever he walked into my apartment after work and beelined over to me, as if I were the thing he’d been looking forward to all day, I reveled in it. Every time he initiated the contact I had been holding myself back from making—a touch, a caress, sometimes taking my hand—it felt like a personal victory. I wasn’t needy. I wasn’t a pathetic, clingy woman who defined herself through a man. I was holding on to myself, in the healthy way I advised all my patients—and tried to tell Sasha.
When Michael and I made love was the only time I could let all my craving, my passion for him loose. I wanted to touch every inch of him, drink in his smell—there wasn’t one thing on his body that I found distasteful or unappealing. I consumed him with my hands, my mouth, able only in bed to let myself touch him and hold him and run my hands over every millimeter of his skin, under the safe umbrella of sex. He was my drug. When we were apart for long, or I hadn’t heard from him, I felt an actual pain in my chest, my heart fluttering like a trapped bird with the fear that all of it could dissolve in an instant. Even after we got engaged, that breathtaking fear remained. I was terrified that it could all go wrong, that I could lose everything.
But I never let on. I was not Sasha—I wouldn’t let my self-worth be that tied in with whether the man in my life stuck around. Or at least, I wouldn’t show it.
When Michael actually did walk out of my life...nothing happened. I didn’t fall apart the way I’d been terrified I would. He called just before the cake tasting I’d scheduled, and said, “Brook, I’m sorry—I can’t do this.”
He’d left almost all the wedding planning to me, and I was overwhelmed. That was my explanation for why, instead of asking him what was wrong, being concerned about his feelings, I snapped out, “Oh, for god’s sake, Michael—it’s cake. Surely you can do cake, at least?”
There was a long silence that filled me with nothing but impatience at the time. And then he’d said in a fractured voice, “No, not the cake. All of it. Any of it. I can’t go through with this.”
A fist had squeezed my heart as I realized what he meant, but all I said, my tone wooden, was, “Okay. That’s fine.” And I hung up.
I went on to the tasting as though nothing had happened. A few days later I went and got my few things from his apartment, and left my key on the kitchen counter. We didn’t talk it out, or try to work on things. Michael left Fort Myers not long after that, and I never asked him why he’d changed his mind. I told myself it didn’t matter.
But it did matter. Maybe it was just a radar blip—momentary cold feet. Maybe we could have worked things out. At least if I’d asked why, I might have been able to work past my pain and let it go. It wouldn
’t have undone what had happened, might not have saved me and Michael. But it would have let me feel, and that was the part I’d simply skipped over.
Kendall’s disappearance was the chink in the dam that held back everything I’d pushed down since then. All the crazy that had washed out behind it...some of it was for Kendall, but a lot of it was for Michael.
Tears welled in my eyes at that realization, and I just let them run down my temples and into my pillow. I lay there for a long time like that, and when I finally felt myself beginning to drift off, my face was still wet.
Sleep is a palliative unmatched by anything in medical science, and mine was thick and dreamless. I slept nearly eleven hours and woke up early, and I knew, clear as the day dawning outside my window, what I had to do next.
After I’d confronted Kendall Friday night, looking for the answers I needed, he had sat opposite me and looked into my face and told me he was sorry. It was everything I had needed to hear, and it had started to heal the angry wound left when he’d walked out on me.
But in the end it wasn’t enough for me, and the moment I’d realized that was when I’d snapped.
If you screwed up and hurt someone you genuinely, deeply loved, you did everything in your power to make it right again, the way my dad had tried for who knew how long to gain my mother’s forgiveness and, with his constant, steady love, to regain her trust.
I had made plenty of mistakes of my own. Love wasn’t always enough to keep you from making bad choices, from messing things up...from being human. But with the people who mattered most to you, if it was important, you fixed it—or did everything in your power to try. You had to get back on your horse and cowgirl up.
I waited out the early-morning hours until the sounds of lawn mowers and passing cars and playing children told me most of the world was awake. And then I got in my car and headed over to try to make things right again, if I could, with the one person who mattered to me more than anyone.
thirty-one
My heart was pounding as I levered my elbow awkwardly over the doorbell and pressed until I heard it chiming inside. It felt jarring to ring the doorbell like a visitor, and even more disconcerting to be breathless with nerves standing outside a threshold I’d crossed with complete confidence in my welcome hundreds of times before.
Sasha opened the door with dark smudges under her eyes and a sheet crease across one cheek, and I almost felt the urge to smile: It was the first time I’d ever seen her looking as haphazard as the rest of the world when she woke up.
I had carrot cake from Merritt’s Bakery in a plastic container in one hand—her favorite, that she rarely let herself eat—and a cup of hot chai tea in the other. As peace offerings went they were meager, but I hadn’t bought them just to soften my friend toward me. I also wanted something in my hands.
“I didn’t know if this was a good time to talk,” I said uncertainly when she didn’t offer any kind of greeting. “But if it isn’t or if you aren’t alone...” I swallowed hard and made myself go on. “If Stu’s here and you don’t want to talk in front of him, I’ll come back later. Anytime you say.” Her expression remained utterly blank, but she wasn’t closing the door in my face, so I plowed ahead, wanting to get out whatever I could before she stopped me.
“Sasha, I’m sorry. I know I said that before, but I should’ve been standing here last week saying it right after you dropped me off. I should have been here saying it a hundred times since. I should have never let you pull out of my driveway without telling it to your face. I said stupid things that aren’t true because I was... I was ashamed of myself, and angry, and hurt, and I took it out on the one person...the only person who’s never let me down or given me any reason—ever—to doubt you or your intentions. I’ve said a lot of stupid things to you over the years, because it made me feel like I had my life together if I treated you like yours was always falling apart. I am so sorry, and I will do anything I have to do—for however long it takes—to make things right between us again. To earn your trust back, and to...to deserve you.”
She was still standing in the open doorway, just staring at me in a disconcertingly penetrating way that made me squirm. But I was literally at her disposal. I would stand there until she slammed the door, or told me to get the hell out of her life, or slapped me, or whatever she chose to do.
Which ended up being none of the things I’d braced myself for.
“How the hell are we supposed to hug this out with all that crap in your hands, you idiot?” Sasha reached over and plucked the cake and cup from me, set them on the ground, and wrapped her arms around me. I held on to her so tightly I knew it had to be hard for her to breathe, but I couldn’t make myself ease up, and Sasha didn’t ask me to.
Sitting on Sasha’s living room floor, sharing the carrot cake with her right from the container, I told her everything about Kendall, from his asking me to move in with him to how I’d been behaving since he broke up with me. I even took off my shirt and lifted the bandage on my tattoo to show it to her.
To Sasha’s credit, she tried hard to keep her expression neutral as she gazed upon the well-endowed donkey, but finally it was too much for her, and she dissolved into helpless laughter that soon had tears running down her face. It was strange—instead of the fresh wave of shame I’d braced for, or hostile defensiveness at her amusement, confessing my awful behavior to Sasha let me start to see the wonderfully silly ridiculousness of it—just a little—and my laughter joined hers. For the first time in weeks, I felt better.
I had a lot more penance I wanted to do for how I’d treated her, but Sasha kept waving off my apologies.
“You’ve punished yourself enough,” she said between a bout of giggles. “Forgiven.”
“No, I need to tell you this, Sash—I treat you like you can’t handle your own relationships without me, like I’m some kind of guru about it.”
“That’s because I can’t handle my own relationships, you moron. I know I act like a crazy person. I fall apart. And I don’t want to get through them without you, Brook, because you help.”
I gaped at her. “How can you still say that? Look at me—I’ve committed every breakup screw-up there is.”
Sasha shrugged, finally swallowing a hunk of cake I’d worried would choke her. “Who cares? You’re through it now. That’s what matters.”
“I didn’t want to go through it. I just wanted to get past it.”
“Honey, I think the only way past it is through it.”
“Sasha, I humiliated myself.”
Her fork lay limp in her hand for a moment while she looked at me, her eyebrows drawn together. “Really? That’s how you see what happened?”
I gave a dry laugh. “Seriously? You see some other spin?”
Sasha put her fork down—I thought at first so she could give me her full attention, but it was only so she could pick up the now empty plastic container and use her finger to swipe up the cream-cheese icing stuck to the side.
“Well—and this is only from my perspective, you understand—but it seems to me like you just finally handled a breakup like a normal person. You loved someone; he rejected you; you wanted that love back. So you got a little emotional about it—big whoop. Looks like you’re just a human, not a perfect machine. Like every other human in the entire world throughout history. Upward, onward, bam, end of story.”
She was still concentrating hard on cleaning out the plastic container, though there was little left but PVC coating. I made a note in the back of my mind to treat Sasha to more dessert—she was clearly deprived.
My best friend—the one I had always regarded as an emotional train wreck where relationships were concerned—had just casually spouted out more Zen wisdom than anything I’d ever achieved in years of therapy with a patient. How had I never seen that her craziness after a breakup was her way of venting her feelings instead of bottling them up till they blew? How
had I never understood until this moment that Sasha was the healthy one emotionally, and I was the one repressing and denying any human emotion that didn’t fit within my strict parameters for acceptable behavior? She’d had it all figured out all along. Sasha was freaking Rain Man.
“That’s...that’s just genius,” I said slowly. “Six years of schooling, years of therapy practice, and now an advice column, and I still didn’t know what you’ve just instinctively known all along.”
“Oh, no, no, no, missy.” Sasha finally finished with the plastic and tossed it to the floor before she started chewing it like a rawhide as I’d feared. “This does not get to be yet another reason to beat yourself up. Let’s not forget that my brilliant coping devices include breaking and entering, destruction of property, and the occasional minor felony.” She shrugged. “I’m a mess sometimes, Brook. I know that. I’m just okay with it. I have you—my sane voice of reason when I need one. That’s the only reason I get through stuff. And it’s most of the reason I have anything constructive to tell you right now.” She laughed. “And you know when everyone gives great breakup advice? When they’re not in the middle of one—which I, for once, am not.”
And then there we were, staring right in the face of my best friend and my brother and their new relationship I had no idea how to handle.
But thinking I’d lost Sasha had made me look at our relationship a lot closer, and see where I’d tried to jam her into the mold I’d created: where I wanted her to act the way I wanted her to, the way I decided was best. Instead of letting her be who she was, and loving her for exactly that. The way she always—always—loved me.