It took me more than a year to go to a meeting because one of the first steps of AA is admitting I’m powerless to alcohol. The thing is, I’m not sure about that. I know how to get good and numb, where I’m not too drunk, but I’m definitely not sober. Sure, sometimes I drink a tad too much, like the time Jamie caught me face-planted on the couch.
But then I read about high-functioning alcoholics and realized I fit the bill. Of course, thanks to Web MD, anyone can diagnose themselves with all kinds of shit. But what made me realize I might have a serious problem is when the article asked if I hide my drinking. I’ve hidden it for more years than I’ve not been drinking. I’ll never forget being thirteen and trying to drink whiskey with apple juice when I was with a group of girls my age. We giggled and thought it was disgusting. And it was. Only, after a few sips I reached this odd plateau where I could handle that I was in the group but no one wanted me to be their best friend. I knew they made fun of my dad and his accent—to this day I’ll never understand why my friends made fun of my sweet Dutch father but not so much my Irish mother. I knew they thought my da was dumb, and being his child, by proxy, I was too.
But I didn’t care about any of that. I relaxed and let go.
I watched my mother do something similar all my life. Following the local news and cleaning up after dinner, my mother would drink her brandy until her cheeks glowed. My father would come home and she’d dote on him, tutting about working too hard, too long. They’d kiss and hug. My mother would flirt and forget I existed with her glassy eyes. Oddly, I didn’t mind. Because when my mother wasn’t glassy-eyed, she had a temper that frightened me. I liked her drunk.
I’ve never asked her doctors, but I can’t help but wonder if her dementia is related to the years of drinking. I worry my son and daughter might have to do something similar for me, and it would kill me to make them pretend to be anyone other than who they are.
Finally, I hear Tony’s huge Ram truck rumble up the driveway. Racing to the front door, I wait as patiently as I can. Maybe I should just run outside and scoop my babies up. But I worry what the neighbors would say. So I jump from one foot to the other in the foyer where I claimed Joe with my body pushed against his.
Jamie swings the door wide open and I crush his little body to mine, not even letting him say, “Mommy!” first. Then Liv is behind him, carrying her dirty stuffed tiger with one eye falling out, and I smash her against me too. Lifting both my children in my arms, I place them on my hips, so I can see them, and pray I won’t cry.
“Mommy,” Liv whines. “You too strong now. You broke my back.”
“We’ll have to go to the hospital, then.” I sniff, smiling at my daughter.
“You want me to drive to the hospital, Mom?” Jamie asks, making me laugh. He has my sense of humor. At six. God, is it completely narcissistic to love that my son has my sense of humor?
I grin at him. He’s getting so big that I can hardly fit him on my hip, but he’s clinging to me. Unlike Liv who is pushing on one of my tender breasts to get away.
“I guess so, honey. I guess so.”
He laughs and I glance up to see Tony walking through the door, holding their backpacks and a few of Liv’s stuffed animals. God, the girl loves her tigers and horses. And a lobster too.
We smile at each other, but I have to shy away from his brown gaze, afraid he can see that I had sex with another man. Whoa, that’s an odd reaction, and not one I expected. I feel, somehow, disloyal, even though I know I’m not. I know Tony’s been inside a lot of women. While we were married. So why I feel this way is beyond me.
I walk through the front room, into my kitchen and set my kids on the island. “Did you guys eat?”
“Pizza,” Liv says, which sounds more like “pitha.” She’s wiggling free from me and off the counter. She’s got to run around the dining room. God knows why, but she does. “Pizza, pizza, pizza,” she’s shouting.
I glance at Tony’s who’s behind me. “And a lot of sugar?”
He shrugs, glancing down at his toe-headed daughter running in circles, yelling her heart out. “Just a small ounce of cocaine. Not even what she usually takes.”
I wryly laugh, shoving him on his firm shoulder.
“Mommy?”
I glance down at Jamie. I’ve still got an arm around him, and he’s holding onto it with a grip that’s surprisingly strong for such a little guy. “Yeah, Jamie.”
“Can I take my bath now?”
My brows pop up. I can feel them do that, but I try to temper my reaction. It’s just…Jamie doesn’t like baths. So I wonder if something’s wrong.
“Sure, honey.” I smooth some of his blond hair from one of his eyes. “Want me to start it this time?”
“No, I think I can do it. But I want my GI Joes.”
Damn it. My heart speeds up at the name, the one word. I blush and smile. “They’re still under the sink, where you left them.”
He nods, still clinging to me. “I don’t want Liv walking in.”
“Got it.” I give him a salute. “I’ll keep her out.”
Jamie smiles and I help him down. He’s so cautious compared to my wild child, still screaming about pitha and running around the dinner table.
“I’ll come in and check on you, though.”
Jamie nods at what I’ve said, quickly walking away from us.
“Hey,” Tony drawls. “Don’t I get a hug? I’m going to go soon.”
Jamie stops and my heart squeezes when I see him trudge back and wrap his arms around his father’s hips. He’s not smiling. Tony holds him and I can see something pass through his eyes, something that looks like pain.
When Jamie’s out of earshot, and Liv seems like she’s in her own world, I sidle closer to my ex. “What happened?” I cross my arms and Tony glances down at my breasts.
A slow smile spreads across his handsome face. God, I hate how good looking he is. When we were dating, I thought him the most beautiful man alive. I think a lot of women did too. And when we were separated and even divorced, I’d get distracted from my hurt by that damned smile of his.
But not now.
“You look good.” He’s not taking his gaze from my chest.
“Tony.” I purse my lips. “What happened between you and Jamie?”
He glances up, sighing. “Nothing. It was just a disagreement. I told him he needed to be outside more. Play more. He’s a kid. Needs to act like it before he has too many—” he glances at Liv, then steps closer to me, whispering, “—fucking bills to pay.”
“You told him—”
“I didn’t say fucking to him. You know me better than that.”
But I don’t, I want to say. I didn’t think you would have sex with other women. I didn’t think you’d divorce me, even though I said I wanted to work it out, if you could just keep your dick in your pants, which you couldn’t. I didn’t think you were anything like the man I know now.
This is why I’m so scared to share my kids with anyone, even Eva. Tony doesn’t understand that Jamie has more fun inside. His playing is different from Liv’s. Jamie is a different soul than anyone I know. He’s wise beyond his years. At six. And although I understand where Tony is coming from, and it is a concern, but if he’d watch Jamie without trying to mold him to his own image, he’d see who Jamie really is.
I nod and look away, back at Liv who’s finally settled down and is crouching under a chair, trying to retrieve her naked doll that’s lived under the table for the last few days.
“He needs to have fun,” Tony says a little loudly, so Liv stops what she’s doing and is watching us from under the chair.
I glance back at him and realize he’s mad. Probably mad at me. Again. I’m never a good enough mother. At least that’s how it feels. He doesn’t say as much. In fact, he always tells me what a great mom I am. But he expects me to do all the parenting the way he wants, while he shows up for his one weekend a month. I’m alone, taking care of our kids, daily, but he calls me almost every day to
tell me what he thinks I should do. Ironically, he talks about armchair football spectators and how it annoys him to hear fans second guess the players. I wonder, though, if he realizes he does the same to me.
After Tony’s said something like this, I typically would take the bait. We’d quietly argue, making sure our children couldn’t hear. But the arguments always felt…I understand why Eva wanted me in her bedroom that one night. I wish I had a mediator too, someone to make sure Tony wouldn’t interrupt me, talk over me, then storm out before I could get a word in edgewise. For the last five months, since I told him we couldn’t have sex any longer, this has been what we do. We didn’t argue this much during our divorce.
Tony always calls the next day to make sure I’m okay, but he never apologizes when I do. We have such a dysfunctional relationship, still connected because of our kids and now the lopsided fighting.
But I don’t have any fight left.
I nod and glance back at Liv, smiling. “I’ve heard about this submarine museum in Wisconsin. Maybe I’ll take him this summer. He might think that’s fun.”
Tony doesn’t say anything for a long time. When I look at him, that pain I saw earlier is back.
He shrugs. “I want to go too.”
“Well, maybe you can take him then.”
“Why can’t we go together?”
I’m surprised he’s said as much and I know I show it on my face.
“Daddy? You fighting with mommy?” Liv asks, somehow so close to us, holding her doll in one arm protectively.
Tony’s eyes flash with something terribly sweet. “No, honey. Nope.”
“Mommy fighting with you?”
Tony shakes his head. “Mommy and I are just talking.”
“Why talk with mean faces?”
Ah, the wisdom of a toddler. It always cripples me into a stupor.
“Am I making a mean face?” I ask, leaning down and smoothing her fly-away hair. God, I love touching her. I love smelling her.
“No. Daddy was.”
“I don’t think your daddy was making a mean face.” I tuck one of her curls behind her ear.
She promptly messes her hair and what I’ve done, making me giggle. “I want Jamie.”
“He’s taking a bath.”
Liv makes a quick beeline for the bathroom, and I race after her, scooping her up, while she screams a laugh. I hand her to her father, saying, “I’m checking on the boy.” I shake a finger at Liv. “He doesn’t want you to bother him while he takes a bath.”
Liv is wiggling in Tony’s strong arms. “But I want to bother him.”
I can’t help but laugh again, loving my precocious child, but walking away to see how Jamie’s doing. When I knock and let myself into the bathroom, there’s such a different sense in the room. He’s somber and looking at one of his GI Joes with a sad face.
“Did you get the water warm enough?” I sit on the lip of the bath and check.
He’s filled the bath with bubbles, and the water’s perfect.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, babe.”
“Will I grow up to be tough like GI Joe?”
I glance at my son, something inside breaking. “Do you want to be tough?”
“Aren’t men supposed to be tough?”
I sit on my shins beside the tub, looking at Jamie in the eye. “You can be anything you want to be.”
He shakes his head. “No. That’s not the way it works.”
“Why not?”
He looks at me exasperated. “You know why.”
I sigh and touch his soldier action-figure that we can’t call a doll. See what I mean by wise? I can’t compete with what he already knows, knows deep in his bones. He knows the world will try to tell him who he needs to be. Should be. All those things that make us crazy and feel insecure.
“Do you think GI Joe is tough?”
Jamie nods.
“Why?”
“He’s a soldier.”
I shrug. “That doesn’t mean he’s tough.” I can’t help but think of my strong soldier who was in my house while my children were away. And I get carried away while thinking of Joe. “Maybe he is strong, sure. But he’s also…kind. So kind. He’s nice to everyone. And he makes people laugh. That’s a gift, you know? When you can make someone laugh. Because you never know what other people are going through, but if you make them smile and feel good…that’s a good man. That’s what being tough should mean. And you know what?”
“What?”
“That’s you. You make me smile every day. So you must be super tough.”
My boy with the freckles on his nose, gives me a teeny smile. “I’m glad I’m home, Mom.”
I nod and never know if I should tell him how glad I am too. Because I worry I’m stacking the deck against Tony. But I give in.
“I’m so happy you’re home too. Are you sure you don’t want Liv in here to pester you and play with your GI Joes?”
Jamie rolls his green eyes. “Mom,” he says my name adding about seven syllables.
I laugh at my own joke. “Okay. You good? Need anything?”
He shakes his head, looking at his soldier. I leave, praying my speech made a little headway against the messages he knows all too well, when Tony surprises me, standing right outside the bathroom door.
The TV’s blaring in the sunroom and I guess he found some cartoon to distract Liv. He’s glaring at me, big arms crossed.
I shake my head, feeling defensive, and he grabs my wrist and yanks me into my bedroom, where we once lived together. I’ve rearranged everything, even getting a new mattress, but sometimes I feel him in this space. I feel the way I used to love him, how I adored him and everything he said.
After Joe left, I cleaned up in here. I changed the sex-smelling sheets, got rid of all the condom wrappers, and sprayed the room with my perfume to make it seem like I hadn’t had sex so much that I’m seriously sore and stiff now.
Tony glances around, then pulls me close.
“What?” I finally break down, angry merely because he is. “What should I have said differently to our son about being tough?”
He shakes his head. “What you said was good. I like it.”
“Then what the—”
He grabs my arms, pulling me even nearer, his clean- and masculine-smelling aftershave wafting around me. God, I used to love the way he smelled. I’d nuzzle my nose against his neck and beg him to make love to me.
But I like the way Joe smells better. Hell, I like the way Shane smells more. Shit, why’d I think of him?
“You called me ‘your daddy,’” Tony whispers.
I’m sure I’m looking at him like he’s crazy. “So? You are the kids’ dad.”
“No.” He yanks me closer, my breasts touching his chest, my stomach against his. “You said, ‘I don’t think your daddy was making a mean face.’”
Again, I’m lost to what he finds so offensive about that. I was actually trying to defend him from Liv and her super sharp intuition. I’m trying to gain a little distance by placing my hands on his chest and pushing away. But he’s not letting me budge.
He shakes me slightly, his grip on me now hurting, a purple vein standing out on his temple. “I’m not…you call me Daddy and I call you Mommy. It’s what we’ve always done. And you can’t go on vacation with me now? What the hell is that?”
I release a weird exasperated cough. “Tony, we’re divorced. We have been for nearly two years now.”
“That doesn’t mean…I’m still Daddy. You’re still Mommy. And why can’t we be close? What’s wrong with that? I still love you. You know that.”
“What?” Then I realize what he probably means, because this is Tony. He doesn’t mean anything romantic about it. He’s not in love with me. It means I’m the mother of his children and he will always want to take care of me because of that. Nothing more. I’ve learned the very hard way with Tony how sex doesn’t mean anything more. When he looks at me with desire, it just means he wants to fuck. Tha
t’s it. I can’t read anything more into it or I’ll stumble back into the years of having a broken and bleeding heart because I thought Tony meant something different.
I pat his chest, hopefully reassuringly. “Tony, you’ll always be their father, and—”
“I’m Daddy.”
I nod. “Got it.” Oh, how I shouldn’t have said that, because I want to separate from him. I don’t want to call him Daddy to our kids. Because he’s no longer my partner.
He loosens his grip, sighing. Then he leans his forehead against mine. “Moira…I…we’ll always be close.” I worry he’s trying to shackle me to him. I don’t feel honored he’d say such a thing to me, his divorced wife that he’d like to be friends with. I no longer feel like that. I feel claustrophobic and angry.
Then I feel his cock hardening against me. I push away from him, shaking my head.
He shrugs, yet again. “Right. You don’t want to do that anymore.”
Why is it he makes me sound like I’m a frigid bitch? Or am I just being baited again?
I take a calming breath, reminding myself I’m not frigid. Joe knows how I want sex every hour of the night. I love sex. With him.
Tony has the gall to smile at me. “Maybe one day I can talk you into that again.”
Maybe one day you can eat shit, I want to say. But I don’t.
Fuck, I want wine. I want it in my hands. I want to feel how cool it is in the summer. The way the glass condenses—the natural wetness seducing me. God, I want to be numb. I don’t have a babysitter this Wednesday, so I could have a drink. I could leave the kids, drive to the grocery store and…
I’d never leave my kids, which reminds me…
“Need to check on Jamie again.”
Tony nods and steps aside, glancing around the bedroom. “You do something different in here? It looks nice.”
“Just cleaned up a little,” I mumble as I pass him.
“Remember before we had Liv and we’d have sex for hours when Jamie was napping?”
Awake: Book 3 of the Wild Love Series Page 14