by L. D. Davis
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But…why did that happen? What does that say about us?”
I began to back away. “That we’re stupid and selfish. This wasn’t a good idea. I’m leaving.”
“Wait, Lydia. Wait.” His hand was on my arm. I could have yanked it out of his grasp, yet instead, I stopped but didn’t look at him. “I’ve been thinking, Lyd. I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened.”
“It was just mindless sex between two mindless idiots,” I said harshly.
He hesitated, and then asked, “You don’t think it was more than that?”
Tears formed in my eyes, but still, I didn’t look at him. “It was a mistake.”
Another hesitation before he asked, “Was it, though?”
“Yes!” I said the word harshly and turned around to face him, to shout at him, to rage, but… But then he put his arms around my waist and my hands locked behind his head and the kiss came so easily, so naturally.
The memory of those moments was so fresh in my mind I could hear the sizzle of the food in a pan on the stove and smell the crushed garlic on the bread. Pearl Jam was playing from a vinyl record, and the song “Garden” was on. A light evening breeze had swept through the apartment from the screen door, and Gavin’s mouth had tasted like the cola he had drank a few minutes before.
“I came to my senses,” I said to Marco, bringing myself back to the present again. “I stopped kissing him and was about to push him away, but Lily was there, at the door, watching us. You know the rest of what happened that night. I really don’t want to recount my sister’s suicide attempt.”
“Lily already filled me in on that part of the story,” Marco said somberly. “It is not something I need to hear a second time. You know she believes you and Gavin had a long affair, don’t you? She believes you two were together behind her back for months.”
“I know, but we haven’t really discussed any of that. It’s not like there’s really been an opportunity. Hey, remember that time you caught me kissing your fiancé?” I lifted a shoulder. “It just doesn’t seem like a good conversation starter. Besides, it won’t change anything.”
“You don’t know that, but that is a conversation for another time. There is a lot I still need to know, and I won’t allow you to be sidetracked.”
I held up my empty glass. “Then I’m going to need more wine. In fact, you better grab another bottle. I think I’m going to need it.”
When my glass was full again and there seemed to be no danger of running out, I began the second part of my story, the story that changed me.
And not for the better.
“I thought I was a good wife, or what a good wife should be. I didn’t think being a good wife was just about caring for the kids, cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, and things like that. I did do all those things, but I gave much more. I put myself out there, left myself vulnerable on purpose. I put my heart in his hands and trusted him to take care of it and to take care of me. In the beginning, I thought he had done the same. It seemed like, despite our harsh beginning and the obstacles ahead, we would be happy, but it didn’t turn out that way. I don’t think he ever really gave me a chance.”
Chapter Two
Six Years Ago
“Where’s Daddy? Do you see Daddy?” I cooed to my son as I held him in my arms.
“Where Dah-dee?” Gavin Jr. inquired, little hand turned up in question.
“He’ll be here soon.”
I readjusted the adorably chubby two-year-old on my hip and continued to search the crowd for my husband.
Gavin had been away for five days at a convention in New York, courtesy of his employers. It was the longest we’d been apart since we married a year and a half ago. I didn’t think I would miss him, but after only two days of his absence, I began to miss his face, the smell of him, and the warmth of his body in our bed. By the third day, I had come to a shocking conclusion: I was in love with my husband.
I realized how silly that sounded. In this day in age, in the free world where arranged marriages didn’t really happen, one would expect a woman to be in love with her husband, and vice versa, but we’d gotten married as friends, and that friendship had been very delicate and precarious at the time. We’d loved each other, but we hadn’t been in love. Over the past two years, however, we’d grown together and had become closer than ever. I’d been reticent about giving in to my deepening feelings, but we’d made a commitment. Marriage wasn’t meant to be temporary. It was supposed to last a long time, until one of us died. How much better would our long lives be together if we were really in love?
I was sure he was in love with me, too. I was positive. The way he kissed me goodbye, like he couldn’t stand to leave without me. The sex between us had stopped being just a means to get off, and had become passionate. When he told me he loved me, it no longer sounded like perfunctory words. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he felt for me the way I felt for him. Our guilt over the past had held us back, but there were things we couldn’t fix. Finally, we had to leave the past where it was, and move forward. Gavin didn’t know it yet, but we were going to be moving forward just a little more in the near future.
My son’s happy shriek shook me from my thoughts. “Dah-dee!”
I looked in the direction he was waving his little arm and saw him. I stopped breathing for a few seconds, because instantly, I knew something…was off. He didn’t see us yet, because he seemed to be deep within himself as he stared at the baggage carousel. His face was blank, almost like he wasn’t even there, and his body was just that. Just a body. Standing still until its owner’s mind and soul returned to reclaim it.
It took several more of our son’s shrieks before he blinked a few times and looked up. His eyes scanned the area once, skipped over us, and then came back. He did smile then, and I could see that smile trying desperately to filter into his eyes, but it never made it.
He came to us, took our excited son in his arms and leaned in to kiss me briefly on the mouth. It wasn’t anything like his goodbye kiss, but I took it with a smile anyway.
“I thought you guys were just going to pick me up at the curb.”
“We were too excited to stay in the car.”
“I’m glad you came in,” he said as he met my eyes. I think he meant it, but I wasn’t sure.
While we waited for his luggage and during the walk to the parking lot, he told me about how much his flight sucked because of his seatmate’s inability to shut up. At first, I thought that was why he seemed off. He was just in a pissy mood after being trapped in the air with a nut, but in the car he was quiet. Several times, I glanced at his profile as he stared out his window. I saw the tension in his body, the crease in his brow, and the way his mouth stayed in a flat line. I’d known Gavin since I was three or four years old. I knew what his face looked like when he was troubled. An uncomfortable knot formed in my chest, because he only looked like that when he thought about her.
“Are you okay?” I asked quietly as Gavi babbled sleepily in the backseat.
He seemed startled at first and peered at me blinkingly for a moment. “What?”
“I asked if you are okay.”
He smiled apologetically. “I’m fine. Just tired, hon. How have you been? Tell me about what you did with your life over the past few days.”
He was trying to be normal, trying to shake off whatever was clinging to him. So, I ignored the knot in my chest and the warning I felt in my stomach and talked for the rest of the ride home. I left out the most important thing, though. I planned to share that with him later, after Gavi was in bed.
At home, while he unpacked his suitcase and changed, I gave Gavi a bath. We put him to bed together, as per our nightly ritual. Gavin stayed with him until he was asleep while I went for a quick run.
I loved to run. In the past, I did it to counter the munchies I used to get after I’d smoked pot, but I hadn’t touched the stuff since I found out I was pregnant with Gavi almost three years ago. I started t
o run again to get rid of the baby weight I’d collected, but then it turned into a way for me to refresh my mind and ease some of the sadness, anger, and depression I carried in my heart. It became my new drug, with the benefit of not eating a whole bag of Doritos afterward.
When I got home, I found Gavin in the kitchen popping open a bottle of beer. There was already one empty bottle sitting on the counter. My eyes got stuck there for a moment. He didn’t usually drink much, not that two beers were considered a lot, but it was unlike him to have more than one in less than an hour. I, on the other hand, could drink a whole six-pack in an hour, but not Gavin.
“I didn’t come home empty handed,” he said, pulling my attention back to him.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I got you a few things.”
I followed him to the living room, where he presented me with several wrapped gifts. I grinned as I opened each one, all souvenirs of New York City. A keychain, a hoodie, a pen shaped like the Empire State Building that lit up at the top, a couple magnets, a mug, and…
“Oh, Gavin,” I breathed as I opened the last gift.
He gave me a genuine smile for the first time since he came home. It even touched his blue eyes. “I got it at Saks Fifth Avenue.”
I carefully took the necklace out of a velvet box and held it up. It was a diamond heart pendant, encased in white gold on a white gold chain. It was beautiful.
“I love it, but…” I glanced over at him. “I’m not ungrateful. I really do love it. It’s so beautiful, but you didn’t have to do this for me. I know it was expensive. We’re not Saks Fifth Avenue people.”
He moved closer, gingerly took the necklace from me, and unclasped it. I held my hair as he put it around my neck. My fingers went to the heart to caress it as I turned my gaze back to him.
“You’re worth it,” he whispered.
This time, when he kissed me, he meant it. It was sweet. It was loving. It made me feel silly for doubting him, and excited to share my own news.
Suddenly, I felt shy. I was never the timid type, but the news was so big, so special. “I have something for you, too.”
He was holding my hand, smiling and staring at my mouth as if he planned to silence me with his own.
“What do you have for me?”
A part of me wanted to put off the conversation long enough for another kiss, and maybe more, but I took a breath and nervously told him the surprise. “Umm. While you were gone I…I found out I am…pregnant.”
His hand spasmed hard, painfully squeezing mine and making me wince. His smile disappeared, as if it had never been there. I told myself he was just surprised, nothing more. Just in shock.
He stared at me blankly. “What did you say?”
“Pregnant,” I whispered as I stared at his face.
“I thought you were on the pill.” His words came out sterile, without emotion.
“I…I am, or was, but the ones I was on are time sensitive. I think I took it late a couple times that week Gavi was sick. I was so distracted and worried.” I shrugged helplessly.
“We aren’t ready for another baby, Lydia. I thought we would talk about it first, plan. I…I’m so not ready to go there with you.”
He realized what he’d said, looked shocked that he’d said it, and tried to backpedal, but it was too late.
My voice quavered with a toxic blend of hurt and fury. “With me. Opposed to with someone else.”
His eyes closed as he shook his head. When he looked at me again, there was regret and sorrow in his eyes. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I think you did.” I snatched my hand out of his grasp and got up.
He followed me as I headed toward our bedroom.
“Lydia!” He called my name like I was being a petulant child. “Lydia, stop.”
He caught me around the wrist, but my emotions were out of control. I couldn’t even see straight, and the tears that sprang out of my eyes in that instant didn’t help. I swung toward him, surprising the hell out of him and myself when I slapped him across the face.
“I thought we were past that! I thought we moved on, but you still hate that I’m not her!”
“No…I… Lydia.” He tried to get words out and hold on to me, but I yanked myself from his grasp again.
I got in his face. “I was finally happy! I thought you were, too, but I guess I was fucking wrong.”
I took my wedding band off, hurled it at his chest, and ran up the stairs. I locked myself in the bedroom and cried most of the night. Alone.
“Sshhh. No, let Mommy sleep, Gav.”
The little voice that didn’t quite yet know how to whisper said, “Mommy wake up and see.”
“No, let Mommy sleep.” Gavin’s whisper faded as he left the room.
The conversation between father and son was what woke me up, though I didn’t open my eyes.
It wasn’t a mystery how they got into a locked room. There was a key to the door in the depths of a kitchen junk drawer. I was surprised and oddly disappointed Gavin hadn’t used the key last night to continue our argument. There was nothing to argue about, though. Nothing to discuss. As soon as I got up, I was going to pack a bag for me and my son and leave. Where I was going to go, I didn’t know. I wasn’t comfortable going to my in-laws, and my mom was still living in Philadelphia with my sister. There absolutely would be no going there, either. Lily still hated me for what I’d done to her.
I wanted to stay in bed for a while and cry some more while I thought of my next steps, but I’d cried myself out through the night. Every time I’d thought about Gavin’s reaction to the pregnancy, the pain had stabbed a little deeper. Besides, lying around crying wasn’t going to solve anything.
A strange noise in the room made me finally open my eyes. My gaze narrowed on the window first. It was raining outside. Judging by the look of the clouds, thunder and lightning would be on the way, too. The reflection of something…something bouncing…swaying back and forth made me slowly turn my head toward the door. I gasped.
Only a few feet away, about a dozen balloons floated in the air. Six pink and six blue, and one big silver shiny one that said “I’m Sorry” in big red letters. I sat there and stared at the balloons for several minutes as I tried to figure out how I felt about them. I glanced down at the necklace that had cost more than half my wardrobe and considered tying it to one of the balloons and letting it go out the window, but then thought it would be more satisfying to throw it in his face. Obviously, Gavin was attempting to apologize for being an ass. No, wait, he was more than just an ass. He was a whole motherfucker.
I got to my feet, hellbent on putting the bastard in his place and telling him where he could stuff his balloons. I fought through the balloons to get to the door and made my way through the house. My feet came to an abrupt halt just outside the family room, and all the hostility—or at least most of it—melted away.
Father and son were sitting on the living room floor. Gavin the senior was wearing a cowboy hat, a red handkerchief tied around his neck and a yellow plaid shirt over his T-shirt. Gavin Junior was dressed in Buzz Light Year Pajamas that were very similar to Buzz’s space outfit in Toy Story. The movie was playing on the television, as it had been nearly every day for months, and Gavin Junior said Buzz’s lines as best as he could for a toddler, and his father said all of Woody’s lines.
My son squealed and laughed at the same part of the movie he always squealed and laughed at, but his dad looked at him with a huge smile, and such deep, unfathomable love.
My husband was many things, and he wasn’t many things…but one thing he was for sure, something I couldn’t discount him on ever, was an amazing dad. Whatever he felt for me didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, because he loved our son, unquestionably. I couldn’t take Gavi away from his father. I just couldn’t.
Silently, I backed away, went back to my room, and quietly shut the door. It was more than an hour later before Gavin came in again. I was standing in
front of the window, watching the storm rage outside. I heard his hesitant steps, his long sigh, and then a moment later, I felt him behind me.
“Where’s Gav?” I asked, my voice still hoarse from crying all night.
“Knocked out on the couch.”
A couple minutes went by before either of us said anything more. I was the one to break the ice—with a sledge hammer.
“I want to leave. I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted, but I don’t want to take him away from you. Whatever you feel about me doesn’t matter, but I know you love our son.”
He sounded tired, as if he’d been up all night, too. “I do want you, Lydia. I do love you, and I don’t want you to go anywhere. I am sorry for the way my words came out last night.”
I snorted. “You mean the truthful way?”
“No. It was shock, Lyd. I was terrified when I found out you were pregnant with Gavi, and I remained terrified until both of you were home from the hospital. You know…you know what I went through, and I’m afraid it’ll happen again. Maybe it could be worse, and you could die, too. You have to understand that.”
I spun around and stared at him. “I do understand that, but you said you hadn’t planned on having any more kids with me.”
“It just came out wrong. It’s not what I meant.”
His face was set in a plea, so were his eyes, but there was something deeper in the depths that I couldn’t figure out. He seemed sincere, but the words still seemed a little hollow. I didn’t want to trust him again, but I had no one left.
The room lit up a little bit when lightning flashed nearby. Thunder crashed a few seconds later, but I didn’t turn back to the window. I continued to stare at him, tried to see the guy I’d always known.
“Please, don’t leave, Lydia. I’ll make this right.” He put a hand over my stomach. “I’ll make this right for all of us.”
I didn’t give him an answer for more than a week.
The next day, I was already tired of the balloons and popped them all with a knife. That was therapeutic. It was a week after that before I let my husband sleep on his side of the bed again. Two weeks after that I finally accepted my wedding band back. Soon, days and weeks began to blur together, and life went back to something like normal for us as we neared the birth of our next child, but despite Gavin’s promises, we were never quite the same again.