Where We Meet Again, стр. 18
Oh, God. My stomach cramps from his words. The parts of my heart that remained beating wither with every word out of his mouth.
Swiping his palm over his face, he drops his hand limply to his side and continues. “I let her consume me and that made me stupid. A month before graduation, I got her pregnant. The day after we graduated, we got married at the courthouse. Two weeks after that, I took a job as an apprentice laborer at a construction company to support my new family.”
“Please, you don’t need to tell me this,” I beg as old wounds bleed fresh again. So lost in his memories, he doesn’t even hear my plea.
“The work was shit. We built houses from sunup until sundown, six days a week. My new wife reaped the benefits of my paycheck, while I worked myself to the bone. I hardly ever saw her. Which is why when I got hurt on the job one day and came home early, she was shocked as shit to see me. As was I to find her naked in our bed with my best friend.”
An appropriate response escapes me, so I remain quiet. I fear that if I open my mouth, I’ll either cry, yell, or vomit. The guilt for my own choices eats at me like an acid as I listen to the domino effect my decisions had in Law’s life.
“She begged for a second chance. I was too young and proud to file for a divorce so soon after we got married. I was holding out for my baby. I thought once we were a real family, the marriage would fix itself.”
He pauses as if lost. The story seems over. Is he still married to her now? With a child, maybe several, waiting at home for him to get done working? I force myself not to search his hand for a ring. I don’t have the right to care, even though I do.
He finds himself then, continuing to tear open old wounds.
“The same day I found out I was having a son, I learned that instead of a baptism, we’d be holding a funeral.”
The breath catches somewhere between my nose and my lungs, and a sob forces its way out. A shaky hand compresses my mouth. “Law.”
“Doctor saw some terminal abnormality on the scan. Nothing could be done. After that, Steph and I fell apart. Took me six years to get rid of her. We both grieved hard, and I wasn’t a big enough asshole to leave her like that. After a couple of years, we tried again but nothing stuck. She had five miscarriages before we both agreed enough was enough. We weren’t in love. We were both just trying to fill voids in our lives with each other.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he’s not finished eviscerating me.
He shoves off the sink. “I thought I could do this with you, patch old hurts and move on. I can’t. I’ve got six little angels that never got to take that first breath and an ex-wife in a wake that was left behind because of you. Because. Of. You. And you’ve got everything. One beautiful baby girl who loves you and is your entire world. I’d be foolish to give you the chance to steal it all out from under me again.”
A jumble of defenses and apologies swell in my throat, but they all stick on my tongue. Nothing I claim in this moment will relieve any of the pain he’s resurfaced. As he grabs his bag and walks himself out, it cuts me deep, but I stand back and let him.
There isn’t anything else for me to do.
8
I told myself that’s the last of Law.
After he left, Evelyn called from practice and begged to have a sleepover at her best friend’s house. Even though it was a school night, after what went down in my kitchen, I claimed the Mother-of-the-Year Award and granted her wish. Then, I spent a night in my quiet, lonely house drowning in the half remaining bottle of bourbon.
I’ve consumed more alcohol this week than I have in nearly fifteen years. I just can’t stomach listening to the short version of Law’s life story and remain sober. His voice replays in my head, the horrible things he experienced with just enough blame threaded in his tone to inform me he’ll never forgive me.
As an adult, I can understand the shitty things that happen in life. He made choices just as I had, and those choices hadn’t panned out the way he planned. Mine hadn’t either. Choices have consequences, and there are some things beyond our control. I have to stow away his pain in a compartment of sympathy, nothing more.
Even a few shots in, I can’t extinguish the guilt. The ‘what-ifs’ and ‘if-I’d-only.’ We used to be so close that almost anything that happened to him felt like my own. His joy caused me joy, and his pain stung me, too.
Time and several shots of bourbon pass, but I’m I eventually able to lock the guilt away with all the other emotions involving Law.
* * *
Three weeks pass, and I haven’t so much as seen him.
I also haven’t found any mice, and I believe Evelyn imagined them.
“Sweetie, are you up for school?” I call to her from outside her bedroom door. She’s becoming increasingly less productive as the holidays near. What I would give to be a teenager again. My job has been the opposite. Stupid accidents are at an