Push(36)

David made me promise not to tell anyone that Kelsey was pregnant. And three days later, she was gone. It was the day of Beth Lanko’s funeral. Kelsey never showed up to work, and within hours, everyone was frantically looking for her, the police included. David came to my house that night. He was so composed, so cold. I think he was in shock. He said he didn’t want to talk about it. I had to drag the words out of him one by one. He couldn’t believe she actually did it. She left him, left her family, left everything. He asked me what he should do. I told him that he had to go to the police, but that he needed to go to her parents first, to explain what had happened, to explain why she left. To apologize. He walked out my door that night and did exactly what I told him to do.
He must have lost a bit of himself that night, because after that, David was different. He withdrew from everything. I think he was mad. Mad at Kelsey, mad at the police for not finding her, mad at her parents for choosing their religion over their daughter. They were furious with her, just as David had suspected they would be. They refused to forgive her, or David, for the mess the two of them had gotten themselves into. Within two days of learning that Kelsey was pregnant, they told the police to stop looking for her. They said that wherever she was, God would take care of her. God would help her find her way. She would come back when, and if, she was ready. And they would be waiting for her—praying to find a way to forgive her.
Shep was furious at David. He said that David had ruined Kelsey. That Kelsey deserved better, and that he, too, would never forgive his son for knocking up such a nice young lady. David was a disgrace, Shep said, and he should be kissing his father’s feet for permission to continue to work for the company.
A few weeks later, David started regularly showing up at my house. I think he just needed someone to talk to. He needed someone to listen. We would talk for hours. About his mother, about my ex-husband, about life. I was connecting to David in a way I never had connected with Shep. Shep was fun, but David was deep. Then one night, he told me about when his mother was sick and about how his father refused to get her the help she needed. But she never asked for it either, he said. David didn’t think she wanted to be helped. It was hard, he said, especially because he was so young. He loved her, and he thinks she might have loved him back, in her own strange way. But he was never certain of it. His mother’s illness and Shep’s alcoholism clearly put David at the mercy of their diseases, rather than providing him with the stability every child craves. I can’t imagine how it would make a child feel to have to deal with such unpredictability. For things to always be so out of their control. It must have been hard for David. It would be hard for anyone.
To make matters worse, David told me that shortly after his mother died, in a drunken stupor Shep told David that he’d been an accident. That he was never supposed to “be.” That he was responsible for his mother’s death because their life would have been different had he not been born. She wouldn’t have gotten sick, Shep said, and she wouldn’t have died.
The night he told me all this was the first night we slept together.
I never intended to be in this position. Caring for a father and son in two very different ways. When David and I started sleeping together, I thought he knew about me and Shep. I thought he must have seen us together. I thought that, at some point, his dad would have mentioned it. But then, when I realized that David didn’t know, I made the conscious decision not to tell him. But it all got so complicated, and I couldn’t manage the secret, emotionally or physically. My guilt was drowning me. Drowning David every time he opened his mouth. I decided I needed to end my relationship with Shep, find another job, and continue life. With David.
But before I could do it, David saw us together. He came into Peyton’s yesterday afternoon when he was supposed to be on a job. Ken was with him, and the pair of them stopped dead in their tracks when they walked in the door and saw Shep and me snug against each other on the same side of the booth. David’s eyes settled on mine, his face blank, his body frozen. I thought he was gonna lose it. I thought David’s calm was going to unfurl into rage. I waited for him to splinter. But he didn’t. He didn’t go ballistic; he just stood there breathing. Shep was looking at his menu, and before he could look up, Ken pulled David back out the door. He knew they would be in trouble if Shep saw them drinking when they were supposed to be working. I told Shep I needed to go out to the truck to get something I had forgotten. But when I got outside, David and Ken were already driving away. I stood outside Peyton’s trying to collect my thoughts. Deciding if I should get in Shep’s truck and follow them. I didn’t, though, because I realized that I needed time to think about how to fix this. And I was sure that David needed time, too. Time to fume.
After a few minutes, I went back inside. I told Shep that I couldn’t do this anymore. That we were done. He balked, told me he loved me. I can’t work for you anymore either, I told him. I need this to be done. I’m sorry. He asked me if there was someone else. If I was screwing someone else. At first I didn’t answer. I stood next to the table looking at him. I wanted to calculate my words very, very carefully. I told him that, no, there was no one else. Then I made up some bullshit excuse about our age difference. I turned on my heels and walked out the door.
I figured that Shep would stay at Peyton’s, drinking until he couldn’t stand. But he didn’t stay at the bar because he is here now, hunkered down in the bushes.
I wanted Shep to know immediately that it was over between us, so I walked back to the office to clean out my desk. When I got there, David was standing in his dad’s office with his hands on his head. He was so calm. I could see it on his face. I was expecting seething anger. But it wasn’t there. I told him I was sorry, that I would do whatever it takes to make it better. I want to be with you, David, I said. I ended it with Shep. It’s over and I’m sorry and I love you. He sighed and stood staring at me for a long time before opening his mouth. He said he didn’t know if he could get over this. Knowing that he had made love to the same woman his father had made love to disgusted him. Filled him with contempt. Contempt for himself. Contempt for me. He told me all of this without a trace of anger in his voice.