So Much More(41)
He’d ask the housekeeper to do it.
“Does he bring you food when you pull an all-nighter at work?”
He wouldn’t think of it.
“Does he get up before the sun comes up on your birthday and make you pecan pancakes with extra butter and syrup because they’re your favorite?”
He doesn’t cook. Or know that I love pecan pancakes.
“Does he know that you like your back rubbed when you can’t sleep because it relaxes you and makes you tired?”
He’s not one to comfort.
The truth in his questions, and my undisclosed answers, has me wanting to run for the door to escape this confrontation. I wanted to tell him I was leaving. And for him to quietly accept it. He’s not supposed to fight me on this. He’s not supposed to make me think. I can taste something hurtful and mean on the tip of my tongue.
“What is it about him that makes him better for you than me?!” he bellows.
“He’s not broken!” There it is. The worst thing I can say to him. The thing that will destroy him. Because he believes it. He knows he’s a good father, husband, counselor, human being. He knows that and never doubts it. His health he can’t change, and he wishes so badly he could. It’s his Achilles heel. And I just used it against him.
I’m going to burn in hell atop the hottest pyre for all of eternity.
Because the truth, everything else aside, is that no one’s better for me than Seamus. In the deep, dark recesses of my mind, I know that. And it’s not his MS that’s driving me away. Do I like it? No. Does it make him less attractive in my eyes? Yes. But does it make him less of a man than Loren? No. It’s everything that goes along with Loren that I want. Seamus can’t be the king to my queen.
Because he’s a saint.
And no one measures up to a saint.
He doesn’t refute my claim. He doesn’t fight me. He stands, drinks down the rest of his beer, tosses the bottle on the floor with the others, and walks toward the hall. Before he turns the corner, he looks back. He holds me in a stare that has my emotions folding in upon each other until my stomach aches. When he finally speaks, it’s low and clear. I forgot how much I loved Seamus’s voice all those years ago when we first started dating. The first time he spoke to me butterflies fluttered in my chest. “He’ll never love you like I do.”
And then he walked away.
I felt the connection we’d had for over twelve years snap like a rubber band.
Another f*ck you from the universe, and I can hear it laughing at me this time, too.
Choking on thick smoke
present
One month rolls into the next.
My eyesight returned. Slowly, and deficient from what it once was, but I’m not complaining, I’ll take what I can get in the vision department. Feeling is somewhat returning to my legs again, the numbness replaced by tingling, pain, and easy fatigue. I’ve lost weight; my appetite just isn’t there. I don’t dwell on any of it. At this point, I’ve forgotten what a healthy body and mind feel like. I exist, that’s about the extent of it.
Work is work, a job that used to be fulfilling is now just a job. I take the kids I work with seriously, and do everything I can to help them, but my motives are obligation and duty, my heart’s no longer driving it.
I don’t talk to anyone outside of work except Mrs. L once a month when I drop off the rent check. She’s good at asking loaded questions meant to flush out substance and emotion. I recognize the approach, I’m a counselor. She’s so kind and caring that I find myself swallowing back the honesty that wants badly to escape and replace it with vague evasiveness that pacifies instead.
I miss Faith. I miss her so much. I used to watch her come and go from her apartment. Studying the way she walked, the way she carried herself with such graceful, unassuming confidence. And admiring it because I know it’s not a product of her upbringing. She invested in herself and manifested it. That’s remarkable, a thing of beauty. I don’t watch anymore because studying her soon felt like stalking her. The torture of not being able to have her in my life distorted observation into forbidden leering. I’m not a creeper.
I call my kids every evening. Sometimes I get to talk to them, and more often than not there’s an excuse as to why they aren’t available. It makes me furious that Miranda has this control. My fury should be calmed with words, talking to someone I trust but that person is Faith, and I can’t, so most nights I calm my fury with alcohol and a sleep aid my doctor prescribed. It doesn’t dispel, it only erases consciousness for a few hours. I’ll take that. And when I do get to talk to my kids my body is on such a rollercoaster I feel exhausted when I get off the line. I’m happy beyond belief to hear their voices, but they sound distant, the kind of apprehension that’s a reaction to sadness. That breaks me. They used to tell me they wanted to come home, now time and complacency to circumstances beyond our control has worn them quickly until all of their hard edges, their personality traits that made them so distinct, are being smoothed over to blend them into Miranda’s bland, strict world—a world where children don’t exist as children. There’s no fun, no creativity, no fostering of individuality because none of those things serve you well in a world of money-focused, soul-sucking, career-driven existence. Rory’s dropped his accent. Kira’s sweet chatter is gone, so is Pickles the cat. And Kai is silent; silence not related to introspection, but the scary silence that is the surrender of self and motivation.