So Much More(55)

“Really?” I mock his tone. “Fuck you and your judgment, Loren. You’re the pot. I’m the kettle. Get over yourself.” We both live for bad choices.

He shakes his head. “Your moral compass is bent. Holy shit bent,” he mutters. “But you have a mind for business like no one else I’ve ever known. You’re wasting it. That’s all I’m saying.”

I want to fight. I want this to escalate. But because I’m done lying tonight, I answer, “I know.”

“I know the paperwork you presented me with that indicated illegal activity was fabricated. I know they were all lies. Lies you created to trap me. Deceit only on paper. The law wasn’t broken, your moral judgment was.” He doesn’t sound angry.

“It’s still broken it would seem.” No more lies.

“We’re not married, Miranda. The wedding wasn’t official. I paid someone to create the marriage license and certificate. The ordained minister who came to the house and married us was an actor. Your ring is glass.”

I huff out a laugh, surprised that I’m able to see the irony in this clusterf*ck, and then I pull my hands out from under the covers and offer him a slow clap. “Touché, Loren. Tou-f*cking-ché.”

He’s watching me carefully now, but he’s not weighing his words. His normal precision is gone, replaced by a version of Loren I’ve never seen, desperate. “It’s time for you to leave, Miranda.”

And that’s when the tears drop, it’s the ultimate rejection, but I’m not thinking about Loren. I’m thinking about Seamus. How hurt he was when I filed for divorce and the last words he said to me that night. He’ll never love you like I do. He was right. Loren never loved me at all. And I know now, after living in his home and being fake married to him for months; that the destiny I chased and thought I deserved, only led me to misery.

“Your kids should be with Seamus, Miranda. You saw what they were like when they left with him last week. You know how sad they’ll be when he brings them back in the morning. I don’t know them that well, but they’re different kids when they’re with him. They light up with life and happiness. That’s what every kid deserves. They don’t have that here. No one loves them like he loves them.”

“That’s because no one loves like Seamus does. It’s tender, and sincere, and intrepid. He’s a saint,” I say in defeat. And then I look at him asking for more blunt honesty. “The kids like Rosa more than they like me. I’m their mother. Shouldn’t they like me better than the goddamn housekeeper?”

He doesn’t try to comfort me. “Genetics doesn’t ensure love, or even like, time and effort do. You don’t give them your time, and you don’t show them effort. Rosa does.”

That stings. I know it’s my fault, but it still stings. “It’s her job.”

“It’s her job to make sure they’re fed. It’s not her job to read to them at night, or to tell them bedtime stories, or to ask them how school was when they get home every day, or to praise them when they do well. She’s a housekeeper, not a parent. Parenting is your job,” he says.

This conversation feels like a long, miserable road trip that I just want to be over, but that I know I can’t escape because jumping out while it’s in motion would hurt more than staying in and enduring it. “I don’t like parenting. I’m not good at it. Seamus was always the parent.” I’m not looking for sympathy; I’m just talking because I have a captive audience, an ear to bend.

“I’d be a horrible parent. Obviously.” His head is hanging low. Shame is a burden.

“We’re a f*cking match made in heaven, Loren. Why didn’t we work?” I’m asking because I already know the answer, but I want his take.

“That’s just it, isn’t it? We’re practically the same person. We don’t complement each other. You don’t offset my shortcomings, and I don’t offset yours because we’re both deficient in the same areas. We’re immature teenagers emotionally, both bankrupt in the ability to love and care for another. That doesn’t bode well for matrimony or even monogamy.”

“Will it always be that way?”

He shrugs. “For me? Probably. I’m old and set in my ways. It’s how I’ve always lived my life. For you? I hope not. You’re still young. You have your whole life ahead of you, as well of the lives of your children. You should go back to your husband. Appreciate him the next time around. He was your better half. Go try to live up to that for a start.”

I would say I concede defeat, but to concede you have to have won in the first place. I’m beginning to think I don’t know what winning is and that I’ve never, in thirty plus years, won, because my rules were always skewed. I was the only one playing by them, which made them null and void. “When do you want me out of the house?”

“Ideally?” I expected to hear hope in his voice, but the tiredness has returned.

“No, realistically. Ideally, would involve me leaving right this minute, I’m sure, and I’m tired, I can’t do that.” I’m half joking, half serious. I’m sure if he had his way he wouldn’t even let me use the bathroom and dress before ushering me out to my car.

“You have a week.”

I want to make a smartass remark, but I nod instead to accept the deadline.