Choices (30 page)

“Hmm…let’s see…so much to pick from…maybe I should start with the fact that my brother-in-law was so willing to let my sister go or…

“Now, just wait one Goddamn minute! If you think…” Paul started to
shift away from the table, his face reddening, his mouth slightly contorted.

“Sit down Paul! Now!” My mother patted Paul’s arm and bestowed a look upon him that made him all but comply.

“Liz, let’s be positive and remember that Paul and Laurel’s children are sitting here with us at the table.”

“Mom, she was being positive what are you talking about?” Lisa retorted stifling a giggle. I wanted to crawl under the table and bang my head against the floor and we hadn’t even carved the damn turkey!

“Well, maybe he wouldn’t have been so eager to leave if Mom didn’t cheat on him!” Vanessa scraped her chair against the floor, threw her napkin on the table and proceeded to go to her room.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know! You don’t even need to tell me. I’m already going to my room. See…” She slammed herself up the stairs.

“Mommy, I didn’t know you were going to school. You know Mommy it’s wrong to cheat. You told me that. Only people who don’t believe in themselves cheat, isn’t that what you said?” Jakie looked at me with huge, round blue eyes that left me utterly speechless.

“I know, sw
eetie, you’re right.” I croaked and fiddled with the napkin on my lap, praying for the Lord to fill my empty brain with something intelligent to say.

“Well, if that’s the problem then I can see why you would be mad Daddy.” He changed his gaze to focus on Paul.
  Paul just sighed heavily and shook his head as he contemplated the hardwood pattern on the floor of the dining room as if he wanted to rearrange the pattern at exactly that very minute and my sisters scrambled out of their chairs to check on Vanessa. Helen, my dear sweet quick-witted mother, was the first to regain her composure and move dinner along.

“Well
, why don’t we carve the turkey? Paul?” She looked at him inquisitively asking for his permission and he nodded and she preceded to hand him the carving knife. The phone was ringing and it jolted my brain into speaking mode.

“The phone is ringing. I’ll get it!” Jake loved to answer the phone. He said it made him feel grown up.

“Wait a minute Jake and let me answer the phone.” I just needed to get my ass out of the chair and my head out of that dining room!

“Hello?”
My voice was unsteady.

“Hi, sweetheart, Happy Thanksgiving!
” My insides unclenched and I felt calmer just hearing Kristy’s voice through the phone. “I know you’re probably getting ready to sit down and eat but I just wanted to call and wish you a happy day before it got too late and I missed you earlier. How was the parade? Good God, who is that? Is that Brielle and Jake yelling at each other?”

“Hi,
honey. Yes, that would be Brielle and Jake yelling at each other. Happy Thanksgiving. Isn’t that how thanksgiving is being celebrated across the nation with siblings yelling at each other, oldest daughters storming into bedrooms, sarcastic sisters who mean well but their intentions don’t translate well, estranged husbands who try to piss all over their once claimed territory in order to reclaim it and mothers who try to smooth everything over with a simple request for thankfulness.” I sighed heavily into the phone and then just started to laugh hysterically.

“That’s it honey, just keep laughing.”

“I know, right, because if I don’t keep laughing I’m going to start crying and never stop.”

“That’s okay
too; you know I’ll be here with the tissues.”

Once we managed to suggest a cease fire, we were able to get on with the business of actually eating Thanksgiving dinner, quietly and thoughtfully, thankfully. See so there was something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving…quiet. After dinner my sisters left and my Mom retired to her guest room and Paul and I tucked the younger two in bed and wished the older one good night. We stood in the hallway and just looked at each other. It was awkward and uncomfortable. I shifted my weight from one foot to the next and scratched the back of my neck.

“Um, Paul, well, thanks for coming. I know the kids were very happy to see you, my mom too.” I smiled and folded my hands not knowing what to do with them or what to say to myself or him.

“What? You don’t think Liz and Lisa were happy to see me?” He smiled his super sweet Paul megawatt smile that lit his eyes up to an electric blue.

“Oh, that’s rich! You
’re just as sarcastic as they are, Paul.” I rubbed my eyebrows and tried to figure out a way to extricate myself from him, the hallway, my kids, this day. Unfortunately, nothing was coming to me at the present moment. So I figured I would go the most direct route and tell him how I was actually feeling at the moment.

“Listen, Paul, I’m tired and I’m going to go to bed now. Again, thanks for coming and I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.
”

“Sure, Laurel, don’t worry, I’ll…um…see myself out.” He smiled again and I should have known then that this wasn’t going to end the way I wanted but I turned and ignored the little voice inside my head that screamed
‘walk him to the front door and lock it’.
But against better judgment and common sense I proceeded toward
our
… I mean
my
bedroom door. I thought about this night many times since it occurred. I don’t know, maybe I did want to reconcile, maybe I was feeling lost and alone, no actually I was feeling lost and alone, missing my husband. No if I was truly going to be honest with myself, I wasn’t really missing Paul…more like missing something I never really had to begin with…a connection with someone who wasn’t so emotionally crippled. I was missing Brandon and his compassion and warmth that found its way inside my withered soul, dug its claws into my heart and burrowed deep inside until it mingled with my own blood and coursed through my veins making me desperate and leaving me yearning and craving.  Something short circuited in the rational part of my brain that made me act against it and give into the primitive part of my brain that just wanted relief, that just wanted touch and happiness and ease of grief and guilt. I wanted desperately to succumb to the baser needs and desires of my emotional hot springs. My head screamed for relief, my body begged for it and my heart pulsed in time to the gushing and throbbing of my blood in my ears. My lungs burned for air as I realized I was holding my breath while my hand was on the knob when suddenly his hand was above my head, pushing the door open and his arm was around my waist and his hips were grinding into my backside.

“Oh, for chrissakes, Paul, really….” But before I could finish he swallowed the rest of my plea with a demanding, forceful kiss when he quickly shoved me through the door and spun me around and slammed me up against
the inside of our bedroom door.

He kissed me! My God did he really just kiss me? For Christ’s sake what the hell is going on and God help me I kissed him back. It wasn’t the type of kiss that was passionate and hungry; this kiss…this kiss was about possession, depravation and redemption. We clawed and groped and fumbled and finally found our rhythm again. It didn’t take long. How many times in the last sixteen years had we made love to each other? I was never good with numbers so I’m not even going to offer a guess. My senses were failing me; overrun by a familiarity that was poignant and touching. At one time I loved Paul with everything I had. Everything! I never hid from him. I gave him everything. I was confused. It was as if my cognitive reasoning was swept away with the trash from the Thanksgiving Parade. It was primitive. I was reverting to cavewoman tactics, just to escape the hunger and the longing I was feeling for someone else, something else entirely than what was going on here. My senses were striped away and I was fighting a losing battle. I was fighting frantically against the primal desires of connection and contact with another human being who I was familiar with and with the profound sensations of committing an act that was going to torture and confuse and lay waste to both relationships.

“STOP!” I shouted. Paul pulled back confused and dazed.

“What are you doing, Laurel?” He tried to embrace me again and finish what he started but I wouldn’t let him.

“No, please, stop Paul, this…” I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my face.

“This, what?” He asked raising his brows.

“
This! What we’re about to do, it needs to stop. It will just confuse you, me, the kids. I think you should go home Paul. It’s late we’re both tired and confused. I need to get some sleep. Call in the morning and you can take the kids all day if you’d like.” I sighed again and moved away from him to get some distance to clear my head more and remind myself that I was in fact doing the right thing.

“No, Laurel, I’m not confused.”
He said gruffly.

I had my back to him and my hand on the knob of our bedroom door waiting to turn it and walk down into the living room to regain some semblance of sanity.

“What are you saying Paul?” I turned to face him and was astonished at how quickly he moved to embrace me again. Paul was anything but fast. He had me in a tight embrace and was rubbing his hands gently down my back and soothingly shushing my doubts by whispering gently in my ear, ‘I’m sorry, Laurel, I’m so sorry. Everything’s going to be okay, everything’s going to work out right this time, I swear it! I’ve made a huge mistake, Laurel, huge and I’m man enough now to say it. I want you back Laurel. I’m lost without you and the kids. I can’t…I can’t think at work, I have no interest in dating anyone, I miss seeing my kids everyday, I think about you, about what we had and I…I cry. I get twisted up inside and I can’t stop thinking about what we had, what we shared, how you looked at me on our wedding night, just the two of us, naked, bared for me from soul to toe. You gave me everything Laurel, everything and I…I know I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. I know that I ruined it, that I neglected you and took you for granted and embarrassed you and made you fearful.” He led me away from the bedroom door and helped me sit down on the bed. I was too numb to speak. There went my cognitive reasoning again, down the city sewers. I didn’t know what to say. I just looked really; I’m sure, like a gaping fish out of water. He actually closed my mouth for me.

“What are you saying, Paul? I don’t understand. Now, you tell me these things when I carry another man’s child.” He stiffened at that. I seemed to make a connection to some buried neurons that were hiding from reality in
his lust filled brain. He stood up and kneeled in front of me on the side of the bed. Despite the stiffness he didn’t miss a beat.

“Don’t you think it’s obvious?” He searched my eyes for a glimmer of hope. My stomach was churning and dropping as he knelt. I haven’t seen him on his knees since he proposed. For a split second I entertained his wish in my mind’s eye. I saw the longing and the pain and the desire to start anew in his eyes and wondered if they mirrored my own. I was beginning to soften and began to picture us raising this new child as our
own; no one would need to know, what happened behind closed doors stays behind closed doors. This new baby was still part me; there wouldn’t be any questions really. Paul and Brandon both had beautiful blue eyes. Brandon was a little darker than Paul but I was still the mother. Maybe, maybe. Paul was always a good man, just unconscious at times. Aren’t all men, really? If I just kept after him; WAIT! I’d already been there, done that! People don’t change, yes, it was incredibly touching that Paul apologized but just too… late…too late. I’d heard his apologies before and promises to change but nothing really happened. I remember something my mother said to me when we broke up in college ‘don’t take him back just because you’re lonely; that’s dangerous Laurel, not to mention unfair and damaging.’  My mind was swirling and my heart decided to pound in my ears instead of in my chest and the ice in the pit of my stomach was now spreading to other parts of my body like my heart.

“Now, you tell me! NOW! Goddamn you, Goddamn you! How dare you.” I was angry now, moving and finding my feet again and forcing my heart back into its proper position, warming it up, getting it ready to do what I needed it to do- turn him away.

“Laurel, look” He stood up and was quickly on my heels turning me around to face him. “Look, I know you’re angry…”

“Angry! Oh, Paul you have no idea how angry I am, no idea!” I flashed eyes of hatred at this po
int, I knew it. How could someone you loved more than life itself make you turn into a vicious, foaming at the mouth lunatic? Another sage piece of wisdom my mother, Helen, bestowed upon me…if you weren’t so angry you wouldn’t care. Maybe I did still care, of course I did, he was the father of my children but it was just too late. I’m carrying Brandon’s baby, he’s the father of this baby conceived out of a love that I thought I had for Paul, an understanding and acceptance and desire to commit that I never felt on any level whether it be physically or spiritually from Paul. My connection to Paul, I’ve come to realize was fear of abandonment and my own desire to be everyone’s little helper. The love I feel now, the desire and the basic elemental attachment that I never experienced with Paul, and now felt for Brandon, and Brandon only is what sustains me now and my ever expanding stomach is a testament to that fact. He simply made me feel validated. At the end of the day that’s all anyone really wants to feel - validated and loved. I’m not blaming Paul, it just is. At this particular moment it all became crystal clear to me; I fell in love with Paul, yes but his demons destroyed that love. I stayed because I was afraid to leave. I was more afraid of being abandoned and lonely than I was of living with an alcoholic. Emotional abuse and an energy draining love were better than no love at all. Except now, I had experienced real love.