Without You Here (15 page)

"I'm so glad I've made you happy. And now you can toss me aside."

"What exactly is it you expect me to do? Maybe if you hadn't been screwing my son."

"How is that my fault? How? I'm real sorry, Wyatt, that I can't see into the future! And it's not like you'd be fit for me anyway. I won't share you with a dead woman!"

He was practically shaking with emotion. "That dead woman was my wife for over twenty years. You may have your hooks in me now, but don't think for one moment that I would ever let you replace her." He choked on those last words.

It hurt. It was needlessly cruel. And underneath the pain was an anger I was glad to latch onto. I glared up at him, my face straining with the effort of holding back tears. "My hooks? You think I did this on purpose? You think I go looking for drunk farmers in bars who are pathetically clinging to their pasts? You think I want this? I don't!"

His glare matched mine. "Good," he spat. "Then I guess we got nothing to worry about."

I was shaking. Tears pooled in my eyes.

"Don't," he said.

"Fuck you," I said. But it came out kind of squeaky and I had to turn my head to strike away the tears with the back of my hand.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You say that an awful lot."

He circled me and fell into his recliner. I assumed it was his. Every man has a chair and this one, oversized and kind of ratty, suited him. It also didn't go with the rest of the furniture, which was all tidy and well-taken-care-of, if a little on the uncomfortable side.

I perched on the edge of the sofa and gave in to a good cry. I didn't want Wyatt to touch me. But I was mad that he didn't at least make the gesture. "I hate you," I muttered. And then felt ridiculously childish.

"Please don't say that," he spoke softly.

I folded my hands on my lap and hunched over them. What a horrible, miserable moment.

Wyatt leaned forward and put his hand over mine. "Her clothes are still hanging in the closet. That probably doesn't surprise you. That day we said goodbye, all I wanted to do was chase you down and get you back. But I knew I wasn't fit for you. Not yet. So the next day, I actually got some boxes out. I didn't pack anything. Not yet. But I started sorting through her clothes. Pushed the things I needed to keep off to the left. Sorted the rest. Some things to donate. Others that were so worn out there was no sense keeping them. I didn't pack them. But I had in my head that I was going to work up to it. I'd changed something and I needed to sleep on it. See how I felt. I went to her grave and told her about it." He stopped and moved over to the couch next to me.

"I was doing okay. It was a pretty good week. But now.... If I pack up Amberlee and her things...if I say goodbye to all of that...then...then...." He frowned and it seemed that he was looking for the right words. Being a tough guy and all, it probably wouldn't occur to him to consider that he was afraid of being alone. Those words likely weren't in his vocabulary.

"It doesn't matter anyway," I said softly. "I hope you do get your life back on track. I hope you can find a way to be happy. But it won't be with me...so it just...doesn't matter." I was running out of words. I was so tired and sad.

"Ettie, let's go somewhere. Just you and me. Let's just disappear for a week. We'll drive down to the coast. Rent a condo on the beach and just make love and play in the ocean."

I smiled up at him. "I so want to do that."

"Then let's do it. We'll go right now."

He was hurting me and he didn't even know it. I caught my breath for a moment. "Take me to your bed," I said. "Right now. Take me back there and make love with me."

He froze and withdrew his hand. "Why can't you just take what I have to give?"

I jumped to my feet. "Because I'm twenty-two years old and I deserve to have a man all to myself. I deserve to have everything I want out of a relationship. So like I said, fuck you, Wyatt!"

He stood. Paced. Shoved his hand through his hair. And then froze again at the sound of tires on gravel.

Blake came in a moment later. "Hey!" he said, upon seeing me. "I went up to get you, but then Uncle Stan said you'd come back here with Dad."

"Yeah," I said.

"So how was the fishing?" he asked.

"I caught the biggest fish. Didn't I?" I looked up at Wyatt who still seemed dazed.

"A family record," he muttered. Then he left out the back door.

"What's with him?" Blake asked.

I shrugged. "No idea."

"Okay. Well. Did you see my room?"

I smiled the best I could and then let my ex-boyfriend take me on a tour of his childhood.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I enjoyed seeing all of Blake's childhood things. The old articles he'd written for the school newspaper in junior high and high school; his soccer trophies from elementary school; the love letters from his first girlfriend when he was thirteen. Those he didn't actually volunteer...I found them when I was digging through his closet. Which he told me not to do. But I was curious. And he'd wanted me to be interested. So here I was. Interested.

"Dear Blake," I read from one of the letters as I sat cross-legged in the middle of his bed. "I really like the shirt you're wearing today. You look so handsome. Do you want to hold hands at the assembly, today? Tell Todd to tell Jessica to tell me, so I'll know not to hold hands with Levi instead. Love, Crystal." I just laughed and laughed. These letters were so adorable.

Blake was leaning on his dresser with his arms folded over his chest, staring at me and shaking his head. He looked a lot like his dad, when he did that. Only he stared at me with scorn whereas Wyatt always seemed amused. "I'm not sure, now, why I thought this would be fun."

"Oh, please. You love the attention. Oh! Oh! Baby pictures! I need to see some baby Blake pictures!" I bounced on the bed.

He rolled his eyes and smiled. "I think Mom kept the photo albums in their room."

I followed him across the hall and stopped as soon as I stepped into Wyatt's room. Maybe he was right not to want to bring me here. That was the bed where he and his wife had made love and conceived a child. Where he'd held her while she was sick and dying.

The bed looked so much like a woman had made it that morning. It was neatly made. There were shams on the pillows, which were perfectly arranged. I couldn't imagine the amount of work Wyatt was doing just to try and keep Amberlee alive in this house. It was completely neurotic.

Blake was digging through the bottom drawer of a tall dresser over against the wall. I turned and saw a pile of video cassettes next to a TV on top of a smaller dresser. The videos were the only things that looked messy. They were pulled out of their cases and scattered haphazardly over the surface. "A VCR?" I said, going to the machine next to the TV. "Who has these anymore?" I read the labels on the videos and realized they were home movies.

"Dad likes to play those when he goes to bed. Says he likes hearing her voice when he's falling asleep."

I turned on the TV and pushed play on the VCR, since there was already a tape in there. Blake abandoned his search for photos and sat next to me on the bench at the foot of the bed. The screen flickered on and the picture was wobbly as the camera shifted. Then there was Amberlee. The camera backed up and refocused. Amberlee's long, dark hair hung in her face as she reached down into a crib and lifted her baby boy onto her shoulder.

I smiled at Blake, but his eyes were locked on the screen.

Amberlee turned and smiled at the camera. No, she smiled at Wyatt behind the camera. There was so much love and life in that smile that my chest tightened with emotion. Sadness. Compassion. Definitely some envy.

"Are you going to video me breastfeeding?" she asked, as she sat back in a glider rocker and began unfastening the buttons on her shirt.

"You told me you wanted video of every single moment of Blake's life. So here you go," said a young Wyatt.
His voice sounded a little different. Maybe not as deep. But I would have recognized it any day.

Amberlee blushed and rolled her eyes. "We won't be able to show it to people if you film my bare breasts."

"That's not very progressive of you, baby girl. Feed the child already. Quit fucking with my artistic expression."

Blake and I laughed. He said, "I forget what a smartass he always was. He hasn't been himself for so long."

Amberlee laughed. "Don't curse around the baby," she said.

"Sorry, babe."

She opened her shirt and young Wyatt whistled.

"Shut up," she said, laughing. She pressed the baby to her breast and then looked up at Wyatt with tears in her eyes. "Oh, Wyatt, isn't he perfect?" She looked back down at her baby.

The camera moved around a minute. It was set down so that Amberlee was still in the center, but at a slightly crooked angle. And then young Wyatt came into view. Skinnier. And no gray hair. But still big and strong. He cupped Amberlee's jaw and kissed her. His hand stroked down her neck and her mouth opened and closed with his kiss. He pulled back and the two young parents smiled down at their baby.

"I love you so much, Wyatt," Amberlee said.

"I love you too, A," young Wyatt replied.

I swallowed hard, trying not to well up. It was so beautiful. He belonged to her so deeply.

The screen flickered to another scene. It was darker and the camera was headed down the hall. "Blake," came Amberlee's whispered voice. "Just in case you ever doubt how much your daddy loves you, I wanted you to see this."

The camera turned into Wyatt's room. He was asleep on top of the covers in his boxers with the baby sleeping on his chest.

Amberlee's voice came again. "He rocked you for an hour and a half. You finally fell asleep and he was afraid to put you down. So you two ended up like this."

Blake laughed. I looked up and saw tears streaming down his cheeks. But he was smiling. "It's funny seeing them like that. They were nineteen. A couple of kids."

"They looked really happy together," I said.

Blake's smile faded. "I think they were, for the most part. I...." He stopped.

I watched him. The video was still playing in the background. Blake's eyes were locked on it. "What?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I don't know. I loved my mom. I miss her like crazy. But I think that relationship was pretty lopsided."

"How?" I asked.

"She...she was great. A really good person. But she wasn't strong. As I got older, it seemed like he did most of the giving and she did most of the taking. Seemed to work out for them. You'd never hear Dad complain. If she needed something, he'd just get up and do it. I wonder, now, though...seeing him the way he's been...if maybe he gave too much. Maybe she took too much from him. Because he should be able to live, now. And he just can't seem to."

The camera was on baby Blake. Amberlee was making goo-goo noises to get him to laugh. He couldn't be more than three months old. He was just laying in his crib, squirming and making gassy faces.

"Blake, you were the cutest baby," I said.

"Hey, little man," Amberlee cooed. "Can you smile? Can you smile at the camera?"

"What the hell, A?"

The camera swung up to where young Wyatt was standing in the doorway gawking at her. He was dressed in torn jeans and a dirty t-shirt, sweat and dirt on his skin.

"You can't keep videotaping him," he said. He came in and must have stood next to Amberlee. The camera was back on the baby.

"But he's so cute! I don't want to miss any of this."

"He's boring, is what he is. Just lays there. Come take a shower with me."

"No, he's gonna smile. I wanna see him smile."

"You've filled up forty hours of tape of him just in the past week. Come shower with me and then we'll go out to dinner or something. We can walk him around the mall. He loves all the lights."

There was silence. And then sniffles. And then crying. The sound of Wyatt shushing her. And then the camera cut out.

"I remember Dad saying how she got obsessed with recording everything. They put her on antidepressants for postpartum," Blake said. "What happened was, right after I was born, there were some complications. She wound up having a complete hysterectomy within the year. But they'd told her soon after I was born that there would be no more babies. She was devastated. Here." He jumped up and sifted through the videos. He ejected the one we'd been watching and popped in a new one. Then he came back and sat next to me. He used the remote to fast forward. "In this one you can see what she was really like. Most of the time. It was like she just didn't know how to be happy. Most of the time she could fake it for family get-togethers or if the camera was on. But the rest of the time, she was just, I don't know, unsatisfied."

"That's hard. What she went through not being able to have more children," I said. "At such a young age. That would be traumatizing."

"Yeah. It was, Ettie. And nobody blamed her at all for her depression. She had a right to her pain. But I'm saying you read stories about people who overcome hardship. You meet these survivors who overcame and are still overcoming and yet they still manage to have a zest for life. I'm saying my mom...my mom wasn't one of those people."

He clearly had to choke the words out. He didn't want to say them. And if it weren't for Wyatt, he probably wouldn't have had to go down this path. But I think he was trying to find ways to help his father.

"The thing is," Blake said. "I don't think Dad realizes it. I think he just worshiped her so much he never saw a flaw. And he's so easygoing he just went with the flow of her moods. He let her take the lead in the relationship when she wasn't strong enough to do it. I guess that's on him. He should have stepped up and taken charge."

"He doesn't seem like the kind of man to let a woman walk all over him."