Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis (18 page)

“Fine,” Hope says, and I can hear the tears in her voice. “I tried to be there for you, Lucy, but don’t worry. I won’t interfere in your life again.”

The finality in her tone makes me panic. “Hope …” I say plaintively, but she’s not hearing it.

“Good luck with … everything.” And she hangs up.

As I replace the phone on the receiver I now know for sure: this is definitely what they mean by rock bottom.

Trent

“
HELLO?
”

I hadn’t expected her to answer. Lucy’s never home at 4:30. “Oh, hey Lucy. It’s me. I didn’t uh … expect you to be home.”

“Well, I am,” she retorts. “Did you want to speak to Sam?”

“Yeah, but … could we talk for a sec?” Why do I sound so fucking nervous? It’s like I’m fourteen and calling a girl I have a crush on for the first time.

“What have we got to talk about?”

Is she kidding me? We’ve only got everything to talk about: our daughter, our marriage, our future. “We need to talk about Sam,” I say, containing my annoyance. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s fine,” Lucy snaps, “since you’re suddenly so concerned.”

I stay cool. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. I just thought you might be too busy banging your fat slut to give your daughter much thought.”

That’s it. “Can you grow up for five seconds and act like a parent?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Why don’t I follow your lead and be the mature, responsible one for a change?”

Why does she always have to be so sarcastic? I was actually missing her ten minutes ago. “Look,” I say, “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I feel like shit if it makes you feel any better.”

There is a pause. “A little.”

I can’t help but laugh. To my relief, I hear Lucy laugh too. When we’ve stopped there’s a long pause. Finally I say, “How did everything get so fucked up?”

“You left us, that’s how.” Any trace of humor is gone.

“I was an idiot. I’m starting to see that now.”

It’s quiet on the other end of the line, and I think I hear her crying. Finally she says, “I’ll get Sam.”

“Lucy—” I begin, but she’s already put the phone down. As I wait for my daughter to come on the line, I think about what I could have said, what I should have said. At the very least, I should have asked if we could get together as a family. Maybe we could all go for dinner? Or to a movie? I should have told her that Annika and I broke up. At least I think we did. But maybe I should wait until I know for sure, before I mention it to Lucy. I wouldn’t want to get her hopes up.

“Hello?” The voice is sullen and devoid of expression. It’s obviously Sam.

“Hi honey. How are you doing?”

“Fine.”

“Good. I’ve been worried about you. I wish you would have called me.”

She snaps back, “I’ve been busy, okay? Jeez.”

Busy doing what? Having pot parties with thirty-year-old dope fiends? I want to say it, but I think again. “Is school going okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good … good.” A panicky sensation takes over me. Christ. I don’t even know how to talk to my own kid anymore. “I want you to come for a sleepover this weekend,” I add quickly. “I’ve got a sofa bed for you. We can order pizza, rent a bunch of movies …”

“That sounds like a blast, Dad, but I’ve got other plans.”

She’s quickly turning into a mini version of her mother. “Sam, you’re my daughter. It’s important that we spend time together.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you moved out of the house. I’ve got my own stuff going on. I don’t have time to go on sleepovers.”

Unsure of how to respond, I grumble, “Put your mother back on the phone.”

Without a word, the line goes quiet. I wait … ten seconds … twenty … thirty … Finally: “She’s in the bath. She’ll call you tomorrow.”

It’s a lie; I know it is. But what can I do? Insist Lucy get on the phone? My family seems to consider me a blustering bully at the moment, and making demands is not going to help. “Okay. Well, I hope to see you this weekend. At least for dinner?”

“I told you I’m busy, Dad.”

“But you have to eat!” Before I’ve finished speaking, there’s a click and the line goes dead.

I hang up. If I had the energy, I’d punch the wall in frustration. Instead, I go to the fridge for a beer. When I return to the couch, I flick on the TV. I stare at the programs blindly: a rerun of
Friends
, a hockey game, a reality show where two adults are standing idly by watching a nine-year-old have a temper tantrum … I turn the set off and let the silence envelop me. But it’s not silent. As I nurse my beer, I hear the sounds of my neighbors going about their lives. A soft bang signals a cupboard door closing. Somewhere a faucet turns on. There’s the dull thud of the bass on someone’s stereo.

This is what I wanted: time to be alone, to sort out the rest of my life. So why does it feel so strange and sort of lonely? I’m not used to it, that’s all. I went from spending all my time with Sam and Lucy to spending all my time with Annika. And now the solitude stretches out before me, days, months, even years of isolation. If this is what I wanted, I must have been out of my fucking mind.

But I may as well use this time productively. I need to develop a strategy for getting my life back on track. In the span of a month I’ve lost everything: my wife, my home, and my daughter. Yeah, I wanted a change, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I need to treat this as a business scenario: identify my objectives and develop a plan to achieve them. What’s so hard about that? Nothing—except that what I really want is to rewind my life back to the night before I walked out.

Lucy

SAM FOUND ME CURLED UP UNDER A BLANKET
watching a home renovation show. She was holding the phone, her other hand over the receiver. “Dad wants to talk to you again.”

My shoulders sagged with exhaustion. “I don’t have the energy to deal with him.”

“So … What? Am I supposed to tell him that?”

“Tell him … I’m in the bath. I’ll call him tomorrow.”

My daughter stalked out of the room, her retreating form speaking into the phone. “She’s in the bath. She’ll call you tomorrow.”

As stupid as it was, I felt almost guilty lying to Trent. He just sounded so alone, so genuinely remorseful. But I had to remember all that he’d done to Sam and me. He’d lied and he’d cheated and he’d deserted us. He’d driven my daughter out of the art show and into pot-smoking Randy’s apartment. To feel anything resembling pity for him was ludicrous! To feel bad for rejecting his phone call was insanity!

By no means spurred on by my misplaced guilt, a bath did seem like a good idea. I called to Sam. “I’ll be in the tub!” Not surprisingly, she didn’t respond. She was probably hoping I was off to slit my wrists. If I were a less responsible parent, I’d be considering it about now.

But immersing myself in warm, lavender-scented water was an excellent idea. I’m able to savor this moment, this small luxury that reminds me that life really is worth living. There will be other jobs, and maybe there will be other men. I allow myself to think about Wynn Felker for a moment. While the intensity of my reminiscences is starting to fade, I still feel a little thrill when I recall the feeling of his mouth and his hands roaming my back. Obviously, a repeat performance with “Cody Summers” is out of the question, but it’s comforting to know that I’m not completely dead inside. Despite the hurt and betrayal I’ve suffered, I can still derive some pleasure from a warm bath and a remembered kiss.

I decide to shave my legs. It’s been days, perhaps a week. There hasn’t seemed to be much point lately. As the pink razor cuts through the piglike bristles that have sprouted all over my shin, I think about Hope. Maybe I was too hard on her? It couldn’t be easy hearing that your husband is out flirting with women while you’re home quizzing your genius daughter on spelling words. I didn’t want to hurt her, but she’s living in a fantasy world. She sits at home sewing placemats and baking butter tarts while Mike runs around snorkeling and flirting and getting plastic surgery. And she has the nerve to judge my crumbling marriage? My pot-smoking daughter? On the other hand, Sarah-Louise didn’t fall off the rails during her parents’ marital crisis. God, maybe Hope’s really on to something?

Suddenly the bathroom door bursts open, startling me. I fumble the razor, causing it to slice cleanly across my ankle bone. I look down to find the wound has produced a surprising amount of blood. “Shit,” I say, dropping my foot in the water to rinse it away. As soon as I remove it, the torrent continues. Christ, could I have hit an artery? Then I look up at my daughter, and suddenly, bleeding to death is the last thing on my mind. Sam’s face is alight, animated … happy!

“Oh my god, Mom! Thank you so much!”

“What? What did I do?”

“I heard a car in the driveway, so I looked out and I was all like, ‘Who do we know that drives a Porsche,’ and then he got out and he has flowers and he’s at the door right now!”

It takes me only a second to process the information, but apparently that’s too long. In that minuscule span of time, Samantha has fluffed her hair in the mirror and hurried to answer the door.

“Sam! No! Wait!” I scream, jumping from the tub. Water pours off my body, soaking the bathmat and the floor, but I don’t pause to dry off. Grabbing the nearest towel, I wrap it around my nakedness and fly down the stairs.

From my vantage point on the stairwell, I watch my child open the door as if in slow motion. The bouquet of flowers is visible first, its expensive blooms almost concealing his face. But there’s no mistaking that it’s him. The battered leather jacket, the thick brown hair not covered by a ball cap this time. Sam jumps up and down girlishly for a moment before composing herself. “Hi Wynn,” she says.

“Hey,” he replies smoothly. “You must be Sam.”

“Yep!” she says, dissolving into a nervous giggle. “Umm … come in.”

He steps into the foyer. “So …” he begins, and I know I have mere nanoseconds to react.

“Wynn!” I scream, as I barrel down the staircase in my towel. I’m still soaked and blood pours from the severed ankle artery, but I can’t stop. If I don’t intercept their meeting, I’ll lose Sam forever.

“There you are,” he says, his handsome face relaying his confusion.

“Here I am,” I pant, skidding to a stop in front of them.

He points at my ankle. “Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”

“Mom!” Samantha says, mortified. Jesus Sam, I’m bleeding on the floor, not
peeing
.

“I’m fine.” My eyes bore into Wynn’s. “Thanks so much for popping by to cheer up my daughter. She’s always wanted to meet you, and she’s been going through a rough time lately.”

“Mom!” Sam cries louder. Apparently, revealing her troubles to Wynn Felker is more embarrassing than bleeding or peeing on the floor.

“What?” I turn to her. “Sorry.”

Wynn seems a little slow to catch on. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about what’s going on at work.”

“Right, sure, we can do that. But you brought Sam flowers! That’s so nice of you.”

I give him a deranged look that says, If you don’t hand those flowers to my daughter this instant, I will slash your throat with a Daisy razor.

A little nervously, he hands the bouquet over. “These are for you, Sam.”

She giggles again. “Thanks!”

“Don’t just stand there,” I say to her. “Go put them in water!”

“Okay …”

“And trim the stems on an angle. They’ll last longer. But don’t cut yourself.”

“Okay …” She reluctantly walks away.

When she’s safely out of earshot, I hiss, “What are you doing at my house?”

“I can’t believe Bruce fired you. He can’t do that.”

“He can and he did. That doesn’t mean you can show up here like this. My daughter is in a precarious state right now. If she thinks there’s something going on between her mom and Cody Summers, who knows what she’ll do.”

Wynn looks at me coyly. “Is there something going on between us?” His finger reaches out and just barely touches the corner of the towel I’m wearing. I gasp, blush, and become instantly aroused. It’s a small gesture, but given that I’m standing naked, mere inches away from one of the hottest men I’ve ever encountered, it’s a little intense. I’m a terrible mother. I step back. “There can’t be,” I say. “It’s way too complicated.”

He steps forward. “It doesn’t have to be.”

God he’s sexy. But I will not be swayed. It’s true that our drunken make-out session has been the sexual highlight of the last four years of my life (I refuse to give credit to my post-split fornication with Trent on the couch), and that a surge of primal, animal lust is making my groin tingle and my legs feel weak, but I am a mother first and foremost. I take a large, adamant step back. Unfortunately, I am unaware that approximately a liter of ankle blood has pooled behind me. I slip and fall unceremoniously on my ass.

Wynn reaches for me, but it’s too late. “Shit!” he says, thankfully not laughing. “Are you okay?”

The crash has brought Sam scurrying from the kitchen. “What happened?” she cries, the paring knife still in her hand. “Mom!” But there is no concern in her voice, only … disgust. “Your boob,” she finishes more quietly.

Instinctively, I reach for the towel and find that she’s right. In the tumble, my left boob has seen fit to pop out—or more accurately,
flop
out, given the state of my forty-year-old breasts. I suddenly wish Camille had bought me implants instead of a Botox treatment.

“Oh no!” I cry, quickly covering myself.

“God!” Sam says. “Gross!”

Wynn reaches a hand out to me. “Let me help you up.”

As I raise my hand to meet his, I’m convulsed by uncontrollable laughter. I’m hysterical, obviously, but suddenly it all seems so goddamn funny! I’m sitting on the floor in a pool of blood, wearing only a towel. My left boob has just fallen out in front of the Choice Hottie. My teenage daughter thinks I’m an embarrassment and disgusting and she’s probably right. I’ve lost my job, my best friend, and the only man who wants anything to do with me is known to the world as a seventeenyear-old boy! With Sam and Wynn watching me helplessly, I lean back on my elbows and laugh until the tears come.