Is This What I Want? (17 page)

On the car ride home, I did my best to express my concern for Jill, given all she had revealed.

“You don’t have to feel sorry for me. I’m finally going to get the help I need. I’m going to another meeting tomorrow night. I’ll probably go every night for a while. The girl next door needs the babysitting money and I think Connor is dating someone pretty seriously, if you can believe it.”

“No. Already?”

“Already? More like still. It doesn’t matter. I’m not the least bit jealous. It could never work anyway. I know that now. But we both love the kids. Our house is big enough so there’s no rush to change anything. He stays in the guest room.”

I wondered if Rick would have stayed home if we had a bigger house with a guest room.

Jill pulled into my driveway to drop me off.

“Wanna come in for some tea or something?” I was in no hurry to spend my very first night alone in my home.

“Sorry. I kind of wanted to see my boys before they go to sleep.”

And I wanted to see my boys before they went to sleep too. But that wasn’t an option for me. Their room was empty. The entire house was empty.

I reached for the car door handle.

“Wait, Beth. I have to tell you I feel terrible about everything. I was so wrong about your situation. You should be with Rick. He’s good for you. You and I, let’s be honest… we’re a little damaged. Well, you’re a little damaged, I’m probably a lot damaged. Now I think maybe it’s because you and Rick are so different that you’re meant to be together. You balance each other out. He complements your crazy and you complement his, his…”

“His stick-up-the-assness,” I finished.

We broke into a fit of laughter, but I wanted to hear more.

“You really believe that? What about Dave?”

“I really do. I hope someday I’ll find my own Rick to keep me in check.” I wanted to call Rick so bad. I wanted to tell him about the meeting, about Jill’s revelations, about how much I missed him. But Jill had more to say.

“I know you never thought I’d be the one to say this, and I didn’t either, but I think it would be a big mistake for you to go on that date with Dave. The first date is always magical. Hell, the first few months are, right? You could get sucked into something you’ll regret forever, something you can’t undo, no matter how hard you try.”

I hung my head down and pulled at my earlobe. She understood and let me off the hook for the moment. We hugged and said our goodbyes.

As I walked to the front door, I marveled at the fact that although I was beginning to question everything, part of me still wanted my dream date with Dave. And if I couldn’t look to Jill for encouragement, where could I possibly find it? The answer would come that same night, but from the last person on earth I would have expected.

“YOU HAVE TO GO
on the date with Dave. If you don’t, you’ll always wonder what it would have been like.”

I almost couldn’t believe the words were coming out of my mouth. Of course I didn’t want her to go on a date with that little bastard. But I knew she had to.

There was a long silence.

“I didn’t expect you to say that. I wanted you to talk me out of it. I wanted you to be angry and jealous,” she sobbed through the phone.

“I am angry! I am jealous! Okay? It’s true. But how can I tell you that you can’t go on a date with him when I know you want to? We’re separated now. You can do whatever the hell you want. ”

“Rick. Shhh. The kids… where are they?”

“They can’t hear me. They’re asleep on the couch bed downstairs. After we all visited with my mom, we rode bikes and ran around the block a few times. They were wiped out.”

Beth was quiet again for a while. I had no idea what to say.

“How’s your mom?” she asked, and I was glad for the change of subject, though I knew we’d have to come back to the previous one. I updated her on what the doctors were saying, which was neither clear nor conclusive at that point. She asked questions that I couldn’t answer and communicated just the right amount of worry, sympathy, and offers of help.

“You really want me to go out with him?” she said in a low whisper. I pictured her in the light blue pajama set with the stars and moons on it.

“No, I don’t. But I think you need to do it. Maybe it’s something we both need to do while we’re separated.” I hadn’t meant to bring that up yet and now I was in another no-win situation with her.

“Both of us? Do you… do you already have someone in mind?” After everything she’d put me through, I had to admit to myself that it felt good to remind her that I had other options available too.

“Yes, I do.” It came out too quick and with too much confidence. She started to cry again.

“Beth, this is all normal for this stage. I’ve only talked to her a few times on the phone. It’s no big deal. We’ve known each other since high school. She was good friends with Kelly and she loves my mom, so she’s been by to see her a few times. We had a crush on each other a long time ago, but, well, she’s a few years younger so…”

She started to cry so hard it sounded like she could barely breathe. I didn’t know what I said that set her off.

“Oh my God! Your sister is trying to replace me with her friend. Ohhhhh.” Long sobs and loud nose blowing followed.

“She never liked me. I knew she never liked me. She didn’t think I was good enough for you when we got married.” Oh no, here we go again with this.

“This has nothing to do with Kelly. She didn’t set it up. I ran into Wendy at the market here. Kelly loves you. Please don’t make this into something it’s not.” Her heaving gasps for air scared me. “Are you okay? Please take some deep breaths.” She didn’t.

“Wendy? Wendy? That one you danced with at Kelly’s wedding? The sexy blonde who couldn’t take her eyes off you that whole God-awful night?”

Fuck my shitty memory about things like this. “Uhhh, yeah. Right. I forgot you met her at the wedding.”

“Met her? She went on and on about how you were Mr. Popular in high school but wouldn’t give her the time of day. I wanted to slap her perfect face, the nerve, to be so obvious about flirting with a married man.”

“Beth! Stop it! You’re exaggerating. And she’s not… she’s not like that anymore. That was years ago. Since then, she got married and divorced and she’s having a rough time. We can relate to each other because, well, her husband is more like you. He couldn’t just be happy with what they had, he was always looking for something better.”

For a moment, I didn’t hear any crying and it seemed her fight was back.

“Does she have kids?”

“No.”

“Hmmm. So she could never really understand how much Sam and Jack mean to you.”

Don’t say it, don’t say it
, I told myself. But Beth’s impulsiveness had rubbed off on me over the years. The words came out anyway.

“Right. Just like Dave.”

And she was sobbing again.
I asked for it
, I thought. I’d had my chance to hold the higher ground. I decided to try to make up for it a little and I knew I had the power to turn things around.

“No one will ever understand how much we love Sam and Jack. They will always be everything to us. That will never change.”

“But I don’t think…”

I cut her off then. I was too tired. I had to get up early to make breakfast for my mother and the boys, then get Sam to school by eight o’clock and spend some time with Jack at the park before getting him to preschool at eleven. Then I had to race back to get my mom to various appointments for the rest of the day. I didn’t want to talk to Beth anymore. I missed her and I still loved her, but whatever it was she wanted from me when she called to tell me that the kid she cheated on me with was going to ask her on a date, was something I clearly could not provide.

“Here’s what I think we should do. Dave is going to ask you on a date in two months. I’ll be busy with work and helping my mom until then anyway, so I won’t make any plans to see Wendy. We may just chat a little, here and there. When the time comes, if you decide to go on the date with Dave, I’ll ask Wendy out for the same night. You and I can stay connected and talk about what’s going on with us before that time, but we’ll work on ourselves only, putting any talk of our relationship on hold. We’re supposed to be on a break after all, right? Seeing other people isn’t against the rules when you’re separated, so you don’t have to feel bad about it.”

“And what if I don’t go on a date with Dave?”

“We can cross that bridge if and when we come to it.”

“And what if we do both go on our dates? What happens after that?”

“We make plans to meet for coffee the very next morning, alone. We tell each other everything about our dates. Complete honesty. No secrets. And we decide where to go from there.”

She huffed. “Dave said we wouldn’t do anything more than kiss at the end of our date.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“Rick!”

“Okay, sorry. I’m never going to like the guy, you know that, right?”

“Even if…”

“Even if. But we don’t need to talk about that now. You can do whatever you want to do. You’re much more spontaneous than I am. You know how I think things through. I doubt I’d do anything with Wendy unless I was serious about asking her out again. She’s a family friend, for God’s sake.”

“Um hmm,” she said with what sounded like appreciation. “I should have thought of that. Sometimes I wish I could be more like you. Do you know what a good guy you are?”

“Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself. We’re just… well, you were the one who said it when you were so drunk that night, and I didn’t want to hear it, but you were right. We’re so, so different.”

“They say opposites attract and complement each other, right?” she asked, fishing.

“Some say that, yeah,” I responded.

“Okay, so as always,” she said, “you’ve come up with a practical plan for us. We’ll go on as we have been for two more months then, right? We’re on a break from our marriage, but working on ourselves and staying in touch about our lives?”

“Yes, unless you have a better idea.” I was genuinely open to one.

“I never have a better idea. You always have the best idea.”

I thought that might be the end of our conversation, but in her typical Beth way, she asked just the right questions to get me talking. Before I knew it, I had droned on endlessly about my frustrations at work, my worries about my mom’s illness, my thoughts about how the kids were handling our separation, and pretty much everything else that had been on my mind. It felt good to vent and no one else could understand it all the way she could. It was after one in the morning when we hung up.

* * *

The blaring alarm clock assaulted my ears, and I dragged myself out of bed to start getting breakfast ready for the boys and clean up a little. My mother’s lung cancer had weakened her to the point where she only got out of bed to use the restroom. So I tried to keep things picked up, do the shopping, run errands. It wasn’t too much work when it was just the two of us and Kelly came by to help when she could. But having the boys over the night before left the place looking like a train wreck. I put away toys, wiped down surfaces, and picked crumbs out of the thick carpet. Just as I started to pull the ingredients out of the refrigerator to make pancakes for the boys, Sam walked in.

“I was just about to wake you up. Did you sleep okay?”

He yawned and wiped white sticky goo out of the corners of his eyes.

“Not really. That mattress isn’t very comfy. And Jack was kicking me all night.”

“We’ll have to figure out a better set up for next time.”

“Why does there have to be a next time, Dad?” he asked in his best whiny voice.

“Sam, you know your mom and I are taking some time apart. But I still want to see you and Jack as much as I can, so you guys will have to get used to staying over here sometimes. Maybe I can get one of those blow-up beds… a really good one.”

He lowered himself into a chair at the kitchen table and flung his head back in exasperation. “So when are you coming home?”

“I don’t know. I can’t say. It’s going to be like this for a while though. At least, well, for a few months.”

He grunted so loud that I heard Jack start to stir in the next room and went to check on him. His tiny leg was hanging off the edge of the bed. I worried he was about to roll right off so I nudged him toward the middle, but he was already awake.

“Papa,” he grinned, my little morning boy.

“Want to help me make the pancakes?”

His eyes lit up and he popped up and hopped up and down for the few steps it took to get from the living room to the kitchen.

I poured the boys some orange juice to start with and asked them to wait a minute while I went to bring my mother a cup of plain yogurt.

She was awake and looked worse than the night before. She had lost so much weight and her skin was much too pale.

“Mom? I brought you some yogurt,” I said, as I set it down on a raised tray table that I then lifted up onto her bed. “Can you try to eat a little?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, Ricky, I can’t. Stomach’s no good today.”

She only called me Ricky when it was just the two of us. I secretly liked it because I felt like the little boy who adored his mom more than anyone else in the world, and who knew she felt the same. My father had never been around much, he was either working or out drinking with his friends, so we were the three musketeers—my mom, Kelly, and me.

I scooped a tiny blob of yogurt onto the spoon and lifted it up toward her mouth. She turned her head to the side.

“I can’t, Ricky. Just leave it. I’ll try in a little while. Go make breakfast for the boys. Have fun with them. Don’t worry about me. Just send them in to give me a hug before they go, okay?”

Almost six hours later, the uneaten yogurt sat in the exact same spot I left it in.

“Mom, you didn’t even try to eat any.”

“I tried. I did.”

I couldn’t call her a liar. She was lying for my sake only.

“Okay, well, it’s time to get up and get dressed for the first appointment. Can you do it yourself?”

She wheezed and her eyes locked on mine as she grabbed my hand and pulled me down on the bed.

“We’re not going anywhere today.”

“What are you talking about? We’re supposed to see the specialist in just fifteen…”

She squinted her eyes and squeezed my hand.

“I got a call while you were gone. They got the rest of the test results.” She paused.

My stomach balled up into a big knot.

“There’s nothing they can do. It’s inoperable. It’s too far gone. Any treatment options wouldn’t be worth the suffering for the possibility of adding a month or two.”

I wanted to punch my fist right through the wall of her bedroom. I stood up and wrung my hands.

“No. No. There has to be something else. A clinical trial. A new specialist. We need a second opinion, right away.”

She sucked in air and a deep, painful sounding cough escaped, shaking her frail body violently.

I sat back down and patted her shoulder.

“We’ve already gotten a second and third opinion. I can feel it. This is it for me. I’m sorry. I know you and Kelly are still so young and all the kids, I love them so much. I hate to leave them. But this is just the way it is. We have to accept it.”

“I don’t want to accept it. We all need you. You’re only fifty-nine. It’s too young. We have to keep trying.”

“There’s nothing more to try. They’re going to give me a home nurse for a while who can help keep me comfortable. I’ll go to hospice at some point, but not yet. I still have some time. I want to make the most of it.”

I considered the possibility that I was having a nightmare. The words she was speaking were too much for me to digest. I had always taken for granted that she’d be around for a long time, to see the kids graduate from high school, go to college, start careers, get married. How could Jack grow up not even knowing her? How could Sam lose his favorite checkers partner at his age?

“So you have time? How much time?”

She turned her head to the side in pity, knowing I wouldn’t like her answer.

“Six months… at the most.”

I couldn’t hold back. I put my arms around my tiny mother and bawled my eyes out. Weak as she was, she held on tight and smoothed my hair, just like when I was a boy.

When I was done being a baby, I decided I wouldn’t waste another minute of the precious little time I had left with my mother. I asked her to tell me things I didn’t know about her life, from her childhood, about our ancestors.

We talked about my father, who I had barely spoken to since the two of them divorced over a decade ago. She asked me to work to mend things with him when she was gone. I agreed.