The Unexpected List (The List Trilogy) (4 page)

He’s holding her hand, and although I hate to admit it, it’s just about the sweetest vision imaginable.  From the moment he got the word, he’s wanted to protect her.  Would’ve made my life a lot easier if that wasn’t the case, but he has every right to the grip he has on her, and I’d never do anything to yank it away…not even after what happened just a few weeks ago.  Doing my best to hide the big gaping hole in my heart from her and the contempt I have toward Kurt for contributing to its existence, I plant a huge smile on my face.

“Hi sweetie!  Did you have fun at Marine World yesterday?”

“Soopa doopa fun!”

In classic carefree Kurt style, he chimes in with, “We sure did.  Would’ve been more fun if you were there!”

Looking at him like he has a lot of nerve for saying that since he knows perfectly well I’d rather electrocute myself than go to Marine World, I hiss “Right, cuz I like that place so much.”  They’re the first words I’ve spoken to him since that morning, two weeks ago.

He gives me a look that says, “C’mon, not in front of the kid.”  I shrug my shoulders and say, “It’s okay, Kurt, we have our own fun time!”  Then, poking her in the belly, “Like, at the mall when we’re shoe shopping…when we’re at the movies…when we’re at the studio doing big girl yoga!”

She lets out a giggle and I’m comforted knowing I’ll have that sound around me for the next five days, until the next exchange happens.  After I have her buckled safely into the leopard print car seat that Kurt mocked me for spending over two hundred dollars on, I turn to grab the last of her stuff, doing my best to ignore his presence.

“Is this how it’s gonna be from now on, Chrissy?”

“I already told you, I don’t have anything to say to you, unless it concerns her.”

“Would it have been this way if you didn’t get caught?”

In the harshest whisper I can get away with so as to not alarm the little one, “I guess we’ll never know the answer to that, will we?”

Grabbing the car door handle to get in and get away, he touches my hand and says what I already know to be true.

“What happened wasn’t my fault, you know.”

Ignoring his attempt to get me to open up, I keep the conversation focused on her.

“Just tell me how it went the last two nights.”

“Great.”

I look at him like,
really?
He realized the goof the second he made it.

“Oops!  Sorry, I forgot everything can’t be “great” all the time.  Honestly though, everything went fine.  She slept through the night, no nightmares or scary thoughts.  Her appetite was ferocious, and it was fun…I promise, we had a fun time, Chrissy.  I think we’re turning a corner.”

I reach out to grab a stuffed animal from him.  Instead of handing it over, he hangs onto it as he asks, “So how’d it go for you the last two nights?”

“I think you know exactly how it went.”

When I grab for the stuffed animal, he gently takes hold of my finger and says, “Why don’t you just stay for dinner.  C’mon, I feel bad about what happened.  I’ll even set out a nice big bowl of chips and salsa, and I won’t care if you devour the whole thing and ruin your appetite.  I promise, Chrissy, I really don’t care what you eat now.”

How did this happen?
  Four years after I had an affair, three years after I moved into my cottage, two years after we’re officially divorced…we’re parents.

I yank my finger away in frustration at that thought and at his invitation.

Smiling from ear to ear, “So, what?  No chips and salsa then?”

“No.  None now and none later.  None, ever.   And besides the obvious reason why that’s the case, I need to get her home.  I like to keep her on a schedule.  You know that.”

“Just so you know…I’m glad you forced me to set up a schedule for her over here. I think it helps with the transitions.”

“Right.”  Chucking a little, “Like you really think that.”

Looking deep into my eyes like he never did during the fourteen years we were together, he says, “You were right about that and so many other things.”

When we were together, I would’ve craved a compliment like that from him, but experiencing it so long after I thought the dust had settled between us just makes me feel…stagnant.

“Honestly, I don’t even understand how you could ask me to stay for dinner.  Didn’t you listen to anything I told you the other day when I stormed out of here?”

“C’mon, Chrissy!  You know me, I try not to listen to most of what you have to say!”

And there it is, his amazingly perfect smile.  I think one of the soccer moms with nothing better to do than stand around on the street and watch our exchange just fainted.

Spying

September 11, 2002

Just like that, my car goes from a place that’s usually so quiet it makes my head hurt to a giggle factory filled with Elmo songs, farm animal noises, and  my favorite of all car games, I spy with my little eye.  Things I used to make fun of my friends for are now the things I look forward to the most.  Children are magical that way.  Everything around you can be falling apart, but one smile…one cheery song, one tight grip of their tiny hand on yours, makes you stronger than you thought possible and reminds you of what’s really important.  At the top of the important list -make sure my kid doesn’t fuck up her relationships like I have!  And speaking of fucked up relationships…

“So what did you guys eat for dinner last night, sweetie?”

“Mmmmmmmm….chicken….tatoes….cookies!”

Not wanting her to perceive a problem, I think long and hard before I ask the question.

“Yummy, cookies!  Tell me…how many bites of chicken did you have to eat before you got the cookies?”

Staring at her in the rear view mirror, I watch her struggle with the question before I rephrase it.

“Did you guys count your bites out loud or did you just eat until your tummy was full?”

“Tummy full.”

Relief sets in.  Nevertheless, it’s too early to give Kurt the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his parenting skills.  After all, it was the very fear of them sucking so bad that played a role in our demise.  But, I have to admit, the long discussions we had about how to handle this little girl and to NOT be a food Nazi with her, went far and deep with Kurt, and he’s been nothing but a caring and sensitive parent to her. So far, so good.  Unlike how he pestered me all those years; he hasn’t made her clean her plate yet.

We arrive at the cottage.  The same cottage I moved into after I left Kurt and the same cottage Leo moved into after Kelly died.  I’ve been here since November, 1998 and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever leave, which is a peculiar prospect considering just a month ago I bought my dream home in Lafayette.  Now that everything has happened, I have no idea what to do with the house, and it seems that I’m all alone to figure it out.  I drop the load of kid crap I’m carrying onto the floor of my tiny living room, instantly overwhelmed with all of the decisions I’m now forced to make.

After unpacking her little suitcase and shoving the stupid fishing pole under the bed, I make her a delicious frozen corn dog dinner and then clean it off of her face and hands in a luxurious bubble bath.  After she dives into the plastic bin of toys suctioned to the side of the tub and plays until the water is lukewarm, I tuck my precious gift into bed.

“Hold on sweetie, I’ll be right back.”

This is when I always lose it.  When I’m tucking her in and she looks all cute and cozy…my self-deprecation snowballs.  I have to excuse myself and run to the bathroom so she can’t see me.  I always look in the mirror and ask myself if the little girl that I’m trying so hard not to screw up will be worse off for knowing me?  Will she be just another undeserving casualty of my fuckedupness?  Staring at myself in the mirror, I think of Francesca, from
The Bridges of Madison County.
  I thought I had long since said goodbye to her, but she magically reappeared in my life when the little girl in the other room did the same.  Like Francesca, I have a child now.  And, like her, my choices are made with my child’s best interest in mind.  Unlike Francesca though, it seemed that I could do that
and
live a fabulous life at the same time.  Everything had finally fallen into place for me and regardless of having a child; miraculously, none of my personal happiness had to be sacrificed in order to give her everything she deserved.  In fact, there were days when I would walk around the Lafayette Reservoir (that I’ve come to know and love so well) and stare into the faces of all of the modern day Francesca’s and feel empowered by the risks I took to be different from them.  Up until a few weeks ago, I honestly believed I could have my cake and eat it too.  But then, I pulled a Chrissygan and totally fucked myself.  And now it seems that all I can do is wait for a
Bridges of Madison County, part II
to tell me what to do next, because I’m all out of ideas.  With that thought, I wipe the last tear off of my face and set off to my little angel’s room to try not to screw her up.

Lowering her lights and tucking her in tight around every inch of her body just like she likes it, I kiss her on the forehead and tell her I love her very much and that I’ll always be here for her.  I reassure her that I’m not going anywhere.  Like every normal little girl, she moves right past my heartfelt words.

“One more game! 
Pleeeeeeeeezzzze!
”

“Okay, just one more then it’s time for night-night.”

“I pie wit my widdle eye…somediiiiiiiiiin’ happy!”

“A bird!”

“Nooooooooo.”

“You!”

“Noooooooo.”

“I need another hint!”

“Ummmm, it’s somedin’ super dooper pwetty!”

“Are you sure it’s not you?”

Giggling, “It can’t be!”

“Why’s that?”

“Cuz I’m spyin’ somedin’ dat’s dead.

Already (adverb) al*read*y:

Indicating that something has happened before now, happened in the past before a particular time, or will have happened by or before a particular time in the future.

Could you please forgive me

We were so young

So in love

Dreamed together

Said you are the one

I’ll never forget, I’ll never regret you and me…

For one moment

(For One Moment/MaryAnne Marino)

Recapitulating

April, 2001

“For the third time, lady, you can’t park here!  Keep it movin’ or I’m gonna ticket your ass!”

Punching the gas, I think,
Jesus, when did this place turn into New York?

No biggie though. Driving in these circles gives me time to think about everything that’s happened since Kelly died in February.  Honestly, I still can’t believe I made it through the last two months without her.  If it wasn’t for the three years of physical and mental torture-conditioning that I put myself through with my Leo affair and my Kurt divorce, I doubt I would’ve been prepared to handle the demands of her funeral and the shit show that followed it.

Courtney and Nicole were a mess at the funeral.  I warned them months in advance that they better start shedding some tears, but
noooooooo
, they had to act all tough and doctor-like during her cancer.  Well, while they went along with Kelly’s wishes and stayed as far away from her as possible during the last months of her life, in classic Chrissy style, I barged in for some closure.  I shared a few much needed laughs with her, told her I loved her (more times than she cared to hear) and said my goodbyes.  Even though her death ripped my heart out, I was way more prepared to handle the pain of it than my two shell-shocked doctor friends.

Immediately after the funeral, I dragged my brokenhearted friends to Mexico so they could get out privately what they should’ve been trying to get out the minute Kelly was diagnosed.  Boy, did their floodgates open on that trip!  And, as the self-proclaimed emotional core of the group, I led the surge of tears.  I’m actually surprised the Mexican authorities didn’t slap a Section 5150 on us and declare us a danger to the hotel property, others, and ourselves and then hold us against our will for psychiatric evaluation. That’s how big of a mess the three of us- the remaining member of the A-BOB’s, were.

Kelly’s death wasn’t the only thing I mourned on that trip to Mexico.  One night when Courtney and Nicole were drinking themselves to sleep, I ventured down to the beach and paid a little respect to my girl, Francesca.  That woman has haunted me for the last three years, and it was time for me to say goodbye to her too.  But, before I made my way down to the beach, my friends and I had a little Life List burning ceremony.  Chugging from the same bottle of wine and sharing a cigarette, I grandly stood up on the bed in my undies and rattled off my seven point Life List for the last time while Courtney and Nicole jokingly booed and hissed.  Once our bottle was empty and I was done with my dramatic diatribe, I shoved the old tattered up piece of paper that I’d carried around with me since I was sixteen-years-old into the wine bottle, dropped the lit cigarette on top of it and watched intensely as it went up in smoke.  Then, at the beach, I kissed the bottle, whispered “goodbye Francesca,” and chucked it as far into the ocean as I could.

The day I returned home from Mexico, I drove straight to Kelly’s house to check on her husband, Craig and her child, my three-year old Goddaughter, Kendall.

Craig actually moved Kendall out of the house and in with his parents two months before Kelly died.  Even though his folks are super old and almost incapable of caring for a toddler, Kelly’s condition became so fragile and scary looking that he thought it was for the best.  By doing that, Kendall has in some of ways, gotten used to the loss we’re all just being introduced to now. She’s gotten used to Mommy not giving her a bath, Mommy not cooking dinner for her, Mommy not reading her a bedtime story…Mommy not kissing her goodnight.  And, being so young, Kendall’s tears and confusion are already almost gone.  Sometimes though, when she wanders around the house and notices the pictures of her mother that are still scattered about, you can see the commotion going on in her little head.  Her inquisitive eyes dart from one photo to another, but her vocabulary isn’t mature enough to express her thoughts.  No one knows if it’s best to talk her through the ordeal or yank the pictures away.  Both seem so terribly wrong.  For now, simply popping in a video about a stupid purple slow-speaking idiot dinosaur seems to put a quick end to the heartbreaking moment.