Funeral with a View (29 page)

I spent the next week
stoned on pot and drunk on misery, trying to come to terms with everything. I
even managed to get to work a few times. Sandy was more than understanding.

There were no ‘I love
yous,’ no attachment issues. As she said, it was what it was: two people, one
lonely, the other heartbroken beyond measure, finding solace in each other’s
company.

During that time I spoke
to no one outside of work. Catherine had stopped texting me, a welcomed change.

That’s not to say things
were all drugs, slapstick movie marathons, and fuzzy bunnies. Try as I might to
avoid thoughts of my situation, glimpses of Celeste flickered unbidden in my
mind’s eye. It was as unpredictable as it was gut wrenching. The triggers ran
the gamut: a certain smell, a phrase, a particular image on TV. There was no
telling when memories of the sweet, adorable angel would burrow their way into
my brain.

Whether Celeste was mine
or not didn’t change the fact that I missed her beyond words, which lead to a
vicious cycle, as dwelling on her absence sparked the anger of her true
paternity. My emotions were a rollercoaster. It made me crazy.

One night toward the end
of the week, I was alone at Sandy’s house. She’d gone for a run, leaving me to
my own devices. Lying on her bed and flipping through the channels, my phone
buzzed.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Richard? Where in the
name of Christ’s underwear are you?”

“Nice to hear from you,
too. I’m fine. You?”

“Don’t be a wiseass. I
just called your house.”

Oh, great.

It was a matter of inevitability.
Sooner or later I knew she’d talk to Catherine and the cat would be let out of
the proverbial bag. Time to face the music.

“I assume Cat told you I
wasn’t home,” I said.

“You could say that. You
could also say she told me you haven’t been there in a week. You could also say
that she’s worried sick about you. You could
also
say your mother is
more than mildly curious as to why her son hasn’t been sleeping in his own bed.”

Yes. Time to face the
music. I didn’t look forward to dancing to this particular tune with my two
emotional left feet.

“Richard, if you’re not
home, where have you been staying?”

After a short pause, I
said, “At a friend’s.”

“William’s?”

Hearing that one word sent
a fresh wave of anger through me. “No.”

“Why aren’t you home with
your
family
?” Not pleased. Not pleased at all.

“Well, that’s kind of a
long story, Mom.”

“I have time.” I knew
that tone. That tone said, in no uncertain terms,
I’m not dealing with your bullshit,
young man.
I’d heard it many times and knew from experience it wasn’t worth
putting up a fight. That didn’t stop me from trying.

“I’m not up to talking
about it.”

“Tough.”

“If I don’t want to talk
about it, I don’t have to,” I said indignantly. “You can’t force me to. I’m not
a kid anymore.”

“Richard, you’ll never
stop being my son, and I’ll never stop being your mother. It’s a job that
never, ever ends, no matter how old you get. Please, I want to know what’s
going on in your life. I’m very concerned. Can’t you understand that?”

I turned off the
television and massaged the bridge of my nose. “What did Cat say when you spoke?”

“Not that much. Just that
you weren’t home and hadn’t been in some time.”

“That’s it? Nothing
else?”

“No, nothing else.”

That didn’t surprise me.
I wouldn’t have wanted to tell my mother-in-law what had happened. Mary Jo
would have lassoed, hogtied, and tossed me over an open fire with an apple in
my mouth if I’d confessed to her I’d been the cause of such havoc. Still,
better if Mom heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.

“All right,” I sighed.
“May as well. You’re going to find out sooner or later. But I’m warning you,
Mom. It’s bad.”

“How bad?” she said, her
alarm seeping in my ear from miles away.

“Really bad.”

“Okay, Richard. I’m
listening.”

How was I going to tell
her that her granddaughter wasn’t her granddaughter? Breaking the news to her
hadn’t been so much as a blip on my radar, so consumed was I with my own depression.

“Richard? Are you there?”

“I’m here.” I took a deep
breath. “This isn’t going to be easy for me to say, and I guarantee it’s not
going to be easy for you to hear.”

“Gooddamnit, Richard. Grow
a set and be done with it. This cloak and dagger crap has already gotten old.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn
you.”

I laid it all out (read:
‘puked’ yet again), my voice lacking any inflection. I was too tired and too
drained to dress my words in emotion. She listened in silence as I spun the
entire story, and I started to wonder if she’d hung up out of disgust or
disbelief.

“Mom? Hello?”

Beyond the threshold of cellular
static I heard an unmistakable sound.

Crying.

“Told you so,” I
whispered.

“I can’t believe it,” she
said thickly. “She’s not yours? Not my granddaughter?” She blew her nose.
“Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick.”

“You okay?”

“You’re asking
me
if
I’m
okay?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Richard, my sweet,
sweet, unlucky, pain in the ass Baby Boy. Are
you
okay?”

“Obviously not.”

“What are you going to
do?” she asked.

“I just don’t know. A
big, big part of me misses that little girl so much it hurts. I mean, I helped raise
her, right? How could I not have developed an attachment to her over the last
five years?”

“Don’t understate it,
Richard. It’s more than just being attached to Celeste. You love her.”

“I know it.”

“And Catherine?”

“If anger were a planet
I’d be Jupiter. I am so damn furious with her,” I growled, gripping a wad of
sheets into a ball. “For keeping it from me. For doing it in the first place.
For who she did it with.”

“But how do you
feel
about her?”

“How do you think I feel?
Betrayed! That’s how I feel.”

“And I understand that.
It’s completely natural, but please try to calm down.”

“I am calm.”

“No you’re not. You won’t
be able to resolve anything if—”

“Let’s make a deal,” I
suggested. “I’ll be calmer if you stop telling me how to feel. How’s that
sound?”

“Fair enough.”

“Good.”

“Sweetheart, I know
you’re hurting. It’s awful. I can’t imagine how I’d react if I were in your
shoes.”

“Try wanting to go play
in traffic.”

“Richard,” she yelled. “That
is not funny. Don’t joke about things like that.”

“Sorry.”

A beat passed, then,
“Tell me something. Do you miss Catherine at all? Even though you’re staying
over a … friend’s?”

She thought I was up to
no good. Not a bad assumption given the situation. Beth Franchitti is many things.
Idiot isn’t one of them. I’d have jumped to the same conclusion.

“Does it matter?”

“I think it does.”

I nodded, even though she
couldn’t see it. “Yeah. I miss her. Been doing everything I can not to think of
her. Everything I can to ignore how much I miss her.” My voice cracked “I love
her, Mom. You know that.”

“They made a mistake.”

“No shit.”

“Don’t sass.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Right. Sorry. I mean, all
right.”

“Does anything about this
discussion seem vaguely familiar to you, Richard?” Mom asked.

“Yeah.”

A post-three-way
conversation had on a summer night an eternity ago. Unnervingly similar, one
might say. No way on Earth I could forget it.

“And look at the decision
you made back then.”

“That was different.”

“But is it? Is it so
different? Stop and consider for a minute. You and Catherine had so much
trouble getting pregnant after you were married—more than you ever let on. Then
out of all of this comes Celeste. The light of your life. You’ve been raising
her like your own for over five years, Richard. She’s as much a part of you as your
own arm or leg. Just because she’s not yours biologically doesn’t mean she’s
not
your daughter.
Maybe it doesn’t matter how she came about.”

“Easy for you to say,” I
snapped.

“Richard ...”

“Sorry.”

This hiss of static.

“Jesus, I’m sorry for
being sorry!”

“Do you honestly think
any of this is easy for me to say?” Mom asked. “It’s not. Not at all. And I
know I can be overbearing at times. It’s amazing you’ve never ended up in
therapy.”
Funny, I was thinking the same thing.
“I’m not trying to tell
you what to think, or how to feel, or even what to do. What I’m trying to do is
help. You’ve always been so good together, Richard.” A sniffle. “This could be
devastating. Most couples wouldn’t have survived half of what you and Catherine
have been through. To see it end like this breaks my heart. You’re my son and I
want you to be happy.”

“Sometimes I wonder if
this wasn’t all my fault.”

“Why would you think
that?”

“I have to be honest with
myself, Mom. Was I really there for her when she needed me after that second
miscarriage? Maybe Cat was right when she said I’d checked out on her and I was
just too proud and self-absorbed to realize it. Same with Bill. I cast him out
of my life without a second thought.”

“Richard, you can’t be held
accountable for what other people do. From the sound of it, it seems to me like
you all made mistakes along the way and everyone handled it differently.”

“If you say so. But I
can’t help feeling responsible.”

“That was always your
way, you know. To assume responsibility for everything that went wrong in your
life and the lives of those around you. Sweet, really, but a great way to get
an ulcer.”

I chuckled. “True.”

“Have I ever told you how
proud I was of you?”

“Plenty of times.”

“That’s not what I meant.
The first time Catherine was pregnant, and you said you would stick by her no
matter what, your child or not. I’d never been so proud to call you my son in
all my life, Richard. What those two did … I won’t sugar coat it. It was bad.
Very bad. But let me ask you this. Do you believe her when she said she thought
Celeste was your daughter all this time?”

“I do,” I said.

“I do, too. Catherine’s a
strong person. Sometimes it’s the strongest ones who make the biggest
mistakes.”

I sat up and stared at
the floor, making fists on the carpet with my toes. “What am I going to do?”
The floor became an opaque blur, and I rubbed at my bloodshot eyes.

“Only you can answer
that. The only advice I can offer is this: if you feel there’s still something
there between you and Catherine, a spark worth saving, you should consider
giving it a try. The only person who would blame you for making her pay an
entire lifetime’s worth of pain for one moment of weakness is—”

“Me.”

“—is you. No decision you
come to will be easy. You’ll have to think long and hard about what you said
five years ago, and if you truly meant it when you said you would be with her
no matter what. In the end, I’ll be there for you either way. I know you’ll
make the right decision for you, Richard.”

“But how do I know what
the right decision is?”

“You’ll know it when you
come to it. Someone shared a saying with me once. ‘Forgiving is easy. It’s
meaning it that’s hard.’ ”

“Who came up with that?”

“Your father,” she said,
and I could almost hear the smile in her voice. “Don’t do anything unless
you’re all in, Richard.”

After finishing up with
Mom, I took a hard look at my phone, the voicemail icon lit loud and proud.
Typing in my password, I listened to the messages I’d ignored but never
deleted. One stood out more than any other.

Catherine’s voice reached
out to me from the past.

“Rick? Ricky? It’s me.”
Hearing her trembling speech did odd to things to me; it drove home how much
I’d been missing her. Sometimes it’s the simplest of things that produce the
most profound effect. “Look, baby. I know what I did is unforgiveable, but … I
am so sorry. If I could …”

Right then, in the
background, a lispy voice made itself known.

“Mommy? Are you talking
to Daddy?”

“Yeah, Pookie Bear.”

“Ooh! Can I talk to him? Can
I? Can I?”

“Sure. Of course you
can.”

A rustling, some static.

“Hi, Daddy. Guess what?
We had a field trip to the aquarium and I petted a shark all by myself and I
wasn’t scared! It wasn’t even slimy or anything, really really!” Celeste was so
proud of herself a lump formed in my throat. “Daddy,” she added in a
conspiratorial whisper, “Mommy won’t stop crying. She’s so sad. Maybe if you
come home it’ll make her all betterer? I miss you. Oh, she wants to talk to
you. Bye, Daddy. Wuv you.”

Rustling again.

“Ricky, please come home.
I fu … I screwed up and I know it. Just, please. Come home. God, I love you so
much. Really really.”

“End of new messages.
To save this message, press nine. To delete, press seven. For more options—”

I pressed nine.

I’d made up my mind and I
was all in.

“Going somewhere?”

I was in Sandy’s bedroom,
packing. My time with her was at its end.

I didn’t turn around, but
nodded as I slowly and methodically placed my clothes and personal items inside
the suitcase that lay open on her bed.

Hearing the sad voices of
the two most important people in my life made me think back on what my mom had
said. She was right. Celeste was as much my daughter as anybody’s. And despite
what she’d done, Catherine was the love of my life. People make mistakes,
horrible ones. Some can forgive those transgressions, some can’t. Was I the
former or the latter? After much soul searching, the answer was clear. That’s
not to say my decision was an easy one, nor was I following my mother’s advice
with blinders on. It had to be my choice, and my choice only.

I would forgive my wife
and
mean
it because it’s what
I wanted
.

Without Catherine and
Celeste, I was hollow inside. I’d been an empty shell before, and I never
wanted to go back to that again.

It was time to leave and
do what I knew in my bones was right.

I zipped up my bag and
turned around. Sandy was only a foot or two away, her smile warm, eyes sad.

“Sandy, I don’t know how
to thank you.”

During those dark days
she was as much a beacon as anybody could be. In a way, I loved her for it. Not
the ‘til death do us part’ type of love, rather a ‘thanks for being there for
me’ type of love. The beautiful, caring, and perhaps misunderstood woman that
stood before me saw me through a time when I discovered I was capable of lows
I’d previously thought inconceivable. Not once did she push for more or
complain. Time and again I thanked her for it.

She closed the distance
and held me close.

“Stop thanking me, would
you?” she said, lips a fraction of an inch from my ear. “I will never forget
this time together, Rick. Ever. I wish you didn’t have to go, but,” she held me
at arm’s length, the full weight of her blue eyes leveled at me, “this isn’t
where you belong. You should be home with your wife and daughter. Maybe what I
say or think isn’t so important—”

I cupped her hands with
my own. “Hey, that’s not true. That’s not true at all.”

One side of her mouth
curled in a half-smile. “—but if you want my opinion, Celeste is yours, even if
she doesn’t have your blood running through her veins.”

“You know that’s exactly
what my mother said?”

“She sounds like a smart
woman. Seems to me like you’ve got a great mother.”

“You’d have a tough time
finding a better one than Beth Franchitti.”

Before seeing me out of
her home for the last time, Sandy briefly pressed her full lips to mine.

“No regrets, Rick. You
did what you thought was best for you. Go home to your wonderful family. Be
with that beautiful wife and amazing daughter.” Her hand grazed my stubbly
cheek. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore. But, as far as friendship
goes? You ain’t getting rid of me.” I placed a chaste kiss on her forehead.
“Catherine’s a lucky girl to have someone like you.”

“I hope she still feels
the same way.”

“She will. Call it,” she
pointed to her temple, “women’s intuition.”

I looked at Sandy a
moment longer, then turned and walked to my car.

The drive home was
near-silent. Classic rock softly trickled from my stereo like a musical wind.

Home.

Did I have anything left
to go home to? Or had Catherine and I done irreparable damage to our
relationship?

Doubt hopped in the
passenger seat. Maybe I should have called? Did I maintain radio silence for
too long? The possibility of Catherine having had a change of heart gripped at
my stomach and wouldn’t let go. My hand clenched the steering wheel at the
thought.

It throbbed.

It was the first time I’d
paid attention to my gimpy hand in days. I took my eyes off the road for a
second—don’t try this at home, all you new drivers—and let them wander to the
bruised, splotchy skin. A lovely shade of yellow had set it, but the swelling
had gone down. It was healing. A quick peek in the rear view mirror showed my
black and blue eye was also healing, something else I hadn’t paid attention to
in days.

Would the wounds to my
marriage heal as quickly as the wounds to my body? I hoped that, in time, the
emotional hurt that had been the impetus for my physical aches would dissolve
into the sunset of memory.

Parked at the curb, I sat
in the idling car for an indeterminate amount of time, watching, observing the
home Catherine and I had built. Lights in the upstairs windows reminded me of a
large, wise owl as the sun dipped below trees in the yard. Silhouettes appeared
and disappeared. My wife and daughter were inside, and they were its pulse. It
was still alive. If they were home, the house was alive, and with life, there’s
always a chance.

Everything is going to
be A-okay.

It has to be.

The brass knob easily
turned, and the front door creaked open. I made a note to oil the hinges … if I
was still welcome.

Catherine stopped halfway
down the stairs. “Ricky?”

“You should really lock
the front door when you’re giving Celeste a bath,” I said, nodding behind me.

My wife slowly traversed
the remaining steps. Her face was worried, apprehensive.

On her wrist, reflecting
ambient light, was the C&R charm bracelet.

Seeing that one simple
thing, that cheap, stupid, silly, wonderful bracelet hit me like a physical
wave and gave me the one thing that had gradually ebbed away as I made my way
home.

Hope.

“Dropping by to get more
clothes?” Cat asked.

I set the suitcase on the
parlor floor. “No.”

A sea of tile separated
us even though she stood ten feet away; a small distance with the feel of an
insurmountable gulf.

“Then why are you here,
Ricky?”

“Well … this is where I
live, isn’t it?”

Tears pooled in my wife’s
eyes. One broke free, leaving a delicate trail on her cheek. It clung to her
chin, fighting gravity, then fell. It was followed by more.

Nodding, she closed the
chasm between us and locked her hands around the small of my back. We were so
close no air could fit between us. Her body quaked with the release of stored
emotions, and I held on tight. I would
not
let go. Not ever again.

“Really?” she whispered
in disbelief.

I cradled her face,
rubbing the salty trails from her cheeks and erasing the hurt. “Really really.”

“Mommy! You said you were
gonna get the bubble bath stuff!” Five-year-old feet bounded down the stairs. “Daddy?”

Celeste’s hair was a
tangle of wet and sudsy spikes. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I did a bit of both.

“Mommy, Daddy’s home,”
she yelled in her lispy way, as she sprung from the last step and plowed her
diminutive, wet self into us, almost toppling everyone like human dominos.

“He sure is, Pookie Bear.”

“Why’s your eye all icky,
Daddy?”

“It doesn’t matter. I can
still see you just fine.” I hugged them tighter. “I can still see both of you
just fine.”

That group hug with my
two best girls, one crying, the other naked as the day she was born, sporting
shampoo-spiked hair, was one of the best moments of my life.

Sometimes it’s the simple
things.