Is This What I Want? (19 page)

“Just…” I gasped. “Just let me work at it. I can do it.”

He pressed his lips against mine hard. “It’s okay. I’m going to…. Ohhh. Ohhh.”

His body tensed as he moaned and then he was motionless underneath me, except for his rising and falling chest.

“I’m so sorry, Beth. I’m really sorry. I couldn’t hold back because I’ve wanted you for so long. It’ll be better next time. I should have gone slower. It would have been okay if you just had more time.”

That was it. I’d done it. It was done. The regret and self-loathing that suddenly washed over me made me want to run out into the ocean and end the excruciating physical and emotional pain. But I couldn’t move. I was sitting upright and naked on top of Dave, whose limp, still too large penis, the filled condom hanging off the end, had flopped over onto his thigh.

I moved away from him, away from it, but needed some warmth, so I turned my back to him and started to softly cry into the folds of the blanket that kept us trapped together.

I cried for so long as he stroked my back. I didn’t mind it, but I knew for certain now that he was the wrong person. That I made something out of this that wasn’t real and that I could now count him as one of the casualties of my selfish madness. The only comforting thought I had in that moment was that one day maybe I could write this all off to a crazy mid-life crisis period.

He finally broke the silence. “Do you want me to take you home?”

I didn’t know where home was anymore. I couldn’t have him bring me back to my lonely, empty house.

New tears streamed down my face as I found my clothing and dressed myself. All I could do was tell him the truth.

“I need Rick. You have to take me to Rick.”

A LOOK OF ABJECT
TERROR
overtook Dave’s face.

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “You can just drop me off. He won’t even know you took me there. But you have to, please. I drank a lot more than you. I can’t drive. If you don’t take me to him now, I don’t know how I’ll get through this.”

We didn’t speak for the first ten minutes. I sat in silence, brushing the sand off my dress and weighing the different ways I could explain to Rick. But first, Dave and I needed closure. I wanted it as much as he did, but couldn’t fathom how to make it happen.

“Pull over, Dave.” He did, but he misunderstood.

With a determined look on his face, he said, “It just takes a while to get used to. I’ve had girlfriends. We always work it out. If I had gone slower, eased in more, it would have been okay. You have to believe me, Beth. If you give me another chance, it’ll be so much better. It can be so good.”

If only we could go back in time, I thought, blinking fresh tears from my eyes.

“You think this is about sex? It’s not. Maybe you’ll never believe that. But I promise you it’s true. I know it would get better in time. You’re, well you’re what women are supposed to want, everything about you, especially… that quality.”

I didn’t know how to say the rest in a way that wouldn’t hurt him, yet I had to get it out and make him understand that there was no longer a question in my mind.

“But my husband is the man I need to be with, for so many reasons. Deep down, I knew that before tonight, but I must have needed one final test. And now that I’ve crossed the line all the way, my chances may be shot. But I know I have to put everything I have into trying to make it work.”

He looked out the car window, rejected, but less ashamed of my new discovery about him.

“We had something real in its own way, Dave. Something sweet and intense. But nothing can live up to a fantasy, whether it’s a steamy affair or the white picket fence, happily ever after story. There’s always something that’s not right, something that doesn’t exactly fit. And life is about choices. We can’t have it all. We have to choose which realities come closest to our fantasies.”

“So your husband is closer to your fantasy than I am?”

I smiled as more tears spilled out. “I couldn’t see it until…”

“Until tonight, I know, until you were with me,” he said, unable to hide the anger in his voice. He had been careful not to direct any negative feelings toward me before. Was I fooled into thinking he never would?

“You have to listen to what I’m saying. It would have been this way no matter what happened on that beach. Even if it was the best sex of my life, I still would have felt like shit after and come to realize with more certainty than ever that I want my family back. That nothing, no one, is worth giving up what I have, or what I had and need to try to get back.”

He didn’t seem to have anything more to say. I asked him to let me out down the street from Lucy’s townhouse.

“This is it, Dave. We’re both free of each other now. You’ll see how much better it is this way in the end.”

He looked straight out the front window. “I hope he forgives you. I hope you can go back to the life you had before. I wish you all the best.”

“Thank you. And I…” I didn’t really know what to say, what to wish him, so he saved me from trying to finish.

“Just go. You don’t have to say anything. Just go to him and tell him what you told me. Fucking lucky bastard. I’ll wish I could be him all my life. Now go.”

But I knew he wouldn’t wish he could be Rick all his life. Time would pass and I would fade into the blur of countless women he would fall in and out of love or lust with before he finally met his one and only.

“Goodbye, Dave.” I knew with complete certainty that they were the last words I would ever say to him.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” Rick asked, but I could have sworn he sounded glad to see me.

“What are you doing here?” I responded. “I thought you would still be with Wendy and I’d have to use my key to let myself in and wait for you.” I was so glad the kids were sleeping at my parents’ place.

“Come in,” he said. We sat down on Lucy’s mauve couch in the living room. “I never made plans to go out with Wendy. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want it to affect your date.”

“But you said… we were both supposed to…”

“I know. I lied. Sorry. I had to. I knew what you needed to do and I wanted you to learn whatever you were supposed to learn from it. Why did it end so early?”

“You know the part in When Harry Met Sally when he realizes she’s the one for him and runs through the streets of New York City to find her and tell her?” I asked him.

He smiled.

“My date with Dave ended with that moment for me. I want you back. I want us back, our family. You’re the perfect person for me. Our differences are the best part about our relationship. You make me a better me. Everyone else could see it. Even Jill tried to tell me. I know we both have a lot more growing to do, but why can’t we do it together? Why can’t we support each other through it and start over?”

He stared down at his hands and took a deep breath. I got the feeling he was about to say “yes.” I couldn’t let him. He had to know the truth first.

“But, it might be a long time until we can give it a try again. I can wait. I don’t want anyone else, ever. I’ll wait for you, for as long as you need.”

He moved closer to me and put his hand on my knee.

“I don’t need time, Beth. I’ve been thinking the same thing. I had already decided that if… well if it didn’t go well for you with Dave tonight, I was going to ask you if I could move back home.”

Caressing my leg, he went on. “Our talks lately have been so different. I’ve felt closer to you than ever. We’re communicating really well, finally putting everything we’ve learned in therapy into practice.”

He smiled as he went on, now running his hand up and down my arm. “And my mom, all she talks about is how much she wants us to be together again. She keeps telling me that you’re the only woman for me. That I need to be more relaxed about things and let you be you. That everyone makes mistakes, reading me all her bible verses about forgiveness and mercy.”

Maybe I should pick up a bible myself
, I thought. It had provided comfort and direction in the past, and maybe it could again, at least some parts—the ones about forgiving us our trespasses and not throwing the first stone.

He opened his mouth to say more but I couldn’t take it. I reached out and put my hand over his lips.

“No. No. Don’t say anything else. I might have ruined it. You’re going to feel different in just a minute, but please consider the possibility that you can forgive me in time. Please.”

His eyes were filled with fear and sadness and I didn’t know how to tell him. I just stared at him, paralyzed, and started to weep.

I picked up the embroidered pillow from Lucy’s couch that read, “Grandkids are Happiness” and buried my face in it to muffle my pathetic wailing.

Rick put his hand on my shoulder and I grabbed it with my free hand, the other remaining firm as it pressed the pillow into my face. I hoped all traces of makeup were gone and the clear tears wouldn’t stain the gift I had given her to celebrate Sam’s birth all those years ago.

“I’m so sorry, Rick. I’m so sorry for everything. I’ve made so many mistakes. I have a lot to work on. I have no right to ask you to forgive me but…”

I put the pillow down and turned to face him, warm, salty tears spilling into my mouth as I opened it to finally speak the words. This time he covered my lips.

“Don’t say it,” he said. “I don’t want to hear it yet. Not tonight.”

“But…”

“I know, I’m sure we’ll spend hours talking about it all in therapy and alone together. I just can’t do it tonight.”

My body convulsed with sobs and he took me into his arms. I held him so tight and we cried together for what seemed a long, long time. He pulled away first.

“I still want to come home,” he announced, as if he had to convince me.

“Of course,” I gushed. “I want that more than anything. And the kids will be so happy. You belong with us. But I need to make sure you understand what I was trying to tell you.” I didn’t want to have to say it yet either, but I couldn’t let him make the decision to come home if it wasn’t clear.

“I do. I know. I could see it in your eyes when you were about to say it. You had my blessing to go on the date, to do anything you needed to do. We were separated. I’m not ready to hear about it though. I still want to move back in but I think I’ll get an air mattress to sleep on for a while.”

I nodded. “Of course. Whatever you want, as long as you’re home. I’ve missed you so much. It’s unbearably lonely without you in the house. But, I have to ask, what about your mother? She didn’t sound good the last time I talked to her. Doesn’t someone need to be here with her? Should you stay until she’s… doing better or starting treatment, or something?”

Rick leaned his head back and clasped his hands together on his forehead. I waited, confused.

“I hope you’ll forgive me for this,” he said, and I couldn’t begin to guess what he’d be asking forgiveness for. “I should have told you sooner. I’ve known for two months. I found out the day after you told me about the date with Dave.”

“You’ve known what?”

“That she’s not going to make it. Kelly and I are taking her to hospice tomorrow.” He rolled forward, head in his hands and made a sound I had never heard come from him before, the most heart wrenching sound I had ever heard. I picked the pillow up from the floor and clutched it to my chest, crying, “No, Lucy. No, Lucy. Sweet, sweet Lucy.”

MY DAMN TIE WAS
STRANGLING ME
. I loosened it as I collapsed onto the couch. The house was packed full of people. Beth and her mother scrambled to set out trays of hors d’oeuvres. Sam and Jack were playing tag in the backyard with their cousins and the other guests’ kids.

Kelly sat next to me and I could see the same exhaustion and heartache I felt on the inside all over her outside.

“Hey li’l sis, how you holding up?”

Her eyes were bloodshot. “I can’t believe she’s actually gone. When will it sink in?”

“Maybe never,” I said, putting my arm around her.

“I keep picking up the phone to call her, you know?” I did know.

Beth walked up and offered us some kind of breaded mushroom puff things. We both declined.

“Would you mind getting me a beer?” I asked, not wanting to put her out after she worked so hard to get everything ready.

“Of course. But you haven’t eaten anything. The Costco sandwiches are really good. Want me to bring you one?”

“I’ll eat later. Just the beer, please.”

She was back in less than a minute and sat down next to me as she spoke to Kelly.

“You know, Rick and I were thinking, maybe we could help out with the kids more, since, well, since your mom used to spend so much time with them. We could take them once a week so you and Tom can go out to dinner alone. What do you think?”

Kelly tried to muster up excitement, and we knew she would take us up on the offer and appreciate it in time, but she couldn’t think about it yet.

Beth’s mom joined us.

“All the food and drinks are out. Is there anything else I can do?” she asked.

You could bring my mother back from the dead
, I wanted to say.

“No, Mom. Relax, you’ve helped so much today,” Beth answered, as Kathryn sat down next to her.

There I was with the three women left in my life, mourning the one who was gone, the one who always loved and knew me best.
Are you allowed to use the word “orphan” when you’re thirty-six years old?
I asked myself. I couldn’t admit it to anyone, but I felt too young to take on the rest of my life without my mother’s guidance.

“The service was beautiful. And Rick, your eulogy was… it was so moving,” Kathryn said. I knew I was lucky to have a mother-in-law who I liked and felt comfortable with. But no one could take the place of my mother.

I put my hand on Beth’s. “Well, I can’t take all the credit. I had a lot of help. My wife happens to teach speech.”

Kelly smiled. “You know I was looking at the calendar and realized that Mom passed away exactly six months from the day the doctors told her she had no more than six months to live. Isn’t that weird?”

“It’s actually not,” Kathryn said. “The power of suggestion can’t be underestimated, even when it comes to death. I see it all the time at work. People will wait until after their child’s graduation or wedding, or they’ll stay alive until a spouse goes first, so they can take care of him or her till the end.”

We all nodded in solemn synchronicity.

“I think it’s also because Mom is, uhhh, I mean was…” I corrected myself. “She was such a rule follower. If the doctor said six months, she had to make it six months. She always did everything she was supposed to do.”

This time we all smiled, each remembering some time or other when she demonstrated this consistent tendency.

I looked at Beth and Kathryn, realizing that losing my mother had made the two of them much closer. They both spent so much time with her in the final months. Kathryn’s years of nursing were invaluable to us as she worked to translate all the medical jargon. And I suspected that my mom and Kathryn spent many conspiratorial hours plotting ways for Kathryn to ensure that Beth and I stayed together for good this time.

“Stop that! Get off of him!” Kelly jumped up to break her sons apart.

Then Beth and Kathryn went off to check on everyone, and I was alone again, amidst all those people. They had already expressed their condolences at the church. Now it was just a party to them. I could hear their conversations about politics, the weather, sports. They all seemed to know that I didn’t want to talk about those things.

Jack came up to me and sat on my lap.

“Where’s Grandma Lucy again?”

“I don’t really know, Jack. I hope she’s in heaven. Maybe a part of her is still here with us. I mean all that energy. All those molecules that made up Grandma Lucy, they couldn’t just vanish into thin air, could they?” He gave me a baffled look and took off to continue playing with the other kids.

I watched Beth chat with her friend Shelly in the corner as they both cooed in her baby boy’s face. Crazy that they could still make a mistake like that with all the prenatal technology they had these days. Guess his tiny little wiener was hiding. I couldn’t hear them, but I saw Beth’s disappointment when Shelly shook her head in response to her question. It was much more surprising to Beth than to me that Shelly was still willing to let her husband get away with what he was doing without saying anything. My own parents stayed married for a good decade after their relationship was over.

Once Kelly got her boys settled down, she came back.

“I was so surprised to see Dad at the cemetery,” she said, genuinely perplexed.

“Mom told me she wanted us to give him another chance.” I hoped Kelly would be more open to it than she had been the last time I mentioned it.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“He’s all we have now,” I told her. “I know he wasn’t around much when we were kids and after the divorce he seemed to drop off the face of the earth. But now that she’s gone, all the anger between them is gone too. We don’t have to be in the middle of anything anymore. It’s just us and him. Maybe we can start over. Relationships can get a fresh start, if that’s what all parties want, anyway.”

As soon as I said it, I knew she’d use it as a segue.

“Yeah, well, you know the relationship Mom most wanted to see getting a fresh start before she would let go. How are things?”

“We’re taking it slow, but honestly, it’s going really well. In the four months I’ve been back home, we’ve spent most of our time together watching Mom slip away. It made us realize how much we mean to each other and that the issues we were hanging onto aren’t really that important in the grand scheme of things.” Kelly wanted to know more. She always did. But I could never tell her the things that happened.

“I still can’t believe you considered going out with Wendy. I mean, she’s my friend, but she’s a nutcase. You better hang on to Beth. You’ll never do better than her.”

Although I appreciated the time and attention Wendy had given my mom in the months I was living there, I was even more relieved that, nutcase or not, she’d had the tact to decline the invitation to come back to my house after the funeral.

I looked at Kelly with skepticism. “Come on, I could have my pick and you know it!” She punched me hard in the upper arm.

“Jeez, Kelly, you still have a mean right hook!” We laughed.

* * *

I was relieved when all of our relatives, friends and colleagues from every stage of our lives had finally left. I didn’t understand why people you hadn’t seen in years felt the need to come out of the woodwork for a funeral. Personally, I preferred to avoid them. But I guess in a way it was nice to see how many people my mother’s life had touched, and who cared that she was gone.

Beth and her mom were doing dishes and Beth’s dad was swinging Sam and Jack around in circles on the grass in the backyard.

“All right,” Beth said as she stood in front of me with a dishtowel in her hand, “I’m going to pack up the kids’ things and then my parents will take them to their house for the night.”

“Good. I’m ready for some alone time, aren’t you?”

She smiled.

Sam held on to me for longer than usual for his goodbye hug as we stood in the doorway.

“Are you okay, Dad?”

“Yeah, Sam, I’m okay.” I patted his hair. He looked at my face closely.

“You don’t look okay. You look sad. I’m sorry you don’t have a mom anymore.” He looked at Beth and I could see he had been thinking about the possibility that he could lose his own mother.

I pulled Beth into our hug and the three of us swayed a little as we worked to keep our grip on each other. Jack grabbed my legs from behind to join in. Beth’s parents stood watching the four of us.

“I’ll be okay, Samo. Don’t worry about me. I still have your mom, and Grandma Kathryn and Aunt Kelly. Lots of great women in my life. And I still feel Grandma Lucy with me. I even talk to her. You can too, you know.”

Beth sniffled and mindlessly wiped her nose with the sleeve of her expensive new black dress, which made me laugh out loud. No one asked why.

When it was just the two of us, I went back to my spot on the couch. Beth set down an open bottle of wine and filled two glasses for us.

“Were you happy with the way everything went today?” she asked, in an eager-to-please tone of voice. Happy seemed like a strange word to use, given the situation. I knew she wanted appreciation. I knew I needed to give it to her more often too. I had come to realize how stingy I was with my praise in the past. But something opened up after spending so much time telling my mother how much I loved her and all the things I remembered her doing for me when I was growing up. I had six months to express a lifetime of gratitude, which was great training for my future with Beth.

“Yes, it was perfect. Thank you for everything. You worked so hard to get the house ready and to order and set out all the food. And it meant a lot to me that you dealt with the church and the cemetery. I don’t know how I could have made it through all this without you.”

I intertwined our fingers.

“It’s strange how easy things have been between us since you moved back home, isn’t it?” Beth mused. “I mean, we had so much to work through—why I said those terrible things in Vegas, the mess of my night with Dave, and all while we were watching your mom… Thank God for Carly. But I still can’t figure out how with all of that, we were able to get to this place where things feel right again. Wait, I’m sorry, I don’t mean that! Of course things aren’t right. Your mom is gone. That is not right. It’s so wrong. I just meant, with us… it seems like it should have been harder.”

I brushed strands of hair hanging down the side of her face behind her ear.

“I know what you mean. I think when I had to accept that my mother would be gone, it forced me to decide what I wanted, what really mattered to me. The only answer I could come up with was that I wanted my family to be together and happy—you, me, and the kids. I wanted to learn how to be the husband you need me to be. How am I doing?” She kissed my lips. I grinned and winked. “You think I might finally get lucky tonight?” I asked.

“Rick, after today?”

“Today of all days seems perfect to me. It’s been a long time. We’ve cried so much. We’ve kissed and hugged so much. Maybe it’s time to rediscover the rest.”

She took a sip of her wine and stared into the glass. I tapped her shoulder and she looked into my eyes.

“I meant it when I said I forgive you. If a man has to live with the fact that his wife had sex with someone else, it helps a lot to know it was really bad sex.”

She never told me what was so bad about it, but I knew it was true from her facial expression and the way her body tensed up whenever we talked about it. Now she gave me the same look of regret she always did and I wished I could take the moment back for her. It seemed to cause her more pain than me.

We drank our wine in silence for a few minutes. I thought of something to say on the subject that never occurred to me before.

“To be honest, given the choice, I would rather that you had shitty sex with him than have you always fantasize about how great it might have been because you never got to do it.” Her eyes grew wide and she gave me a playful slap on the wrist.

“So by that logic, I did you a favor?” she asked with uncharacteristic sarcasm.

“Let’s not get carried away now,” I said, starting to laugh for the first time in a long time.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s go.” She took my hand and showed me her bedroom eyes. My body responded right away, but I had some things to take care of first.

“Not yet. There’s no hurry. We have all night, right?”

I took her left hand and ran my finger over her wedding ring.

“I know,” she said. “It means so much more now that she’s gone. It used to bother me that I had to wear your mother’s old wedding ring because we chose a honeymoon in Paris over a new one. I thought it might curse us because your parents’ marriage failed. But now, it’s like we still have a part of your mom with us to keep our marriage strong.”

I wasn’t expecting that. I liked her way of looking at it. But it didn’t work for what I had planned. I continued to stroke the ring and the finger it was on from top to bottom.

“That’s actually a beautiful thought, Beth. I bet the stone would look nice in a necklace too, don’t you think?”

She looked bewildered, but I knew she was too smart not to get it in a second or two, so I had to strike quickly. I pulled the little black box out of my suit jacket pocket and she gasped.

“Oh my God, Rick. What did you do?” Her words were stern but her face lit up like a Christmas tree.

I opened it and her jaw dropped so far it almost erased the pain of seeing all the zeros on the bill.

“Is this…? This isn’t the one…? How did you…?”

I wasn’t sure she’d remember, but I should have known. We’d seen it in Paris. It was custom made. She gawked at it in the store window for too long, which pissed me off at the time. Then she made me promise that if we ever won the lottery, I’d come back to Paris and figure out a way to have the jeweler recreate the same exact ring. I never told her, but I did my best to create a sketch of the ring and made sure to keep the name and address of the shop in my records.