The Lost Truth (9 page)

A
fter a few failed attempts to reach Paul on his phone and another few drinks of the bottle, I accepted defeat and plopped down on the couch in the living room. Gripping the glass bottle in my hand, I rubbed my thumb over the smooth, rounded corner as I knew my ex-wife would soon be on my sister’s doorstep. Though I blamed myself for much of what had happened in the last few years and ultimately, the demise of our marriage, I couldn’t help but blame her for leaving me in a hospital. It was a cold thing to do to a human being. Her icy ways didn’t stop there; she went on to Ocean Shores to break our wedding vows during the same week she left me.

Hearing the car pull into the driveway and the gravel shift beneath the wheels, I knew they had arrived. Twisting the cap on the bottle, I went and put it back into the deep freeze. Stopping at the door, I grabbed a piece of gum from my pocket and popped it in my mouth. The last thing I needed was Gail knowing I was still drinking.

Opening the door, I saw the car roll to a stop, and through the windshield, I could make out the outline of my sweet Cindy. My pulse raced as she opened the car door and darted toward the steps of the house with her arms wide open.

“Daddy!” she shouted as she picked up speed.

Walking down the steps, I opened my arms as she came closer and picked her up. I smiled as I brushed her brown bangs back from her forehead. “I missed you so much, doll.” My lips found her cheek and then her forehead.

“Clay,” Gail said as she shut the driver side door.

She looked beautiful like she always did, but she carried herself differently than I recalled. She wasn’t the same. Something was different. “Gail.” Adjusting Cindy onto my hip, I continued. “You can pick her up in a few days.”

Gail shook her head and approached me as I set Cindy down. Just by the look in her eyes, I knew she wanted to talk out of earshot of Cindy. It was one of those looks she used to give me when we were married.

Bending down to Cindy, I smiled at her and held both her hands in mine. “Mom and I need to talk for a minute. You should go around back and check out my bird.”

Her eyes grew wide. “You have a bird, Daddy?”

I nodded slowly. “I sure do. His name is Kip. Don’t let him out of the cage. Just visit with him.”

A quick nod and she was off around the corner.

Standing up, I smiled as I turned back to Gail. “She’s grown so much.”

“You smell like booze.” Gail’s arms crossed and her eyes were like daggers as she stared at me. “You
knew
we were coming, and you still drank. Unbelievable.”

“Gail, I’m in a lot of pain. I didn’t get drunk. Just a little bit to help.”

Shaking her head, she pursed her lips for a moment. “Guess some things never change, do they, Clay? Might be physical pain right now, but you’re still using it as an excuse. You seem to forget we were married for over twenty years.”

“You want to judge me?” I laughed. “You left me in a hospital bed when I needed you most. I might have a drink to forget my sorrows, but you’re the ice queen.”

“I couldn’t take care of you anymore, Clay.” She stepped closer and grabbed my hand. Looking me in the eyes, she said, “I spent years pretending to be okay with who you had become. But it wasn’t me. I didn’t want to be the wife who puts her husband back together after he had one too many drinks the night before. That’s not the life I wanted. We were married in a church, we went to church, and we were raising Cindy in a church. I never imagined getting to a place where you got so drunk you drove your motorcycle and crashed. You could’ve killed someone! You could’ve died, Clay!” She shook her head. “That wasn’t what I signed up for.”

Gail wasted no time going straight for my jugular, it seemed. Squinting, I pretended to act like the sun was bothering my eyes as I cupped them for shade. Turning toward the corner Cindy ran around, I said, “Okay. Well. This trip is about Cindy for me. Not us.”

“You’re right. It is.” Gail started for the corner of the house as she continued speaking. “Knock off the drinking, or I’ll just take Cindy back home.”

As I watched Gail round the corner, I thought back to the day in court when custody was set up. Though I wasn’t there, my court appointed lawyer, Ronald McCoy, let me know how it all had gone down. My rights weren’t taken away, but it sure felt like they were. The judge gave Gail primary custody. My allotment of time was as follows: A few weeks in the summer, and we switch major holidays –Thanksgiving, Christmas and the Fourth of July, we go every other one. The whole thing didn’t feel right, but the judge felt I was unfit for primary custody with no job or place of my own and being in the hospital after a motorcycle accident I caused.

Gail used my accident for leverage to execute her vicious plan that I suspect she had been cooking for a while. I was in the hospital for a long stint, and she broke the lease from our condo the moment she heard about the accident. By the time I got out of rehab, another family had already moved into our house.

Walking around the house, I walked to the porch to find Kip out of the cage and perched up on Cindy’s finger. She had a love for nature that was deep and ever present in all she did. Even when she was two and three years of age, she’d play with bugs and worms she’d find out in the yard, always collecting critters in jars and making them her pets. And when they would die, she’d give them a proper funeral in the back yard with dandelions and a sweet song for the service.

“Daddy . . . he’s so pretty!” she said, looking up from beside the cage as she sat crisscrossed. Gail sat in my chair, smiling as she looked down at the bird in Cindy’s hands.

As I came up the steps, Cindy tossed her hair over her shoulder, and I noticed that Cindy’s ears were pierced. “When did you get your ears pierced?” My eyes shifted over to Gail.

“With Allison at the mall last weekend. You like them, Daddy?” She turned her head and lifted her hair out of the way to showcase the ruby red-colored stud.

“They’re pretty, dear.” My eyes again went to Gail.

Gail didn’t look at me. She knew we weren’t going to let her pierce her ears until she was thirteen. That was still six years away for Cindy. It didn’t bother me that she had them pierced early. What did bother me was Gail not calling to discuss it.

The buzzing sound of the oven’s timer could faintly be heard. Looking back to Cindy, I said, “Dinner is done. You should put Kip back in the cage and we’ll go eat.”

“I’m starving,” Cindy replied as she placed Kip back on the twig inside the cage. She latched the door shut and stood up. Coming over to me, she wrapped her arms around my legs and said, “I love you, Daddy. I’m so happy we’re finally here! I don’t ever want to leave!”

Smoothing her hair with my hand, I said, “I love you too, doll.” She wanted me, needed me, and instilled purpose within me by her words. Glancing over at Gail, I could see the pain in her eyes. While she didn’t care much for me, I knew she loved Cindy more than anything else in the world. Knowing how much Cindy loved me, and yet they lived so far away, made her uneasy. I could tell.

After dinner, as I cleaned the plates off the table, my pain suddenly came shooting through my leg again, stopping me in my tracks. Gripping the back of my leg with a hand, I set the plates back down on the table.

Gail leaped up and grabbed my arm to help me balance. I furrowed my eyebrows at her. “What are you doing?”

She released, startled at her own actions. “Sorry. I don’t know. Are you okay?”

The pain subsided, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “This is my life now, Gail. I’m fine.” Picking up the plates, I continued into the kitchen and set them in the sink.

She sat back down at the table and clasped her hands together as she looked to be wrestling some thoughts in her mind. This woman was probably one of the worst people I had ever met, but something was still deep inside of me that cared for her. Why? I wasn’t sure, but I suspected it probably had to do with spending half of my life with her. Regardless, I knew it hurt to see that familiar look of pain on her face. It was the same look she had when she found out about her cousin having breast cancer. The same look when she found out about the neighborhood friend committing suicide.

Back at the table, I gripped the back of the chair. “What’s up?”

She shook her head and stood up. “Nothing. Just my mom.” Gail walked into the living room and I watched as she went and sat down on the couch. At her feet, Cindy was playing at the coffee table with her Littlest Pet Shop. For a moment, I felt normal as I looked at the both of them. It was just like when we lived over off Francis.

The front door swung open and my sister stormed in, slamming the door behind her. Throwing her purse against the wall, she glanced over at Gail and their eyes met. Janice scowled at her, but then softened when her eyes met Cindy’s.

“Come give your auntie a hug!” Janice said, changing her tone dramatically.

Cindy raced over as Janice bent her knees down to greet her. “Jammy!” she said, hugging her tightly around the neck. Jammy was the nickname Cindy gave her after struggling to pronounce Janice.

My sister hugged her for a moment and then stood up, mentioning to Cindy that she had a long day and needed sleep, but she would hang out more tomorrow. Ignoring both Gail and myself, she headed down the hall to her room and shut the door.

“What’s wrong with Jammy?” Cindy asked as she returned to the coffee table.

“She’s just tired,” Gail replied quickly.

Gail looked over at me. “Wow. She hasn’t changed a bit.” Gail shook her head.

There were a lot of things I could have told Gail in that moment, but I withheld. She didn’t understand the emotional turmoil that Janice went through staying up at the hospital or the income she lost by not showing any houses and being by my bedside while I went through all those surgeries. My sister had sacrificed a lot.

“Tomorrow, there’s a farmer’s market up at the boardwalk.” Sitting down on the couch behind Cindy, I continued. “Lots of fun stuff to see. I think you’ll like it.”

Cindy whipped around with wide eyes. “You think they’ll have marshmallow shooters like the one we got from the county fair? Remember? The one with the princesses on it?”

“Yeah, I remember.” Raising an eyebrow, I asked, “What happened to it?”

A sorrowful expression fell across Cindy’s face. Almost certain she was going to erupt in tears, I placed my hand on her shoulder to encourage her to speak. “It broke. Allison did it, though.”

Gail interjected. “You
both
were using it as a weapon to hit that tree in the backyard.”

“Nuh uh!” Cindy retorted. “Allison—”

“Hey.” I touched her shoulder again. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll see if they have any tomorrow and pick one up for you.”

Cindy climbed onto the couch and into my arms. I held her close to me, and she laid her head against my chest, causing me to smile. Lifting her head a moment later, she looked at me. “Your heart is going thumpity, thump, thump . . . it sounds cool.”

Gail looked past us at the clock on the wall. “It’s getting late. You need to get to bed.” Turning to me, she raised an eyebrow. “You want to put her to bed?”

“Sure.” Taking Cindy by the hand, I led her to the back bedroom. Janice had worked tirelessly the last week clearing out all the clutter from the room. It was previously stacked up to the ceiling with boxes, but now all that was left were a few boxes stacked in the closet, a bed, and a dresser.

Walking into the room, Cindy released her hand from mine and asked, “Where will you sleep?”

“I sleep on the couch.”

“Why not in here?”

“I haven’t slept in here at all . . .”

“How come?”

I laughed. “Go brush your teeth and let’s get you into bed.” The real answer to her question was one that a seven-year-old didn’t need to know. It was the room in which my father had spent his final days, his final breaths, and his final moments here on earth.

As she brushed her teeth, I went back out to the living room and fetched her bag that I had brought inside earlier. Bringing it into the bedroom, I set it down near the closet and opened it up. There were fingernail polishes, an mp3 player, and a bunch of random stickers.
She’s only seven
, I thought to myself as I pushed them to the side in search of her teddy bear, CeCe.