Annabelle Absolutely Everything
Annabelle
Absolutely Everything
There are going to be ups and downs in every life.
And, if you can hunker down and hold tight through the challenges, Lovey says another victory will be right around the corner.
It was a bit of consolation during that terrible time, but, looking back now, I don’t know how I possibly could have lived like I did for so long, pretending that everything was normal and okay, when, in fact, I was an absolute wreck.
Every time I looked at Ben’s lips I could imagine them on Laura Anne’s body.
Every time I heard him breathe I imagined his breath in her ear, his whispers for her like they had been for me such a short time ago.
I had avoided him at every turn since that day I saw him with Laura Anne, pretending that the door I had slammed to my affection, leaving him out in the cold, was over the stress of Lovey’s injury and my new hours at the job that, in reality, felt like my only saving grace.
In such a short time, my singular obsession had snapped like a taut rubber band from the family I would make with Ben to how to get out of this thing most gracefully and transition into the next step, missing as few beats as possible.
I didn’t know how I could live my life knowing that I had never told Ben he had a child.
The part of me that still loved him, that still wished we could have that fairy-tale life together, knew that he had a right to know, that he would be a wonderful father and that he should get to make a mark on this life that he created.
But the other part of me thought that Holden was right: No baby deserves to be unstable and shuffled around, feel torn between his parents.
Just like with clothes off the rack, which, in all likelihood, I would never wear again once I was with Holden, sometimes, none of the options available seem to fit quite right.
I had shown up at work right at two, as promised that day I left Raleigh and Lovey.
Rob had sent me home immediately, and I was so grateful.
Exhausted from the two-hour drive and the confrontation with Lovey, the pounding in my head from the things I had said to her, the words that I wished I could take back, I left the church and went to the pool house to take a bath, the cool cloth on my head feeling clearing and calming in direct contrast to the steaming tub of water.
I wondered if I should even be taking a bath.
When I had called the doctor, the nurse had said, “Congratulations! But it’s so early now.
We’ll see you in five weeks to check how everything is coming along.
” Five weeks. It was coming up. Soon this would all be real. I couldn’t avoid it anymore.
The nurse had said, “In the meantime, no alcohol, no sushi, no fancy cheeses. Just swing by here to pick up your prenatal kit and vitamins.” She hadn’t said anything about taking a bath.
So I lay there, completely still. And I just thought—or plotted, more like it. Somewhere between a cartographer and a big-screen villain, I plotted my next course, worked through what I would say and what I would do.
I knew that I could pull the trigger now, let the bullet of the truth that I knew so well fly at Ben.
Because I had Holden to run to. I had a man that was going to stand by me even in this horrible scenario.
And I was grateful. Because, pregnant with someone else’s child, who was going to want me now?
I would push aside my anger at Lovey because, as Rob so astutely stated, she had given me everything good and true in my life—even if the truth wasn’t exactly as I had seen it.
And I understood her better now. A child changes absolutely everything.
She would ultimately, I knew, be the one to help me heal, to help me love again, trust again, to lead me through this maze of unanswered questions with the sage wisdom that only a dump truck load of life experience can provide.
I was beginning to feel better, in control again, in charge of my future and my destiny, when I heard the back door close tightly and Ben’s footsteps down the hall.
I slid my toe up to the silver lever on the tub and pushed down, the water beginning to flow out.
My body, made buoyant by the gallons surrounding me, was suddenly heavy, the pull of the water on my skin feeling like a man bearing the weight of himself down on top of me.
It occurred to me how long it had been since I had given in to the lure of Ben, to the calming, soothing satisfaction of total, blissful, thoughtless freedom.
I was already pregnant, after all. What was the worst that could happen?
Pushing the thoughts of her out of my mind, of the other woman whose total demise occupied the vast majority of the spaces that used to be full with loving Ben, I decided that, since I wasn’t completely ready to move on yet, my plan not fully intact, there was no use in him getting so suspicious, of wondering how our love life had gone from full saturation to bone dry in a matter of weeks.
And, as the last of the water gurgled its way down the pipes and out to the sewer, I called, “Oh, Ben!”
I had forgotten how easy it could be to completely lose myself, to feel that love well up in my cells and flow in and out of my bone marrow.
It must have been the thing that overtook my need to control, that superseded the strategic agonizing.
It was like living and breathing itself, the essence of everything good.
And, when it was over, when we were both lying there, my head on his beating heart, his fingers trailing lazily down my relaxed back muscles, though I hadn’t planned it, though it hadn’t been plotted down on paper for my ideal timing and my perfect, graceful exit, with my bags packed, in the light of day, trudging home to my future, I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Like one thin, straight line out of a fresh Elmer’s bottle, my words marched across the blank expanse of his chest. “I’m leaving you, Ben. ”
No emotion, no tears, not even a crack in my voice to indicate the devastation I felt would undoubtedly hide out in the deepest crevices of my ability to love for the rest of my life.
Ben bolted upright, and, in an unlikely response, began to dress. Calmly, evenly, he pulled on his boxers, then his pants, then his shirt. He buckled his belt. And, in the spaces between his silent dressing, I also pulled on my skirt and tied my disheveled hair behind my neck.
As the seconds turned to minutes that felt more like hours, he finally said, “Why would you even joke about something like that?”
“I know, Ben.”
“Know what?”
“About Laura Anne.”
He started stammering, the way that men do when they’ve been caught in the trap and are trying to decide whether to lie down and die or to see if they can chew their leg off without bleeding to death before help arrives. “I . . . I have no idea what you’re . . . what you’re talking about.”
As the tears pooled in his eyes, I have to say that I was surprised.
I had become so accustomed to hating him, seething inside with rage that someone I loved and trusted with every cell in my body could betray me so handily, that I guess I only assumed that he felt the same way toward me.
And then I knew he had decided to lie down and die after all.
“But, TL, you can’t do this to me. You’re the love of my life. ”
“Can’t do this to you?” I asked, still calmly, still evenly, still emotionless.
“Maybe we should review the facts of the case here. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the one cheating on you with my ex.
” I felt a sting of guilt because no one could possibly deny that keeping the knowledge of his child from him was one of the worst things that you could ever do to a person.
And then there was the truth that I had my entire life with another man and Ben’s baby planned out.
It was harder to be indignant, remembering.
He shook his head vigorously. “No, no, no, no. It was stupid. I was feeling sad about not having a baby, but I didn’t want to upset you, so we started talking and it just happened. But I don’t love her. I don’t want her. I never loved her. I only love you.”
It was the first time I had ever seen Ben bordering on hysterical. And I was so happy I almost cried. I hadn’t been wrong all this time. He had truly loved me.
Maybe it was because I had been living with the secret for so long, but I was finally the calm one while he was the one unraveling over the outcome that was now out of his hands. “Everything has changed for me now. There’s no way I can be with you knowing what you’re capable of.”
Ben hugged me and rested his chin on my head. I didn’t hug him back. “We can start over again. We can get out of here, go on tour again, be back to that all-over-each-other couple, me singing to you and you loving me.”
“Yeah, but see, here’s the thing. Now that you’ve been that with her, it’s ruined for me.”
“You can’t leave me, Annie. I’ll be alone forever. I’ll wait for you until I die. You are the only one for me, I swear.”
It scared me how cold I felt toward him now, how quickly that burning passion had dissipated.
But it is, after all, fire that forges steel.
It made me wish that I had confronted him about it when I first found out, that we could have had a chance to repair it while my insides still felt raw and oozing, before the skin had healed back over and made the body forget that it had ever felt anything to begin with.
“Then I guess you should have thought about that before you started carrying your girlfriend down the stairs in a golf bag.”
I could see his eyes widen a fraction. I knew he didn’t want to give himself away, to let me see his shock. “That long?”
I nodded. It was stunning even to me that I had known for weeks without cracking. Although, clearly, he knew the wind had shifted.