4. Magnolia #2
“Good morning, baby. I’m up,” I croak, rolling to look at her.
She’s wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt with googly eyes, a souvenir we picked up when we went on vacation to Orlando, Florida, when she was five.
She begged for the shirt while at Disney World.
I bought it several sizes too big for her at the time, and still to this day that shirt is worn as soon as it’s clean.
She says because it’s old and soft, but I know the real reason she loves it.
It’s my line of business. She loves the memory attached to it.
A feeling of love and fullness, a grasping for a time when things were simpler, and her family was full and untainted by infidelity.
“We need to swing by the hardware store before we head to school. I told Juliet I’d pick up gold spray paint. Ms. Jenny and Juliet left here early to get started on the float.”
Kendall sits on the edge of my bed, gazing out the window.
“How many cans do you think you’ll need?
” I ask, sitting up, hoping I don’t look like the changed woman I feel inside.
I assumed everyone was asleep when I crept in last night.
Jenny spent the night here with the girls.
Our house is big, old, and drafty. It has more guest rooms than we’ll need, but because of the age, location, and the price was right, it’s ours forever.
Kendall sighs. “I don’t know. Four? Maybe give? It’s for the skirt of the float. I ironed my skirt so you don’t have to,” Kendall says. “I couldn’t sleep, so I already ate, too.”
I didn’t hear her. Not one sound to indicate she wasn’t peacefully asleep in her bed tucked in tight. “Oh,” I reply, swallowing hard. Laying a hand on her shoulder, I say, “Everything okay? You want to talk about it?”
Her eyes narrow as she looks at me. “He called me last night,” Kendall says, eyes watering. “While you were out. I don’t want to talk to him, Mom. I don’t want to ever talk to him again.”
“That’s your decision. It’s your right, Kendall. Don’t talk to him until you’re ready. Remember what the therapist said? It’s all up to you, honey.”
A tear drops. “I talked to him last night.” She says the words like it’s her last confession. My heart squeezes.
“What did he say?” It’s a morbid curiosity I’ll never outgrow, I think.
You think you know every single thing about a person only to come upon a day when the man you once loved is a stranger.
I’ll always be interested in his life regardless of how much he hurt me.
It’s irrational, I know, but the hope is one day it will merely be curiosity without any emotions attached to the update.
“He’s marrying Pamela,” Kendall says, scoffing when she says her name. “He asked me to come to the wedding. Told me it would be a fresh start. The start that should have been. He wants me to pretend I didn’t walk in and see him cheating on you. With that awful woman…girl, whatever she is.”
I can’t help it. My stomach heaves at the knowledge.
I knew they were still together, but I assumed he’d grow tired of Pamela in the way he grew tired of me.
Never for a second did I think he would move on with her in a marriage capacity.
Live together? Sure. Give her the same vows he gave me?
“Excuse me, honey. I’m not feeling so well. One second.”
Shuffling across the hardwood, I enter my bathroom and close the squeaky door and vomit into the toilet. It’s unfortunate I can’t control it, I can’t hide my shock and horror at this knowledge for Kendall’s sake, but it’s too much to hide. Too much.
She knocks on the door. “Mom, it’s okay. I told him I’d rather die than go to his wedding to that whore,” Kendall says through the closed door.
I squeeze my eyes shut and swallow down the acrid taste of vomit.
“Don’t talk like that, Kendall. That’s a horrible thing to say.
” Thank God she said it. Thank God. “You need to call and apologize to your father.” Thank God I have her.
Thank God she hates him. Pamela is a fucking whore.
Her father is a horrible human. The worst. “Do you understand me, Kendall?”
She stays silent, waiting to talk to me to my face, I’m sure.
I splash water on my neck and cheeks and brush my teeth quickly, staring at the person in the mirror.
He is marrying Pamela. How can he do this?
Asking Kendall to be a part of that atrocious abomination of a day?
I’m going to call him as soon as I have the house to myself. Give him a real piece of my mind.
I open the door, and Kendall flies into my arms.
“I don’t want to apologize to him. He’s not a nice person. You told me to always be kind. If I can’t be kind, then be silent. I don’t want to be silent. I want him to know that he hurt me. That he hurt you. He doesn’t deserve to be happy.”
He doesn’t. Anger and rage boil to the surface. I hug Kendall, tucking my head into her hair, inhaling the scent of her fruity shampoo. “I’ll talk to him. You don’t have to go, okay?”
She nods. “You should have come to me when you couldn’t sleep, Ken,” I say, pulling her long hair into a ponytail, peering into her eyes. “I’m so sorry you have to deal with this.”
“Everyone has shit in their life,” she says, shrugging. “My shit just happens to be one-half of the pair that gave me life.”
“Don’t curse,” I say. “It’s not ladylike.”
Kendall smirks. “He is shit, though.”
Shaking my head, I pull her back in for another hug.
“He is,” I admit. “But good or bad, he is your father, and you’ll have to deal with him at some point.
I’m not saying now, because that’s bad form on his part, but eventually, Kendall, you will have to look at him, and despite everything he’s said and done to you, you’ll have to forgive him.
Not for him. For you. For you, honey.” I sigh.
If only I could take that advice. Only minutes ago, I was basking in the glow of the possibility with Aidan, and once again Paul has dragged me back down to planet Earth. Reality.
“Maybe on my deathbed. Or his,” Kendall replies, pulling out of my grasp. She sits on my bed hard, bouncing, her hands tucked under her thighs. The eyes on the Mickey Mouse shirt move up and down as she bobs, and the pit returns to my stomach.
Swallowing hard, I tell her, “Go get dressed. We can stop by the coffee shop for tea and pastries before we go to the hardware store. That sound okay?”
Kendall wipes under her eyes. “Thanks, Mom. I’m sorry I had to tell you that. I didn’t want him to spring it on you. Better from me than him.”
“When did you get so old and wise?” I ask, smiling sadly. Approaching her, I tuck her hair behind her ears like I did a million times when she was a wild toddler. “I’m okay, honey. I promise. My stomach wasn’t feeling good all night. I think it’s why I slept so poorly.”
“My therapist says it’s part of the process.
Putting my feelings aside to think about what others might be feeling.
And since there’s no way I’m putting myself into his smelly shoes, I’d rather put myself into yours.
I’m sorry, Mom. I was so wrapped up in what I saw.
” She looks off and enters the dark place I hate with a violent passion.
“And how that made me feel, that I didn’t stop to think how awful it would feel to actually be married to a man who did that. ”
There are moments when your children speak, and you realize a level of maturity developed that wasn’t there only days, perhaps moments, before.
This is one of those moments, and I’m not prepared for it.
Not prepared for it because Kendall is moving through the grief process more eloquently than I am.
Sure, it was my marriage, but for all intents and purposes, she lost the father she thought she had.
“I love you, baby. Thank you for that,” I say, kissing the top of her head.
“I’m doing great. Don’t worry about me, okay? I’m so over it. The past is the past.”
She hops off my bed and skips out of my room, lighter than when she entered.
My heart is a little darker for it, but that’s okay.
I’ll take it if it means she doesn’t have to carry it.
I allow myself to cry in the shower, the hot water splashing around me to hide the emotions I’m trying to bottle up.
Pamela didn’t just take my husband, she stole the happiness I thought I had.
I take my time cleaning my body. With every glide of the razor on my legs, I find new resolve.
A steely mission to not let their marriage affect my life.
I paste the smile on my face, the one that tells everyone I’m okay, when I meet Kendall in the kitchen.
Then again when I order our drinks at the café, and still when I’m at the hardware store.
I pretend to be okay while I laugh and paint the float with my daughter.
I tell her how beautiful she looks as I zip up her cheerleading uniform in the locker room and watch her board the parade float.
I smile and wave to her and her friends, my grin wide and encouraging.
When Kendall sets off, the float disappearing into the distance to the sound of the marching band, the charade ends.
I know Kendall is safe with her friends and heading to Jenny’s directly following the conclusion of the parade.
I retreat to Magnolia’s Steals, and surrounded by thousands of stories from the past, both happy and sad, I fall apart completely.