Chapter 20
Hawk
As she pulls into the parking lot of the fairground, Marissa looks ready to cry. When she sees me approach, she slumps against the steering wheel.
DJ’s babbling in the back, so I unbuckle him. We have a whole conversation about his weekend plans while Marissa gets herself together.
“And your grandma’s gonna be there too? Wow. Please tell her hi from me,” I tell him right as his mom walks up to us.
She strokes his head with a sad smile, and I hand him over to her.
After I grab his overnight bag, neither of us says anything as we walk towards where Slim said he’d be.
I’m dying to know what she’s thinking.
“How was the event?” She asks, much to my surprise.
“Eventful,” I say with a wink. “Lucy won the bikini contest.”
Her smile is big and sincere. “Oh, my God. I didn’t even know she’d signed up for it.”
“Shroomie talked her into it.”
“That makes sense. Was she happy? Was there a prize?”
“She was, until Hammer ruined everything.”
She stops walking. “What happened?”
“Marissa!”
I turn towards the voice and see Slim frowning at us.
“Hey, man,” I greet him with a nod, and he barely nods back.
“Hey,” Marissa says in a stilted voice as her eyes dart around. “Where have you parked?”
“Just over there,” he tilts his head to the right.
“Okay. Here’s his bag,” she gestures towards me, and I hand the bag over. “I’ve packed enough clothes and toys for this visit, but I’d really recommend buying your own things,” she tells him matter-of-factly.
My stomach turns at the proprietary way Slim examines every inch of her before nodding. “Okay, text me a list.”
I huff a disbelieving laugh through my nose. This fucker.
“Did you look at the one I’ve sent you for this visit?”
He gazes heavenwards like she’s the most irrational woman in the world. “Jesus, Riss, I’ve mopped the floors, okay, you’ve only told me like a million times!”
“He’s crawling now, and,” she closes her eyes and stops herself. “Alright. I’ll pick him up from Susan’s tomorrow around four, okay? Be good, baby, I love you,” she tells DJ as she smooches him all over the face and neck before handing him over to his dad.
“Call me if there’s any problems, okay? See you tomorrow,” she says, and her voice breaks on the last word.
Luckily, DJ didn’t cry as we walked off, I think as I load my bike into the back. It was hard enough for Marissa as is.
When I enter the truck, it’s the first time it truly feels like a cage. Marissa’s thick, suffocating sadness fills the cabin. My skin is too tight as I start the engine.
I want her to smile. I want to fix this. I am becoming infected by her pain.
I go over the mental checklist I’ve made with my therapist years ago as I force myself to sit with the discomfort, but it doesn’t help as much as it should.
The only person you can influence is yourself.
The mood other people are in is not about you.
Making yourself feel good by fixing others is an unhealthy coping mechanism.
This is different. I want Marissa to be happy, not so I can feel good, but because I love her.
The thought makes me smile, and I reach over to squeeze her hand.
“You can cry if you need to,” I say, and she looks at me with wet eyes.
“I already am,” she admits.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Not particularly,” she says and then proceeds to talk about it. A lot.
“And now DJ probably thinks I’ve left him. I tried explaining to him where he was going and for how long, but I don’t think he knows. He was so traumatized when I was kidnapped. What if he's reliving that now?” She concludes.
I don’t have an answer to all that, so I simply say, “That is a lot to feel.”
She nods as she stares at the road in front of us. “And this is so stupid and awful, but I’m worried he’s gonna like her.”
She doesn’t have to specify who.
I want to tell her that no one who’s met both of them could possibly prefer Rebel, but that’s not exactly true, is it? Maybe if I say “no one in their right mind who’s met both of them”?
“You’re his mom,” I say instead. “He adores you. He looks at you like you hung the moon.”
She only bites the inside of her lip, presumably to stop further tears from forming.
*
Marissa joins me downstairs after her shower, wearing gray leggings and another oversized T-shirt, this one with Tweety Bird on it. Her hair is up in a towel.
“Wanna watch a movie after dinner?” I ask, praying that she hasn’t made any plans.
“Sure.”
I grill us two steaks with a side of asparagus and some boxed mac and cheese. Life is all about balance.
We eat mostly in silence, and she keeps glancing at her phone like she’s expecting an emergency.
Marissa loads the dishwasher while I pop some popcorn, put the potato chips in a bowl, and take the sodas out of the fridge.
“What movie were you thinking?” She asks as she settles onto the couch, tucking her feet under her legs.
I stare as she removes the towel from her hair and drapes it over her shoulders. I clear my throat and look back at the DVD player.
“21 Jump Street. It’s a buddy cop comedy.”
“Sounds good.”
I settle on the other side of the couch, and we watch in silence for about 15 minutes. I cannot focus. Her nearness and the sweet smell of her shampoo are too distracting.
“Can I ask you something?” Her voice breaks the silence. She looks pensive. “It’s actually been on my mind for a long time.”
A sudden sense of dread invades my insides. “Sure”
“Are all cops bastards?” She asks with a mischievous smile and, relieved, I laugh out loud.
“Many of them are,” I admit. “The saying is not for nothing. My ex-wife would definitely say yes. I like to think that I joined the force when I was a wide-eyed, naive boy. Unfortunately, many join it looking for an outlet for their sadistic tendencies. I still remember the first time I saw the DV statistics for cops.” I shudder.
“That bad, huh?”
I nod.
“I didn’t know you used to be married,” she says after a few minutes, and I hope I’m not imagining the tension around her mouth.
“For three whole years. Over ten years ago.”
“Why did you get divorced?” Marissa asks, clearly pretending to be captivated by what’s on the screen.
I interlock my fingers on the back of my head and stretch my torso as I think about the question.
“Unsurprisingly, it turned out that being a high-functioning alcoholic with a demanding and stressful job isn’t conducive to long-term relationships.
Towards the end, we were fighting, and my ex yelled, Why don’t you save me for once?
I still cringe when I remember that, but it’s a good summary of what happened. ”
She nods thoughtfully, then reaches for the popcorn. “Would you choose the same job again, knowing what you know now? Seeing how it kind of caused you to drink and contributed to the breakup of your marriage?”
I put my leg on the coffee table and rub my thigh. Her eyes briefly fly to what my hand is doing.
“It’s easy to exhaust yourself with what-ifs, but I can’t blame my job for any of that.
I’ve looked myself in the mirror that recovery and therapy have held up to me, and I know it’s always been me who was the issue.
But, to answer your question, even if given the choice, I wouldn’t change a thing.
You know why? I think if I changed anything, it would change everything, and I quite like where I ended up. ”
She turns back to the screen. We never turned on the living room light, so all we have is the glow of the TV. It’s almost like we’re back in the room where I first saw her, trading confessions in the dark.
“How long after your divorce did you get sober?”
“Not for another three years,” I say, not daring to look at her.
I feel her either nod or shake her head.
“A big flaw of mine is that I tend to think I know everything. Hopefully, not as much nowadays, but it was a major obstacle in my recovery. Luckily, I was involved in a particularly gruesome incident while on the job, and I got mandatory counselling for it. Saved my life. When my case against the city was settled, I decided to take the money and quit.”
“How did counselling change things for you?”
“The therapist was a genius. Saw right through my bullshit and called me on it. He didn’t let me minimize my PTSD. Eventually, I started being honest about my drinking, and he helped me get sober the first time.”
“How many times were there?”
I roll my lips. “A few.”
“Do you still talk to your ex? What’s her name?”
“Jodi, and nah. I ran into her uncle a few years ago; he told me that she had moved to Texas, gotten remarried, and had kids, most likely in an attempt to rub it in my face, but I was relieved that I hadn’t robbed her of that chance.
The last time I talked to her was when I was on step nine of the twelve-step program, making amends and taking responsibility. It didn’t go well.”
“What happened?”
I look at the wall above the TV and shake my head at my younger self.
“I came in hot, armed with the vocabulary of someone who’s trying to get a good grade in therapy, and I honestly expected Jodi to be grateful for the apology.
” I feel the vibrations of Marissa’s muffled laughter in the couch cushions.
“Yeah. She not only cursed me out, but she also listed all the ways in which I hadn’t even considered her feelings and opinions in our marriage.
She even accused me of never having loved her. ”
“Was she right?”
I almost want to deny it, to hide my ugliness from Marissa, or shield her from the worst of it. “She was. About all of it, in hindsight. Getting married was on my life checklist. Get a job, date a nice girl, marry her, and buy a house together before trying for your first kid.”
We pretend to watch the movie again, but Ice Cube yelling about Korean Jesus makes no sense unless you've been following the plot.
“Why didn’t you get married again?” Marissa asks. “You said it’s been 10 years.”
“For most of those years, I wouldn’t have been a good husband. Besides, I was waiting to meet my wife.”