5 - Tobias
A Night Of Firsts
~
Tobias
There was no laughter around our dinner table tonight, not even from Lexi. She pushed her meatballs around on her plate listlessly, an exaggerated look of disgust on her face.
“Eat your food, Lexi,” I tried to encourage her.
She looked at me and shook her head, “I don’t like it, Dad. It doesn’t taste good.”
This was a first. The canned meatballs tasted the same as they always did, yet no one ate with the gusto that usually accompanied meatball night. Not even Gunner, who usually inhaled every meal like he hadn’t eaten in days.
“Since when don’t the meatballs taste good? You like meatballs.” I could tell my attempts to convince her were falling flat. “They’re delicious as always and full of protein. How much protein are you supposed to eat again?”
Lexi shook her head. “It doesn’t have protein, and I don’t like it anymore. You shouldn’t have been so mean to Brie. Then she would have cooked us something good and sat at the table with us.”
I stabbed a meatball with my fork, put it in my mouth whole, and hummed while I chewed, exaggerating how delicious it was.
“I can feel all the vitamins making me stronger already,” I said, urging her to eat.
“No, Daddy, I won’t eat it. You were mean to Brie, and now she is all alone. She isn’t eating, and neither am I,” Lexi said angrily, her lips held in a tight pout.
I sat back, resigned. She hardly ever gave me any trouble, especially when it came to mealtimes. If anything, she ate more than I expected her to, and sometimes even asked for seconds.
“I was not mean to Brie. I was just telling her she needed to be careful,” I argued weakly.
I had never had to defend my actions, but things had somehow changed. Lexi challenged me. Brie tested my patience at every turn. And the balance in the cabin had shifted uncomfortably since she’d come to stay. I was facing a mutiny.
“You did kinda overdo it there, Tobias,” Gunner muttered. “I mean, you told her not once, but twice, that she was thoughtless.”
I stared at him, waiting for him to take it back, to turn it into a joke like he usually did with everything, but he didn’t.
“She’s a gorgeous girl, great figure— I’m just saying she deserves better than the way you spoke to her,” Gunner shrugged.
I shook my head. It came down to primal attraction for Gunner. I didn’t doubt he thought everything she did could be excused just because he found her attractive. What I didn’t expect was Gideon’s agreement.
“You’ve snapped at her two nights in a row. It’s hardly the way to treat someone who genuinely just wants to help,” Gideon said, taking his plate to the sink. “She’s great with Lexi. You need to make it right with her. It’s just the right thing to do.”
I looked from Gideon at the sink to Gunner at the table, slowly eating his dinner as if every bite was torture, and then at Lexi, who still sat pouting.
“Yes, Daddy, just tell her it was an accident and say you’re sorry,” Lexi insisted. “You always tell me that saying you’re sorry is the closest you can get to taking back something you said if you say something wrong.”
I felt uneasy. I wasn’t sure whether I was sorry or just wanted to see Brie again.
Watch her laugh and stumble about clumsily, trying to learn how to exist here.
I was used to knowing my mind, never needing any translation for my feelings.
It was either black or white, right or wrong.
But then Brie came along and blurred the bold, neat lines in my mind.
I got up slowly, pushed in my chair, and gave up fighting them on it.
I understood Lexi’s attachment to Brie. She was a beautiful woman from the city, someone new to play with, and, in his artless way, the same applied to Gunner.
He was infatuated with every beautiful woman he came across, but it was Gideon who had changed my mind and made me think maybe I should apologize.
Even if it was just to win back some sense of normalcy.
It was a simple enough task. I would go in there, apologize, and if she wanted to stay, she would accept my apology and move on.
But it made me anxious. With every step I took towards Brie’s suite, I worried she might not accept what I had to say.
I wondered what I would do then. It scared me that I thought I might have to beg her to stay, and it confused the hell out of me that the thought even entered my mind.
I reached her door and stopped. I rehearsed the apology in my head over and over, imagining what she might be doing inside.
I wondered if she would be sleeping, if she’d open the door at all.
I remembered how she had stood at the kitchen island, the lavish dinner she had conjured from canned foods set out there, smiling warmly, proud of what she had made, and I had snapped at her.
It wasn’t about the food; I just didn’t understand what made me do it, what made me so angry when she almost fell from the ladder. I dismissed my wondering and knocked.
I heard her moving inside, the wooden floors creaking as she walked. I imagined it taking too long for her to reach the door, a pause between each step, until finally I saw the door handle move down and the door open slowly.
Brie opened the door and stood looking at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy; she had been crying. I was gripped by shame. Whatever had driven me to act the way I did around her couldn’t justify causing her so much sadness.
“Can I come in?” I asked softly. No one would hear me, but I didn’t need an audience for my remorse.
Brie stepped aside, making room for me to walk into the room. She hadn’t changed anything. It was still as it was the day I first brought her here. Empty, impersonal, nothing like the woman standing in front of me in her fleece pajamas and fluffy gown.
“I just want to say I’m sorry for the way I behaved earlier. It was uncalled for,” I said, ready for her to accept my apology.
Brie crinkled her nose as if my words had wounded her in some new way.
“Is that all you’re sorry for?” she asked angrily. “Just for how you behaved earlier? Not for how you behaved last night and made things so unbearably uncomfortable for me from the moment I arrived here?”
Brie’s voice cracked, and it rattled in my ears like broken glass. It felt as though her anger sliced at me from the inside.
“I know my behavior was unacceptable, and I’m sorry. Okay?” It wasn’t the best apology, but it was all I could muster.
I couldn’t offer her any reasons or make any promises to do better. I just couldn’t, and even though I was only getting to know her, I refused to lie to Brie. I couldn’t honestly explain something I didn’t understand myself.
“You called me here to help with your daughter. You saw my resume and knew I was right for the job. And after I traveled all this way, made every effort to connect with Lexi, you humiliate me over and over again,” Brie said, her voice rising with a slight tremble.
I didn’t have the words to respond. I had caused her grief with no way to console her. When I had lashed out at her, I had never imagined it would bring me to this point. My mind was blank, and my heart just wanted her to stop being angry.
“You act like I’m some unwelcome and unwanted inconvenience, and let me tell you, since you’ve clearly forgotten…”
I couldn’t stand it. The fear of what she might say, a threat she might make, an announcement that she would leave.
It was too much for me to think about. My body moved instinctively.
I had no control over my steps toward her, the way my arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her body against mine.
I had no control over how I bent down and pressed my lips to hers, holding her until I felt the shock and resistance melt away.
Brie parted her lips in surrender, sucking each of mine into her mouth and gently stroking her tongue against mine. It was as if this was something we had done a thousand times before.
I held her close, savoring the taste of her forgiveness, drinking her in. And knew in that instant what I had denied myself since the first time I saw her.