31. James
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
James
NOW
To: babybeanC@
Hi Bean,
It’s been years since I wrote to you. To be completely honest, I didn’t think this account still existed, but I guess I was wrong.
I don’t even know what to say after all this time.
I guess a part of me forgot about you. I’ve held onto the loss of you.
All the pain I felt when we lost you is still there, but I forgot about you.
I only held onto the pain, and I forgot about how happy we were about you.
How excited we were, and I don’t want to forget that anymore.
I want to remember that you made us happy.
Even though it was for a short time, you brought us joy.
I miss you, Bean. We miss you.
Daddy
It’s a rare occasion when I see Leo. I never told my sister, but after she left her now ex-husband, I kept my distance.
Not really intentionally, but when there’s this huge elephant in the room, it’s hard to just shoot the shit and act like it’s not there.
We’d been friends since college so it took some time getting used to those abruptly cut ties.
There were times when I talked to him, mainly at the start of their separation when he wanted to plead his case and try to win my sister back, but other times it was to merely keep the peace.
She was already going through so much, I didn’t want to add to it by starting drama or going over and beating the shit out of him.
She never really asked me to cut ties with him, but it was hard to keep a relationship, regardless of having known him for so long.
Still, for the sake of Sadie and with the understanding that his and Teeny’s co-parenting relationship is as healthy as it could be, we manage to check in every once in a while without really intending to.
Much like today. Leo picked up Sadie to spend the weekend with him, and Teeny asked me to pick her up during the week on my way home from work.
Teeny’s request for my help may have been as innocent as her asking her big brother when a work-related interruption came up for her, but I also think she didn’t want to have to send her new husband in her place to awkwardly greet her old husband.
I’m on the stoop of Leo’s two-story townhome. It’s quiet here, a little tranquil and placid, and the home itself is quaint.
“Hey,” Leo greets me as soon as he opens the door.
“Hey,” I answer with a nod. I’d already texted him on my way over to let him know I’d be picking Sadie up instead of Teeny, so he isn’t surprised to see me. In fact, he looks relieved.
“Come in,” he urges. “Sadie’s just finishing up her pizza in her room.”
I do as he says, closing the door behind me.
Inside is just as peaceful as it is outside.
Things are simple here. Not much clutter like our home, most likely due to the fact that a single divorced man lives here and no overactive child has taken over his living space, and things appear fairly neat.
I’ve never been here. He moved in a few years ago, and we’ve only seen each other a handful of times, and it was always somewhere else.
And usually with a buffer like my sister or Sadie.
“Do you want some pizza?” he offers.
“I—” I’m about to tell him I’m okay, but then I realize I don’t have any other plans than to go home and possibly snack on a bag of BBQ potato chips. Maybe add a beer to my sodium-filled dinner. “Yeah, sure.”
He walks into the kitchen where a small dining area is positioned right next to the tiled counter. A pizza box sits there, the lid closed haphazardly, and he reaches inside and whips out a piece. He walks it over to me at the dinner table on a paper plate, and we both sort of eat in silence.
“How are Sophia and Kendall?” he asks. He sets his plate down and walks to the fridge. He shows me an amber bottle of beer, and I nod.
“They’re good,” I answer, twisting open the cap. “They’re in Washington visiting some of our friends.”
“Kendall’s on summer break?”
I nod through a full mouth.
“I bet they miss you,” he comments, completely unaware of the tornado swirling in my head.
“Uh, I don’t know.”
That earns me a perplexed and confused look. “They don’t miss you?” He asks the question with a laugh, as if it’s completely impossible that my wife and daughter wouldn’t miss me while they’re away.
“Not really sure.”
He sets down his beer, what’s left of it swishing against the glass. “Is everything okay?”
This time, I shake my head. I don’t nod through a lie, passing this off as surface-level conversations with a friend. I’m too weary to lie.
“Do…you want to talk?” Men don’t generally do this.
We don’t splay out our personal problems so we can sift through them and somehow piece together a solution.
We bottle it up, put on a brave face, and pretend like everything is just fine.
But maybe that’s the problem. I talk to my sister and sometimes my mom about these things.
Maybe it’s time to get some male perspective.
In particular from one who’s paid for his past choices.
“I think she’s leaving me.”
His brow furrows, and he pushes a rough swallow down his throat. “Did she say that?”
“She left. She barely wanted to tell me she was leaving. I think if she had the choice, she would’ve snuck out without having to face me. She said she wanted to get some space, and I didn’t even get a say. She just packed up and left. Took Sophia with her.”
“But…she’s coming back,” he deduces. Because what else is there? She’s my wife. Her home is with me. Of course she’ll come back.
But I’m not too sure if that’s the case anymore. “I don’t know.”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t expect you to tell me. We don’t need to get into the nitty-gritty,” he tells me. His voice is hoarse and grim. “But do you want to be with her?”
“Of course I do,” I answer. An exasperated sigh leaves my lips because why wouldn’t I want to be with my wife? I love her. But it’s not that simple. Obviously, or I wouldn’t be here.
“Then don’t give up. If you don’t want to lose her, don’t fuck it up. Like I did.”
It’s the first time he’s really talked about it like this, so open and candidly.
Owning up to his mistakes and taking accountability.
I look at him, and I notice how he’s aged.
He’s no longer the twenty-something kid I walked to our Intro to Psychology class with.
He’s an adult, living with his mistakes and paying for them in this lonely, dismal bachelor pad.
“I’m trying,” I confess. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t think she even wants to talk to me. Or maybe she does, but I keep saying the wrong shit, and we just argue, and she shuts down. I even went to therapy.”
“You did?”
“Yeah,” I say, listening to myself speak what almost feels like a confession.
But there’s nothing wrong with it, talking to someone to see if they can help me and my marriage.
I just wish I knew if it’s going to even help.
“Kendall’s going to therapy, and Teeny suggested it.
Thought it might help me understand her better, but this therapist…
all she wants to do is talk about me and my problems.”
“Maybe that’s part of the reason for going to therapy,” he suggests. “Maybe you need to work on yourself a little bit before you can go around helping Kendall.”
“Maybe.” I tilt my head in his direction.
“Have you thought about going to couple’s therapy?”
I haven’t. And it comes as a shock to me that we haven’t even thought about it.
The resources are there for us. We have health insurance to cover the costs, much like it does for our own respective therapy sessions.
A mediator would help us make our conversations productive rather than destructive. Why haven’t we considered it?
“I take that as a no,” he says when his question is met with silence.
“It’s something I brought up to Teeny before she ended things.
In hindsight, it was a shitty thing for me to ask.
It was already too late for us and I was practically badgering her to give me another chance, but I was desperate. And I’m thinking you are too.”
I smirk through a nod. “When did you get so wise and enlightened?”
He chuckles. “I think right around the time I lost your sister.”
I don’t have a flippant comeback for that.
Instead, I smirk. Teeny is so much better off than she was when she was with Leo.
I see it in the way she glows. She flits through life with a kind of deftness I’m proud of.
My baby sister who finally found her place.
And though it took some time to get here, Leo is learning to live with the consequences of his actions, without being some petulant man child who blames everyone else for his mistakes.
I guess there is hope for all. Even at a time when everything feels so hopeless.
“If you’ll take some advice from an old divorcée who willingly eats more pepperoni pizza than I’d like to admit…”
I silently nod.
“Go get her,” he says, his lips a solemn line as he reads my reaction. “Tell her you aren’t giving up.”
I nod again, my head bobbing up and down with conviction. “Yeah.”