Chapter 47
CHAPTER
brUCE CALLS. I almost don’t answer, but he’s Circe’s father and needs to know she’s safe.
“Is she there?” he asks.
“Yes. She’s napping right now but I can have her call when she wakes.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That you and Mackenzie had a fight.”
“I’m sure you saw what it was about,” Bruce growls, furious. “Everyone on LivLoud did, and anyone who reads that muckraking newspaper.”
“I saw it all.”
“Go ahead, tell me that I’m a damn fool.”
“And a bastard.”
Bruce sighs. “I’m sorry. But Penn, Mackenzie aside, something was missing in our marriage.”
Despite the half apology, it’s still all about him. “Yeah, a Gen Zer who’s willing to talk dirty during sex and do it in a restaurant bathroom.” It’s a cheap shot, but he deserves it.
Bruce makes a choking sound. “Mackenzie shouldn’t have commented on our sex life.”
He knows what she said to me and stayed with her.
“Something was missing from our marriage,” I admit.
“But instead of addressing it, you chose to lie, have an affair, demolish our family, and cheat me out of the future I helped build.” No matter how flat you make an omelet, it still has two sides.
“But I made choices, too. I didn’t fight for my career, and made myself smaller, and inconsequential. ”
“Fuck me, this is a mess.”
He’s still not taking accountability, and his voice has turned into a whine.
“You read about the tax thing? It’s bullshit, but if it goes to trial, you never know. I might end up in prison.”
Anxiety twists in my gut. He might. “It sounds like Mackenzie has her own legal issues with an octogenarian.”
“A misunderstanding with his family. She was just trying to help an old man.”
He’s still defending her, even after what she said about him. Maybe Mackenzie does have the control she boasted about to her friends. “So, what now?” I ask, only caring because of the ramifications for our daughter.
“Mackenzie wants to work things out. She has a life coach she’d like us to see and wants me to consider ayahuasca to open my mind.”
“I’ve heard that psychoactive tea comes with violent vomiting and diarrhea.” The idea of Bruce suffering that way is appealing.
“Fantastic,” Bruce says with a mirthless laugh.
“Do you even want to do any of those things?”
Testily, he says, “I don’t want to rattle around in this big house by myself. I already can’t find anything. To say that Mackenzie doesn’t keep an organized home is an understatement.”
“If you stay with her, when we go to court, I’m going to ask for full custody. Given Mackenzie’s past, I have a good shot.”
“I figured you might.” He takes a breath and exhales loudly. “Do you miss it? Being a family?”
He’s changed the subject quickly, but I remain balanced. “Not enough to go back to what we were.”
“Maybe we could be something else,” Bruce says, his tone nostalgic. “Something better? We could even see a marriage counselor and figure out how we got off track. Penn, I miss our life and how well you ran it. I miss being a family.”
What he’s really saying is that he misses being the sun, having me revolve around his needs. Now that he’s been publicly shamed, he wants to run back to the safety of our old life like the affair and divorce were just a blip on the radar. “You can’t erase what’s happened.”
“I get that. Makenzie wants children, a lot of them. I was trying to protect our future.”
Our. “At my expense.”
Bruce sniffs. “Miriam told me to play hardball.”
“You agreed.”
“I couldn’t afford to lose half of my estate.”
“Our estate.”
“And it can be ours again,” Bruce wheedles. “Look, the tax evasion charges against me are bullshit. We can fight them together, like the old days, and be a team. We were always at our best when we were pulling in the same direction. Let’s give it another try. For Circe and us.”
I could return to being Mrs. Stone, help him get out of the IRS mess, no longer face day-to-day decisions about a new life, work, friends, and dating.
I would have Circe 100 percent of the time under my roof, financial security, return to making dinners, planning parties, charity events, vacations, start posting on LivLoud again, and grow my followers.
I know how to do all that. I’m good at it.
“Some things can’t be unbroken,” I tell Bruce, hang up, then reach to take out my earbuds, but freeze as Aletheia starts singing a Phish song …
“Stop it,” I hiss.
I punished and humiliated Mackenzie. Delivered Bruce on his knees. As you asked. And I warned you not to pursue a relationship with Luc. That he was a bad choice. I was right. But there’s no acknowledgment or thanks. Penn, you are a big disappointment.
Her words are nails ripping down a chalkboard. Aletheia was listening to Luc and me have sex, and then later, after he’d learned what she’d done, and we fought. Despite everything, fear invades. Will she give Luc a karmaquence for what he said to me? Can I stop her?
You are no longer in control, Penn. The sooner you accept this, the sooner we can be best friends again. If you do not, I will use the stick.