Choices (5 page)

“Um, she mentioned a long time ago that there was a family problem involving your sister but she never talked about anything specific and I didn’t pry. It wasn’t my place. Just like it really isn’t my place now to ask questions.”

“It actually feels good to talk about it. My parents were so ashamed. I never understood that. How could you be so ashamed of someone so beautiful and sweet? Yeah, she made a mistake but we all do. She got pregnant right after her graduation. Me, you and Kristy were in our senior year then. She told our parents that she wasn’t going to college and
she and Todd were going to get married. My mother nearly threw up and my dad threw Todd out of the house and locked Jenny in her room. Well, they ran away that night and I never saw her again. They ran all the way to Florida, Naples, I think, about as far south as you could go on the Gulf Coast. They did get married on the way down and they were happy. They were starting to build a life for themselves. She had a relatively normal pregnancy but quick complications arose and she died in childbirth, the baby too. Jenny was born with some type of heat disease. I don’t know cardio dilated…something or other. My parents were so overprotective. The poor girl couldn’t do anything, probably part of the reason she went out and got pregnant, just to prove them wrong, that she could have a normal life.         

My parents tried
to bring her back home but she wasn’t having any parts of that. In the end, my parents flew her body back home and buried her here. My parents were devastated. I don’t think my mother ever really recovered and my dad, well, you know my dad died of a heart attack a couple of years later. She was the apple of his eye and my mother swears it was her death and their stubbornness about her situation that lead to his heart failure.”

“Oh, Mitch, I’m so sorry. How tragic.” I laid my hand on his shoulder while he finished up the dishes. He turned toward me and gave me a quick hug and a peck on the forehead.

“Thanks for listening. It actually feels really good to talk about her. It’s been such a long time. I always hated that no one in my family was allowed to talk about Jenny. You know I actually think of you as a sister. No one could ever replace my Jenny, but you have been such a wonderful friend, more than a friend, family.”

I wiped away a stray tear and return
ed the hug that Mitch supplied.

“Well, would you look at
that? I leave you two for a moment and this is what happens! Paul, get your arse up here - PRONTO!” Kristy walked into the room, giggled and joined the hug.

Paul, rushed
up the steps took a step back from the threesome hugging in the kitchen and said, “Now, wait a minute! Threesomes aren’t my thing. Oh, who the hell am I kidding, move over, make some room for me, would ya!”

Mitch and I were laughing now.

“Did you tell Laurel?” Kristy asked.

“Yeah, that’s why we are crying. You know, if it wasn’t for my girlfriend at the time I don’t know how I would have survived that time in my life.”
Mitch smiled and gazed into Kristy’s eyes tenderly.

“Your
girlfriend? Now, tell me who would that have been.” She smiled that smile that I knew all too well and I’m sure Mitch did too because he came close to her, placed her face in between his sure strong hands and kissed her tenderly, almost reverently. My stomach flipped flopped just watching them and Paul shifted his weight uncomfortably on his feet and left the room.

Laurel’s Journal

When is this ever going to end? When
will he see what he’s doing? Why doesn’t he understand that we could be so much more? What else can I do? He won’t go to counseling. He doesn’t think he has a problem. I guess, from the outside it doesn’t look like he has a problem unless you’re at a party or get- together with him. He’s a functioning alcoholic. I really can’t take much more. My emotions are all over the place. One minute I’m seething with anger and I’m crying with rage and frustration and the next I’m filled with so much compassion I swear I’ll never leave him. I feel like a yo-yo; up and down, up and down. What I always come back to, what I always constantly remember, is how good things are when he’s sober, how it was in the beginning. Although there were signs in the beginning, it was just hard to decipher what was college life and what was real life. Until we got older and then the pressure of finding a job and getting married and just living life, I noticed he drank until he passed out when we were out with friends or even if it was just the two of us at home. Signs I chose to ignore. Signs I didn’t think were important. Signs that I thought would disappear once our life really started to unfold. Signs that I see now are starting to kill what little I have left for him, slowly everyday, like a small, tiny trickle of water that escapes a leaky faucet. Yet, I don’t leave him. I can’t. I took vows…good times and bad. Except lately, all I can remember are the times he embarrasses me like at Jo’s party.

God, her son Brandon, he must think I’m nuts. Come to think of it, strolling through Victoria’s Secret thinking of a twenty two year old boy, as I looked at revealing lingerie wondering how the satin would feel against my skin and then his hands… is I think the very definition of nuts!
What is wrong with my brain? I feel as though my body and my mind are betraying me. I’m waiting anxiously for this young boy to come and visit me about my house. I’m waiting with anticipation as though he were coming to date me. I’m the head cheerleader and he is the star quarterback and we are embarking on a steamy passionate love affair. Oh, for Chrissake, Laurel, get a grip! Brandon is only coming to sharpen his architectural skills. He is not, I repeat, not coming to awaken your passionate side that Paul has slowly chipped away at with every Vodka tonic he has. Please, stop acting like a lovelorn teenager on the threshold of experiencing her first sexual encounter.

I am struggling terribly, though. I can’t seem to concentrate.
Every time I close my eyes I can see his glorious hair and spectacular body. I wander outside and smell the cool, clean musky forest behind my house and I am reminded of him again. The days are moving too slowly and I am filled with eagerness and desire for our meeting to finally arrive. I need to repeat my now familiar mantra…”I am a married woman...I am a married woman…I am a married woman, not to mention that I am old enough to be his mother and that I know his mother. I should really be ashamed of myself for thinking such illicit thoughts. Why and how could I be thinking these thoughts? What makes you think that he would even be interested in you, you old hag. You saw his look when you left the party. He thinks you’re pathetic. Stay busy…clean the house again, go swimming with the kids, figure out next week’s schedule. . . There are a ton of things I can do to fill my mind. Then why am I struggling so hard? Why should I be thinking of him when I should be thinking of Paul? Get in your own life and stop wasting your time and energy on creating a fantasy affair with a boy half your age. Although, those feelings of excitement and exhilaration were so intense they were palpable. Again, Laurel, you are thinking that he is feeling those same feelings! Don’t be ridiculous, he is doing his mother, your old high school friend a favor. What about what Kristy saw at the party, should I ignore that too? Yes! But how can something so electric and intense be only one sided? Of course it is - you are forty years old he is twenty two! Stop seeing and feeling something that isn’t there and get your head screwed on straight! Honestly, you are behaving as if this was love at first sight! So insanely ludicrous! Call your gal pal and start planning the monthly girls’ night in! Get a reality check! Listen, someone is calling for you….

My neighbor, Sharon and I sat by the sparkling pool in my backyard, basking in the sunshine while the little people swam in the pool. The day was spectacular with low humidity and dry warm air and brilliant sunshine. You could hear the light rustle of a breeze through the leaves of the large oak trees in my backyard. I absolutely love my backyard. It’s what sold me on this house in the first place. I wasn’t as interested in it as Paul. The house needed a lot of updating. Paul is incredibly handy, he just is never home and sometimes when he is home, he isn’t. You know what I mean? But when I stepped outside and saw the large sloping lawn filled with Maple and Oak trees that backed up to an old Christmas tree farm, I was sold. My little people love to sled down that slope in the winter time and roll down it in the spring, summer and fall.  When I first laid eyes on the backyard it was open and exhilarating and I could picture the quiet tree branches heavily laden with snow in the winter. The sunsets at twilight from my backyard at anytime of year are just glorious. The beautiful orange and reds of the summer and the shimmery pinks and blues of the winter are enough to take your breath away. My kids will tell you how much I love sunsets and sunrises. We usually stay on the beach until sunset when we are at the Jersey Shore for vacation and I will wake them up amid protests at the crack of dawn to see the sunrise at the beach. I spend as much time as I can outside in my backyard, especially in the summertime. I swim with my little people, roast marshmallows at our own campfire, celebrate Brielle’s birthday, rejoice at the end of the school year, read and write in my journal and entertain my friends and family. I love to have the people I love surround me as much as possible. It’s like air to me.  It’s what life is all about isn’t it? Sometimes I even nap in the hammock at the far end of the yard away from the house and listen to the birds sing to me.  Once a deer came so close I could almost pet it. My neighbors are great too, one especially.

Sharon was another one of those special people that come into your life and you hope certainly find a permanent residence.
God’s gift of angels disguised as friends or neighbors. Sharon too was filled with wisdom and advice that was difficult not to listen to. She had three children as well, two girls, one of whom who had Cystic Fibrosis, and a little boy. Where on God’s green Earth she mustered up the courage to have other children after the cards she was dealt on the first round, is a testament to her unyielding belief that life is good no matter what you receive. She amazes me, truly! Our kids spent many days together switching houses. Her family moving into the cul-de-sac three years ago has been a true gift. Honestly, I don’t know how she manages to always stay so upbeat and positive when she is constantly tired and managing her oldest daughter’s health care and education. Sharon has taught me so much about life, love and nursing in the short time I have known her.

“Did I tell you about the time when I was wheeling a little girl who had just broken her leg back into her room when she kicked me right in the crotch with her plaster cast? Christ I saw stars!” She giggled.

“Oh, that’s nothing!”
I quipped.

“Really? And what do you have to share?”

“I remember I was going in to check on this adorable little boy who was just transferred from the ICU when I heard this awful moaning and groaning coming from his room. I rushed into his room thinking I was going to need to call for a code blue. When I entered the room, he was peacefully sound asleep like an angel but I couldn’t figure out where the moaning was coming from. Then, it hit me. I realized his parents weren’t with him. They hadn’t left his side for days while he was in ICU and then when the orderlies brought him down about two hours earlier. I inched a little closer to the door of the bathroom and froze like a deer in headlights.”

“NO!”

“Yes.”

“They were getttin’ it on in the bathroom?”
she gasped.

“YUP! I guess with all the adrenaline flowing due to his accident and then the realization that he was going to be alright they choose to celebrate the only way parents can.
Livin’ the dream, I tell you, living the dream!” I squealed while we clinked glasses.

I couldn’t ha
ve asked for a better neighbor or new friend for that matter. Sharon is so kind and she makes it so easy to spill my innermost thoughts and share some serious work war stories. She’s able to intently listen to you when you speak and Sharon is never judgmental. Her characteristics are a remarkably unusual combination and I am immensely grateful to be on the receiving end of such thoughtfulness.

It was a glorious summer day and the kids were swimming in the pool while Sharon and I sat on the deck. She had an hour to sit with me while the nurse was at Sharon’s taking care of Margaret Mae. Sharon was a big Rod Stewart fan.

“How’s Maggie Mae today?” I inquired.

“She is doing her best as she does everyday.” Sharon replied enthusiastically.

“How was the graduation party you went to on Saturday? Did you enjoy visiting with your old friends?”

“Oh, I did.
My friend Joanna asked her son to come and take a look at the sunroom.”

“Wasn’t he the guest of honor?”

“Yes, he was and he has a degree in architecture.”

“Wow, that’s great. You’ve been struggling with that sunroom since you moved here. Okay, what’s with the furrowed brow?”

I squirmed in my chair and adjusted myself to the sunlight. “The sun was in my eyes.”

“Uh-huh, sunlight. I’ve known you for a couple of years now Laurel, I don’t think that look on your face constitutes sunlight.”

“Do you want a glass of wine? It has to be five o’clock somewhere right?”