Something Had to Give (47 page)

“So Jason spent the holiday at home alone?”

“My guess is that he went to his parents’ house. I don’t really know though, haven’t talked to him.”

“I take it things aren’t getting any better at home then?”

“Nope, not at all. They’re actually the worst they’ve ever been since his proposal.”

“Wait! What proposal?”

“I told you Shanna, he wanted to go to the courthouse the day after Thanksgiving.”

“Umm, no you didn’t tell me that Cheryl because I would have fussed you out for turning him down.”

“Come on Shanna. Why would I go through the act of marrying someone who can’t even stand to be in the same room with me? Did you forget how he treated me Thanksgiving? We aren’t ready!”

“Ok Cheryl. There are millions of girls out here that would die for a proposal. That could have been the step you guys needed to turn things around.”

I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but it wasn’t really shocking coming from Shanna. I knew she wanted desperately for Craig to propose, but I still wanted for her to be on my side and tell me that I had made the right choice.

“So what’s the plan once you go back to Tennessee?”

“Who says I’m going back? Maybe I’ll just stay here.”

“That’s a huge decision Cheryl. Do you think you should talk to Jason before moving his kids out of the state?”

“Maybe. I doubt he even cares.”

“I hope you’re wrong and that he does care. But either way, try and talk to him first so that you can walk away knowing you tried as hard as possible if it comes to that.”

That was the only thing she said that made any sense to me. As tempting as it was to never go back to Tennessee, I knew I had to try and talk to Jason about it first. It was definitely a conversation I was not looking forward too. However, I still had a week left in Charlotte where I could enjoy my time away from the tension and stress. That was exactly what I planned to do. I wanted the week to go by slowly, but of course that was not the case. We brought the New Year in at home. I wanted to be happy along with the rest of my family, but I couldn’t help but look around at my parents, Aunt Michelle and Michael, Shanna and Craig, and wish that I had my whole family there too. I swallowed my pride and asked Jason to come down for the New Year and received a text back that said “working.” I tried to brush it off, but it really bothered me. Aside from being the only one there without a mate, The New Year meant I had to go back and face reality. It was back to Tennessee, back to Jason, back to unhappiness. I hoped that two weeks in Charlotte would give me a refreshed mind and heart, but in the end, I doubted there was any amount of time away that could have helped us.

∞∞∞

The ride back to Tennessee took much longer than it should have. I intended to get up early as I had done when we left for Charlotte and be on the road while Brandon was still asleep. When the alarm went off, I hit snooze three times and then fell back asleep for another hour. I just could not get out of bed. Part of it was that I was tired from not sleeping well, but mostly, it was me dreading going back and having to deal with life. I laid there with my eyes closed, wishing and praying that when I opened my eyes everything that was wrong in my life would be fixed. For once, I just wanted there to be peace. When we finally got on the road, Brandon was wide-awake meaning we had to stop frequently when he was tired of being in his car seat. Normally, having to stop so much would have frustrated me, but it didn’t bother me. Each time I let Brandon run around a lot longer than I should have, but I felt like I just needed to soak in the little piece of sanity I had left. At our last stop, Daddy had called for the fourth time to see if I had made it back yet and I knew I had to stop procrastinating and get back home.

It was almost 9pm when we finally turned onto our street. We had literally been on the road all day and were both exhausted. When we pulled up to the door there was a PODS storage unit parked out front blocking the driveway. The minute I saw it I knew something was up and that it wasn’t going to be good. I was so tired though, I hoped whatever it was could be dealt with in the morning. I just wanted to sleep. I got to the door carrying a sleeping Brandon on top of my huge belly and my key would not work. At first I thought I was using the wrong key since I was tired. After I tried all the keys on the ring to no avail, it all clicked. Jason had changed the locks. I could only figure that that all my stuff was probably loaded in the PODS unit. There was nothing I could do. It was his place, my name was not on the deed and we weren’t married. There was no point in calling or knocking on the door. Chances were that he wouldn’t answer and if he did, it would just be a huge shouting match that went nowhere. As hard as it was to leave peacefully, I loaded Brandon back into the car and left.

We ended up in a hotel not too far from the house. After I got Brandon settled down, I sat on the end of the bed and it all hit me. I was pregnant and homeless with a kid. I couldn’t believe I slacked off in Charlotte and didn’t come up with both a plan A and plan B for when I got back. A piece of me was foolishly holding on to a fairy tale dream that everything was going to work out. Stupid, stupid me. The sound of my phone ringing broke me out of thoughts just as I was on the verge of tears. Once again it was Daddy checking on me. My first thought was to ignore the call, but I knew he would be worried about us, so I answered.

“Hey Daddy.” I tried to put on my best brave voice.

“Hey, I was calling to check on you two. You back home now?”

“Yeah, I meant to call, but I wanted to get Brandon in bed since it was already late.”

“That’s what I figured. Was Jason there to help you get everything in the house?”

It was the first time in months that Daddy had asked anything about Jason. Why he picked that night to ask about him was so bizarre to me that it took me a minute to respond. “I was able to get it all in, I didn’t need help.” I was trying so hard to keep it together, but my voice cracked in the end and I knew he would catch it.

“Cheryl, is everything ok?”

“No Daddy, it’s not.”

I cried as I tried to tell Daddy that Jason had packed my things and changed the locks. I wasn’t sure how he could understand anything that I said. He was quiet for some time which made me think that he didn’t understand or needed a minute to take it all in. Whichever was the case, his response was exactly what I needed to hear.

“Hang tight, I’m on the way.”

At some point I was able to fall asleep into a deep peaceful slumber. When I awoke to Brandon tapping me on the face, I felt like I had been asleep for weeks. I felt so good that it took me looking around the room and realizing that I was in a hotel and remembering why I was there to bring me back to reality. Daddy dropping everything and driving down in the middle of the night meant everything to me. I wasn’t sure what time he had gotten on the road, but I figured he would be arriving pretty soon and it gave me a lot of anxiety. As much as his arrival made me nervous, sitting there waiting was a lot worse. I felt helpless and like I should’ve been able to prevent it or fix it myself. Never in a million years though did I think that Jason would stoop so low as to put us out though. The more I sat there and thought about my stuff sitting outside the house and my key not working, the more upset I got. I wanted to call him so badly and call him every name in the book. I didn’t because I knew he wouldn’t answer and the sensible side of me knew that I didn’t need to give him that satisfaction. It was time to move on and not look back.

Daddy arrived around 9am, just after Brandon and I had gotten back to the room from the breakfast buffet. Michael was with him and they both looked totally exhausted. My feelings of relief were quickly followed by feelings of guilt. I apologized profusely to them for making them drive such a long distance overnight. If it had been a burden to them, they didn’t say. Instead, Daddy hugged me tightly.

“No more apologizing. This is what I’m here for. Now, let’s find you a place to live.”

Right away we started calling around to different apartment communities to see who would let me move in immediately. After we made a list of places, we set out to look at them. By the time we got to the fourth place, I was tired of looking. It was difficult to keep up with what was different and what I liked and didn’t like. At that point I didn’t care which place I ended up in. I just wanted to be done looking. Daddy must have sensed how overwhelming the whole process was for me and suggested I go with the last place we looked at and I agreed. While the property manager prepared the paperwork, we set out to find furniture and household items. Mentally, the list in my head of everything I needed just kept growing and it sickened me how much it was going to cost on top of the fees I would owe to move in. Even with us picking just the basics and searching for bargains, I cringed every time Daddy had to put large totals on his credit card. He never complained, never cringed, never acted like it bothered him in the slightest. For years I questioned how much I meant to Daddy and wondered if I meant to him as much as Shanna did. That day I made a promise to myself that I would never question it again.

The last thing we had to do was to go back to Jason’s to get my stuff from the PODs storage unit. We all agreed that it was best for me not to go, but it was still hard to stay back since there was so much I wanted to say to him. I tried to keep busy entertaining Brandon in between trying to put up the things we had just brought, but my mind kept wandering. The longer they were gone, the more nervous I would get thinking that the lack of sleep and stress of the day had caused Daddy to spazz out on Jason. My other thought was that Jason was being a jerk about letting them have my stuff. There was plenty to do at the apartment, but I kept finding myself pacing back and forth while checking my phone for missed calls from Daddy. After what seemed like hours, I finally saw Daddy’s truck turning into the neighborhood with a truck bed loaded down with stuff. Finally, I could relax. It didn’t take long to get my stuff into the apartment and when we sat down to eat the pizza that had been delivered, I couldn’t resist any longer.

“How was he when you got there?”

“It was fine. He acted like this was a casual breakup and like this was the plan for you to move out. I didn’t ask any questions or anything, though I wanted to knock his teeth out for what he did.”

“Did he ask where we were or how we were doing?”

There are questions that you are dying to ask even though you don’t really want to know the answer and that definitely was one. In a way I hoped that he felt bad in some form or fashion for what he had done. Daddy’s response confirmed what I already knew deep down. Yet, it was still a hard pill to swallow.

“He asked how Brandon was and I just said that you both were fine and left it at that. But that’s enough about him. He’s going to realize very soon how huge of a mistake he made and when he comes crawling back, you can tell him to fuck off.”

It wasn’t often that I heard Daddy talk like that. So when I heard it, it caught me off guard and it was a much-needed laugh.

That night we all settled into our make shift beds since it was a few days before my furniture was to be delivered. Everyone had fallen asleep immediately after what had been a very long and exhausting day. I wanted to fall asleep as fast as they did. I needed to fall asleep as fast as they did, but I couldn’t. I lay there staring at the ceiling thinking of all the things I wanted to say to Jason. With my phone clutched tightly in my hands, I weighed the pros and cons of reaching out to him in a civil manner versus telling him how I really felt about him. I knew being civil was the best thing to do considering we had kids together. Still, everything in me was pushing for me to dial his number, hit send, and get it all off my chest. Even though it undoubtedly would not help the situation at all, I was sure it would temporarily make me feel better. Oddly, it was hearing Daddy snoring in the living room that stopped me. When I heard him, I thought of how calmly he had dealt with Jason earlier and how smoothly it had gone getting my things. Though I knew it was easier for him to deal with Jason since he wasn’t the one thrown out of the home, I knew it couldn’t have been easy to be so civil. As much as I didn’t want to, I tossed the phone across the room so I wouldn’t be tempted to call. My Daddy had been my hero that day. I knew when I thanked him for everything; he would think I was referring to helping me find a new place and furnishing it. The thing he wouldn’t know is that he had done so much more for me that weekend. It was more than I would ever be able to put into words.

∞∞∞

It took some time for Brandon and me to settle into our new life and routine. There were several days after picking up Brandon from daycare that I would begin driving towards our old home before it hit me that we didn’t live there anymore. Every time it happened, I was reminded of the circumstances of why we didn’t live there anymore and it would make me angry. My anger was quickly followed by sadness and it would put such a damper on my day. It got to the point where I would set reminders on my phone to remind me when I got in the car in the evenings to drive a certain way. All that did was remind me daily of how much my life sucked with little chance of it getting better. I cried pretty much every night before bed and I wasn’t sure if it was due to how much my life had changed or because I missed Jason. How could I miss him? He put his pregnant girlfriend and son out; he didn’t deserve for me to miss him. Shanna kept telling me that things would get better. She told me so often that it annoyed me to the point that I cut our conversations short before she had the chance to say it again. It didn’t seem like things ever got better or only got better for a little while. I in no way believed that things would get better. Instead I knew I would have to create a new normal for myself and learn to live with it.