The Mistress, Part Two (14 page)

              Preston really did want his family back. Not in the traditional sense like many women hoped for, but in the sense that he did really love his children. The first step to that, though, was repairing his always-strained relationship with Lucas. Marissa didn’t like blindsiding her children, but she had been asking Lucas for weeks to see his dad. But he wouldn’t.

              Because of his reluctance, and the fact that she knew that it was important they rekindled their relationship, she decided to set up a meeting between the two of them. Without Lucas’s permission, and without his knowledge. It was the best way. She was going to force him into the same room as his father.

              She set up the living room for the rendezvous. Preston knew about it; Lucas didn’t. She knew the two could always bond over food. She told Preston to come hungry, and Lucas was always hungry. The party trays were littered all over the living room; she had definitely gone overboard. She knew that as she looked around the room. There were countless trays placed out, filled with chicken wings, jalapeno poppers, mozzarella sticks, and three full-on cheese and vegetable platters.

              There was enough food in the living room to feed an entire NFL football team. Or maybe just enough to feed a growing boy and a really hungry father. She laughed. She probably
had
overestimated the food situation by a touch.

It seemed like only a moment before that Lucas had been so happy to be home from school and his face was bright with joy at all the food. But when she looked into his eyes when his dad greeted him, she saw a boy with his face screwed up into a seething rage. She watched as Preston tried to go against his will and pull him into a hug.

The pain that Lucas seemed to exude from his facial expression and sudden squirming caused Marissa to cringe. He was dramatic, but this was more than that. Lucas was more upset than she had ever anticipated. She wanted to groan aloud and save him from what she had just inflicted upon him.

She felt horrible. She wondered if she should have tried to do this in another setting, therapy, perhaps. There were clearly issues here, and it was far beyond what she thought. Lucas grunted under his dad’s forced hug, and she could tell he was trying to dead weight when he buckled under the embrace. The efforts were almost in a slow motion, it was that tense, that awkward.

When Preston finally gave up on struggling with him to merely give him a hug, Lucas fell to the floor. He had been throwing his weight down so that Preston would free him, and when he did – he seemed to become even angrier.

"Don't ever fucking touch me again!" he screamed, outraged, before turning on his heel and leaving the room. She watched – a little in shock at the harsh profanity that had escaped him – as he pounded his way into the foyer and up the stairs, stomping as he walked up them.

Marissa found herself walking over to Preston. His face crestfallen, she smoothed his back gently, his muscles tensing under her touch. "It's okay," she soothed. "He's just going through a lot right now. He'll come around. He always has."

"He hates me," Preston spoke suddenly, in a hoarsely sad voice. It was a voice she had never really heard from him before.

"No he doesn't. He's just going through a lot. You really messed him up – but we will get it all sorted out,” she replied again in a soft manner. She was talking to him with an even more soothing voice than she had meant to. It made her shudder to be nice to him, but if she was making steps at forgiving him, she would have to be civil. If she wanted him to have a relationship with their children she would have to be an ally rather than an enemy. She would have to be a bigger person than Preston Lancer had apparently ever been.

“I’m going upstairs,” he said, and she wondered if that was a good idea or not. “I mean, we already blindsided him. May as well finish what we started. We need to talk. I know what I need to do…”

With that, he left. He disappeared, and judging by his words, he didn’t expect her to follow. He didn’t want her to be his mediator. He wanted to do it alone, and she would respect that. She could only hope that Lucas would be OK.

~~~

It had been a while since Preston had gone upstairs to be with their son, so she had to imagine what was being said all the while. That was, until she heard the conversation increase in volume. Lucas spoke in detail of the torture his father put him through at school with his horrific actions towards Darren’s mother – including wrongfully terminating her. He yelled about Haley and the fact that he couldn’t trust him; she heard his voice in its entirety. Not just the words coming from it. She heard the anger, the hurt.

She heard Lucas yell about his attack and how with every punch he endured his face had flung strangely with a forceful energy that he had never known before while a mixture of spit and blood hurled powerfully from his mouth and onto the ground.

It brought back the reality of seeing his face beaten and bruised that day – full force, without containment. She knew what Haley had always thought; she had Mother Bear syndrome, and perhaps she had – but seeing her baby as battered as he was that day was enough to emotionally scar her for life.

Lucas had been seeing a counselor three times a week for what had happened to him. It was low key, not quite a therapy session as much as a big brother kind of program. He was being counseled while they played sports and whatnot. She knew it probably wasn’t necessary, but it put her mind at ease. She knew that she was probably the one that needed counseling after the incident, but it seemed to help him.

He was expressing himself with his father in a way that he never had before. He described the blood coming from his mouth like that of a sprinkler system as he gasped for air. She couldn’t even imagine it, and she didn’t want to imagine it. She heard that he was speaking of the physical pain, but – being better at expressing himself – also went on about the emotional pain being much worse.

“I felt betrayed by you! You were my dad, and you let me down! You said you’d take care of everything, and you didn’t! You just decided to have sex with Haley and forget all about me! I came to you, and you didn’t help me!” He was screaming, but his voice cracked with sadness the further he went on with his argument. “Why didn’t you help me!” she heard him ask, a little softer than the time before – and she knew he was sobbing.

She heard Preston respond, but she couldn’t quite make it out. His voice was soft and sturdy, and then there was silence.

“You’ve never loved me as much as you love Sophie!” bellowed out suddenly before she heard a hard smacking sound. She ran up the room, hoping with everything she had that Preston hadn’t just hit their son. Running with a fierce passion, she reached the top of the stairs in no time, and she saw Preston through Lucas’s half-opened door holding his jaw.

"I deserved that. You will never hit me again. Do you understand? I’m your father, and it doesn’t matter how angry you are at me, you will not disrespect me. We're even, so can I talk now?" Preston said calmly, still holding his jaw. She couldn’t believe her small-framed twelve-year-old had just hit her almost-ex-husband in the face and actually done damage.

She wasn’t happy that he had hit his father, not at all, but she felt it was necessary for him to get his emotions out. They needed to work it out. She didn’t interfere. Instead, she just watched through the cracked door, thanking God that she had the sense to send Sophie out with friends.

"Even?" she heard Lucas laugh. "Twelve more punches to the face and then we might be even, and then maybe one sly knife to the heart, because I’m heartbroken!" Lucas finished angrier, the callous laugh gone by the end of his words.

"If I let you hit me twelve more times, would you listen?" Preston asked, desperately. He took his hand from his jaw, and stepped closer to his son.

Marissa was without words. She knew he wanted him to hear him out, but at the same time, she wondered what he could possibly say. Could he say anything to truly make a difference in the way Lucas felt?

"You know what, no! It isn't worth half of the pain you caused me!" Lucas replied as he shoved him powerfully in the chest.

"What about the pain I had?" Preston yelled back, shoving the boy backwards until he fell onto the bed behind him. "Hit me…kick me…whatever the hell you have to do – just listen!" he breathed desperately.

Preston crouched low until he sat on Lucas’s bed alongside him. He put his head into his hands. Lucas’s silence seemed to encourage him to go on, and Marissa listened intently to him breathe into his hands as he spoke, a breath that she knew all too well. It was the breath of holding back tears.

“I messed up, Luke, but I don’t want you to ever think that I love your sister more than I love you. I don’t. I love you both. Equally. I have always had a difficult time showing my love to you because you remind me of myself so much that I hate to admit it. I don’t want it. I don’t want you to be me.

“I want you to be better than me. Luke, I have problems. I have problems with myself. I need help. I don’t know who I am, and I look to women to tell me who I am. I loved your mother – I really did. A part of me still does. A part of me also loved Haley. The other women – they were just filler, a self-esteem boost to an otherwise really shitty self-image.

“I would have never done what I had done if I had known it’d all turn into this, if I had even thought about it. I woke up one day, Luke – and I wasn’t a young man anymore, and I wasn’t in a crazy new and exciting life. Nothing was exciting for me anymore; it was all dull. It was all routine. What I didn’t do was look at you kids! I was starting to do all that after I had already messed up!

“I never meant for you to get hurt – physically or emotionally. I should have been a better father. You are old enough to know that your mother and I aren’t fixing our relationship. It’s over. You know that. I know you do. But my relationship with you kids isn’t over. It never will be. I can divorce your mother – I can’t divorce you kids.

“You’re both a part of me, the best parts of me, probably the only part of me that actually is good. I want you to give me the chance to be a father to you. I know lately I haven’t been. I know lately I’ve been an idiot. I know I alienated Haley from your life, and I am so sorry. I know you care about her; but son, so do I. I may not love her the way that I let her think that I did, but I do care for her. And I will do what it takes to get her back into your life, okay? Your mom may not want Haley to be in
her
life, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be in
yours
. That’s just something that the two of us will have to discuss.”

It was the longest Marissa had heard Preston speak in a long time, and not only that, it was the apologetic rant to end all apologetic rants. It made her think, and she knew it made Lucas do the same because she looked in the crack and saw him sitting on the bed beside his father, stunned, and not speaking.

She had no issue allowing the kids to see Haley. She just wondered how she was going to fit into the kids’ lives. She wondered how she was going to fit into
her
life, and until she figured it out, she thought it was best for the woman to keep her distance.

She knew she wanted to forgive Haley, and part of her already had. She hoped that she could fully one day. She hoped they could repair what was broken, but hearing how upset Lucas was – still, after all this time – it was clear that she had to bring the woman back into the kids’ lives. So she called her. She invited her to a dinner, and she explained that Preston would be there as well. It was time for everyone to bury the hatchet. It was time for them all to move forward.

~~~

A slight vibration against her caused her to jump slightly. She dug deeply into her pocket to retrieve the phone; who would be calling her now? She cursed under her breath when she saw the contact name plastered on the screen: Joseph. She was in disbelief. Part of her wanted to answer it, but part of her was still just so angry at all of it.

She hadn’t spoken to him since the argument, if you could even call it an argument. It was more like a fucking insane bomb that finally exploded, revealing itself. She couldn’t believe he had lied to her for so long – but really, it should be easy to believe. Lying to Marissa seemed to be a popular choice among everyone as of late.

Before she even realized what she was doing, she slid the “answer” tab and spoke into the phone. “Hello?” she asked, obviously sounding annoyed.

“Marissa?” The voice was hoarse but she knew it was him.

“Yes, Joseph,” she answered; the feeling of a dreadful lump rose in her throat once again.

“Can we please talk?” he asked her, his voice still ridiculously hoarse. She could tell he had been crying. But she was tired of talking. She was tired of everyone lying to her; she was sick of trying to keep herself calm when it felt like the entire world around her was crumbling and melting into a steamy pile of shit.

She was afraid of falling into the depths of no return – she was scared of becoming damaged. She hated having the feeling that she was a ticking time bomb, awaiting the moment the clock hit zero – whenever that may be – just to explode upon everything she had left.

There was one thing that was sure after all of this. Marissa was not as fragile as she thought she was. She was much stronger than she ever dreamed, and she had her father to thank for that. Without his guidance and support – from childhood to beyond the grave – she would have never had the guts to do all of this, let alone with the composure and elegance that she felt she possessed all the while.