When It All Falls Apart (Book One) (2 page)

Robin’s cell phone rang and she glanced down at the number. “Shit. It’s Trey.” She tapped it. “Hello? Really? Ugh, yuck...Fine...I guess...Give me ten minutes. Bye.” She tucked her phone back into her purse and started clearing up the table, her years of being a server kicking in automatically with the signal that it was time to go. “Emma has an ear infection. She keeps saying it feels like there’s a bug in her ear stinging her. That’s like the second one this month. Ugh. I do not want to have to spend tonight in the ER.”

The reminder of our kids simultaneously turned on all of our mom switches and suddenly we all started tidying up, finding our purses, and Larissa motioned for the server to bring our checks. Unconsciously, we all felt guilty for taking time away from our families when one of them might get sick while we were off gossiping about affairs and drinking wine. In a flurry of lipstick and signatures, we were all scurrying out the door, quickly hugging and pecking cheeks before heading to our cars.

I slid into my seat and put the keys into the ignition. The car purred to life easily, but I kept it in park. I didn’t want to go home. Larissa’s confession had reminded me of That Night and I did everything in my power to keep from thinking about That Night. I refused to call it by name even in my own thoughts. Calling it by name made it real and I liked to pretend as if it had never happened.

The first few weeks after That Night were the hardest. I struggled constantly with wanting to tell David about it. What I’d done burned my throat like bile and threatened to explode in a fiery tirade. I couldn’t count the number of times the weight of it had become unbearable and I’d been compelled to tell him.

“David, I have something to—”

I must have started the sentence over ten times, but as soon as he would turn to give me his full attention and I looked into his innocent blue eyes, I would remember what I had promised myself. I had vowed never to tell or talk to anyone about it. I forced myself to tuck it away into the far corners of my mind, hoping a day would come when it no longer existed. I believed it couldn’t hurt forever and the pain would go away eventually. I’d spent forty years creating the life I wanted and 30 seconds didn’t have to ruin a lifetime. I wasn’t going to let that happen. So, each time That Night rose in my throat, I gritted my teeth and clenched my jaw until the words went away and the secret stayed buried.

I
was relieved to find David asleep when I got home. He was curled up under our silver comforter with another pillow on top of his head. He always slept as if he was trying to smother himself. I tiptoed down the hallway to Rori’s room. David had left the door cracked open how she liked it. She never let you shut it the entire way and would burst into tears immediately if the crack of light disappeared. She was sprawled out on her twin bed. Her covers were a tangled mess and her brown hair was sweaty and covering half of her face while her Dora pajama top was halfway up her chest exposing her chubby belly as if she’d been wrestling in her sleep for the last few hours.

I pulled her pajama top down and brushed her tangled hair out of her chubby face which lost more and more of its baby fat every day. Her eyes were shut peacefully framed in the same thick black eyelashes that outlined my own brown eyes. The beautiful eyelashes made up for the unruly eyebrows that if she was anything like me she would grow to hate as a teenager as she fought against the ever present threat of a uni-brow. I tucked her skinny legs back under her blanket and brought her favorite pink puppy that she’d had since birth up to her cheek. She automatically nuzzled her cheek against the soft fur so worn that patches were missing on both sides and rolled over onto her stomach. It was easier to be attached when she looked like me. I remembered when she was born whispering a silent thanks to a God I didn’t believe in that she looked like me.

I wondered how her day went. David hadn’t called or texted me to say anything and I used to look at his silence as “no news means good news,” but lately I was beginning to think he didn’t want to talk to me. We had fought more in the last month than we had fought in our entire decade together. We’d always been one of those couples that other couples loved to hate because we got along so well and never raised our voices when we were angry.

“How do you do it?” Robin had asked me countless times over the years. She and Trey got into terrible screaming matches on a regular basis. They had the kind of fights where you were embarrassed to look your neighbors in the eye the next day.

I would always shrug my shoulders and say, “No idea. We’re just lucky, I guess.”

I couldn’t take credit for our peace. David was the one who kept us grounded. He always had. Unlike me, he absolutely hated to get worked up over anything and stayed calm no matter. I lost it when things didn’t go my way or according to plans even though I did my best to hide any form of emotional upset from other people because I hated anyone to see me unraveled.

We had met during one of the rare moments where I freaked out in public. I had walked out of my apartment on my way to interview with a prospective employer and discovered the rear left tire on my white Toyota Corolla was completely flat. It wasn’t a big deal at first. I took pride in being self-sufficient and never needing a man which meant I knew how to do things like check my oil and change a tire. I put the wrench on the lug nuts and they didn’t move. They refused to budge even when I jumped on the wrench. David happened to be wandering into the parking lot just as I was kicking the tire, swearing, and starting to cry. I hated being late and didn’t want to jeopardize my chances at landing the job I wanted.

I heard a laugh behind me. “Um, you want some help with that?”

I turned around and didn’t recognize him from the apartment unit. “I don’t need help. I know how to change a tire. The lug nuts are stuck.”

He nodded at me, but the corners of his mouth were turned up in a half smirk. “Really? That’s weird. Mind if I try?”

I rolled my eyes at him disgusted about the flat tire, being late, and insulted that he didn’t think I knew what I was doing. “Go right ahead, Mr. Fix It. Knock yourself out.” I stepped aside while he proceeded to do everything I had just done. He assumed the crouched position next to the tire, gripped the wrench, and attempted to turn it. Nothing. I watched as his forehead lined with exertion as he tried again and again, but the lug nuts still didn’t move. Before long, he was standing on the wrench in the same position he’d found me in and trying to press it down with his weight.

“I guess you’re right,” he shrugged. “This tire isn’t going to come off.”

“Shocking,” I said.

“Do you need a ride?” he asked.

I did. I was already going to be late and if I took the bus I’d be even later since I had to go all the way downtown. I sized him up and noticed how good looking he was. He looked like he had just stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch ad except he didn’t smell like the cologne that violently assaulted you each time you walked within a block of the store. He had blond hair that was bleached nearly white in some spots and his muscular arms protruding out from his t-shirt were golden brown which meant he spent lots of time outside. His eyes were a crystalline baby blue that stared right through you even behind the black frames of his glasses. His lips were small and turned into a half smile even in resting position. His jeans were slung low on his hips and worn out on the bottoms from dragging on the ground. He wore a pair of Old Navy flip flops. I didn’t know any serial killers who wore Old Navy flip flops so I agreed.

“Fine,” I huffed as if he was the one responsible for making the tire flat and ruining my entire morning.

He put me at ease as we drove down town, a task which was nearly impossible to do whenever my plans got ruined. I was even smiling and laughing by the time we pulled up in front of the tall office building. He waited for me to finish my interview and then helped me tow my car to the auto mechanic. As it turned out, when I’d gotten new tires a month earlier, the machine they used to put the lug nuts on had malfunctioned and the air pressure had gotten so hot that it melted the lug nuts onto my tire. David loved to tell the story of how we met and exaggerated my melt down a bit more each time he told it because he loved to make people laugh. It was one of the things I’d always loved about him, but his sense of humor seemed to fade more and more with each passing day.

He’d become a person I didn’t recognize ever since Rori had been born and his transformation had grown to new heights since she started getting sick. I wasn’t bothered by her recurrent bladder infections because lots of girls got them at her age. Being four meant she was determined to do everything herself. She no longer allowed either of us to help her wipe and I was pretty sure that the front to back wiping routine we’d drilled into her head before she was even out of diapers was not happening as often as it should. I had a strong feeling wiping amounted to a quick pat or an equally unhygienic game of “let’s explore what’s down there.” It wasn’t nearly as disturbing to me as it was to David that she’d had three bladder infections in the last month and had spent all of February on an anti-biotic.

Our first ever foray into the realm of spousal screaming matches happened after I had asked him if he was being sensitive to her bladder infections because he was afraid someone might become suspicious of him molesting her.

“What? What the hell are you saying?” he demanded the moment the question had innocently come out of my mouth.

“Look. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just saying...I mean, I’m just asking if it could be possible you’re worried someone might think you’re messing with her and that’s why you’re so upset about it?”

He narrowed his eyes to slits and shook his head. “That’s sick. Just sick. I can’t even believe you’d bring that up!”

“You can’t believe I’d bring that up? Really?” I asked. David was hypersensitive to anything that hinted of sexual abuse because he’d spent most of his late teenage years helping his mother through a nasty legal battle after his stepfather had molested his two half-sisters.

“I’m disgusted by you.”

He had never said anything so derogatory to me before. I waited for him to realize what he’d said and apologize, but he jumped up from the couch, took the stairs two at a time to our bedroom, and slammed the door like a fifteen-year-old girl in the throes of PMS. I sat on the couch stunned. He’d never even come close to calling me a name. It took me a few moments to gather my composure, but eventually I followed him upstairs and found him lying on our bed watching Sportscenter on the TV hanging from the wall across from the bed. I took a seat on the edge of the bed hesitantly, smoothing out the wrinkles in our silver comforter. “Listen. I’m sorry if I upset you. I didn’t mean anything by it. I honestly thought you might be worried about people thinking that about you and that was why you were so worried about her. I didn’t realize you were really just that worried about her.”

He turned his gaze away from the TV and looked me in the eye. “Well, somebody’s got to worry about her.”

His words stung. I stood up.

“Fuck you.” I spit the words out at him and this time I was the one to turn around and leave. I had spent the night on the couch trying to sleep. We’d never slept apart before. Other couples did it all of the time and thought nothing of it. Some even had separate rooms, but we’d always slept together even if we were in some kind of argument. David hated going to bed angry as much as I did. I barely slept because I kept listening for the sound of him coming down the stairs to apologize to me, but he never came.

It had been a month since our fight and he still hadn’t apologized. Even though we were sleeping in the same bed again pretending as if it had never happened, his words still hung in the air. Before our fight, there had been times when he’d indirectly implied I didn’t worry about her as much as he did, but he had never gone so far as to accuse me of not caring about her like he did. That’s what he was saying and he knew how insecure I was about my skills as a mother.

I’d always excelled and been the best at everything I tried right up until the point I started trying to get pregnant. I couldn’t even get pregnant right so it wasn’t a surprise that becoming a mother didn’t come easy either. I was awkward and clumsy from the moment Rori was placed in my arms.

It became apparent right away that David was a better parent than me. It came natural to him. While I bumbled and stumbled like I had an extra pair of hands and didn’t know what to do with the ones I had, he changed diapers and bounced her to sleep like he’d been doing it his entire life. Holding and soothing her was like a perfectly choreographed dance for the two of them whereas it was a jerky no-rhythm movement for me which only resulted in increasing the intensity of her wails.

Breastfeeding was an absolute nightmare that never ran smoothly, but I kept at it because it was the best thing for her despite my bloody nipples and her sandpaper tongue. It went the same way every time. We tried to find a position for her to latch, but could never get it right and she’d grow more and more agitated until she was so worked up she couldn’t eat. She ended up drinking more of my breast milk from bottles given to her by David than she ever did from my breasts. I’d never felt like such a failure and I didn’t know what to do with it.

My three months of maternity leave were the longest three months I’d ever experienced. Time stood still. The walls of our house seemed to get smaller and smaller every day and there were times I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I hid a brown paper bag behind the medicine cabinet in the bathroom because I was sure I was going to need it and didn’t want David or anyone else to see me do it. It was bad enough that my inadequacies as a mother were on display for anyone to see and I didn’t want to add to my humiliation by hyperventilating in front of someone.

A few weeks after Rori was born we decided David was going to be the one to stay home with her. He was convinced she needed to be with one of us during her early years and he’d offered to quit his teaching job at the college to stay at home. We talked about it extensively as if there was a real chance I would be the one to stay home, but we both knew he was the best fit. It wasn’t just because he was better with her than I was. It also made the most sense for us financially. David taught English at a local community college and although he loved it, my salary was more than four times what he made. A year before my maternity leave, I had become the Chief Operating Officer at the insurance company where I had worked since college. I was beyond thrilled when it was time for me to go back to work, although I did my best to try to pretend to be sad about it.