Fragile Bonds (11 page)

Death makes people do crazy things. Take me for example; I told Alyssa I didn’t have time to go out of town almost every time she asked me. And yet, the night she died, I jumped online and found a condo near the ocean. The morning after we laid her to rest, Jacob and I got in the car to drive eleven hundred miles away from the pain. If Alyssa was here, she would have warned me that that many miles with an inquisitive four year old was a bad idea. But she’s not here and I’m left to learn these lessons the hard way, it would seem.

The drive that should have taken two days wound up taking almost four because of restlessness and unplanned bathroom breaks, but we finally made it. No one knows where we are and that’s the way I want it for now. The phone calls are still coming in daily, asking how Jacob and I are coping. I tell everyone the same thing; it’s tough but we’re getting by. Jacob seems to be handling it a bit better since we left Wisconsin, likely because he’s not in familiar surroundings. If I had to hear him running through the house calling for Alyssa much longer, I think I would have lost it.

After Melanie left six years ago, I considered selling the house because I bought it with her in mind. I decided against it because the market sucked and I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near what it was worth. Now, I’m certain that the first thing I will do when I go home is put the house on the market. There are too many bad memories there for me to ever hope to get a good night of sleep. The few nights we did stay there after Alyssa passed were torture. I woke up every night thinking I heard her calling for me. I wound up sitting in her room until the early hours of the morning when I knew Jacob would soon come looking for me.

“Daddy, can we call Miss Melanie?” Jacob asks, rubbing the post-nap sleep from his eyes. Every day, he begs me to call her.

I’ve been avoiding her since the night Alyssa died. While it’s completely irrational, I can’t get past being angry with her for not doing
something
when Alyssa stopped breathing. She could have done CPR or something, tried to bring Alyssa back to us, but she simply placed her fingers on Alyssa’s wrist, checking for a pulse and then turned to me with sad eyes, telling me that my wife was gone. I know she did exactly what Alyssa would have wanted, but that’s not what
I
wanted. That’s not what Jacob
needed.

“Buddy, I know you miss her, but Miss Melanie isn’t going to be around anymore.”
The words seem to stick at the back of my throat, wishing to remain unsaid. When I look down and see my child’s blue eyes glistening with tears once again, I almost cave. It’s not his fault that I’m so selfish that I can’t get past the anger and guilt to let him talk to her.

After Alyssa said goodbye to Jacob for the last time, she asked me to come back to her after he was settled in with Braydon. I knew she wanted me to be there for the end, but she managed to shock the hell out of me one last time.

She reaches out to me and I take her hand. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop scanning her body, searing her to my memory. It might be better to remember her before she got sick, but the twisted reality is that I am a big enough man to admit I didn’t love her until I thought I was going to lose her the first time. No, for me, I need to remember her like this as a reminder. Of what, I’m not sure yet. There will be time to figure that out later.

“Xavier, look at me,” she wheezes. She’s so weak. It won’t be much longer. The thought has me on the verge of crying like
a baby and she doesn’t need that. “I had a long talk with Melanie earlier, and now I want to have the same talk with you.”

My eyes grow wide at the mention of Melanie’s name. I can’t think of any discussion they had that has to be repeated for my benefit that’s going to be pleasant.

“She’s a good woman,” she whispers, looking directly into my eyes. In that one simple look, I know she knows everything. Oddly, she doesn’t seem upset, so I lean in, needing to hear what she has to say. “I asked her to take care of you and Jacob for me. She loves you both, I know you’ll be okay as long as she’s around.”

There’s no way this is happening. Alyssa can barely breathe, and she’s laying there telling me to be with another woman after she’s gone. I must be hallucinating. The lack of sleep is finally taking its toll, that’s the only thing that makes sense.

“Alyssa, I love you. You need to know that nothing is going on with Melanie and me. I would never do anything to betray your trust.” The assurances continue falling out of my mouth, despite Alyssa’s efforts to get me to shut up and listen.

“I know that, Xavier. I trust both of you, which is why I want you to let her help you raise my baby boy. She might be his only hope to turn out normal,” she giggles, which leads to a coughing spell. I think her sarcastic sense of humor is one of the things I’m going to miss the most. “Seriously, though, you’re going to need her. Please don’t shut her out. You pushed her away once and it
poisoned your heart. I’m not stupid enough to think you ever stopped loving her.”

Alyssa stops talking long enough to catch her breath. That’s probably a good thing because I need to figure out how to get out of this twilight zone I’m in. “Al,
you
are the one I love. I know it wasn’t always that way, but I promise you that you and Jacob mean the world to me. You are the woman I pledged my life to.”

“And I’m also the woman who suffered because of the heartache you felt when she left you.” She smirks at me, cocking one eyebrow as if daring me to challenge her statement. I can’t because she’s right. I was a total prick to Alyssa, even though she was pregnant with my son, because I was convinced that no good could ever come from allowing a woman into my heart again. I tried everything short of cheating on her to get her to leave me alone but she refused to give up on me.

“I’m so sorry, Alyssa,” I mumble, shaking my head. “You didn’t deserve the way I treated you. If I could go back and do it all over again, you have to know I have devoted every day to showing you what an amazing woman you are.”

Alyssa presses her fingers to my lips. I hold them there, kissing the pad of each finger before dropping our joined hands into my lap. “
I know you are. But now, you have your second chance with her. Don’t fuck it up because, as much as I think I should probably despise her, she’s an amazing woman. Hell, if I wasn’t dying, I might fight you for her, but I don’t think I could win right now.”

“I don’t want a second chance with her. I want you…”
The words fade to silence, knowing it’s a wish that will go unfulfilled.

“How many times have we told Jacob that he can’t always have what he wants? This time, I’m telling you, you’re not going to get what you want.”

“Why won’t you let me see Mommy or Miss Melanie?” Jacob cries, jerking me back into the excruciating present. I scoop him into my arms, walking out to the balcony. I pull him into my lap once I’m lounging on the swing overlooking the ocean, trying to calm him down.

“Buddy, remember what your mommy told you?” I ask, offering a silent prayer thanking Alyssa for being the better parent, right to the very end. No way would I have been creative enough to suggest a teddy bear as part of the solution to his grief. “Where’s Blaze?”

Jacob’s eyes light up as he remembers the bear that Alyssa told him would be his connection to her when he couldn’t see her anymore. At the time, I thought it was morbid, but listening to him tell her about our trip each night as he drifted off to sleep, I quickly realized that my wife was a genius. With the exception of trying to play deathbed matchmaker. That was insanity, no two ways about it.

“He’s in my bedroom, should I go get him?”
I nod, sliding Jacob off my laps and watching as he scampers through the house to get his magical bear. While I wait for him to come back out to the balcony, I reach into my pocket, wrapping my hand around my phone.

The longer I think about that last, strange conversation with Alyssa, the more I wonder what it is that’s truly holding me back from scrolling down to her contact information. Am I avoiding her out of anger or because, even though Alyssa seemed to give me the green light, I’m not sure I can or want to keep Melanie in our lives?

Over five minutes later, Jacob still hasn’t come back to me. In my very brief time being a single parent, I’ve learned that his silence and absence is typically a sign that he’s getting into something he shouldn’t be. I ease myself off the hammock-style swing and tip-toe through the house. Eventually, I will have to lay down the law with him, but for now, I find his innocence and mischief freeing.

The bedroom door is
partially closed and I hear him stammering as he talks to his newest prized possession. I lean against the wall, listening just out of his line of sight. “I miss you so much, mommy. Miss Melanie and Unca Braydon told me that you’re an angel now and you’re with me everywhere I go. I wish I could see you because I know you would be smiling. You smiled so big the day we got to go on the boat.”

He continues recounting details of the day he and his mom went on the glass-bottom yacht when we were in the Bahamas. And then he moves on to the Disney characters he got to see and dance with on the ship deck. In retrospect, I’m glad Melanie pulled me aside and told me to stop being a controlling asshole when I insisted it was a ridiculous idea to go on a cruise when Alyssa’s condition was so dire. For twenty minutes, Jacob talks to his bear, reliving those four days in paradise.

“Daddy misses you too. I hear him talking to you late at night when he thinks I’m sleeping. Sometimes I get up at night and want to sleep with him, but Daddy doesn’t like sharing his bed,” he says sadly. I pinch the bridge of my nose, realizing that Alyssa wasn’t the only one I should have shown how much they meant to me. I know Jacob is thinking about the nights before Alyssa moved into her own room when she and I would fight about whether or not he could sleep between us. We’ll have to talk about that because if curling up next to me is going to help him sleep at night, that’s where he should be. “If you talk to Daddy, can you tell him to call Miss Melanie for me? I really miss her.”

When he starts moving around the bedroom, I sneak down the hall to the kitchen. If he had wanted me to hear their conversation, he would have come out by me.
Maybe someday he and I will be close enough that he can bring his worries to me. Until then, I will have to defer to a stuffed animal, hoping that I can listen to what he has to say.

“Hey buddy, are you ready for a snack?” I really need to find a grocery store around here because I’m sure Alyssa would chew me out for giving him Ritz crackers every afternoon. She
was the type of mom who loved finding snacks that looked more like little works of art, making Jacob giggle and play as he ate. And if I don’t find the store soon, I won’t even have crackers for him. I seriously stink at being a single parent.

After finding a grocery store that delivers and placing an order, I decide to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the coast line with Jacob.  He runs up and down the beach, scurrying away from the water each time a wave rolls along the shore. By the time we walk back up the boardwalk to our temporary home, my pockets are heavy with rocks and seashells he insisted on bringing back to start a collection.

Thanks to the fact that I didn’t bother checking the amenities of this rental before sending in a deposit, Jacob and I have managed to overcome the bath time fights that used to stress both of us out. When there’s no bath tub, you have to improvise. In this case, it means that Jacob and I have started showering together each night. Now, he loves getting cleaned up and is even trying to wash his hair on his own.