It's Not About You (25 page)

Shit?
 

My sister said shit!
 

I wasn't surprised when my crying turned to laughter, though April was. She pulled back and gave me the craziest look. "What is wrong now?"
 

When I could catch my breath I said, "You said shit."
 

And that cracked her up too. She pulled me back into her arms again and we both laughed. "I do cuss, you idiot. I just save it and use it when it's needed. You use it all the time and the words don't have meaning."
 

"You sound like mom." My voice was muffled against her.
 

"Well…one of us has too. You're too much like dad."
 

That I was.
 

Kyle came back to the car carrying two bags and put them in the trunk. When he got into the driver's seat he shut the door and turned to face us. "Everything okay there Grace?"
 

I nodded. "Please tell me you didn't…"
 

"No. But I made sure I checked out a few cakes just to be sure." He still looked angry and started the car.
 

The drive back to the house was quiet and he put April's things in the fridge. "Ladies, because I know how much my fake wife here hates going out when her makeup's smeared, I bought a few steaks and we have plenty of potatoes. Why don't the two of you work on getting tomorrow's dinner started while I make us a nice lunch. April, any choice in wine?"
 

"Oh it's still early and I have to drive home."
 

"Soda then? Or I got sparkling water."
 

"That's great Kyle."
 

I took another shower first, just to wash away the sad. Didn't help much. Well, maybe a little. I knew going into this whole adventure with Michael that it would never last. I'm over ten years his senior. And I'm a divorcé with a child. Maybe that was it? The thought of meeting Tanae, or the thought of having to deal with a crazy ex-husband?
 

But then I realized how stupid that all sounded and it did me no good to blame others for what was broken. A part of me was dying to ask what Michael's reaction was to seeing Kyle there, or if he knew I'd seen him and his other girlfriend. But I didn't. Not even after I joined them in the kitchen and started preparing the thawed turkey.
 

Yeah, I started thawing it on Monday. Just kept it in the refrigerator.
 

The three of us worked pretty good in the kitchen, despite it's small size. And the harmony building between April and Kyle actually boosted my spirits. But they knew I was sad. And when I'd stare into nothing one of them would hug me and direct me back to what I was doing.
 

It's cold in November in the South, but there are days where the temperature is enough that the humidity makes it feel warmer. Kyle set the table outside under the arbor and rolled the awning down enough to block out the sun. The steaks were perfectly cut, and the potatoes tender and filled with garlic butter and sour cream. He'd warmed up green beans from the left over shelf and sprinkled them with garlic olive oil and slivered almonds.
 

Kyle and I partook of wine and laughed and actually made April laugh. She told stories about her kids, especially about the bowel blockage of one of them and I was glad we were done eating. We finished off the cheese cake and by the time April had to leave, and we had a good bit of the Thanksgiving meal started.
 

We hugged outside and she promised she'd be there early in the morning to help me get things ready. With a reminder to call mom again, she drove off and I wandered back inside.
 

Kyle had already cleared the table and was putting the left over food away. "I suppose you want to know what happened?"
 

"No. And yes." I put my hands to my face and gave him a dramatic pause. "I don't know. Does it really matter?"
 

"He reacted, Grace. But it wasn't in a guilty way—or at least not in the way I think of as guilty. He immediately looked around for you, but I said you weren't there."

 
"Did he introduce her?"

"No, and I didn't ask. But it's good to know it now, right? Before Thanksgiving. Now you can get through the holiday and hopefully put some distance between you?"

We'll see. I nodded to him and he recommended I take a nap. It looked like I needed it.
 

I meandered down the hall to my room and flopped on my unmade bed. I imagined I could still smell him there in the sheets and made a vow to wash them that night. I was surprised at how fast I dozed off.
 

***

Kyle let me sleep till after four. And I had a headache. I met him in the kitchen and saw he had pretty much everything nailed down. Except for one thing.
 

"I don't have enough of those onion things."

The smells of the chopped onion and garlic and ginger and herbs made my mouth water, even though I was still full from the steak. "Wait…you mean that one can I bought wasn't enough?"

"Well," he said and looked really sheepish. "I wanted to try them in the stuffing."
 

"And you used the whole can."
 

"No. They sucked for stuffing, but they were a great munchy."
 

While we talked I opened up every cabinet in the kitchen, looking for some kind of aspirin. "Did you put pain relievers in the stuffing too?"
 

"No. We're out. They're on the list." He pointed to the chalk board.
 

In the top left in white chalk was our weekly grocery list, which of course had been shot to hell this week because of Thanksgiving. And the last thing jotted up there in my hand writing was aspirin. I sighed. "I guess I'm heading to the grocery store for both?"

"Unless you wanna go in the morning. I'm not going. There are four times of the year I do not venture out of the house. Christmas Eve, Labor Day, Black Friday and the day before Thanksgiving."

I gave him a corrosive look. "You lie. You just made that up."
 

"Yes I did. But I'm not going back out there. I already went to Kroger to pick up some capers while you were snoring. Took me an hour and a half just to get through the checkout line."
 

"Why didn't you do self checkout?"

He put his hands on his hips. "That
was
self checkout."
 

"Fine. I'll go. Is there anything else you can think of that we might need before tomorrow?"

"No. Wait. What do April's kids drink?"
 

Crap. "I'll pick up some sodas. I think we got sugar for tea?"

He nodded.
 

"What's for dinner?"

"I'm taking the rest of that steak and making fajitas. So you hurry back and we'll watch a movie
 
and relax before tomorrow."
 

I so wanted tomorrow to be over with. Except for the seeing my daughter part of all that. I missed Tanae. Just her smell was enough to make me feel all proud and motherly. It's weird how that happens. When you have a child and everything changes. Your attitude, your outlook on life, even how you view things around you.

When I brought Tanae home that first day, I suddenly saw my house as a potential danger zone. I would sit in the living room and rock her and think about her crawling around. The stairs became a rocky cliff, and the corner of the coffee table a weapon for blunt force trauma.
 

Of course, Burt did his usual self centered patronizing speech, of how it was all postpartum depression. And yeah, anytime I disagreed with him?
 

I was on my period.
 

Idiot.

Thoughts of him just made me madder than I was. And I didn't know I was mad until I started getting dressed. I spotted one of Michael's shirts in the closet. I yanked it out, took a pair of scissors and cut the shit out of it before I dropped it in the trash.
 

To be honest I wasn't sure I was really mad at him, but more at me for fooling myself into believing someone like me could find the cliched man of my dreams. He didn't exist. Because I'd let Burt destroy any part of me that had ever been easy to love.
 

I was sarcastic, acerbic, suspicious of everyone, and no longer donated money to the ASPC. God I hoped Tanae never found that out. She was going to college to be a veterinarian.
 

As I pulled a sweater on and grabbed my coat and keys, I realized all the wacky thoughts in my head were just my brain trying to protect itself from another round of depression. I didn't want to go that route either and I didn't think I would. Not now. Not that I'd turned my life around and I had to be strong for Tanae while her father dipped further into the depths of what I was starting to call,
the crazy
.
 

What hurt the most was the betrayal. What I was angry about was my stupidity. Because that's how I saw myself. As stupid. Just…
 

Had I let myself start to love again? Was that it? Was that why I so damn mad?
 

I had to have looked like a zombie driving to Kroger, getting out, grabbing a basket and moving around the shuffle of people, all intent on getting in and out and finding such a notion had been frivolous.
 

I could feel the tension in the store as I looked through the pharmacy and grabbed for plain aspirin. I had a can of those nasty onions in one hand, a bottle of aspirin in the other and turned to head to the checkout. But I knew I was forgetting something so I stopped and pulled out my phone to call Kyle to remind me.
 

I hadn't looked at my phone all day so when I finally fished it out of the bottom of my purse I was more than shocked to see I had 30 missed calls, close to the same number of text messages and ten voice messages. I couldn't tell from a glance if they were all from Michael but what I thumbed through were.
 

I didn't bother with the text messages and I couldn't bare to listen to his voice. Screw it if we needed anything else. I wanted to go home and drown in a bottle of something that would make my head hurt in the morning. Holding back tears I shoved the phone into my coat pocket before I turned toward the checkout lanes.

And nearly plowed into Burt Murphy.
 

I backed up and into an isle of cooking oil.
 

Burt reached out as if to steady me and I held up my hand. "Don't you touch me!" It came out a bit louder then I intended but Jesus H Christ. I did not want to see this bastard right now.
 

A few people in the isles sharply turned their heads to look at us, either because I made too much noise or they wondered if there was gonna be trouble. After all, this was Thanksgiving eve. All's well right?
 

"Keep your voice down, Grace," Burt hissed and he took a step back. "I'm not going to hurt you. That's just your crazy menopause talking."
 

I glared at him. See? There it was. My dislike of him was due to my advanced age. In the past my response to that would have been to ignore it and move along, file it into the overflowing cabinet in my head where I kept my complaints about my husband, never to look at it again.
 

But I'd moved that cabinet out years ago. I didn't know it till that moment when I went looking for it. There was just an empty space there, and a square to show where the cabinet had once stood. But that's all it was…a shadow.
 

I wanted to move beyond just doing what was expected. I wanted to grow past being bullied—and after spending months in battered women's groups I understood now that physical scars weren't the only wounds inflicted by domestic abuse. Scars, marks, they came in all shapes and sizes, both physical and mental.
 

I'd gone through 14 years of being told I was ridiculous, foolish, childish, unworthy. I'd endured hell in that hospital room after I gave him a child, when all I needed to hear was that it was all going to be okay. A hug. A kiss. Some kind of sign that I'd done good. That our daughter was going to be strong and healthy. I needed to hear it from him!
 

But all I'd gotten was the constant damnation of the hospital staff who had been more than accommodating, to the administrators who had gone out of their way to reassure us.
 

I needed to be touched.
 

I needed comfort all those years.
 

And the only thing I got were calls, fits, temper tantrums, angry messages, passive aggressive texts, questions, and constant, incessant insinuations that I had cheated on him all that time.
 

Because in the end…it was all about him.
 

14 years before the crazy finally killed it for me.
 

14 years before I finally realized…

"It's not about you."
 

He narrowed his eyes and stepped closer again. "What? Grace, you're mumbling and talking crazy again. Come get in the car with me."