So Much More (5 page)

I wish I could say it was the most beautifully human thing I’ve seen in a very long time, but my knee-jerk reaction to the display is fear. Because what I’m seeing, when it’s distilled down to its most basic element…is love.
 

And love equals fear to me.

And divorce.

Damn.

Told you I was bitter.

Kira is antsy as hell to run to Faith for a hug. She’s a hugger herself and, even at five, she knows she’s discovered one of her own. “Daddy, can I give Faith a hug?”

My mouth is saying, “No,” while my head is nodding yes.

I don’t even realize the contradictory denial and permission I’ve just given until she wrinkles up her forehead in confusion and asks again, “Can I give Faith a hug?”

This time, I don’t let my mouth answer and my head nods.

She runs across the sand as her brothers and I wait a few dozen feet away. Kira stands in line behind an elderly woman and a twenty-something guy. When it’s Kira’s turn, Faith recognizes her immediately and drops to her knees before bundling Kira into an embrace. Kira blooms into the hug. She nuzzles her head into Faith’s shoulder and she wiggles slightly with every second or two that passes. The wiggles are the excitement she can’t contain bursting to the surface and breaking free. But after ten seconds she settles into a still, contented, gentle squeeze. It’s the hug she gives me every night. It’s the hug that says I trust you, I feel safe around you, and I love you. It melts my heart to be on the receiving end, but to watch her give it to someone she barely knows is startling. Kids are excellent judges of character. Instincts are sharp before the cynicism of time decays them to the point they’re null and void, useless to most adults. Or maybe we’re just good at ignoring them the older we get.

When Kira returns to us post-hug, she’s beaming like her heart is burning so bright it’s lighting her up from the inside out. I silently thank Faith for giving my daughter this moment. This experience that reaffirmed to her how magical kindness feels when it fills up your being.
 

Kira wants us to do it too. She tells us we should all give Faith a hug. Kai, Rory, and I decline, a united front of manliness. Though for a split second I wish my boys would go get a hug and feel what their sister was gifted. Their mother has been gone for a month now, and she was never a hugger. Then the split second wish evaporates as I watch my boys continue our walk back to apartment three.
 

And my bitterness feels like sadness.
 

It hurt like hell and we named him Kai

past

I never realized how much I craved Seamus’s full attention until it was gone. It’s not that he smothers me with it, but he’s always present. Always adoring and takes his end of our relationship and marriage seriously. He nurtures it: with thoughtful comments, encouragement, praise, compliments, open conversation, support, touch, sex, kindness, and care. And I feel the love in each of them. Not over-the-top, put on love, but genuine it’s-who-I-am-in-my bones love. He doesn’t have to try; it’s effortless.

I greedily take everything he gives me; it feeds my insatiable ego, and I piecemeal it in return. Just enough to keep him on the hook.

But when the baby was born I felt the tide turn, an instantaneous shift in attention. I don’t want to share his attention. It’s mine.
   

The very moment the doctor pulled that gelatinous laden, squawking life form from my body and said, “It’s a boy,” Seamus’s face ignited with a look of love like I’ve never seen. It was so intense I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t witnessed it myself, firsthand.
 

It felt like my lungs deflated with each swell of Seamus’s. They laid the baby on my chest, but all I could do was watch Seamus fall in love. Not with me, but with the tiny human I’d just harbored for nine months and given life to. He should be looking at me with adoration for the sacrifice I’d just made. But he couldn’t because he was never going to see anything but the baby.

Seamus’s hand moved, and I could sense that he was stroking the baby’s head with a loving gentleness I’m sure had never been bestowed upon another in all of human history. It should have been heartwarming.

But instead, it hurt like hell.

“I think we should name him Kai, after my grandfather. It means ocean or sea.” He said it softly, reverently, with tears glistening in his eyes.

My lungs still vacant, all of the air drawn out by the betrayal I felt, left me unable to speak, so I nodded. And we named him Kai.

Stretch marks are for life

past

“I’m going back to work tomorrow.” I know they’re words he doesn’t want to hear. Seamus wants me to take advantage of the six weeks maternity leave that Marshall Industries offers their employees.

“It’s only been three weeks, Miranda. Give yourself some more time.” He’s holding a sleeping Kai in his arms; contented baby, contented daddy, the picture of familial perfection.

“I don’t need time. I need to get back into my old routine. I think it’s the only thing that will help.” I’ve feigned post-partum depression and have been subtly planting the seeds since Kai’s delivery, lobbying that a quick return to work will help me bounce back. I’m a year into my dream job and can’t afford time off. Time off gives my co-workers a competitive edge, and I’ll be damned if anyone gets an edge on me. Time off doesn’t fit into my plans. The twelve to fourteen hour work days I thrive on is what fits into my plans. It’s what makes promotions, raises, and titles possible.

He’s inwardly sighing, I can see it, but he’s also trying to be supportive of my fragile— fictional, unbeknownst to him— emotional state. “Are you sure this is what you need? That it will help?”

I nod. Damn right this will help. This is my façade and everyone’s playing into it flawlessly. Seamus graduated with his degree two weeks before the baby was born on June first and doesn’t start his high school counseling job until mid-August. He’s doted on Kai twenty-four seven. I haven’t touched a bottle, changed a diaper, given a bath, or gotten up in the middle of the night. All my choice, of course, but Seamus is over the moon happy to be a dad and do it. To pick up my slack. I knew he would. He’s the goddamn patron saint of parenthood.

So, off to work I go. Leaving parenting to Seamus so I can focus on my career.

This baby stuff turned out to be a piece of cake.

Except the stretch marks, those sons of bitches are for life.

Forgotten and discarded, that pisses me off

present

I’m watching Kai clutching my cell phone in his hand holding it to his ear. The grip he has on it is fueled by the anxious hope that she’ll answer this time.

He’s standing on the landing outside our front door on the W…E mat. I can see him through the window from my seat on the couch, and I can hear the silence of an unanswered call through the open window.

When the voicemail prompt directs him to leave a message, his shoulders collapse in defeat and my heart twists. His voice is shaky when he speaks. “Hey. It’s Kai. Just checking in. Again. Looks like you’re busy…or whatever. Again. Bye.” And though I heard the muted sadness in his voice, I doubt she will.

It’s been two weeks since she’s talked to her kids. She’s on her honeymoon in the south of France with him. She texted exactly fourteen days ago to inform me they’d just eloped and were on their way to Europe for three weeks. She said she’d check in with the kids every couple of days. I begged her not to make a promise she couldn’t keep.

She hasn’t called once.

Kai calls her instead.
 

He leaves messages when she doesn’t answer.

Meanwhile, I bite my tongue. What I want to do is call her and say, “You’re a selfish bitch and a horrible mother.” Instead, I text her,
The kids miss you and would love to talk to you
. Or, when I want to scream into the phone, “You’ve ruined my fucking life!” I take a deep breath and text,
Please call your kids tonight. They need to hear your voice
.

My kids are beginning to feel forgotten. Discarded.
 

That pisses me off.

Kai steps back inside and hands me my phone. “Thanks, Dad. I’m going down to shoot some hoops.”

There’s a basketball hoop attached to the side of the apartment building. I nod, but all I want to do is scream. For all of us.

Damn her.

“Want some company?” I ask. I know he doesn’t. He’s the type of kid that needs to be alone to process his feelings. We’ll talk about it this afternoon.

He shakes his head and tries to put on a brave face. “No. I’m just working on free throws.”

Scotch is for geriatric men

present

Miranda’s back from her honeymoon, apparently ready to make an attempt at parenting in person.

I’m sitting in my car watching her drive away with my kids.
 

I don’t think of them as our kids anymore.
 

I think of them as
mine
.

I feed them.

I shelter them.

I talk to them.

And most importantly, I love them. Every minute of every day.

She left.

She hasn’t been around to do anything for them, least of all love them.

Her feeble attempt at connecting over the phone has been pathetic.

I try not to dwell on it because then I demonize her.

More than I already have.

It exhausts me and chips away at the goodness that I used to think cocooned my heart. The dark ugliness of hate peeks through the recesses and blots out the light of decency. I wonder how long it will be before I transform completely into my hate.

I’m fighting it for my kids.

But it’s a conniving bastard that doesn’t fight fair; it fights dirty, a knife in the back of hope.

I shake my head to clear it and take a few deep breaths. She’s here for twenty-four hours with my kids. It’s eight in the morning on a Saturday. I’ll pick them up in this coffee shop parking lot tomorrow morning at eight o’clock so she can make her 10:00 AM flight.

I don’t know what to do with myself. I haven’t gone twenty-four hours without a child in over eleven years. For a moment, I consider just sitting here in my car until they return in the morning.