So Much More (7 page)

And the miraculous thing is that when it’s done, and Faith goes to her apartment to go to bed, and I go to my apartment to wait out tomorrow, I feel a little less bitter.

And I feel like I have a friend.
 

A friend who’s a stripper.

A nice, wise stripper.

A nice, wise stripper who pointed out I’m still wearing my wedding ring.

So, I take it off.

Because it’s time.

Win. Motherfucking win.

past

Over time, I got used to Seamus’s love and attention being focused on the baby because I was winning at work. I’d battled my way into upper management before Kai’s first birthday. Everything was on track. Pay raises came with each promotion. I’d quadrupled my yearly income in twelve months. The corporate world was my bitch. I was driving a brand new, leased Mercedes. We’d moved into our first home, which was solely in my name. The home was massive, a real statement piece.
   

I was winning.

Until I wasn’t.

Another cunning
fuck you
handed down from the universe.

I don’t know what changed, but I grew antsy and agitated. Suddenly, things weren’t happening fast enough. I needed pace, I needed progression, and the world around me wasn’t keeping up.

That’s when I turned back to Seamus. I needed to conquer him again, physically and emotionally, and the easiest way to do that was sex. Sex fostered adoration in Seamus. He never disconnected during sex, it was always an act of love for him. And for the first time ever, I wanted it and the hole I hoped it would fill. I wanted him to rake my naked flesh with those dark, lust-filled eyes again. I wanted to feel the longing in his tight muscles and straining arousal. I wanted to feel his powerful body find the rhythm that brought me to a trembling, twenty-second high. I wanted to hear him moan out my name on a finish only I could grant him.

So, we fucked.

Often.

It backfired on me.

I liked it.

Loved it.

Craved it.

It was a sexual awakening for me.

That opened the door to digressions. There was only so much I could give and take from Seamus. I’d always been restrained with him, I liked the idea of my pleasure more than the idea of his, and achieving both came as a result of limited options on my end. But, now my mind was on overdrive, constantly aroused and weaving dark fantasies I wouldn’t dare ask Seamus to fulfill. So, I turned outside my marriage to supplement, a young man fresh to one of the departments I oversaw as director. Stunningly good looking, built, and equipped with overblown confidence in those areas that proved him easily lured. I pandered initially to his ego, and he unknowingly fell under the guise of my interest and victim to his own naivety. The result was primal, animalistic, experimental fucking, whenever and wherever I wanted it.

Infidelity became my drug.
 

And Seamus continued to worship me.

Win. Motherfucking win.

My sex life was perfect.

Until it ended in my second pregnancy.

I’d been careless taking my pills. Seamus never used a condom. Thank God the sex toy always did, or I’d be up shit creek without a paddle. I had the poor fool laid off immediately under a fabricated downsizing initiative. He’s of no use to me now.

Seamus was happy beyond belief when I told him I was pregnant. It was like watching Kai being born all over again. I deflated again. I’ve been replaced again. And I’m sure that when this little human is born there will be no room left in his heart for me.

The façade I was trying to create, and could control like a puppeteer, feels more like a mirage every day. Sometimes it’s there. Sometimes it’s not. The days it’s not scare me.

The turncoat

past

I threw myself into my work during the second pregnancy. Working even longer days and determined to ascend another rung on the corporate ladder before I was sidelined again.

The baby came early, four weeks to be exact. The labor was sheer hell. Blinding pain that came on so quickly they refused me the epidural I insisted on. They said I’d progressed so fast that I was past the point it could be administered safely. I think the nurses just took morbid delight in my agony.
Bitches.
I condemned every last person, unrelentingly and loudly, in the delivery room, Seamus included. No one escaped my wrath.

The actual birth was a heart-wrenching repeat of my first. “It’s a boy,” the doctor declared in the same congratulatory tone. A sticky, miniature life form was laid on my chest. I watched Seamus’s eyes mist over and every feature on his face transformed into luminous love and pride. The cavern behind my ribs that housed vital organs for breathing and sustaining life instantaneously emptied, while Seamus’s struggled to keep up with an overabundance of air being taken on by anxious, excited lungs and a racing, exultant heart.

I had been defeated again. By my own seed. Fucking little traitor. I lay there staring at Seamus, begging him with my thoughts,
Please look at me. Please tell me you love me.
Pleading. It didn’t work. He only saw the turncoat cuddled up to my bosom.

“Do you like the name Rory?” He was smiling so sweetly that I would swear the two of them were having a telepathic conversation and had already bonded for life.
 

I didn’t answer his question. I hadn’t thought about names. I was in denial prior to the birth. And now that it was over I just felt empty.
 

“I’m sorry to cut your time with him short, but we need to get him checked out. Being premature, he’ll need some extra attention.”

Take him. Please. And while you’re at it, I could use some fucking extra attention
, I wanted to say. But I didn’t. I was still looking at Seamus’s beautiful face as it crumbled in the understanding that his little boy may have complications due to an early arrival into the world.
 

I should’ve been crumbling for the same reason, but I wasn’t. I was crumbling for myself.

Rory spent four weeks at Children’s Hospital before he was cleared to come home. I went back to work after the third week. Fortunately, Seamus was on summer break from school and took on parenting full time with both the boys.

The postpartum depression was real this time around. I avoided emotion at all costs and what overtook me was suffocating. I was medicated. It helped with my moods, but love never bloomed for my boys.

I saw the way Seamus looked at me. Questions like, “What do you need?” and, “How can I help?” were common additions to our limited conversations. I knew he genuinely wanted to help me, but I also knew that by helping me he thought he was helping the boys. Helping our family. Because Seamus was a family man, through and through.

I started to resent the fact that I was being silently judged, even if it was being done with good intent on his part. I felt weak and vulnerable. We all had our part to play in this goddamn façade, and postpartum depression was fucking it all up.

Kai is three now, and Rory is one, I’ve accepted the fact that I birthed these children, and that’s enough. Their father loves them for both of us. I’m playing my get out of hell free card—Seamus. He will always deliver me from evil. Unknowingly atone for my sins. Thank God he hasn’t left me. He’s too blinded by his love for our boys to see me for who I really am.
 

The façade remains intact.

We needed a hero

present

“Seamus!” It’s the muffled cry of someone in trouble. Someone who needs help.

I blink the sleep from my eyes once and strip the covers back and bound from bed in one clumsy motion. I’m standing in the hallway outside the kids’ bedroom trying to recall if the cry for help was female or male.
 

I’m only half awake, but my mind is leaning toward female when I hear it again, “Seamus!” accompanied by more knocking on the front door.

My heart’s pounding in my chest, but there’s a degree of relief when I realize it’s not my kids calling out. They’re safe and sound. I shuffle toward the door because tired legs paired with numbness don’t make for a cooperative couple.

When I open it, Faith is standing on the W…E mat in wet pajamas. She’s out of breath, and I can’t tell if it’s because she’s just run up the stairs, or if it’s because she’s scared. “Thank God. Seamus, we need your help. A pipe broke in Hope’s apartment, and The Lipokowskis aren’t home. There’s water everywhere, and we can’t find the main water shut off.”

I look down at my underwear, all too aware the time for modesty was
before
I opened the door, not now that Faith is standing in front of me asking for help. I’m sure she could care less if I walked downstairs naked at this point, as long as I shut off the water. Hope, however, I’ve never met. And underwear is not appropriate introduction attire, even during a crisis.

After I throw on some shorts, I instruct, “Stay here with the kids, please.”

She nods quickly.

I’m walking down the stairs, just past midnight, trying to keep my balance. There’s a recliner, small table, and dresser on the sidewalk in front of apartment one’s door. When I knock on the unlatched door, it swings open a few inches. “Hello?” I call out loudly, not wanting to walk into a stranger’s home unwelcome.

A tall, extremely thin woman walks out of what I’m assuming is the bathroom. Upon first glance, I can’t take in anything about her other than despair. She looks like the type of person who’s been beaten down by life so long that misery is a constant companion. “A pipe’s busted. I don’t know how to make the water stop.”

I step into the apartment without introducing myself. “Where’s the utility closet?”

She points to the door next to the kitchen.

I walk to the closet, and every step I take is wetter than the last. The carpet is saturated. The main water shut off for the apartment is located in the closet next to the furnace and water heater, just like in our apartment. Thank God for consistency.
 

When we hear the water stop running, she sighs. It’s the audible release of stress. “Thank Jesus,” she whispers, her eyes downcast.

I nod and offer my hand. “I’m Seamus. I live upstairs with my three kids. I’m sure you’ve heard us.” I feel like I need to apologize for our noisiness. “We try to keep it down, but I’m sorry if the TV gets loud or you hear them chasing each other around.”

She reluctantly takes my hand and her grip is slight, only her fingertips return my grasp. “I’m Hope,” is all she says. She’s looking at her damp feet.

“I see your furniture is all outside. I’ll get my box fan and some towels and help you get this cleaned up.” As long as Faith can hang out in my apartment with the kids, I can help Hope.
 

“I got a fan in the closet,” she says. I realize she’s offering a solution, but the way she says it is strange. Almost as if she’s just making a random statement. It feels disconnected from the conversation for some reason.

“Good.” And then I add, “Set it on the tile in the kitchen where it’s dry and turn it on. I’ll be right back,” because I’m afraid she’ll set it up on the wet carpet, plug it in, and end up electrocuting herself.