The Last Exhale (18 page)

Peter reaches for a glass and passes one my way without checking to see if I want a drink or not. What the hell, why not? I grab the glass.

Behind her desk, Rene looks to the man who's been by her side in this business since a year after it opened. “I hate that I'll have to turn over the keys to this place. It's the second baby I have to say goodbye to.” She lets her eyes reminisce with mine when she says that. “There's no one more deserving, more passionate about this business, more fitting than you.”

“What I hate is having to run this place without you.” His voice breaks.

Rene reaches her hand across the desk for Peter's hand. He meets hers halfway. They squeeze each other's hand, give each other a strength and support that only the two of them can share. So many times they've had to watch others break down in front of them. Now it's their turn to shed tears over what they'll be losing. Business partners and a special friendship.

When my wife was made aware this day was unavoidable, she asked if I had any desire of taking over the business. I didn't have to think about it. There was no desire to do any such thing. It was her baby, her passion, her vision. I wanted to keep it just that. Plus, I didn't want to attach to anything I didn't need to attach to. I was glad to tell her I'd pass. I knew she only extended it as a courtesy. She had every intention of passing it on to her friend.

“I know I'm leaving DelCosta in great hands.”

Peter nods. “Nothing will change.”

Her eyes find me again, they peer over the glass in her hand as she takes a nice-sized sip of her drink.

I know Rene's not dumb. Her attitude hasn't been the same since leaving the closing of our home. A corpse could feel the tension in that room, could hear and see there was something going on between her realtor and me. She's treating me like she did before she received her death sentence. I did what I had to do, even though it wasn't what I wanted to do. All I ever wanted was to love my wife until the end of time. Just happens her time is ending a lot sooner than I was ready for.

“Brandon, will you give us a moment?”

I step out of the office to give them space. Whatever Rene thinks went down with me and her realtor is one thing, but I'm grateful she has enough compassion in her heart to spare me of having to hear the final details for her service.

I want to go back in there and ask her what Sydney asked me.
“Why'd you leave me this way?”

“Do you love him?”

“We really don't know each other.”

Mom throws the wet dishrag in the dishwater, turns to look at me. “I'm talking about your husband, Sydney Marie.” So much disappointment in her voice.

Words fail me in my embarrassment. Thoughts of Brandon dominate thoughts of anything else at the moment. Can still feel his lips on mine, his hands on my skin. Can still feel the coldness I felt when he handed me my clothes and left me to sort through what we did and didn't do in the middle of his living room floor. All the shame and embarrassment I felt after leaving my job with my job undone won't leave me. Brandon saturates me. So much of that is unsatisfactory.

I tell my mom, “I'm not sure love is enough anymore.” Just like with my friends, I avoid telling her my husband's love for me is just as unsure.

She rolls her eyes up to the ceiling, fights hard to keep tears from drowning her own pain from my father's infidelity. “Have you thought about how this will affect EJ and Kennedy?” Her head shakes as she answers her own question. “Obviously, you haven't. You don't do stupid stuff like that. You have it good, you don't just mess up a family like that.”

I have no response. It is what it is.

Coming here was a mistake. I should've just gone home and faced my demons without involving anyone else, especially my mother. Her emotional connection to betrayal is too strong. I get up from my seat and stand behind her at the sink. Wrap my arms around her waist, whisper in her ear, “I'm sorry, Mama.”

In some way, my apology is not only for me, but for the pain my father caused her as well.

Her posture stiffens. “I'm not the one you need to be apologizing to.”

No one seems to accept my apologies anymore. Not my husband, not my mama.

She breaks away from my embrace, puts some distance between us. “How could you do it?”

“I can't answer that.”

“Yes, you can. You just choose not to.”

My mother stands and stares at me until her eyes penetrate my thoughts long enough for an answer to form.

I speak what I feel, tell her the same things I've been saying to Eric the past few weeks. “I mentally left our marriage a long time ago. Brandon's arrival in my life just proved how unhappy I've been and I've been denying that truth to myself all these years.”

Mom puts her hand in the air. “Spare me the details.”

“It's the truth.”

A tear runs down her face making a loud splat on the hardwood floors. “You're just like your father. Both of you always run from your problems and run into someone else like that's going to solve everything.”

“Oh no, no, no, no, no. Don't even compare me to him. This is not the same situation.”

She sits down in the chair I had been sitting in. “Do you know why your father cheated on me?”

I shake my head, pull out another chair from under the table.

“I was his mistress.”

It's hard for me to not let the shock on my face come across as judgment.

“Yes, that's right. Your father cheated on his first wife with me. He wasn't happy with her. Said she was very insecure and would always accuse him of cheating, though at the time, he was just as faithful as a dog, ironically. She would call him on the job every five minutes, sometimes showing up because she didn't believe he was out of the office as much as his secretary claimed. One day, he had enough of being the opposite of what kind of man she thought he was. I ended up being his convenient escape. I worked at a diner he'd frequent for lunch. Soon, our conversations traveled beyond pleasantries and orders of pot roast. He was flirty, entertaining. Gave me lots of compliments. Said I was sweet and interesting. Both of us were to each other what our spouses were not. Before long, lunch turned into quickies in the back of his car.”

I cut her off. “Whoa, so you're up here condemning me making out, while you ditched work for sex in the backseat of a car?” I swallow her bitter confession with a scrunched up facial expression to match.

“Go ahead, judge me all you want, Sydney. But eventually, I ended my relationship and he divorced his wife. We made it right. We got married. We had you.”

“Please help me understand where you're going with this confession, because you're losing me fast.”

She looks at me with crooked eyebrows, looks at me in a way that says she wishes I was still a child so she could take a belt to my
backside for not minding my manners. “The point I'm trying to make is your father ran from the problems in his first marriage without resolving the real issues. I was everything for him. Cooked, cleaned, helped him with his construction business. Had bathwater ready for him when he got home, a hot meal on the table. He didn't want for anything.”

My cell phone vibrates in my purse on the table. I grab it, make sure it's not the school or daycare. See Rachel's name displayed on the screen. Hit the red button to ignore.

“Like I was saying,” Mom continues, “I was a convenient escape for him. Made life too easy, to the point I didn't realize he was slipping away from me and back into the arms of his ex-wife.”

Convenience seems to be a familiar occurrence with men. Eric says I was the same thing for him. I say, “Well, they say how you get your man is how you lose your man.”

She swallows the truth with a hard gulp. “And that's exactly what I'm trying to get you to understand. I never told you about why your father cheated because I knew I was in the wrong from the beginning. We get caught up in the moment and make lifetime mistakes. I don't want to see you end up like me.”

There's so much pain coupled with regret in my mother's eyes when I look at her. “Why'd you stay as long as you did?”

My phone interrupts us again. Rachel again. And again I press the red button for ignore.

“You need to get that?” Mom asks.

I wave my hand in the air. “I'm listening to you right now.”

“To answer your question, I never left. He started stepping out a few months after you were born. I hadn't worked since getting fired from my waitressing job at the diner. I had no money and had to worry about another mouth to feed. Just made sense to stay. In the end, he left me.”

“Jeez, Mom.” All these years I've had it all wrong. Always blamed my mom for leaving my dad and making me decide who I wanted to spend my summers and holidays with. Dad always made himself out to be the victim, acting like his love had always been for my mom. Several times, he used me to get back into her life and make us the family we should've been. Mom shut it all down.

“I never meant to mislead you, Sydney. I didn't know how to deal with the truth.” She softly grabs my hand from my lap. “No matter what his wife is or isn't doing in their marriage, isn't up to you to fix. Same thing goes for him. He can't be who Eric isn't.”

I tell my mom, “His wife has cancer. She's dying.”

Her grip loosens from my hand. “Ohhh, Sydney. That makes it worse.”

The first time I stood in front of my lover's wife—well, I don't know if I can even call him that—she was no different than any other person wanting to sell their home. Had I known she was Mrs. Carter, as she so sternly reminded me, I'm actually not so sure I would've done anything different. Quite possibly, I would've handed the contract to another realtor in our office. Would've done that before considering walking away from her husband, even if he did have higher morals than me, enough for him to decline my offer for a way out. Granted, she would still have cancer and her death would be imminent, and he would have to put the pieces back together, but at least my distraction would've given him another way to look at it. Another way to handle things. Who have I become?

I swallow the guilt. “I know.”

She stands up, goes back in the kitchen, back to a sink full of dirty dishes.

I follow her.

She looks at me over her shoulder. “You really need to be honest with yourself, because a man should never be the source of your
happiness. And another woman's husband definitely won't be able to do that for you. As for your marriage, you're either going to make it work or move on. Either way, you have a big decision to make; a decision I hope doesn't leave you as empty as my decisions left me.”

There's nothing left to say. I grab my purse and head to my car.

Soon as I get inside, I dig out my phone. See Rachel left a message. I debate checking it, but end up tapping in five digits to retrieve the message anyway.

“There's been an accident.”

M
y heart's racing as I speed through traffic like I'm being pursued in a high-speed chase. Rachel didn't say much in her message. Just said our husbands had been in a car accident and that she was on her way to the hospital.

I'm doing my best not to panic as my thoughts race faster than the odometer. What were Michael and Eric doing together? He was supposed to be picking Kennedy up from school and EJ from daycare. They were to grab pizza and meet me back at the house. Rachel didn't mention anything about the kids.

Soon as I pull into a parking space, my feet hit the ground running for the Emergency Room. I hit the nurse's desk so hard feels like my kneecaps crumble. “I was told my husband was brought here.”

The nurse barely makes eye contact when she asks for his name.

“Eric, Eric Holmes. Are my kids here? Kennedy and Eric Jr.?”

“Sydney.” A hand grasps my shoulder.

I turn around, see my friend standing there with red-rimmed eyes and an even redder nose.

“The kids weren't with them.”

“Where are they?”

“I don't know.” A tear drops from her eye.

“Okay, okay.” I pull her into me, give her a warm embrace. My kids' location isn't her concern, especially while her husband is lying up in a hospital bed. Though I have no idea where my kids are at this moment, I'm relieved to know they weren't involved in the accident. At least that much I do know. “Let's not worry about them right now. How are the guys?”

She dabs at the corners of her eyes with her fingertips. “Michael's in stable condition. They're bandaging him up now to be released.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “That's good to know.”

By the slight smile in her lips, I can tell she's relieved as well, but her eyes tell a different story. “Eric's, umm…”

“Eric's what?” My heart slows to a turtle's pace.

“He was, umm, he was unconscious when they got there. I don't know anything else.”

“What do you mean unconscious? What the heck happened? I don't understand this.”

She grabs my hand. “Let's go outside.” I follow her eyes to the uniformed officers standing in the corner talking with a young lady, notepads and pens in hand.

Something's not adding up. I let her hand go, but follow her out the door.

“The accident is under investigation. Michael called me at the scene frantic when Eric wouldn't wake up. They were tailing some guy they thought was guilty of a crime. Michael said the driver slowed and was pulling over to the side of the highway when an eighteen-wheeler came out of nowhere. The truck jackknifed, clipping the backend of the suspect's car. Michael tried to avoid hitting the truck, but there was no way around it. They slammed sideways into the trailer.”