Zenith Fulfilled (30 page)

“Yes. Rob. Well, with Daddy coming home, Rob can’t come over anymore. He was Mommy’s friend, but now Daddy will be back for good.”

Karlee stiffened. Rob and Daddy had nothing to do with each other in her mind. “Why Wob not come to thee me?”

“Oh, sweetie, it would make Daddy unhappy. Daddy is your father, and he needs to come back and be that. Rob will always be your friend. But he just can’t come here anymore.”

“So he left too,” Kathy finally said.

“No. He didn’t leave. He let us go for our own good.”

She pulled them all in for a long, hard hug.

“I’ll miss him,” Kayla finally said.

Karlee crossed her arms over her small chest. “I don’t thee why I can’t be fwiendth with Wob and Daddy.”

Rebecca smiled, feeling the same way.

****

Rebecca waited at the airport with her gi
rls by the baggage carousel with Doug’s flight number etched above it. Her stomach was so twisted in knots, she thought she might throw up. She took extra pains with her appearance and put on a pretty, black skirt and gray jacket. She’d also done her hair with care, and the girls were all dressed up and pretty.

The thing was: Doug didn’t deserve it. That was all Rebecca kept thinking as she looked at her three red-headed girls. Dou
g Randall didn’t deserve any of this. Having them waiting, and caring, and getting dressed up just to resume their lives with him where he left off.

Then she spotted him.

He stood a head above most people, b
lond hair, blue eyes, and glasses. He wore a button-up shirt, and no tie. He looked good. Fit and trim. He was obviously looking all around for them, his eyes scanning the crowd. Rebecca didn’t wave, or call to get his attention. She felt frozen. She was rooted in deja vu, and the hurt of her past. He looked the same and her memories nearly overwhelmed her. He was the same man she remembered. She recalled what he felt like next to her in bed, how he sat forever reading the paper on Sundays. How she liked his smell after a shower. She remembered their former lives, when he wasn’t so much the monster he’d grown to become over the last two years. Her anger at what he put her through overshadowed her memories of whatever used to be good. Right then, in that moment, he became the man who used to walk through their door each evening with a smile as he asked what was for dinner? How are the girls? The man who hugged each of them, and asked about their days.

How could that man, the one whom she knew, leave them as long as he did?

Then he spotted them and stopped dead. His eyes searched out hers. He looked her over and took in her appearance. His gaze held hers before he broke into a smile. A charmingly handsome, boyish smile. He opened his arms, and their three daughters,
her girls
, ran to him. They ran to him in unbridled joy, as if this man never left them for over two years.

He came down to one knee, and looked Karlee in the eye,
who stared at him warily. She didn’t remember him and had a frightened look when she turned to Rebecca. She smiled to Karlee that it was okay. Only it wasn’t. It wasn’t okay at all. Tears filled Rebecca’s eyes and lodged in her throat.
None of this was okay.
The sight of them, her girls with Doug, used to move her to tears way back when, but that was out of pride and joy that this was her family unit.

But Doug ruined it all. He shattered her fantasies of what she thought they were. They weren’t the happy
, complete family she was so delusional about. She knew they had some problems, as all couples do, and all families get disconnected sometimes and busy. She thought time would work everything out. But Doug had taken all the time away when he left. As if they were not worth saving to him. Not worth staying around for. He broke her heart just as surely as if he died.

Now she had to smile and encourage her daughters to trust this man once again, and give him a chance. Karlee finally stepped into Doug’s arms and he smiled
and picked her up, clutching her closely against him. He looked happy, genuinely happy to see them.

When he finally put Karlee down, he took Kathy’s hand and walked up to Rebecca.

He stopped before her and his eyes took in her transformation. What Rob never realized was that she lost twenty pounds in the two years since Doug first left. She also cut off her once long, frizzy hair. She started wearing makeup and better clothes. In the few months after Doug left, she realized how much she’d let her looks go and was beginning to appear like the stereotypical, suburban housewife. Wearing sweats out in public, even to the grocery store, where she always used to at least throw on a pair of jeans to leave the house.

She knew she let herself go. She also realized that she let her marriage
go. She was as guilty as Doug of not trying harder to preserve their marriage. She knew that. The difference with her was instead of running like Doug, she would have tried to work on it with him. If he had just asked her to put more effort into her appearance, or pleasing him, she would have listened, and certainly tried. It wouldn’t have happened as fast or as dramatically as Doug leaving them in one day. But she’d definitely have done
something
.

The weight just melted off her during the first six months of being alone. She was miserable. So heartsick, and gut sick, she could hardly eat and preferred not to get out of bed. Never mind dealing with three little kids who now looked to her for everything they needed. She once felt literally buried
under the weight of it all, especially when it came to the girls’ emotional states as well as her own. She grieved over Doug, their marriage, their former life together and lifestyle as if someone very important to her had died.

And now, here stood that very m
an who did all of that to her. He just waltzed up to her as if he had every right to hold her children. She braced herself, and had to steel her nerves in order to be nice, and smile politely, without breaking down in middle of the airport with her kids and the rest of the world looking on.

“Hi Becky. You look great,” Doug said, his eyes roaming over her as if meeting her for the very first time.

She didn’t look that much different. So what if she were a bit frazzled, a few pounds heavier than what she should have been, and a little harried at times, she was never hideous to him.
Becky
. She hadn’t been called that nickname in a long time. No one but Doug ever called her that and she always preferred Rebecca. Everything about her physical appearance fell under the “cute” heading, so she always tried to keep her name from becoming Becky, and being just as cute as her red hair and freckles.

“Becky?”

She finally met Doug’s gaze. She kept staring down at the floor, feeling almost incapable of lifting her eyes to face him. The anger churning inside her was so breathtaking, and unexpected, she could hardly stand there and remain as composed as she had to. Seeing how he could walk up to her as casual as that, after everything he took from her, and comment how great she looked made her want to deck him.

No thanks to Doug, she did look good. It was in spite of him and all the responsibility he left her to deal with, which made her look good. These three girls were both of theirs, and he had the gall to leave her with their kids, their house, their pets, their mortgage, their vehicle loans, their household, their entire lives as if he were free. With no more ties or responsibilities to them than a wayward, stray dog roaming around. Never mind the ten years when he was there
and they first acquired their mortgage and loans, their lifestyle, and the kids they conceived together. She may have neglected him, or been too careless with the bigger things of their marriage, but he should never have left her in the lurch like he did. She did nothing to warrant that kind of punishment.

Too bad it took her two years to
believe that.

Now her little girls were looking up at her, scared.
There was fear in their eyes about what she might say. Or if she intended to drive away their daddy again. Because no matter what, someday, that’s what the girls would no doubt remember: that Doug left them.

“Hello Doug. Do you have much luggage?” Her heart was bursting. God, like it even mattered if he had two or ten bags. For more than two years, they had not been together in the same room, and now, here he was. Her husband. Her kids’ father and she could not find one thing to say to him.

“No. Just this carry-on and a suitcase. I’ll get it.”

She had five minutes to breathe as he waited for his suitcase to fall through the airport baggage terminal. She turned away from watching Doug with her kids.
Her daughters.
As they clamored around him, talking, chatting, Rebecca thought they appeared completely happy for the first time in two years, despite how hard she tried to keep them happy. All Doug had to do was walk up before they were finally and completely happy.

“Becky? You ready?” No. She wasn’t. She wasn’t ready at all. But she turned towards her family, smiling tightly, and took the lead through the throng of crowds, over the sky bridge of SeaTac airport, and towards the parking garage.

“What happened to the van?” Doug asked, as she clicked the locks on her new Suburban, while keeping the keys tightly clasped in her hand. She was driving.

“I sold it,” she said, busily helping Karlee get strapped in. Doug loaded his luggage, th
en came around to the driver’s side. She ignored him and got into the driver’s seat. He finally went around to the passenger side, making it obvious he didn’t like that.

“How did you buy a vehicle like this?”

“Nick. I had Nick buy it for me.”

“Why would you do that? We can’t afford this.”

“I did because I hated the van. So no more van. And Nick bought it for me; I don’t have to afford it.”

“We don’t take money from your brother.”

Rebecca started the Suburban, and the motor roared to life. She had a real engine, and she liked the sound of it even though she didn’t need all the power it had. She glanced at Doug, keeping her eyes cool.

“
We
don’t do anything anymore, Doug. I do. I took the money that my wealthy brother offered me. How the hell do you think I kept everything afloat these past two years? Nick, you jackass.”

“I sent you money.”

“Yeah? Well, it wasn’t enough to fix everything, now was it, Doug?” she said with her eyes on his and her meaning very clear.

“I don’t like your brother sponsoring us.”

“No,” Rebecca said, as she backed out and started down the road towards the freeway. “You don’t like Nick. Probably because he’s so much more successful than you, and you also resent that he
can
give me money.”

Doug bristled and Rebecca smiled sweetly. “You couldn’t think you were coming home to the same family that you left?”

She could feel him studying her, and glancing down at the vehicle. The Suburban was very silent before he answered. “No. I guess I haven’t come back to the family I left.”

Rebecca brought her husband home. It was awkward, miserable, in fact. He didn’t fit into their routine anymore. Or their life. Rebecca resented, hated, and detested his presence in what was now her house. As hard as it was when he left, she thought it became much harder having him back.

She made him sleep on the couch. There was no spare room, and the house was too small
when incessantly trying to avoid someone. He used her bathroom, which she resented as she got ready. He’d come in there and shower, and even pee right in front of her as if they were the same old, comfortable, married couple. She clenched her teeth to avoid lashing out at him, especially in front of the girls. He spent hours with the girls, trying to get to know his own children again.

Sometimes, Doug acted like she should she be grateful he was taking the girls so often. Well, so what? He should have never left them for so long that he had to get to know them again. For any reason. He could have moved to Seattle and changed his life, and still remain involved with his kids. He could have visited, or invited them to Japan. He could have done anything, but what he did, which was nothing. No, poor Doug Randall needed time and space, a break so he could figure himself out. And he got to do that. Meanwhile, Rebecca
had to pick up the pieces, and keep the home fires burning for him, so whenever he chose to, he could come back and resume his life with them as if he hadn’t destroyed their family to begin with.

The only one who seemed to agree with Rebecca was Minnie, the dog. Minnie tucked her tail and ran whenever Doug came into the room, and wouldn’t let Doug touch her. Rebecca smiled in satisfaction every time the dog silently slunk away from Doug.

Doug asked a lot of questions. He wanted to catch up on the girls and Rebecca, and their lives. He seemed to want to know everything. He even asked about Rob, and about her writing a book. At least, he didn’t have his usual condescending look or tone about her writing. He didn’t ever question if she slept with Rob, and she would not have hesitated about letting him that know she had been. He seemed to accept it and took it at face value: now that Doug was back, there was no Rob.

Rob was done.

Except in her heart, which was full of fury and anger, and breaking. It squeezed with longing. She wanted to call Rob. No, she needed to call Rob. She had to tell him how her husband’s return and being near her made her feel. Rob was the only one who could help get her through this. And yet, he was the last person she could call.

S
he had to try and put her family back together. She had to, once again, do as Doug wanted, and live with her choice. If she didn’t try, how could she honestly look into her girls’ eyes? She owed them this chance to have their parents under one roof again after all they had to endure for so long. Whether it was her fault or not, she had to try. And to do that, she was pretty sure one couldn’t have her boyfriend in the picture, or any contact with the man she truly loved.

As soon as she let Doug come home, it stopped being her home.

Things went along uneventfully for about a month. There were tense dinners and silent breakfasts. Doug and she engaged in several rip-roaring arguments, but only after the girls were in bed, but they solved nothing. She couldn’t let him near her, although he repeatedly begged for her forgiveness. Everything she once longed to hear, his apology and regret, she now had. And all she wanted to do with it was bundle it up and throw it down the garbage disposal.

He found her one Thursday lying on her bed. She was depressed and she knew it. She couldn’t find the energy to resist it. For so long, with no one to rely on, she had to get up, even if she was sick and throwing up, since there was no one close enough to call who could take her girls. It became she and they against the world. She hated it at first, but soon grew used to it. And now? Doug was there all the time. He took some time off from work to readjust to
family life. So he often dealt with the girls. Didn’t he want to be with them? Didn’t he owe them that after two years of neglect? So there was time for it now. Time for Rebecca not to feel obligated to get out of bed.

She could only
muster up enough energy to write. So she did. She shut the door to what was now her office, and refused to let Doug have it back. It was all hers now. She locked the door and wrote for hours each day, ignoring Doug’s knocks and the girls’ calls for her assistance. She told them to ask their father for whatever. He had to help them now that he was back.

When she completed the book
about Rob, she sent off proposals to find an agent. She worked hard and for once, it was all about her writing. Not as a hobby, but as if it were extremely important, simply because she could shut the door on everyone and everything else.

“Becky?”

Rebecca turned towards the door as Doug stood there, looking unsure. Her room was gloomy. She hadn’t bothered opening the shades recently. She hadn’t moved from her bed today and was still wearing her nightgown.

“What?”

Doug stepped into her room and closed the door. He came to the edge of the bed. “This can’t keep going on.”

“What can’t? Me not being all happy and perky?
Me not doing every household chore with a whistle and smile on my face? Fuck you! You don’t get to decide anymore what can or can’t go on.”

Doug hung his head. “I know. I know why you’re so angry at me. But Beck, I think I had a sort of mental breakdown after Daniel died. I couldn’t function or be a father. I couldn’t even talk to you. I know that now. How I pushed you all away. And just left, and jumped at the other job. What I meant to say was you’ve got to at least tell me what I can do to make this better for you.”

“That’s the thing, Doug. Nothing. You can’t do anything. You’ve already done it all to me. And this is what’s left of me.”

“I love you. I always have. All this time.”

“I loved you. I trusted you and you left us.
You left me
.”

“I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. If you’ll just give me a chance. Maybe, we could see a marriage couns
elor.”

“I begged you to see one right before you left; do you remember what you said?  Right after Daniel died? Oh, but now it’s a good idea? And not a stupid waste of your time? Wasn’t that what you called it?”

Doug took her hand in his. “Becky, I was wrong. Let me prove it to you. I’ve changed, we can fix this. Just let me try. Let us try.”

She took her hand from him
and turned on her side. “I think I’ve grown to hate you.”

He put his hand on her back. “I know,” he said before leaving the room.

Another month went by, but she wasn’t any more receptive to Doug. Nothing caught her attention. She even grew distant to her kids, and couldn’t seem to find her bearings. Not with Doug around, although the girls were happy to see him. They didn’t understand how she couldn’t be happy now that he was there again. Almost irrationally, it made her seethe with anger to see her daughters so easily accepting Doug back. So easily letting him reenter their lives.

She was the one
now being detrimental to her girls with her sadness, and withdrawal from them, and Doug, and everything else. But she couldn’t find the energy to change that. What she was, she finally realized, was monumentally miserable.

She was sad over how her life had turned out, and how her marriage was nothing like she thought it would be. She thought they’d share their lives, raise their kids, and grow old together along with all the other bullshit. Now, she could barely stomach looking at his face. She was sad mostly because she knew she was no longer in love with her husband, but very much in love with someone else. Someone who was not the father of her kids and who didn’t fit into her lifestyle. Someone who could probably never handle the kind of existence she had to live. Although she didn’t regret having her kids, not even for a second, she could not abandon them like Doug, and just do as she pleased. Their welfare came first, of course. But now, she was finding that hard to do.

She was also sad because she never tried to be her own person. She didn’t ever follow her own dreams when she was young and skipped college, because it scared her to go. She was scared to leave Doug. Now, she realized, she’d been scared her entire life. And with Rob, suddenly, she wasn’t. She was no longer scared or incapable; except now, she had a family anchoring her so she could not seek out the new person she briefly thought, for about five minutes, she might have become.

Doug was back, meaning, her former life was back. And she was sad about that.

****

One morning, she came downstairs and found Minnie on the deck, drooling, and her eyes were rolling back in her head. The dog wouldn’t get up and her body trembled. Something was wrong, seriously wrong. Minnie always got up to see
her if only so Rebecca would pet her. Rebecca’s heart emerged from the ice she encased it in for the last few months. Minnie was sick.

“
Doug! Doug!
” she screamed, running into the house to find him and showing more energy than she’d exerted in weeks. “Where are you?”

He came running in from the living room. “What? What is it?”

“Minnie. She won’t get up. Hurry.”

They both ran to the deck together and knelt over the dog, who was only six years old. Nothing should have been wrong with her. Not like this. Minnie didn’t look any better.

But she managed to raise her head high enough to bare her teeth at Doug. It was tragic, even heartbreaking. The poor dog was convulsing in pain, but still trying to keep Doug away from her. Tears filled Rebecca’s eyes.

“What’s wrong with her?”
Her voice trembled. She glanced back towards the sliding door and saw the girls huddled there together, watching their parents. Rebecca sat back on her heels and tears streamed from her eyes. Everything was so broken. Not just her. Her kids. Her marriage. And now her dog. She couldn’t lose this dog.

“She won’t let me near her. You stay with her, Becky, and reassure her that you’re with her. I’ll call the vet and tell them we’re coming in.” Doug stood up, suddenly moving across the deck. “Girls, go get in the Suburban. Hurry.”

It was minutes later when Doug came back and gently tugged Rebecca aside, as he leaned over Minnie. “Hold her snout, just in case she tries to bite me,” he said as he placed his arms under Minnie and lifted her up. Rebecca did what he said, marveling that the dog could very well try to bite Doug, yet he didn’t pause for even a second in lifting her. She weighed a hundred pounds, so there was no way Rebecca could’ve moved her. Doug carried her towards the SUV with Rebecca gently holding her snout. Doug had already put Minnie’s bed inside. He laid her in the back gently and shut the door, pulling the keys from his pocket. Doug thought of everything while Rebecca sat on the deck, crying hysterically, before she collapsed into the passenger seat.

They were all silent on the way to the vet. Once there, D
oug told Rebecca to go in and he carried Minnie alone this time. He hurried her through the reception area before they were shown to a vacant room in the back. The staff started examining Minnie.

“Becky, take the girls out and wait there. I’ll come and get you as soon as I know anything.”

For the first time in years, Rebecca looked into Doug’s eyes and felt grateful he was there. He was leading her. She was numb and didn’t know what to do. She felt incapable of functioning and robotically nodded. She turned and took her girls out to the waiting room where she sat in an exhausted heap, the girls surrounding and leaning into her.

It felt like her best friend had just been admitted to the ICU. Minnie wasn’t just their dog or pet, but
Rebecca’s co-parent for years. Minnie slept in her bed for months after Doug left, and protected the girls and her until Rebecca stopped being scared of sleeping alone out in the woods where they lived. Minnie was her companion each night, keeping watch, and warning her of any odd noises. Rebecca could count on Minnie to fight anyone to the death just to keep the girls and her safe. Minnie became her best friend when no one else was there for her.

Finally, Doug came out and his face
seemed very haggard.
No! No
. Tears streamed over Rebecca’s cheeks and she fell forward, gulping in breaths of air to keep from screaming out loud in pain. He didn’t have to say it, she knew his face well enough to know. Minnie was dying. The girls didn’t get it though, or how serious it was.

“Daddy?” Karlee asked.  Doug bent down and picked her up. Rebecca begrudgingly admitted that he easily resumed being a
good father to the girls. He knew how to handle them, and always seemed like a good father. Until the day he left them.

Doug, too, had tears in his eyes when he looked at Rebecca. “I’m sorry, girls, Minnie’s not well. They don’t know exactly why she’s going downhill so fast.”

Rebecca stood up and Doug took her hand. “I’m sorry.”

The way he said it, and the tenderness with which he held her hand, meant for far more th
an just their family pet. He was apologizing for what he had done, for not being there for her. She started crying harder, and lost all the composure she tried to retain for over two years. She only dared to grieve in private, but suddenly, she couldn’t hold it in. Right there, in middle of their vet’s reception room, Rebecca lost it. All of her self-control. She cried deep, gasping, choking sobs. For herself. For her children. For Rob. For the life she could not live. And for the life she now had to live. For Doug. For their dog. She cried almost as hard for the dog as she did for herself.