Zenith Fulfilled (32 page)

The song was beautiful and slow, with a harmony. She listened to the words and realized it must have been a song he wrote for Joelle long ago. The words matched them as a couple. Did it hurt or bother her? Rebecca realized no, it didn’t. All she cared about was that Rob
put
Zenith
on the radio, and who cared about how he got there?

When the song ended, the announcer came on and said the last song was by
Zenith.
Rebecca thought her heart would burst with pride. God! He did it. They finally did it.

Rebecca dialed Erica’s number, only to discover Erica was down in California. Of course, things were happening, and her husband’s song had just been played on Rebecca’s car radio, so naturally, Erica was there.

And she, Rebecca, wasn’t.

But Rebecca had to share it with someone. She left the school and headed towards Seattle,
to her brother’s office building. She rushed up inside, towards Joelle’s office. She stopped when her brother ran into her.

“Rebecca
, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see Joelle.”

“What’s going on?” Nick asked, looking at her intently.

“I just heard
Zenith
on the radio!”

Nick nodded. He already knew. Of course, he knew. What didn’t her brother know? He was good friends with Erica and Spencer. “I know. We see Spencer whenever he’s in town. And of course…”

“Joelle talks to Erica.”

“Yeah. Are you okay?” Nick took her arm and led her into his office.

She sat down in one of the chairs across from Nick’s desk. His office was nicer than most houses. “What’s going on? You haven’t been yourself.”

Rebecca didn’t feel like a long, drawn-out explanation. Instead, she replied quickly, “I’m on medication and seeing a couns
elor because Erica thinks I’m depressed.”

Nick paused. “I had no idea things were so bad for you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve been through the worst stuff in the world. Joelle’s been through much worse than me. I don’t know why I got so bad. I don’t even understand it myself.”

“God
, Rebecca, you’ve been through a lot. It’s not a contest. I should have seen it. Turns out, there are a lot of things I should have noticed.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It means I think you and I should talk.”

“About?”

“You. Do you still love Rob?”

“Doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

“It matters,” Nick said quietly. “And convincing yourself it doesn’t might be what’s hurting so bad.”

“I’m working on it all. Really, I am. I’ll be okay.”

“Maybe. But what if you’re not? Did you know that Rob came to me the night he broke up with you?”

Rebecca paused, looking stunned. After all this time, his revelation surprised her. “Why?”

Nick smiled. “To tell me I’d better keep an eye on you and make sure you stayed okay. That I shouldn’t wait for you to ask for my help. I think Rob saw what might happen to you, this depression, and asked me to watch you more closely. Help you more. Turns out, he knew you better than I did. The thing is, he intended to tell you that he was offered a promotion at work that night. He wanted it because he thought it would enable him to support you and your kids. He was coming to be with you, Rebecca. And the only reason he isn’t now is because he found out Doug was coming back, and he thought the girls needed Doug more than him.”

Nick paused. “Much as it pained me then, I knew Rob loved you. He loved you selflessly and in ways he could never manage to love Joelle. It was me who failed to see it.
He was long over Joelle, and did change as much as you knew. He left for Los Angeles, and started
Zenith
again only because he thought it was best for you and your girls. Before he knew Doug was even coming back, Spencer asked him to start
Zenith
again, and he pretty much told Spencer to screw off. He wasn’t interested in going back to that. His only interest was you.”

Rebecca’s mouth
dropped open, and her fingers gripped the armrests on her chair. “How do you know all this?”

“I didn’t. Not all of it. I pieced a lot of it together over the last few months. From stuff Rob said to me. And Joelle. And some stuff Spencer finally told me.”

“Why are you telling me now? I thought you couldn’t stand Rob being with me? You liked me going back with my husband, where I belonged.”

“I thought it was the right thing. Everyone did. Even Rob. I admired Rob for letting you go. But I thought he should have. And now? I look at you and all I can see is that we were wrong. Everyone. Mom. Me. Our sisters. The only person who thought otherwise, was, ironically, Joelle. She told Rob not to leave you, and to fight for you. And the only reason he didn’t was because he wanted you to be happy. But Rebecca, you’re not happy. You’re not even close. You don’t even m
ention the book you spent so long writing. The only thing that’s sparked life back into you in almost a year is Rob’s success.”

Rebecca shrugged. “I don’t know how to find another addict to write about.”

Nick shook his head. “Bullshit. You were balls out on this. You went up to strangers and asked them for their stories. You hunted down Rob for this. Where is that girl? Come on, Rebecca, you’re not okay.”

“So what? There is no one to write about. I have nothing more to say.”

“I do. I know who you should write about next.”

“Who?”

“Our mother. And our sister.”

Rebecca finally stilled. Nick piqued her interest. “What?”

“That’s right. You heard me. There’re some things you should know. Starting with our mother’s trip to rehab for a Vicodine addiction way back when you were just a kid and Dad  died.”

“I’m thirty-three years old! How come I’ve never known anything about this?”

“Because I always protected you. Don’t worry, I won’t make that mistake again.”

“And sister?”

“Turns out, Rob knew that too. He told me before he left that Trina was on something. He thought it was probably prescription pills. Turns out, he was right again. Once I looked into it, I discovered that Trina was sure enough on Oxycontin.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

“He felt you had too much to deal with already. Look, Rebecca, what finally caught my attention is that you look just like Joelle did when she was married to Rob.”

Rebecca glanced up, somewhat startled, at her brother. What did he mean by that? “I’m not with Rob anymore, you can drop the hostility toward him.”

“It’s not about Rob. Joelle was unhappy in her marriage to him, but she didn’t know how to get out.”

Rebecca paused, then shook her head.
“Joelle and my situation are nothing alike. Doug is kind and attentive to me. I’m not being abused.”

“Agreed. But you’re staying there for your kids. Although it’s a noble act, it’s only hurting you. You are as emotionally helpless in your marriage as Joelle was, and that’s what I can see. You’re wasting away in your unhappiness, just like she was.”

Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the armrest. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you don’t love Doug. You tried to make it work. But i
t’s not working. Look in the mirror and you’ll see it.”

Rebecca stared at her brother in shock. Nick never so much as told her what shoes to wear. And never said what he thought of her life
or her choices. Now he was advising her to get out of her marriage?

“I can’t. What if he leaves
the girls again? I can’t risk that. What it would do to them is far worse than me being a little glum. I can live with it. But they can’t go through losing their father again.”

“The two are mutually exclusive
. You don’t have to stay with Doug for him to still be a father to those girls. I don’t think he’ll leave them again. And you’re more than a little glum, Rebecca, you’re clinically depressed. I sat by while Trina got hooked on painkillers even when she treated my wife like shit. I sat by while your life fell apart. I’m not doing it this time. Rob was right about Trina. And about you.”

“So Doug leaves the girls for two years, and I’m the one who ends our family? The one who leaves their father? Do
n’t you see why I can’t do that?”

“No. All I see is you have to do that. They’ll be okay. You’re too good a mother for them not to be. But you don’t get to sacrifice your health and future happiness for your kids. You can have both. And
it’s time you faced that. It will be hard, but not impossible.”

Rebecca
dropped her head. “I tried. I mean, I really tried. I tried to forget it all. Forget he left. Forget Rob. I can’t forget any of it though. It becomes worse as time goes on.”

“I see that now.”

“But Rob? I’m too late. He’s got a career now; he can’t just go back to that night and take a promotion as a carpenter. He can’t come back to my small town and help me raise my kids. He’s gone. And he can’t return to this. And I can’t live his existence. So what’s the point of destroying my family? Why put the girls through this? Don’t you think I’ve wanted to leave? To run to Rob and be with the man I want?”

“I think being alone is better than feeling helpless and angry in the relationship you’re in. I think being the woman you were before Doug came back, is far better than who you are under his thumb and feeling miserable. Come on
, Rebecca, Rob told me you were most fearless woman he’s ever known. I didn’t have a clue that you were. I felt like a jackass that Rob, of all people, knew that about my own sister before I did. He was right though. You’re just scared to be her when Doug’s around.”

“Why do you sound like you almost like Rob?”

“You changed my mind about him. Something even Joelle couldn’t do, no matter how much she tried.”

Her shoulders dropped. It sounded so good until she thought about actually implementing it. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Go home, Rebecca, and just be Rebecca. Be the woman who decided she was going to publish books and did so within a year. Be the woman who convinced a bad-ass to fall for her and her little girls. Just be you.”

She lifted her eyes to her brother in surprise. With hope. Nick’s faith and belief in her,
encouraging her to be everything she usually wasn’t, boosted her ego like she hadn’t felt in a long time. “I’ll think about it.”

“No, just do it.”

She grinned finally. “Balls out?”

“All the way
, little sis, it’s the only way to live.”

“You’re done, aren’t you?”

Doug took one look at her as she entered the living room and seemed to know. He closed his eyes.

“If I am, are you leaving our children again?”

He winced and physically seemed to take her words as an assault. “No. I won’t leave them again. Ever. You have my word on that.”

“I can’t go back. I can’t be your wife again. I can’t even be your friend. I hated you for so long then, and now, I can’t feel anything but cold, and I’m so tired. I thought time would ease it or take care of it, but it hasn’t.”

“Is it Rob?”

“Is it Rob? How can you ask me that? After everything we went through, our entire marriage, you bailed on us, and now you think the problem is Rob? You think that this is all my fault somehow?”

“Not your fault. Just that he’s still here with us even if you can’t admit it.”

“What do you want from me? What more do you want? I forgave you! I let you come back home. I gave you back your kids. What more do you want from me?” she whispered.

Doug sighed as he sat down, his elbows resting on his knees, and ran his hands through his hair in agitation.

“I just thought things were getting better.”

“Nothing’s gotten better.”

“Except now, Rob’s everywhere.”

“He’s not here though, and he’s not going to be.”

Doug sighed heavily. “And neither am I.”

Rebecca stared at the man who took so much of her life: her thoughts, care and anguish.
Sadness and regret filled her, but not because of what she was doing now, but because she lost all the good things she used to feel for him. She sat down next to Doug on the couch they picked out together six years ago. They didn’t touch or talk. Doug’s head dropped. The silence was thick and sad and tragic.

“How do we tell the girls?” Doug finally asked.

“The same way I told them when you left them; we sit them down and tell them the truth.”

Doug’s eyes were filled with tears. “You want me move out?”

“It’s my house. I’m sorry, but it is.”

He nodded. “I know. I know it is. And why it is, and why this is, but it doesn’t help.”

****

The next few weeks became hard, as again, Rebecca’s house was in transition. They had to tell the girls. It was just as hard as Rebecca feared. And just as tragic to them as it was when Doug left the first time. It was the primary reason Rebecca needed medication and counseling. She almost caved and couldn’t do it to them again. She almost stopped it all. The anticipation of their tears, cries,
and lack of understanding why their parents couldn’t live together practically tore out her guts.

She saw their fear that the family was falling apart again. It was more like utter terror at the prospect of their father leaving them again and going farther away th
an just down the road. Kayla looked at her as if she knew this was all coming from Rebecca, and Rebecca was to blame if Doug left again.

But Rebecca did it.

She kept her house and Doug rented another house ten minutes away, and moved the few things he had into it. He was still around a lot for the girls, if only to convince them this wasn’t like the last time.

All the while, Rebecca watched Rob’s career and fame explode. From the first time she heard him on the radio, she could now track him on TV shows, the internet,
Facebook and Twitter. He was everywhere she looked to find him. It became a secret of obsession of hers. She recorded any appearances he made; and the first time she saw him on the
Today
show, she rose out of her chair, and just stood there, staring in wonder and awe at her TV.

There he was. The man she knew. The man she loved. He was just talking to the host and he looked good. Someone had obviously styled him and picked fashionable clothes. He smiled, and it was as devastating to her on TV as she remembered in person. He seemed to be looking at her when he spoke and she had to almost remind herself he wasn’t. He was talking to no one and everyone. But he was not talking to her.

Then
Zenith
came out: Rob, Spencer and the third member, the drummer, whom Rebecca didn’t know. They must have found him sometime in the last fourteen months. They played their current chart-topping song, now at number nineteen on the Billboard. Rebecca followed it like a bookie tracking scores.

It was such an odd experience for Rebecca to know this man, Rob, who was suddenly thrown into the media. Who now possessed a presence in pop culture. He was Rob Williams of
Zenith
now.
Zenith
was becoming big, and grabbing fans like a quick moving brushfire. It was what any band would dream of. Rebecca watched it all from her small, secluded house an hour from the nearest city. She looked out her windows to the wide expanse of trees and mountains, and watched the show, knowing she’d never again be with Rob.

The first time Doug heard the name, Rob Williams, on one of the evening gossip shows, his gaze shifted from Karlee to the TV, then back to her, as if to say, is that him? Doug was studying the man who Rebecca once chose to be with.

“Is that him?”

Rebecca stared at Doug, daring him to comment. “Yes.”

“Not what I would have predicted.”

“You and everyone else.”

The problem was: the more famous Rob became, and successful, the more real his presence grew in the outside world, and the further he became from her. She knew that the faster his career rose, the further he would move away from her.

All the while, she watched Rob’s life flashing across her TV, and listened to his voice, alone in the dark with only her iPod for company. She continued her same schedule and routine. She got up, helped the kids get ready for school,
and hauled them around to all their endless appointments and after school activities. She took good care of them, the errands, and the house. She lived as quietly, and obscurely, and as anonymously as she previously lived. All except for the one whom she longed for, who was skyrocketing to become one of the most famous men in the country.

****

Two months after Doug moved out, Rebecca’s advance copies of her book arrived at her house. She took one out and sat down on the bench on her front porch. She stared at it without opening or flipping through it for several moments. She couldn’t believe what she read.

Her name.

There was her name. Right there on the cover of the book. She flipped the book over. There was a short description of the book and a few quotes from reviewers. She thumbed through the white pages, smelling the new book freshness of the unopened book. Anywhere she stopped, she read her words. She could pick any sentence in the book and continue the thought without needing to read it, because she wrote it and created it. And now, there it was.

She never thought it would actually happen. She always hoped, dreamed, and even prayed that it might happen, but she never really believed it. Not to this point: where she had the physical proof to show for her efforts. Yet, here it was.

What would Rob think of it? He already left before she finished the last few chapters and never read them. He signed off on all the legal mumbo-jumbo the publishers sent him without a word or comment. He never called her, and never so much as e-mailed her. It was almost like they had both fallen off the face of the earth.

The book wasn’t as sexy or loud or well known as what Rob was accomplishing, or the kind of presence he earned in society, but it was something. Something more than she ever dreamed she could accomplish. It was something no one in her PTA ever achieved. It was her personal dream, and she managed to make it come true.

She looked around her quiet yard. There was no one there. The wind rustled through some of the bushes, and whispered through her hair. The kids were all at school and Doug was gone. There wasn’t even a friendly dog sitting at her feet that she could pet. There was nobody now. The isolation and the absolute quiet hit her like a sucker punch.

She could call one of her siblings or her mother. They’d all be happy for her, of course, but they wouldn’t get how much this meant to he
r. Not only as a person, but also as a woman. The only person worth telling was Rob. He was the only one who would really appreciate this pivotal moment in her life. She imagined it might have been how he felt the first time his music played over the radio. The thing was: he never called her about it. Or reached out to her when he found success. Long ago, he walked away and told her to go home. And she did. And he left. He succeeded and wouldn’t need her again.

So, when she succeeded finally, she didn’t call him.

That night, she turned on her nightly gossip show and saw Rob walking beside a starlet, Vivi Tayler, as they entered a popular restaurant. Rebecca wouldn’t know. She hadn’t eaten anywhere fancier than Denny’s in the past ten years. Not literally, but she certainly didn’t know about the kinds of places that had waiting lists that were weeks in advance.

But not if one were
Vivi Tayler. She just finished a movie that was number one for three weeks straight. She was beautiful, of course, and so small and skinny, she was a size zero, with long, black hair and big blue eyes. She was long and elegant, and could not have been any more than twenty-two years old.

Rebecca flipped the TV off and lay down on her couch. The house was silent. The film clip played back through her mind. Rob’s hand on the back of
Vivi Tayler, guiding her into the double doors. He was gone from her mundane existence now and in an exciting and different life. With different people. She let him go and lost him just as surely as she lost Doug so long ago. The oppressive silence of the house sat heavily on her heart. 

If she ever met Rob again, he couldn’t be the same man who smoked on her porch as he tried to translate what she and her girls were saying. He would never stand in a wading pool, looking ridiculous and adorable, while trying not to hurt the feel
ings of a three-year-old little girl. He would never again look at her as if she were the most beautiful woman he ever knew.

The ache in her chest was hurting, but it almost felt comforting because at least, she was feeling
something
. The dull numbness and the haze of depression happened less often since she and Doug split. In fact, each day she felt stronger. Until now, when she realized Rob was not only becoming famous, but also had grown into a desirable bachelor. He was easily accepted in a world where she probably wouldn’t have been allowed past the bouncer.

****

Rob glanced up as Erica walked through the condo and she stopped when she noticed him. She wore a long robe, and her hair was messed up, but she looked happy, and Rob knew why. She and Spencer hadn’t seen each other for three weeks. It took that much time before Erica could get back there. Rob hadn’t seen them in over a day and felt the sharp longing in his chest. Not for Erica, but for someone special.

“Morning. Sleep well?”

She smiled prettily, not bothering to blush with ignorance. “I did. Thank you, Rob,” she said, looking over at him. “Tell me, how are you? You look tired.”

He smiled and r
an a hand through his hair absently. “I am. Very tired. We work such long hours and I go out a lot afterwards, trying to live up to all the publicity. So yeah, I am.”

“Uh-huh. Anything else?” Erica asked, her head nodding towards the book that lay on the coffee table in front of
him. There sat the book he received from Rebecca’s agent. Probably at her request. Opening it, he held it for several long moments and stared at it as if it were some kind of link to her. But it wasn’t. She never even touched this particular book; it was just a copy. But it was her work in print and her dream. He was proud of her, but it killed him not to know or have a clue how she felt about it.

“It arrived yesterday.”

“Have you read it yet?”

“Parts. I’ll get around to it,” he said, not mentioning the minutes he spent studying her head shot on the back cover.

Erica sighed. “Why, after all this time went by, did you never once call her? Or congratulate her? Or send her an e-mail? She wrote a book about you! Talk to her, Rob.”

“You mean like the way she contacted me? I don’t call her because her husband is with her now. What good is reliving what can’t be?”

Erica looked strange.

“What? What is it
, Erica? You act like you want to say something to me, but you’re hesitating. Since when don’t you say what needs saying?”

“Since I’m Rebecca’s doctor,” Erica replied simply. Rob contemplated that. Erica couldn’t legally tell him, but what was it? What did Erica want him to know about Rebecca?

“Is she okay?”

“I think you should call her.”

Rob stared at Erica for a long moment. For the past fourteen months, he hadn’t talked to Rebecca or her children. They should have been long forgotten to his past. Especially with everything he managed to accomplish in that time. He’d been so busy in L.A., there were days when he barely had time to take ten minutes to eat. Ten to twelve-hour days of working were common. Why then, in all that time, could he not get over her? Why did every quiet, spare moment bring back the images and memories of Rebecca?