“Where’s your dad?”
“He went out for a run.”
“Where’s Trevor?”
“In his room, reading,” he says with a scowl, as if that were a contemptible thing.
“Have you had breakfast yet?”
He shrugs. “No.”
Of course not.“You want a smoothie? Some eggs and toast?”
“Sure.”
I get up and face the day. If I act like everything is normal and dandy, perhaps it can be.
I press the button on the blender and get lost in the familiar buzz it makes. For a short time, while I make breakfast for my boys, I can pretend everything is fine. I don’t hear Brian coming in. He’s sweaty, haggard looking. He still looks wrecked, like he’s just been punched in the gut. And I’m the one who clobbered him.
“You want some breakfast?” I ask softly.
He nods and takes a seat at the table. I hurry to prepare our breakfast and call out to the boys. We all sit as a family, in our usual spots. Trevor and Tristan bicker as usual, and Brian and I are quiet, enjoying the normalcy. We both don’t want to let go of this.
I’m surprised when Brian finishes off his plate. He might be a wreck but he hasn’t lost his appetite. I, on the other hand, can barely eat a thing. I’m too consumed with guilt, with worry. I walk to the counter and reach for my meds. With all that’s happened, I’d almost forgotten to take them.
The boys clear the table as they were taught. Brian lingers, and I move to the kitchen where I load the dishwasher. Once the boys are gone, Brian joins me.
“I barely slept,” he tells me.
I dry the bottom of a glass. “Me either,” I admit. “I cried all night.”
He chews at his bottom lip. “I’ve had a lot of time to think.”
I stack the plates. “Me too.”
He reaches out and grabs a hold of my wrist. “Stop… stop this.”
I glance down at the dishcloth in my hands. I set it down on the counter and give him my undivided attention.
“I realize that I’ve put you in an impossible situation,” he starts. “I mean… you find out I’ve had a daughter all this time, and never told you,” he whispers. “That I’ve cheated on you a year into our relationship.”
I don’t say a thing. I have nothing to add.
“I know you have a hard time dealing with intense situations. Every time something bad happens, you go off the rails a little. And that’s what you’ve done with Joel… I get it. That’s what you did with Anthony.”
He’s right.
Anthony. I haven’t thought much about him lately. It was so long ago, when Tristan first started school. He was a fellow parent at the boys’ school. A crime fiction writer, originally from Brazil, unlike anyone I’d ever met. Extremely charming. A hint of an accent. A lover of women. A lover of words. Not into sports or cars like most guys. There was something quite feminine about him, but he was definitely all man.
I fell for him badly, and looking back, I now realize it was because I was vulnerable. My life up to then had been all about the boys, and now I found myself an empty nester. The boys were both in school — they no longer needed Mommy. I was bored to death. I wasn’t working at the time and longed for excitement in my life, for a reason to get up in the morning. Brian had just started at his present position. He was all caught up in his work, happy, excited. And I resented this. Brian had also been unusually distant. And to top it all off, I was also stressed because Trevor was being bullied.
When I first confronted the bully’s father, my life changed forever. Said bully’s dad was Anthony Santos, a Casanova with a capital C, if there ever was one.
I thought I was special to him. Foolish me. I was no better than all the other bored housewives he seduced. At first, I was completely blind — perhaps I just didn’t want to see the truth. Every compliment made me blush, every kind gesture made me giddy. Now that I look back, from an objective point of view, I’m appalled with myself. I was a desperate pathetic woman. When he bought me a beautiful silk scarf and told me he’d like to tie me up with it, I told him I’d like that too.
And that’s exactly what he did. He tied me to the posts of his bed with silk scarves. His bed was smack in the middle of his ‘office’, a lofty bachelor studio. When I first stepped in, I was weak at the knees. Books lined the wall. An old antique desk housed a laptop, a radio and a stack of folders and notes. A little kitchenette was tucked in the corner, and at the center of it all — the bed. He told me he couldn’t write at home — too many distractions. He hadn’t published a book in three years. I should have seen it right then. His ‘office’ wasn’t an office at all… it was a shag pad.
I found myself naked and tied to his bed posts on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. He stood over me, shirtless, with a visible erection under his trousers and a wicked smile on his face. I wondered what Tristan and Trevor were up to right at that moment. Was Tristan coloring? Possibly sitting in story circle or napping. He hated nap time. Trevor was probably diligently practicing his lettering, reading along with his teacher. He already loved reading at that age. And Brian was at the head of his class of young students, making a difference, expanding minds.
