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Or maybe waiting for the right person to tell it to.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
I didn’t get time to ponder this because Lance was far from done, and I was hanging on his every word.
“Though it’s hard to believe now, I had a normal life,” he said. His voice was flat. Cold. Which meant it was his way of protecting himself against what was to come.
He laughed. I struggled not to flinch, because I knew he was affected by that. But it was hard.
That laugh.
It was cold. Ugly.
“Whatever normal is,” he continued. “But in society’s view of it all, I landed pretty square in the middle. I married my childhood sweetheart straight out of college, bought a house we couldn’t really afford and got a job that I despised. Grilled out on the weekends. Had beers with the other husbands now and again.”
He paused, as if he sensed I needed time to wrap my head around all of this. That he had been married. Had a wife. There was not enough time in the world to wrap my head around it. Mostly because I knew this story was going someplace really frickin’ ugly.
It had to be.
Because the man that Lance was describing was nowhere to be seen. Not an ounce of him.
Whatever he was about to tell me was going to be bad. Bad enough that it ripped through this life he was describing without mercy, without stopping until nothing was left.
“I’m not sure if I loved her,” he said. “I cared about her a great deal. She made me laugh. She was kind. We had history. Were comfortable with each other. I don’t know if that all adds up to love. Marriage just seemed the logical step after we both finished college and we were still together. So we got married.”
He didn’t pace. Didn’t move. Didn’t blink as he spoke this to me. He was just recounting it, standing in the middle of the living room, as still and cold as a statue.
But his chest was moving erratically.
He was having trouble breathing.
Through the pain.
I wanted to help him. So desperately. But you couldn’t help someone breathe.
“We were happy,” Lance said, voice still disturbingly cold. “In whatever way people can be happy when they’re not living a life that they really want. She got pregnant.”
Pregnant.
I started shaking before he got any further.
Because I knew. Right then I knew. Looks I couldn’t quite understand directed at Nathan. The way he was with him. The pain in his eyes when Nathan held his hand, called him Captain.
It made sense.
I didn’t want to hear any more.
As a mother, I couldn’t.
But I had to.
Lance had been watching me, waiting for me to breathe. He spoke when my chest started moving more evenly.
“We both wanted kids, even though I knew I shouldn’t bring them into a life that didn’t feel quite permanent. Quite full enough.” His stare burned into mine. He was filling that hole up. With his pain.
“I reasoned that might change it all. Make the life more substantial. And it did. My son made it all lighter. Easier. Even though he cried all the time and tired us both out. We fought more, of course, as lack of sleep and all of that made new parents crazy. But we made it through and Nick settled down when he got older. Was a good kid. The best. Of course every parent thinks that.” He smiled at me.
Smiled.
I’d wished for his smile for so very long.
But now I hoped I’d never see this smile again.
“Nick really was the best,” he said. Voice cracking. Only slightly. Hairline fracture.
But it was there.
I held it together.
For Lance.
Because he wasn’t done.
“I was working,” he continued, eyes not on me but out the window. He shook his head. “I was always working then. Mortgage was more than I could afford since we got a new house, bigger one, for the sisters and brothers we planned on givin’ him.”
I almost lost it right there, thinking of Lance’s lost future, of that big empty house. But I held it together. Lance was, under something a lot more considerable than my imagining of a lost future, he was in a lost past.
“We were overextended, ‘cause Sandra wanted to stay home with the baby. I wanted her to be happy, straight up. She wanted to go back to work, we would’ve made that fly too. But she wanted to be a mom. Full time. Hardest job in the world, she was one of the best at it I’ve seen.” His eyes touched mine for less than a second and I bit my tongue until I tasted blood so I didn’t break down.
“No matter how good she was at it, pay was shit.” He paused. “Well, the rewards were fuckin’ priceless, but they didn’t help with utilities, car payments, diapers. Strollers. I was drowning under it all but not enough of a man to tell anyone. Even my fuckin’ parents, who would’ve helped out in a second. Who wanted to. Fuck—” He cut himself off, the only inclination I got that the sudden pause was from emotion was the tiny change in tenor of the curse.
