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We weren’t intimate for several months before she died. Was that because she felt bad for screwing around behind my back or because the thought of being intimate with me made her recoil?
Her avoidance of Teddy, her avoidance of me, her need to be away from the house…
And then the real, true kicker of it: did she ever really love me? At all? Or was our marriage and life together some sort of mask she wore? Was it all a big, fat lie?
A lie I couldn’t see through her manipulations. Her constant excuses. The way she’d answer my questions.
“What have you been up to?” I asked her one random day a few weeks before she died.
It was an innocent question, and I asked it with a smile on my face as she came in wearing her scrubs and started up the stairs, looking cute as hell.
“Just been missing you,” she told me, sending an air kiss my way before heading up to shower.
Had she just been fucking one of her men? Was her redirection a way to get me off her case? To distract me? So she could run upstairs and shower another man’s smell off her skin?
I wince at that disgusting thought, wishing I could take it and put it in a box somewhere to never be found again.
When I finally finish cleaning up and step out of the shower, I take a look at my face. At the full beard that has grown in, one of my many acts of defiance.
Melody hated facial hair.
Hated it.
Which is so ironic because Sean had a goatee and the cycling instructor had a moustache.
So now, maybe I’ll let this thing grow to see what I like.
That’s how I feel about most of the shit I got rid of in the house, too. No more living in a world curated by Melody’s likes and dislikes. Instead, it’s time to figure out what my world looks like. What I would choose if I ever gave myself the permission.
After drying myself off then tugging on some clothes that smell decently clean, I head over to Teddy’s room, cracking the door open to find him still taking a nap.
I cross over to his crib and look down at him, my heart swelling with love.
Ever since his mom died, he’s been crawling out of the crib and coming in to sleep next to me. He never had sleep issues before and, realistically, I know he should be moving to a big kid bed soon, but I’ve been putting it off.
As much as I know I should put a stop to his nocturnal sneak-around, I also know it probably gives him comfort in a way he currently needs but can’t verbally express.
Hell, it does the same for me.
So the reality, the truth of it all, is that Teddy and I aren’t ready to be pushed into whatever this next stage of life is. The next stage of grief or moving on or whatever else is coming down the track.
We’re still bumbling along at the beginning, giving in to our coping mechanisms to deal with the pain and sadness. Or in my case, the betrayal.
I don’t know when I’ll be ready to move on from this. If I’ll ever be ready to move on from this. What I do know is that shoving us through the stages of our grief certainly isn’t going to solve anything.
***
Sometime later, after my parents have retreated to the fancy hotel they stay in whenever they come to town, I sit down in my ugly blue lounger with a bottle of beer and a massive file about Emily Burns.
My father left her full employment profile and background check on the kitchen table, but I’ve been focusing on Teddy and playing outside and getting him dinner and a bath.
Basically, I wanted to prove to myself that I could be the dad I know I can be before I consider hiring someone to take the job away from me.
I scoff and take a sip of my beer then scan over her resume.
She graduated summa cum laude from UCSB, double majoring in early childhood education and business, and has a CPR and first aid certification. She worked for three years during college at a daycare and preschool in Santa Barbara, was on the swim team during high school, doesn’t smoke, and was a nanny for another local family from the time she graduated until a few months ago.
And then there’s her more-than-thorough background check, which fills in all the rest. She was born and raised in Sandalwood by a single mother who got married a few years ago and now lives in Boca Raton, no listed father on her birth certificate, one older sister who lives in East Hollywood. Her middle name is Elizabeth, 25 years old, born August third. She paid off her college debt within a year after graduating, which makes me thinks mom and the stepdad are rich parents bankrolling her life.
