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In my forty years on earth, I never thought I’d be sitting on my porch, wallowing. This is the shit you do when you’re a teen. Grown men don’t drink their sorrows away about a woman who they only knew for a month. They don’t replay in their head the fight they had that had her walking out the door over and over again. They don’t keep on hearing her laugh and reliving how it made them want to smile, but they didn’t always. Why didn’t I laugh? I wish I knew.
When I was married, I was a content man. Christine and I had dated a year before I proposed. We were young, but I was the kind of man who knew what he wanted in a short amount of time. We’d met through friends. She was four years older, so even though I was twenty-four when I became a father, she was already twenty-eight and ready to start her life. I wasn’t like typical guys in their early twenties. I wasn’t in the bars and scoring with different women every night. I liked my comforts. A good day’s work. A good drink. A good woman.
When I met Christine, all the boxes were checked. She was pretty as heck and sweet as pie. We made each other laugh and liked to go hiking together. My mother loved her.
Then, she gave me my son, and I didn’t think I could love her more. She was funny and had lots of friends. We had them over a lot. Sometimes too much. The kids loved. Especially Jesse.
Jesse … that boy didn’t want to come into this world. He made his mom labor for twenty hours and still refused to come out. The doctors had to go in and get him, and then he cried for three months straight. I used to tell Christine the baby was pissed to have been born. She didn’t think that was funny.
It bothered her that the baby wasn’t this perfect, sleeping child, like you see in the advertisements. Jesse had colic, refused to eat, and only wanted to be held. No sooner did I walk through the door than that baby was placed in my arms and she ran upstairs to get some much-needed sleep.
I didn’t mind. I enjoyed those nights with my son. We sat on the couch for hours—him in my arms, baby bottle in my hand, and a game on the television that I couldn’t watch because I just stared at him. He was a miracle, and I vowed to do everything in my power to give him a good life.
Christine started to come into her own again just as Jesse came into his own. I wanted more children, but it took Christine some convincing. She wasn’t ready to go through the sleepless nights she’d had with Jesse. That’s why we waited for many years to have Molly.
Molly … that little girl was born to music. Her labor was so easy. The doctor played Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” as she came into this world. She was a good sleeper and easy eater, and she always smiled.
If Molly had come first, we would have had ten kids. Until Jesse was born, of course.
My kids are a bit like bourbon. Sweet and spicy. I suppose they get their personalities from living in a home where their mother wasn’t happy because their dad couldn’t do anything right, and seeing it all through a different pair of lenses.
Life as a parent is hard. You want the cars and the house, the kids need everything they deserve, and it all costs money. I worked overtime and took on extra contracts. Despite the hours, I never missed a game, school concert, or practice. I would have loved to be home more, but Christine wanted to remodel the kitchen, Jesse needed braces, the car broke down, Molly joined a pricey travel basketball team. I put in more hours, started my own company, and got us out of debt. The house always needed work. The lawn mowed, the bedrooms painted, a pipe fixed. Balancing all that as a workingman and a father leaves little room to be a good husband. I came home tired, hungry, and yet I still had to have energy to be intimate with my wife. She, however, was so tired from her day that the thought of being with me was the last thing on her mind.
That’s when I started sketching again. A hobby I had when I was young yet put aside. I kept a space in the basement for my supplies. Christine didn’t want it near the remodeled spaces upstairs because it looked like clutter.
I’ve heard the phrase,Men have it all. It’s bullshit.
I’ve never had it all. I had the house. I had the job. I had the kids. I had the wife.
What I didn’t have was time to spend at my house because I worked so much that I was exhausted from being at my job and away from my family. I loved my kids, but never had enough time with them. And my wife grew distant because no matter how much time I tried to devote to her, it was never enough.
I was never enough.
She was right.
I should’ve made the time to take her out to dinner. I should have shown her I cared with flowers. I shouldn’t have said no to those parties she wanted to attend because I was too tired. I should have taken her dancing when she wanted to slip away for a weekend. I was lost in the routine of life and now I’m sounding like a damn Bruno Mars song.
Still, I loved what I had. I loved my wife. I loved my children.
One day, I came home, and Christine was in our room. She was trying on lingerie. She startled at the sight of me, but the grin on my face must have been enough for her to relax. She looked beautiful, more so because after us being in a rut of just trying to live our day-to-day lives, she was trying to bring us back together, and it made me feel like a fool. A fool for not doing enough for this woman. I made love to my wife that evening.
The next day, I took her out to this ranch and showed her the property I’d been eyeing. It was desolate and decrepit, but I thought it was perfect. It could be a place we’d come to relax and forget the noise of our hectic lives. A summer retreat just for the four of us.
She seemed reluctant. There was so much work to be done, and it was an impossible task, especially for a family who was trying to take on less stress in our lives. She was right. That was why I was surprised when, a short time later, she told me to buy the property. I thought this was a good omen. I was still working a lot of hours, but I was making more money and had the means to give this to my family. We signed for the property and came here for a weekend, and she never returned.
The day after we signed the separation papers, she was sitting next to my friend Mike at Jesse’s baseball game. The next game, they were holding hands. By the third, they were officially together.
I’m not mad my marriage ended. I’m mad because it ruined my kids. I’m pissed because I tried everything in my power to give Christine what she needed, and it was never enough. I was never enough.
I swore off love. I swore off women. Swore off happily ever after.
For the past three years, I’ve been a pissed off walking zombie until, one day, I saw her.
Tara.
It was my brother’s engagement party. I was sitting at a table at the backyard reception, watching Molly on the dance floor. Jesse was talking with my parents on the other side of the party. Molly started dancing with her cousins when I looked next to her and saw a woman.
This wasn’t any woman.
