They stayed silent.
“And now I’m trying with everything I have to fix what I broke but I’m afraid I’m going to fail because they’ve completely lost faith in me.”
My new friends remained quiet.
“I miss my family.” It came out almost like a whimper.
“Of course you do,” Alyssa said on a hand squeeze.
I kept going, “And I messed things up.”
“Of course you did not,” Alyssa declared, startling me, and I looked her way.
“I’m sorry?”
“So I take it you went batshit crazy when your husband left you,” she noted.
“Yes,” I confirmed humiliatingly.
“And those two, him and his new woman, don’t deserve that…how?” she asked.
I stared.
“Shit happens, babe,” she continued. “Marriages disintegrate for a lot of reasons. And you’re sittin’ in a chair that’s seen a lot of ugly tales told and those include women losin’ their men because those men fell outta love and into love with someone else. I don’t live those feelings so I can’t say if it’s okay or not for that shit to happen. What I can say is that it’s not okay for it to happen while anyone is still wearin’ a wedding band.”
“She’s right,” Josie added and I looked her way.
But I looked back to Alyssa when she again started speaking.
“I don’t know what your kids saw. I can guess if it got so bad that shit is as ugly as it is for you. What I do know is that, you’re right, they shouldn’t see that stuff. You’re also wrong. Kids gotta learn they gotta stick up for themselves. That there are consequences to actions. That you don’t play with emotions. And you never piss on them. So it got outta hand. You’re pullin’ yourself together. If they’re good kids,” another hands squeeze, “and I know you got good kids, Amelia. You’re a good woman, you can’t have anything but. So I also know they’ll come around.”
“I hope you’re right,” I whispered.
“This is gonna sound harsh,” she replied. “But they got a good mom and if they go the way of their dad and piss all over her, then it’ll suck, it’ll kill, but that’s the way it is and you just keep on lookin’ after you. They don’t come around, it’s the wrong decision, Amelia. You pulled up stakes and tucked your tail between your legs and gave it your all and if they don’t have it in them to let go and let you back in, then they’ll have consequences. And those consequences will be losing you.”
“You can’t say I’m much to lose because you barely know me,” I reminded her.
“I know you’re hangin’ on by a thread,” she returned instantly. “That thread is the last you got after unravelling and you got the courage and strength to hang the fuck on and not let go, and you’re doin’ all that for your kids. Your ex fucked up your life. He did that. You didn’t. He broke your trust. He kicked your heart around. And you might have faltered along the way, but you haven’t fallen yet. So you got that in you and you’re still fightin’ to keep your family alive, they don’t wake up and see, their loss.”
“Alyssa,” Josie said warningly.
Alyssa sliced her gaze to Josie and sat back, letting my hand go and repeating, “Their loss.”
“If the impossible happened and this happened to you, would you feel the same way about your children?” Josie asked.
“My Junior screwed me over and I spent their whole lives showin’ my kids how much I loved their father, through the good times and the bad, standin’ at his side, and they knew he did that to me?” She shook her head and kept going. “And after I pushed them out and wiped their asses and blew their snotty noses and cleaned up their puke and loved on them at every opportunity and dropped everything the minute they needed me, and I had a time in my life where I needed a little understanding and they bailed on me?” she asked then answered her own question. “Yes. Absolutely.”
Josie touched my knee and I looked her way. “She’s right, of a sort. But I believe you should give them some time.”
“I am,” I told her.
“That’s good,” she said softly.
I couldn’t keep looking at her because I had fingers wrapped around my chin, forcing me to look back at Alyssa.
“You give them time. And you fight for your family. But,” she forced my face to look in the mirror and dropped her hand, “that isn’t a miracle, Amelia. That’s us doin’ what we can to remind you of what was already there. You walk outta of here not believing in what we believe, not seein’ what we see, not thinkin’ your kids should open their eyes and see the same thing, then all is already lost. You deserve to be happy. You deserve the people in your life that love you to want the same thing for you. But it’s you that’s gotta go out and find it. To prove to them you’re worth it. To explain to them that you always knew that in your heart. That you deserve to be treated right, loved right, that you’re worth it. And you may have gone a couple of extra miles too far in sharing that, but you’re back to you and now you expect to get what you give.”
I looked at my reflection in the mirror and I didn’t know if I saw what they saw.
I did know that I didn’t look anything but like me.
My hair was great. My makeup was awesome.
But all that was what Alyssa said.
It was me.
Not a new and improved me.
Just me.
With fantastic highlights and expertly shaded makeup.
“I’m buying you both a Porsche,” I declared.
Alyssa burst out laughing and Josie did the same, except not as loud.
“I already have one, sweetheart,” Josie said when her laughter died down.
“I don’t. And I don’t want no Cayenne. Turbo. Black,” Alyssa put in.
I turned and grinned at her, knowing she was joking and still wishing she’d let me buy her a Porsche.
But I’d do something else.
I’d do what she wanted me to do.
I’d return the favor she extended to me.
Not fantastic highlights and a beautiful haircut.
I’d be a good friend.
*
The next day, arriving back from another shopping spree with Alyssa and Josie with much more than a bowl, I found my front stoop littered with packages.
The results of online shopping with overnight shipping.
Nothing fit me as I found that day in the shops I was a size smaller.
I kept it anyway and I put it all away, with that day’s acquisitions, taking the last of what was left of the wardrobe of my old life and shoving it in the boxes in the garage.
Then I went to my kitchen and opened a bottle of wine.
I sipped it while I made myself a nice dinner.
Chapter Eight
Bested Me
Late that next week, on one of the days I wasn’t at Dove House, I was in town at Wayfarer’s Market, doing some shopping.