A Life More Complete

---Chapter 29---

My sisters and I are standing in my mother’s kitchen. Why? I don’t know. We could have stayed anywhere, yet we came here. It’s like a time warp. I feel like I’ve been transported back to 1996, nothing has changed. My mother’s house is a 1927 Sears home built in the historic downtown area of Naperville. She bought it from the original owners back in 1986. It was the Puritan model, straight from the catalog. I know this only because the former owners left the catalog page from Sears in a frame hanging on the wall of the living room. It still remains. It’s a beautiful home, meticulously maintained and charming just like all the other houses in the neighborhood. White washed wood siding with gray shutters and a white picket fence. A pergola covered with ivy gracing the driveway with its homey feel. Its outward appearance has always given the illusion of happiness. Gia’s parents house shares a backyard with the side yard of my mother’s house. This is how I met Gia. The summer we moved into the house Gia was in her backyard playing, the entire time taking in the moving trucks, and watching as my sisters and me mill around in the yard. Finally she called out to us, asking our ages and when I told her I was eight, she seemed thrilled. “There are only boys in the neighborhood, including my brother Christopher,” she informed me and with that we became best friends. Life was so much simpler then. We’d run through the yards, back and forth to each other’s houses, laughing and playing until dark.

My sisters are both staring at me when I finally explain why Tyler is not in attendance. Their mouths slightly ajar, the look in their eyes telling of what’s to come next.

Maizey asks, “So he’s coming later then, right?” She’s trying to play dumb, but it just comes across as passive aggressive. Fitting since I know precisely where she learned this move. My mother had perfected it, possibly while standing in the exact same location.

“No. I already told you, he has to work,” I say reaching for the extra key we’d swiped from its hiding spot to allow us access to the house, since our mother is still at work. Some things never change and luckily she still kept a key to the house taped under a shelf in the garage, in addition to never locking the door to the garage, I was able to find the key and let us all in.

“So, he’s not coming at all?” Rachel reiterates Maizey’s original question with the look of repulsion in her eyes.

“That’s what I said. Now can you stop sounding like a broken record? My answer isn’t going to change and you repeating it is getting on my nerves.” Grabbing the key I head toward the garage stopping at the junk drawer to pull out a roll of tape. The whole process is bizarre given the fact that I haven’t lived here in close to eleven years, yet it all still remains the same. It’s like I never even left. I can tell you where the scissors are located and where to find the laundry soap and when I opened the back door with the extra key, I remembered to pull up on the door knob to level the key hole with the locking mechanism or the door wouldn’t open. Rachel shouts to me as I walk out the back door.

“It’s Memorial Day weekend. Who works on Memorial Day?” Her tone is flippant as she hounds me to no end. My first reaction is to flip her off and that’s just what I do as I slam the door behind me.

Regrettably, she follows me out to the garage. She obviously has no clue as to the sore spot this conversation already is, not to mention the fact that I already hashed it out with Tyler and gave up. She’s wearing me down and although I’ve never hit anyone in my life she just might be the first.

“This is bullshit and you know it,” she half shouts coming up behind me. “Why do you accept this from him? I get it. He’s the father of your baby. Blah, blah, blah. But seriously, he’s an a*shole and you know it. Paul would never...” I cut her off before I get the lecture about whose husband is better. It doesn’t take a genius to see hers would win the award.

“Listen,” I hiss back, “sorry my husband’s not perfect. This is my life not yours. And don’t think for a second that I’m not hurt, because I am. The last thing I need is for you berate me. So back the f*ck off!” I scream so loudly that I’m sure even the neighbors hear it. I stomp away leaving her silent.

The three of us don’t speak as we climb into my rental SUV to make the long commute from Naperville to Chicago. Our first stop is the Cook County morgue for the identification of the body and then to the funeral home in Oak Park. Our father, up until a few days ago, still lived in the same house the five of us once resided in as a family. That was where he was found five days after his death by a ComEd worker who was there to read the meter and smelled something foul. The story is sad and just thinking about it causes the guilt to grip my chest tightly.

My father just disappeared after my parents divorced. We’d hear from him on occasion, but primarily he stayed out of sight. Most of the contact we had with him was through the Oak Park police department. My mother was listed as an emergency contact whenever he was found unconscious or was arrested. The police visited our house with such frequency that Tom was on a first name basis with them and even hired one of them to work on the Naperville police force with him. My father was in and out of hospitals, jail and rehab more times than any one person should ever be, yet it never seemed to make a difference. He continued down a path of self-destruction, eventually ending with his three daughters identifying his body in the most morbid and grotesque environment I have ever seen.

The guilt has been eating away at me since the phone call from my mother. I keep feeling like if I had tried harder, made more of an effort, that maybe he would have at least died knowing his daughter; instead I hid from him and everything that he had become.

We schedule the wake for Saturday and the funeral for Sunday to take place in the church where my father was confirmed, where he was an altar boy, where he married my mother just after their eighteenth birthdays. A Catholic mass with a luncheon to follow at a local restaurant. It’s by the book and not one of us disagrees with the choices.

My father has no family to speak of, with the exception of my sisters and me. He was an only child to an abusive alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother. My paternal grandmother killed herself when my father was only ten years old, a story he liked to share regularly with us as children. She hanged herself using her husband’s tie. He described her dangling from the showerhead in the only bathroom in their small rundown apartment that bordered the edge of the city limits. The showerhead pulled from the wall but not enough to give way as her toes almost touched the bottom of the bathtub. She had made my father a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, placed it on the TV tray and turned the television to The Flintstones before she took her life. This is the only memory I have of my grandmother and as I aged the memory took on a ghostly creepiness. My father lived in that apartment until the day he married my mother.

Maizey cries all the way back to the hotel while Rachel texts obnoxiously from the back seat. The sound of her nails tapping against the keypad of her BlackBerry is one of those sounds that could drive you to complete insanity. I reach over and take Maizey’s hand as the tears begin to fall from my eyes just as quickly as hers. Rachel never looks up and I can’t say I’m surprised.

Before I can even put the car in park, Maizey scrambles from her seat and into Kevin’s arms as he waits for her out front of the hotel. Moments later Paul appears taking Rachel’s hand and the four of them retreat to their rooms leaving me alone.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I wasn’t supposed to be the one alone. Out of the three of us I’m the only one who wanted to get married. Yet, I’m the one with the husband who would definitely be in the running for worst husband of the year. I’m the one left alone.

I grab my phone and call Tyler because right now I need to know someone loves me. I’m shocked when he answers on the first ring.

“Hi, kid. You hanging in there?” he asks but he sounds distant.

“I guess so. It’s been surreal to say the least. I haven’t seen my mother yet, but it’s coming. We made the wake and funeral arrangements for...” I stop short due to the giggling of a girl in the background. “Who’s laughing?” I ask, perturbed by the lack of privacy.

“Oh, that’s Ryan’s assistant. She’s reiterating a story to us about ordering Chinese food last night. Something got lost in the translation of no shrimp in the fried rice and we ended up with about ten pounds of shrimp instead. It was hilarious,” he says laughing with a little too much gusto.

“Funny,” I deadpan. The conversation stalls out. I wait several seconds and speak again. “I really wish you were here. The wake is on Saturday and the funeral on Sunday. You’d still have time to get ready for your case on Monday. It’s Memorial Day.”

He sighs and I can hear the annoyance in it. The background noise grows muffled as I realize he has placed his hand over the phone. Seconds later he returns, the room quieter. “Listen, I told you I have to work all weekend. I’m not sure what part of that you missed, but I’ll repeat it again. I have to work all weekend.”

“Good-bye Tyler,” and with that I hang up. And the cycle continues. He won’t leave and I know that. He knows I’ll feel guilty and call. It’s disgusting.

The times when we truly enjoyed each other’s company are beginning to be overshadowed by Tyler’s ability to make me feel inferior to him. The respect is gone. The problem is that his passive aggressive tendencies and his view of me just make me want to try harder. For some reason I can’t leave. About ten minutes into my self-pity party my phone vibrates. Maizey asks if I want to walk over to the Cracker Barrel and have dinner with the four of them. The idea of having to sit through a meal with the two perfectly happy couples, makes me feel like barfing. In the end, after battling back and forth, I agree. The baby and I can’t turn down green beans cooked in bacon fat.

Luckily for me the conversation throughout dinner is dominated by Paul and Kevin and their obsession with securing seats on the first base line for the White Sox game tomorrow.

I pull my phone from my purse for a third time during dinner and Rachel glances at me with suspicion in her eyes. I quickly drop the phone back into my bag and pull out my wallet.

“I’m done for the night,” I say, stretching adding in a yawn for good measure. I place a twenty on the table and begin to leave.

“I’ve got dinner tonight,” Kevin says handing me back my money. “It’s been a hard day for everyone, you more so than anyone.”

My reply comes out as indignant as I narrow my eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just that you’re the only one who’s here alone. I thought it’d be a nice gesture. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He looks over at Maizey for support, but her eyes drop to her hands. She hates confrontation, but she pulls it together to mutter a few words, which do nothing to subside my agitation and humiliation.

“Let it go, Krissy. He didn’t mean anything by it.” Her voice is meek, but her soulful eyes meet mine.

“Please don’t pretend to know what I deal with every day, the last thing I want or need is pity. So look at it this way, paying for my meal at Cracker Barrel isn’t going to suddenly change the bullshit that’s become my life, but thanks anyway.” I walk away and I’m crying before I even hit the parking lot.

I pull my phone from my purse sending Maizey a quick text to apologize for my behavior. I know none of this is their fault, yet I can’t help but blame them for claiming what should have been mine all along. I wanted the happy family, but they found it when it was the last thing Rachel or Maizey were seeking. I’m constantly looking for something that might have passed me by or I just might be seeking happiness with the wrong person. Maybe it’s that obvious.

I shower quickly and climb into the foreign bed knowing it will be hours before I fall asleep. It’s times like this that I wish I could pop two sleeping pills and watch the world fade into a fuzzy oblivion. But baby comes first, and surprisingly, thinking about the little nugget eases my anxiety and lulls me to sleep.