She nods.
“I should have been mad at her, I suppose, but I wasn’t. I mean, what was the difference between her and me? Would some other girl he was fu…sleeping with have been mad at me? I’m surprised it took that long for one of them to show up sniffing around after him.”
“Break those into balls.”
She nods and smirks a little. “Right. After that he apologized to me, and so on, and so forth. I was so stupid I thought we could actually fix it. I was twenty-three when Kelly was born. I didn’t know what to do. How could I be that young and have two kids? Without Russel I’d be helpless. I had no education, no job experience. I was trapped. I thought I could fix it.”
“I started working toward an associate’s degree at night. Once the kids were in school Russel insisted I find a job. I started out in a gas station. He didn’t care about the money. He wanted me out of the house so he could bring more of his students home while I wasn’t there.
“That’s a new couch out there. I came home early from work one day and found him plowing a psychology major bent over the back of the seat of the old one.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. I filed for divorce. It was a mess. They almost took the kids away from me. If I have any trouble here, I could lose them.” Her voice cracks and she starts to shake. “If I get too many stupid yard tickets from Mrs. Campbell, they’ll take my little girls away.”
I hear a soft sound. A sob.
Christ.
She deposits the last meatball in the baking pan. I slip them in the oven and step behind her, placing my arms around her. I hold her wrists and stick her hands under the hot water, and scrub them with soap. She leans against me and her breathing goes back to normal.
“Sorry, I start to lose myself when I think about them being taken away. They’re the only happy thing I’ve ever had in my life, and I won’t let that pig and his slut get their hooks in them…”
She takes a deep breath and trails off. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. I know how it feels to spend your life looking for bright spots in years of regret.”
I also know how it feels not to find any.
God.
I feel sick as I watch the water boil. It feels wrong to touch the food these children are going to eat with these hands that have inflicted pain and misery.
I’m a killer. I don’t belong here, and this sweet, gentle, beautiful woman doesn’t deserve the only life I can bring her, a short one of suffering and misery and death.
The spaghetti fans out in the boiling water. I feel like I’m standing on one of the noodles, watching it slide down into the boiling water as it softens the bottom of the stalks, and there’s nothing I can do to escape slipping in and boiling to death.
At least I can avoid dragging them with me.
It takes me three hours with Rose’s help to get the food together. I made too much sauce, and spoon some into freezer bags. The finality of that is weirdly poignant. Something to remember me by.
As we sit down to eat in her kitchen, the room is oddly quiet. The kids know, kids always know. Well, the little one doesn’t seem to care, she’s too busy shoveling food into her mouth. I’m glad I made two boxes of “biscetty” as she calls it, since she’s going to eat one by herself.
Rose is the happiest of the three. She spends half the meal just watching the kids eat.
When her second helping has disappeared, Karen belches loudly and turns purple, she blushes so hard, sinking into her chair.
“I take that as a compliment.”
“I don’t,” Rose says.
“Excuse me,” Karen chirps. “Sorry.”
Rose suppresses a laugh. “Clean up, will you?”
The two girls carry the dishes into the kitchen.
“Rose, can we talk?”
She looks at me expectantly. “Sure.”
“Outside, maybe. Back porch?”
Rose’s backyard is completely plain, depressingly so. It’s just an expanse of grass that’s not even separated from mine or the one next door.
She leans on the railing at the edge of the porch and looks out.
“God, this place is boring.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “Listen, we need to talk…”
“About?”
I lean next to her and hang my head. How the fuck am I supposed to do this?
“This isn’t going to work.”
“What?”
“This. I can’t be a father to these kids, and I can’t—”
She stands straight up. “Why?”
I stand, slower, and raise my hands in protest. “Rose, it’s not like that. I have to leave soon. I don’t think I’m coming back.”
Her voice cracks. “Why?”
“It’s a work thing—”
“What work? What do you do for a living?”
“I can’t… It’s complicated…”
“I’m not fucking stupid,” she snaps. “Why won’t you give me your cell phone number? Why was that house empty until a few days ago?”
“Rose, it’s better if I don’t answer those questions. If you don’t know…”
I trail off.
“If I don’t know, then what?”
“Then nobody can make you tell.”