She clears her throat and delivers the death punch with an assertiveness I’m sure even Miranda would admire. “Mrs. Buckingham and kids on vacation. They be back Monday.”
My anger is delayed by disbelief. Disbelief is short-lived. Anger implodes, gutting me before it explodes on her. “Where in the hell are my kids?” The words come from the bowels of that deep, dark place where hate is born.
The line goes dead on my rage.
I throw my phone on the seat next to me and climb out of my car. Before I know it I’m beating on the iron gate with my cane, hurling obscenities at the oversized, pretentious structure that is supposed to house my children.
A stout, steely looking woman emerges from the front door and stomps toward me. The look on her face is a mixture of annoyance and fear. She’s waving her arms in front of her urging me to be quiet.
To hell with quiet.
“Where are my kids?” I yell again. Projecting my voice isn’t necessary, she’s standing six feet from me, but my rage won’t allow civil volume. “So help me God, if you don’t tell me where my kids are—”
She cuts me off, “Quiet,” she hisses. “They not here. I told you.” Her eyes are darting back and forth, never falling on me; she’s assessing the street to see if my commotion is drawing any attention. She looks nervous now, the vibrato she exuded over the phone is gone.
I take in a deep breath through my nose. It’s a nostril-flaring intake meant to quell anger. It doesn’t. I take another. Still nothing. So, I dive back in speaking through clenched teeth to moderate the volume. “Where did they go?”
She shakes her head emphatically, her words hurried like she’s trying to speed up my departure, “I not know. They no tell me.”
I’m staring into her eyes, trying to read her. I see nothing but fear now. She’s scanning the street again. I turn my back on her and slam my fist down on the hood of my car. “Fuuuuuuuuck!” It’s a long, drawn out release of frustration, rattling out on all the air my lungs will hold. And when it’s purged it hangs heavily around me, as if I’m surrounded by hate so tangible I can touch it. Punch it. Strangle it with my bare hands.
Arguing with her is useless. The ache in my chest tells me she’s not lying and that my kids aren’t here.
The stubborn side of me tells me to wait it out, in case she’s lying, and see if they either come out of the house or return home.
I wait.
I eat two peanut butter sandwiches and drink a bottle of water from my stash.
After the sun goes down, I pee behind Miranda’s high hedges next to the gate.
I doze off around three in the morning and sleep for an hour.
I pee behind the hedges again before the sun comes up.
I eat an apple and another peanut butter sandwich and drink my last bottle of water.
After twenty-four hours of sulking in the cesspool of Miranda’s villainy, I relent and leave.
I drive straight through, only stopping for gas.
My body, mind, and spirit are wrecked by the time I get home.
I write my kids a letter telling them about every evil thing their mother has ever done. I tell them how much I hate her. And how much they should hate her. And how sorry I am that she’s in their life. And how I wish she would die and rot in hell.
And then I crumple it up and throw it in the trash because my kids don’t need my hate.
They need my love.
So, I pull out another piece of paper and I write:
I fold it in half and tuck it in the shoebox with the others.
And then I drink some tequila and skip the sleeping pill because I’m already so tired I can’t see straight, and I fall into a state of rest so solid that it takes fourteen hours for me to deconstruct it and emerge on the other side.
When I do my chest still feels hollow, like Miranda took a blunt spoon to it, emptying the cavity of my life force and ability to love or see the good in anything.
Shedding regret like snakeskin
past
I’m standing in what was, up until an hour ago, my master bedroom. It belongs to someone else now. I shouldn’t be here. I signed the closing paperwork and handed over the keys this morning. But I kept one so I could come back and say goodbye.
The room is empty. There are indentations in the carpet where the four-poster bed and dresser stood. An imperfect reminder that there used to be life in this room.
Now it’s quiet.
And cold.
Like me.
The divorce is final. I’ve been in Seattle with Loren for weeks. Living my new life. The life I wanted.
That’s what I keep reminding myself—it’s the life I wanted.
Loren and I were married last night. He arranged for a minister to come to his house to conduct the ceremony. It lasted five minutes. I lied to Seamus and told him we were headed to Europe this morning for an extended honeymoon. There won’t be a honeymoon; we didn’t even go out for dinner afterward.