Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: Going Undercover
Jack pulled the SUV up to the garage door and turned off the ignition. He sat back in the driver's seat for a moment, gathering his thoughts. This was always the hard part. His mind preoccupied with countless details, loose ends to tie up at the office, contact procedures to memorize. And he had to pull himself back and deal with the home front.
Flashback to the Friday he'd arrived home at noon to tell Teri he was leaving for at least four months, possibly longer, at 2:00 that day. Twelve kids were coming to the house for Kim's 7th or 8th birthday party the next day, and his assignment was to drive half of them to the town park for a pool party, plus pick up the pizzas and ice cream. She'd looked at him in shock for a moment, the heavy cast iron skillet she'd been drying hanging down at her side, and the dishtowel bunched up in her other hand, suspended in the air. Which one would she throw at him? Instead, it was a good thing that Kim was still at school because they'd spent the next hour in bed, trying to squeeze fifty or sixty nights together into one spring afternoon. He'd never left with any angry words between them. Teri somehow always made sure of that. What she broke or threw or cried about, he never saw. She'd grown up a Navy brat, but still.
Picking up the small bag that was always packed, stashed in the back of his closet. Quick review of which bills had been paid and which hadn't. The will was always kept up to date in the wall safe with his life insurance policy.it was his job to check that.
Then the drive in two cars to Kim's school, pulling her out of class, talking to her while she climbed the playground equipment, excited to be outside and not really understanding what "a long time.like summer vacation" meant. Memorizing what she had on and how her hair was fixed.white sneakers embroidered with tiny blue flowers. That's what he'd pull up out of his memory, if he allowed himself to think about her at all. And then turning around and leaving them there. He always refused to look back, never even waved.maybe he should have.
The office had said she'd left early to take care of some errands. She wasn't in the house. He'd checked the kitchen, the bedroom, the study. He stepped out to the pool, into the bright sunshine, but she wasn't there either. Then he saw her in the shadows by the cabana, with a flat of plants and containers and bags of potting soil. She had on gardening gloves, a trowel in her hand, her hair tied back. She'd asked him to take out a dead bush last weekend but he hadn't gotten around to it yet.
She looked up and saw him, waved, smiled, and then a hesitation. Why was he here in the middle of the afternoon? He walked towards her, taking off his sunglasses.
"You found out when". A calm statement, not a question.
"Ten days. I've got leave for next week."
She looked down, taking her gloves off slowly.
"We could go somewhere. How about San Francisco? Drive up the coast. Or rent a car there." She was still looking down, so he couldn't see her eyes, couldn't tell what she was thinking.
"Somehow, even when you know its coming, its still a surprise" she continued, ignoring the suggestion. He started to say "I'm sorry", but thought better of it.
"Well, it's a good thing you already moved out, isn't it". She looked up with false brightness. "Now we don't have to waste time getting boxes and packing tape".
"Kate, please."
"Does Kim know?" Changing the subject.
"I told her at the office. Then I came to see you."
She leaned into him and he held her, neither of them saying anything. He found himself stroking her hair, so blonde even in the shade. All the arguments, all the anger and disappointment, until she'd finally accepted that he wasn't going to change, had no intention of changing, couldn't imagine changing.
"A surprise but, really, not one, because we knew, I mean we both knew there wasn't that much time left." She said finally
How clever of him, to take the final decision about the final breakup out of their hands. They couldn't seem to do it themselves, they'd danced around it for three months or longer. Now the finality of an assignment took away any discretion they may have had.
"Well, you've gone already, haven't you? I mean, you were gone even before you moved out. Miles away, since February, at least. That's when you started working on this, isn't it?" She finally looked at him. Not exactly an accusation but she meant "Tell me the truth you haven't been able to tell me."
"Yes, at least that long." Yes, the date explained a lot. She reached up and touched his cheek. "Let's go inside. Do you have to go back today?"
"No."
"And this will really take a year?"
"If I'm lucky, it won't be more than that. And if I'm not."
"Tell me it's about more than finding her, Jack. Tell me it's more than revenge. You're not doing this just to find her, are you?"
He reached down and brought her hand to his lips, kissing it gently. "Its something that has to be done, Kate, whether I find her or not. Its bigger than what I want or what I need to do." He paused. "But it's that, too".
"Do you want to stay?"
"Yes, Very much". He knew she meant this afternoon, and tonight.
She turned and walked inside, to her bedroom, the room that until about a month ago they had shared. Some of his things were still on top of one of the dressers. She'd decided she was going to go on pure instinct. She needed to be with him right now. The future had finally caught up with the present, and this was all they had. She started to undress while he watched her from the doorway. Then he came over to help her.
When Kate woke it was evening, almost seven o'clock and the outside lights had come on around the pool. He was still sound asleep, lying on his back, breathing deeply and evenly. She noticed, not for the first time, that the scars on his mid-section and chest looked like a child's paper mache map, done for a social studies project. Here were the Sierra Nevadas, the Bitterroots, the Cascades. Those were from the soldering iron. There were a few others: a puckered crater near his left hip, a bullet caused that one, before her time. The most recent was a thin, white, angry line running from his right breast down and across almost to the navel. That was from a knife, or so he'd told her. One hundred twenty three stitches almost a year and a half ago. He'd almost bled to death. She got up quietly, put on a robe, and sat outside in a lounge chair.
The last big argument began when she told him she wanted to have a child. Kate remembered how carefully she'd laid it out. Finances and marriage were not issues, of course, nor did she expect him to share custody, visit on a regular schedule, even pull his share of diaper duty. She would handle it all. He could participate as much or as little as he wanted. He'd be consulted on major decisions before she made them. If safety was an issue, she'd said quietly, his name didn't have to be on the birth certificate.
He'd wanted to smile at her naiveté, but didn't. As if that would stop anything. What mattered was the attachment, not the legalities.
She thought he'd looked at her like she had two heads.
"Kate, I know you're very serious but this is".he choked back the word "crazy"..."it can't happen." he finished lamely.
"Why not, Jack ?" She was standing her ground. She knew what he'd almost said.
He bristled a little. "Do you think I'm the type of man who could have a child and not be responsible for it, not be involved in its life?" Even though he knew she didn't mean it that way, he'd felt almost insulted, like he could be some kind of a "deadbeat Dad".
"But that's just it. You could if you wanted to. It would be your decision about how much or how little, but no expectations, either way, not from me."
"No, absolutely not." He forced himself to slow down, lower his voice, and collect himself. This was so important to her. "I know you're offering me a great gift" he continued quietly "but I can't do what you want".
Now it was her turn to be controlled. "I need to have a better idea of what you're thinking. Just stating an opinion isn't explaining."
Take it easy, she doesn't know, you never told her, so don't dump it all on her now. But still, he was feeling cornered about having to make her understand. So he started with the big picture. Keep it at arm's length.
"I am not bringing another child into this world. I don't want any part of it. There are already millions of potential victims walking around out there. I'm not adding to the risk pool."
Kate looked at him incredulously. "Is that what you see, when there's a crowd of people waiting to cross the street, or at the mall, or on the subway? A gathering of victims? That's not what I see, Jack. I see people, all different kinds of people, all with different lives and things they want and things they need and dream about. They're all people, Jack. I see life in those crowds, in each of those people. And all you see are potential occupants of body bags?"
He ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. "What do crowds of people on street corners have to do with it?"
"You're the one who started talking about millions of victims, millions of targets walking around. I'm trying to get you to think about the possibility of one child.just one, Jack. Just one more person to love."
He looked down at his hands. He could feel the tightness in his stomach. He wanted to do anything to end this conversation, leave the room, shout, go storming out, walk away. She reached over and took his hands in hers.
"Jack, if something happens to you, what will I have, what will Kim have? Every day, when you leave this house, I know it could be the last time I'll see you. Any inane conversation we have about picking up the dry cleaning or changing the oil in the car could be the last time we talk with each other. But you know what? That's true for everybody. Everybody is just one breath away from dying. It can't be helped. So why not give life a chance, Jack? You can be so brave, so fearless, when you're looking at death. All I'm asking is that you have that same courage about life. Please, let's just give it a chance. Let's take the risk together."
Quiet for a moment. You could hear the motor on the aquarium whirling away, it was so quiet. There was a catch in his voice, for just a moment, when he finally answered her.
"The last time I talked to her, Teri told me she was pregnant. When she answered the phone I thought.I thought she was going to tell me that she wanted me to leave for good, because she'd just found out about me and Nina. Instead she gave me this wonderful news, so totally unexpected. I felt like God had given us, especially me, this incredible second chance, despite how little I deserved it. Two hours later, she was cold and dead, the blood all over. And God was laughing at me." He turned to look at her.
"I am never going to feel that way again. I can't even try to feel that way again. It terrifies me, Kate. I'm sorry I can't do this for you or for us. You're exactly right. The thought of loving someone else, and then losing them.I am a coward when it comes to that. I'd much rather die myself, than even take the chance. I'm not going back there, not for you, not for myself, not for anybody."
Kate remembered that it was like looking into a raw, gaping wound, to look at his face at that moment.
"Then where are we going, Jack? What are we doing?"
"All there is for us, for you and me, is right here and right now. That's all I have, Kate."
She thought for a moment "I know its what we agreed to. But I don't know if it's enough for me anymore."
"I wouldn't blame you if it weren't. But if you're waiting for me to come around" he hesitated "it's not going to happen. If you want more, if you need more, then you need to go find somebody else, because I'm tapped out. I don't want to waste your time."
They'd stayed together for another week or two. With fits and spurts she'd thought one way, then the other but finally she had to agree with him. It wasn't working. It was a mismatch. No matter how much they enjoyed and respected and yes, even loved, each other, if they stayed together one would always feel shortchanged. And the other would feel pressured and pushed but still, somehow always lacking. So he'd moved out about a month ago. Very friendly. Very civilized. Very adult.
The house felt totally empty to her. She missed him, his humor and intensity and gentleness, so unexpectedly gentle. And he was having a hard time of it too. He kept calling, casually touching base to see what she was doing, just to ask how her day was going, did she have any plans, maybe they could see a movie or just go for a walk. And they'd ended up together two or three nights in the last two weeks. Jack had said once, laughing, that they were such a mess they couldn't even break up properly.
And then he'd finally told her, on one of those nights after he'd moved out and he'd asked her if he could stay, and against her better judgment, she'd said yes. He'd told her that he had an assignment coming up, a big one, a long one. He'd be gone at least the better part of a year, if not longer. And she knew it had been in the back of his mind all along, and he hadn't told her. At the very time she'd started talking about a child, he'd been trying to think of a way to tell her he was leaving. Why hadn't he said something? Maybe he wanted her to understand it wasn't a question of this assignment or another one. Maybe he was trying to tell her she needed to move on.
He stepped out on the patio wearing an old pair of jeans that somehow had gotten left behind or had shown up again under the bed, where his clothes always seemed to end up.
"Kate, are you hungry? Let's go get some hamburgers."
She turned and smiled up at him.
"I was thinking about tacos."
He smiled down at her. "No, I don't think I'm up for tacos. I think I'll be sick of those pretty soon" he added cryptically. "How about Chinese ?"
"Ok, I'll take a quick shower and be ready in ten minutes."
"First, show me that bush again. I'll get it in the morning."
Jack pulled the SUV up to the garage door and turned off the ignition. He sat back in the driver's seat for a moment, gathering his thoughts. This was always the hard part. His mind preoccupied with countless details, loose ends to tie up at the office, contact procedures to memorize. And he had to pull himself back and deal with the home front.
Flashback to the Friday he'd arrived home at noon to tell Teri he was leaving for at least four months, possibly longer, at 2:00 that day. Twelve kids were coming to the house for Kim's 7th or 8th birthday party the next day, and his assignment was to drive half of them to the town park for a pool party, plus pick up the pizzas and ice cream. She'd looked at him in shock for a moment, the heavy cast iron skillet she'd been drying hanging down at her side, and the dishtowel bunched up in her other hand, suspended in the air. Which one would she throw at him? Instead, it was a good thing that Kim was still at school because they'd spent the next hour in bed, trying to squeeze fifty or sixty nights together into one spring afternoon. He'd never left with any angry words between them. Teri somehow always made sure of that. What she broke or threw or cried about, he never saw. She'd grown up a Navy brat, but still.
Picking up the small bag that was always packed, stashed in the back of his closet. Quick review of which bills had been paid and which hadn't. The will was always kept up to date in the wall safe with his life insurance policy.it was his job to check that.
Then the drive in two cars to Kim's school, pulling her out of class, talking to her while she climbed the playground equipment, excited to be outside and not really understanding what "a long time.like summer vacation" meant. Memorizing what she had on and how her hair was fixed.white sneakers embroidered with tiny blue flowers. That's what he'd pull up out of his memory, if he allowed himself to think about her at all. And then turning around and leaving them there. He always refused to look back, never even waved.maybe he should have.
The office had said she'd left early to take care of some errands. She wasn't in the house. He'd checked the kitchen, the bedroom, the study. He stepped out to the pool, into the bright sunshine, but she wasn't there either. Then he saw her in the shadows by the cabana, with a flat of plants and containers and bags of potting soil. She had on gardening gloves, a trowel in her hand, her hair tied back. She'd asked him to take out a dead bush last weekend but he hadn't gotten around to it yet.
She looked up and saw him, waved, smiled, and then a hesitation. Why was he here in the middle of the afternoon? He walked towards her, taking off his sunglasses.
"You found out when". A calm statement, not a question.
"Ten days. I've got leave for next week."
She looked down, taking her gloves off slowly.
"We could go somewhere. How about San Francisco? Drive up the coast. Or rent a car there." She was still looking down, so he couldn't see her eyes, couldn't tell what she was thinking.
"Somehow, even when you know its coming, its still a surprise" she continued, ignoring the suggestion. He started to say "I'm sorry", but thought better of it.
"Well, it's a good thing you already moved out, isn't it". She looked up with false brightness. "Now we don't have to waste time getting boxes and packing tape".
"Kate, please."
"Does Kim know?" Changing the subject.
"I told her at the office. Then I came to see you."
She leaned into him and he held her, neither of them saying anything. He found himself stroking her hair, so blonde even in the shade. All the arguments, all the anger and disappointment, until she'd finally accepted that he wasn't going to change, had no intention of changing, couldn't imagine changing.
"A surprise but, really, not one, because we knew, I mean we both knew there wasn't that much time left." She said finally
How clever of him, to take the final decision about the final breakup out of their hands. They couldn't seem to do it themselves, they'd danced around it for three months or longer. Now the finality of an assignment took away any discretion they may have had.
"Well, you've gone already, haven't you? I mean, you were gone even before you moved out. Miles away, since February, at least. That's when you started working on this, isn't it?" She finally looked at him. Not exactly an accusation but she meant "Tell me the truth you haven't been able to tell me."
"Yes, at least that long." Yes, the date explained a lot. She reached up and touched his cheek. "Let's go inside. Do you have to go back today?"
"No."
"And this will really take a year?"
"If I'm lucky, it won't be more than that. And if I'm not."
"Tell me it's about more than finding her, Jack. Tell me it's more than revenge. You're not doing this just to find her, are you?"
He reached down and brought her hand to his lips, kissing it gently. "Its something that has to be done, Kate, whether I find her or not. Its bigger than what I want or what I need to do." He paused. "But it's that, too".
"Do you want to stay?"
"Yes, Very much". He knew she meant this afternoon, and tonight.
She turned and walked inside, to her bedroom, the room that until about a month ago they had shared. Some of his things were still on top of one of the dressers. She'd decided she was going to go on pure instinct. She needed to be with him right now. The future had finally caught up with the present, and this was all they had. She started to undress while he watched her from the doorway. Then he came over to help her.
When Kate woke it was evening, almost seven o'clock and the outside lights had come on around the pool. He was still sound asleep, lying on his back, breathing deeply and evenly. She noticed, not for the first time, that the scars on his mid-section and chest looked like a child's paper mache map, done for a social studies project. Here were the Sierra Nevadas, the Bitterroots, the Cascades. Those were from the soldering iron. There were a few others: a puckered crater near his left hip, a bullet caused that one, before her time. The most recent was a thin, white, angry line running from his right breast down and across almost to the navel. That was from a knife, or so he'd told her. One hundred twenty three stitches almost a year and a half ago. He'd almost bled to death. She got up quietly, put on a robe, and sat outside in a lounge chair.
The last big argument began when she told him she wanted to have a child. Kate remembered how carefully she'd laid it out. Finances and marriage were not issues, of course, nor did she expect him to share custody, visit on a regular schedule, even pull his share of diaper duty. She would handle it all. He could participate as much or as little as he wanted. He'd be consulted on major decisions before she made them. If safety was an issue, she'd said quietly, his name didn't have to be on the birth certificate.
He'd wanted to smile at her naiveté, but didn't. As if that would stop anything. What mattered was the attachment, not the legalities.
She thought he'd looked at her like she had two heads.
"Kate, I know you're very serious but this is".he choked back the word "crazy"..."it can't happen." he finished lamely.
"Why not, Jack ?" She was standing her ground. She knew what he'd almost said.
He bristled a little. "Do you think I'm the type of man who could have a child and not be responsible for it, not be involved in its life?" Even though he knew she didn't mean it that way, he'd felt almost insulted, like he could be some kind of a "deadbeat Dad".
"But that's just it. You could if you wanted to. It would be your decision about how much or how little, but no expectations, either way, not from me."
"No, absolutely not." He forced himself to slow down, lower his voice, and collect himself. This was so important to her. "I know you're offering me a great gift" he continued quietly "but I can't do what you want".
Now it was her turn to be controlled. "I need to have a better idea of what you're thinking. Just stating an opinion isn't explaining."
Take it easy, she doesn't know, you never told her, so don't dump it all on her now. But still, he was feeling cornered about having to make her understand. So he started with the big picture. Keep it at arm's length.
"I am not bringing another child into this world. I don't want any part of it. There are already millions of potential victims walking around out there. I'm not adding to the risk pool."
Kate looked at him incredulously. "Is that what you see, when there's a crowd of people waiting to cross the street, or at the mall, or on the subway? A gathering of victims? That's not what I see, Jack. I see people, all different kinds of people, all with different lives and things they want and things they need and dream about. They're all people, Jack. I see life in those crowds, in each of those people. And all you see are potential occupants of body bags?"
He ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. "What do crowds of people on street corners have to do with it?"
"You're the one who started talking about millions of victims, millions of targets walking around. I'm trying to get you to think about the possibility of one child.just one, Jack. Just one more person to love."
He looked down at his hands. He could feel the tightness in his stomach. He wanted to do anything to end this conversation, leave the room, shout, go storming out, walk away. She reached over and took his hands in hers.
"Jack, if something happens to you, what will I have, what will Kim have? Every day, when you leave this house, I know it could be the last time I'll see you. Any inane conversation we have about picking up the dry cleaning or changing the oil in the car could be the last time we talk with each other. But you know what? That's true for everybody. Everybody is just one breath away from dying. It can't be helped. So why not give life a chance, Jack? You can be so brave, so fearless, when you're looking at death. All I'm asking is that you have that same courage about life. Please, let's just give it a chance. Let's take the risk together."
Quiet for a moment. You could hear the motor on the aquarium whirling away, it was so quiet. There was a catch in his voice, for just a moment, when he finally answered her.
"The last time I talked to her, Teri told me she was pregnant. When she answered the phone I thought.I thought she was going to tell me that she wanted me to leave for good, because she'd just found out about me and Nina. Instead she gave me this wonderful news, so totally unexpected. I felt like God had given us, especially me, this incredible second chance, despite how little I deserved it. Two hours later, she was cold and dead, the blood all over. And God was laughing at me." He turned to look at her.
"I am never going to feel that way again. I can't even try to feel that way again. It terrifies me, Kate. I'm sorry I can't do this for you or for us. You're exactly right. The thought of loving someone else, and then losing them.I am a coward when it comes to that. I'd much rather die myself, than even take the chance. I'm not going back there, not for you, not for myself, not for anybody."
Kate remembered that it was like looking into a raw, gaping wound, to look at his face at that moment.
"Then where are we going, Jack? What are we doing?"
"All there is for us, for you and me, is right here and right now. That's all I have, Kate."
She thought for a moment "I know its what we agreed to. But I don't know if it's enough for me anymore."
"I wouldn't blame you if it weren't. But if you're waiting for me to come around" he hesitated "it's not going to happen. If you want more, if you need more, then you need to go find somebody else, because I'm tapped out. I don't want to waste your time."
They'd stayed together for another week or two. With fits and spurts she'd thought one way, then the other but finally she had to agree with him. It wasn't working. It was a mismatch. No matter how much they enjoyed and respected and yes, even loved, each other, if they stayed together one would always feel shortchanged. And the other would feel pressured and pushed but still, somehow always lacking. So he'd moved out about a month ago. Very friendly. Very civilized. Very adult.
The house felt totally empty to her. She missed him, his humor and intensity and gentleness, so unexpectedly gentle. And he was having a hard time of it too. He kept calling, casually touching base to see what she was doing, just to ask how her day was going, did she have any plans, maybe they could see a movie or just go for a walk. And they'd ended up together two or three nights in the last two weeks. Jack had said once, laughing, that they were such a mess they couldn't even break up properly.
And then he'd finally told her, on one of those nights after he'd moved out and he'd asked her if he could stay, and against her better judgment, she'd said yes. He'd told her that he had an assignment coming up, a big one, a long one. He'd be gone at least the better part of a year, if not longer. And she knew it had been in the back of his mind all along, and he hadn't told her. At the very time she'd started talking about a child, he'd been trying to think of a way to tell her he was leaving. Why hadn't he said something? Maybe he wanted her to understand it wasn't a question of this assignment or another one. Maybe he was trying to tell her she needed to move on.
He stepped out on the patio wearing an old pair of jeans that somehow had gotten left behind or had shown up again under the bed, where his clothes always seemed to end up.
"Kate, are you hungry? Let's go get some hamburgers."
She turned and smiled up at him.
"I was thinking about tacos."
He smiled down at her. "No, I don't think I'm up for tacos. I think I'll be sick of those pretty soon" he added cryptically. "How about Chinese ?"
"Ok, I'll take a quick shower and be ready in ten minutes."
"First, show me that bush again. I'll get it in the morning."