Chapter 29
Melanie and Freddie are having lunch together to discuss her return to his and Alex's lives.
A few people glanced their way at Freddie's outburst at Melanie but he lowered his voice before making a scene.
"You know how it is when I miss my medication. After a day or two, things start to spiral, it gets worse and worse." Melanie tried to explain quietly but he simply looked disgusted more for her excuse than the tuna salad wrap in front of him, which was far more salad than tuna.
He shook his head. "There was a while there I was worried that you had been abducted or the victim of some tragic accident. If it weren't for those stupid Clip-Clap videos that you post online I would have had no way of knowing you weren't lying dead, unidentified on a slab somewhere."
"Freddie, don't be ridiculous. You worry too much just like your mom." She rolled her eyes and began to eat her lunch wrap.
"Ridiculous? Is it ridiculous to worry about my wife, the mother of my child? Is it ridiculous to worry whenever I had a kindergartener crying herself to sleep because her mommy didn't bother to call her again today? Is it ridiculous to think that you'd run off again and maybe this would be the time that you left forever and she'd never see you again?"
"Freddie, I . . ." Melanie tried to beg off but he shut her down.
"I will never understand why you couldn't have finished your degree at U Dub like you started it. I'm happy you wanted to get your degree but it's not like you had a scholarship or anything out there. It was our money that paid for it, why couldn't you have just went to school and stayed at home like plenty of other people do, like I did? If you would have, I would have been available to give you the support you claim you need. But for some reason you felt like that wasn't good enough."
"It's more complicated than that." She was now on the verge of tears at his cold emotion toward her.
"How so, you have another family out there or something?" He snipped and paused a second. "Say I let you come back. What happens if you stop taking your pills again, Mel?" He asked. "There's no saying I would even know until it's too late. So what then? Out of the blue, you just take off and forget about us for damn near another year? I console Alex and pretend like everything is peachy-keen and hope you eventually come crawling back. And when you finally do, you expect me to just pretend like you never left and start the cycle all over again?"
"It was only a few weeks, Fredward."
"Gee, I must have forgotten how a calendar works because I could have sworn that between last Christmas and this one, it was a helluva lot more than three or four weeks."
"At first it was just a few weeks, but then I was so ashamed of myself that I couldn't bear to call or anything. The longer it went, the worse I felt. I tried. Believe me, I tried. I just couldn't bring myself to do it, I felt so guilty. I had to go into counseling and get my head straight. It took a lot of therapy and a lot of praying to work up with the courage to come back."
"Well, it wasn't just a few weeks for us, Melanie. It was months. Months of our little girl coming home from school and first thing she'd ask was if you called. Months of her checking email every ten minutes in case you sent a message. Months of her getting excited every time she heard my phone ping a text, thinking it was you and endlessly crying herself to sleep worried about you. And then more moths of her missing her friends after we had to move."
Melanie gasped and a tear ran down her cheek. "Oh, God. I didn't want that."
"Not near as much as I didn't." He shook his head. "So, the answer is no, Melanie. No, I'm not going to pretend we're some story book family when we're not. No, we're not moving back in together and no, I'm not going to let you see Alex unsupervised until you prove to me that you're capable of being trusted. Because I can't stand the idea of you breaking her heart again."
"You know I could fight you on that." She glared. "I have a right to see her."
"You could but you won't because you know I'm right." He calmed and talked to her in a soothing tone. "Search your heart and you'll know I'm right. If you want to see Alex every day, it's fine by me. You can stop by the apartment, you can have dinner with us, help her with homework, tuck her in, whatever. At the end of the day, I will not delude her into thinking we are getting back together by living under the same roof. You'll have your place and we'll have ours."
She had a tear on her cheek, but knew he was right. "So you want a divorce, then?"
"I don't think either of us really want that right now, Mels. After talking with you, I don't feel you can handle it at the moment. We don't need to be nasty with each other over this and we don't need to involve lawyers and the courts. We can work it out for ourselves and save all three of us the heartache of some drawn out divorce and custody trial."
Melanie satisfied herself with his suggestions. She returned to her mother's place with arrangements to drop by later on to see her daughter. Freddie went to the office and then picked the little girl up after school as usual before returning to their apartment.
When him and his daughter returned home, they met up with Sam outside the building.
"Aunt Sam." Alex hugged Sam as she typically would.
"Hey, kiddo." Sam picked her up a few inches into a tight hug which made the girl giggle.
Sam's phone chimed and she looked at it quickly. She made a funny face and then immediately made eye contact with Freddie. He knew what this meant.
"Melanie." She quietly said after her niece ran inside to press the call button.
"She told me she wants to talk to you." He shrugged.
"Psh. Not what I need right now after the day I had." She griped. "I'll text her back later. Maybe."
He told Sam up front about them talking. "We met up for lunch and I told her the way things are."
"And just how are those things?" She asked.
"Cordial but not too familiar." He replied. "She can come by to see Alex any time she wants but her and I are done."
"You're getting divorced?" The blonde asked a little too loudly as they walked through the door.
"Shhh." He hissed with a scowl. "No, not necessarily right away, but we're not getting back together either. I made it clear we are in no way going to let Alex under the impression that her mom is anything more than a visitor when she comes over to the apartment."
"Ouch. So, what about Christmas?" Sam asked as the two of them retrieved their mail from the tenant mail boxes. "I figured she came home for the holiday, to see Alex?"
"She's staying with Pam, right?"
Sam simply nodded. "I suppose. You know my mom and I don't talk all that much."
"We'll be over at her place for Christmas eve and then spending the day itself with my mom and the evening with Spence and Carly and you. Unless you want to come by our place earlier."
"I doubt Marissa would be happy about that." Sam chuckled.
He shrugged. "Just saying, if you want to see Alex. Like, you know, she's family and all. You're welcome to come down."
Sam nodded in agreement. "So back on track, you're only giving Mels a few hours with her daughter on Christmas eve? Dang dude, that's almost a Puckett level of cold. I don't know if I'm impressed or sad."
"It's a damn sight more than she had last year and that was by her own choice. It was the nineteenth the last we heard from her. Christmas eve, Christmas, New Years, it all came and went and we didn't hear a peep out of her. Then Valentine's day, our anniversary, Easter, mother's day, Alex's birthday, kindergarten graduation, you name it, we didn't hear from her. So a few hours is pretty much all I'm willing to give and as far as I'm concerned it's all she deserves."
By now the little girl had ran back toward her dad and aunt. "Come on. The elevator's here." She grabbed her dad's hand. "I want to go and get my after school snack. I'm starving!."
Sam chuckled. "Me too, kiddo. I'm so hungry my stomach thinks my throat's been cut. And I've got to make dinner."
They all boarded the elevator. "For what it's worth, I'm on your side, Fredweirdo." Sam smirked without making eye contact.
"Thanks." He said quietly when the doors opened on his floor. "See ya later."
An hour later, Sam had been besieged by calls and texts from her sister. There was no ignoring Melanie even if she wanted to. Despite the fact that Sam was trying to make dinner for her and Carly, it was obvious she would have to answer before she was either driven insane or her doppelganger showed up out of the blue. At least if she did that, Sam could punch her.
On what had to be the tenth attempt, Sam finally answered. "What do you want, Mels. I'm trying to make dinner here."
"Sammy? Can we talk, please?" Mel begged.
"I don't really have anything to talk about, but alright, I'll just tell Carly I was hanging on the phone when she gets home and there's no food. Tonight's my night to cook."
"Can we talk in person? I'm coming over to Bushwell to see Alex in a bit. Could I maybe stop around? You can work on your cooking now and we'll talk later."
Sam left out a sigh. She really didn't want to, but she knew she needed to. "I suppose. Carly gets home about six, give us a little time to eat. Unless you want to eat with us." 'Dang it, why'd I say that?' Sam suddenly thought to herself.
"That would be great." Mel replied in her usual chipper tone. "So what time then? Six or so?"
"Sure." Sam replied, mentally cursing herself. "Don't make me hold dinner."
"OK, see you then." Melanie said before hanging up.
"I am definitely getting too soft." Sam scolded herself as she cooked. "Unless you want to eat with us. What the hell was I thinking? Stupid, Sam. Stupid, stupid, stupid."
She quickly sent Carly a text. 'Melanie's joining us for dinner'
Carly's reply was simply the surprised face emoticon and five question marks.
By the time Carly walked through the door to question Sam, there was no time because within moments Melanie was knocking. She must have either taken the steps or been only just behind Carly entering the building and calling for the elevator.
"Come on in, Melanie." Carly greeted her with her usual chipper attitude. "Sam's almost done with dinner."
The two entered the kitchen where Sam was finishing up. "Hope you're OK with meatloaf, I forgot to tell you what we were having before." She said with little joy, despite it was one of her favorite meals.
"Sounds good, Sam." Melanie replied, ignoring the fact that it had been years since she had spent any degree of time with her sister.
Little conversation was had while the three young women ate. Melanie tried to tell Sam about a few things her mom had said or done, earning her a grunt or scoff in response. Carly interjected a few details about her day to keep things from getting too awkward. Sam, as promised, had nothing to talk about.
"Why don't I clean up and you two can talk in the living room?" Carly suggested.
"It's your turn to handle the dishes anyway." Sam agreed and walked out of the room, leaving Melanie behind.
The other blonde soon joined Sam and it was obvious she could be avoided no longer.
"So, Mel. What was it you wanted to talk about? Or did you just want to score a free meal?"
It was obvious Sam wasn't going to go down easily. "Sammy, what's up with Freddie?"
"Psh. Dang if I know. Other than he's a nub." Sam went to her old stand-by routine of, 'I hate Freddie and even talking about him'.
"What about him and Alex?"
Sam shrugged from the chair where she sat. "Well, he's a good dad from what I see. Which is surprising given who raised him. He works his butt off to support them since he's doing it all by himself. You know he mostly works from home so he can be there for Alex, right? He'd probably be a manager or supervisor of some sort if he could actually go into the office to work."
"Carly told me." Mel answered with a hint of guilt in her voice. "I mean, how's he doing though. Is he, I don't know, seeing anyone or anything. Maybe Carly?" She whispered the last part.
"Gross! He's not seeing Carly or anyone that I know of. What are you trying to do, gather information that you can use against him in divorce court?"
"No, we're not getting divorced. We - we're just not cohabitating right now. But you really don't think he's dating or anything?"
"Even if I cared, which I don't, I don't know when he'd have time. Besides, I think you kind of ruined him on girls if you want to know the truth."
Melanie just looked funny.
"Not that's he's into guys or anything. I just mean he doesn't seem to be interested in getting involved with anyone, he's too busy with his kid, your kid. And after the way you screwed him over, I doubt he's in a much of a hurry to get back out there again. Besides, he's still married isn't he? I've known him since middle school, I don't think he's the kind to date while he's attached despite the way he acted in college."
Carly was listening from the kitchen and Sam almost sounded sad at this statement.
"That's, uh, good. I guess." Melanie replied.
"For you maybe." Sam sneered. "But did you ever stop to think what's good for him? Maybe he needs someone in his life other than his weird ass mother. Maybe he'd like to have more going for him than work, running a kid around to school and what not and hanging out with the middle aged man who lives across the hall. Maybe he'd like to have someone to share his life, other than two gals who are his best friends."
Now Sam definitely sounded like this bothered her more than anything.
"You almost talk like . . . " Melanie was cut off before she could finish, but she picked up on something, too.
"The most disgusting part is the way you keep doing this to him and then drifting back into his life and expecting him to just up and take you back. Well, I guess you got a rude awakening this time didn't you, old girl?"
And Sam shows where her true allegiance lies, definitely NOT with her twin.
