"Wake up!" shaking him didn't work I tried that. Stripped down and waiting and talking and pleading is all I have left.
"Just go, it's not worth it." The voices of nightmares past rear their ugly head.
"Not a chance."
"Baby what did you do?" Again he is silent. The mumblings have been all I have gotten since I got home and found him here.
It had been hard with the loss of his mother, no matter what he had said. But the denial of being allowed at her memorial hit him hard. I told him to go anyway and I wish I hadn't. We were there a full twenty minutes before security showed us out.
I got it. I did and I knew he would take it hard but now I am out of my mind. Twelve years, not a single worry. Not a second I questioned anything. Until tonight.
I had a meeting, he said he was okay. He was sure and sounded so. He was going to watch a movie and lay in bed. My meeting ran long.
I came home and he looked peaceful. Sleeping sound the tv still playing Shallow Hal, a favorite of his. I stopped to take in the perfect that was my husband. All the angles and lines of his face, neck, jaw. Everything. Then I went to the shower.
It wasn't until I was under the spray it hit me.
I was gone when he went to bed. I was gone more then a few hours beyond what I had thought. He was in bed without me. And his chest was bare, he was on his side of the bed, on his back. That isn't him. As I wish I had his photographic memory I try to remember a time ever that if I wasn't with him he wasn't in something of mine and on my side of the bed. But it didn't take his memory magic to tell me never.
I didn't even bother with the towel or pants I had taken in with me I may have even left the shower running for all I knew. But I plead and beg and hoped. We have come so far and made such a wonderful life. Now his bitch of a mother may have stolen everything from me even beyond the grave.
I want to call 911 but I know better. His vitals are good. His color fine. A call will ruin everything we worked for. Everything we have spent years working past. I know it isn't the right thing, but I also know it is the right thing. Twelve years he has been clean, over a decade of not so much as a hint of worry. It could be major here but it could be simple as the trauma of everything just taking him out. I will not call and put that over his head for nothing. His appearance and history were not enough for the agencies to look past, even in this day and age. This would ruin every chance.
He isn't snoring, he isn't moving, other then a slow even breathing. It isn't the weeks wearing on him. I know that for sure.
"Baby, come back, tell me." I start at his neck keeping check and trace all the pictures on the way down. "Hun tell me what you took, how much, baby!" I scream but it is no use. He is out til it wears off. There is nothing I could do but slip on some pants and lay and wait. He didn't move for the longest time that was the hardest part. Even harder then the mumbles and the things he was calling himself as he started to come around. I thought I could always imagine how hard it was for him long ago, but if his unconscious ramblings were any indication I had no idea. The tears poured as I heard it all, but there was a tinge of joy in there as I knew he was coming around.
His mumblings told me what I knew it was about but more. His inability to throw away the note he received from his mother. The pictures he thought he hid from me in the album on the second shelf in the study. His grandfather's overcoat, the memories. I wished for so long that he could have just let them all go. We had made a life, I thought I had made up for what he was missing. But his cries for his mother's love, his pleading with his father for his father's help. The cries of asking how and why he was blessed now and not then. It all broke my heart and I cried myself to sleep at some point. The last thing I remember is kissing him and my tears dropping to his lips as I broke away. After that I had nothing left.
Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning I woke to him stroking my face. He was red eyed, and pale but alive and full of regret. It was so beautiful to me.
Our conversation was scattered and filled with a lot of I'm sorry's I didn't want to hear but even more I didn't want to hear any silence. So the rambling went on until we both drifted again.
I woke to the sound of the shower running, the sound of him singing. Long Day, it fit. Funny how we were in sync that way. We found a strong bond in song lyrics. We could say a lot of things through music that we couldn't bring ourselves to say in our own words for so long. That had been years ago though. We hadn't done it in a long time but though the set back may have hurt years ago now I understand what he is telling me. I already knew but it was nice to hear him tell me.
We went on that day with him telling me about over doing his sleeping pills I didn't know he still had. His sorry's for hiding that he started taking them again months ago when he heard his mother was sick. My forgiveness but anger about him trying to leave me. His thankfulness for the fates and me not ruining things as bad as they could have been.
He made a big show of flushing the bottle of pills. Dressing as well as he could. He was on a Stepford wives path. He was cooking and cleaning and I burst out laughing to the point of hysterics a week or two later when I came home.
The house smelled of cookies made and stew on the stove, he was fluffing a fucking pillow. I walked in and imagined him only with a gingham apron with lace and pearls and lost it. Then he had to turn and put a hand on his hip and glared. I barely got the door closed before I couldn't control it any longer and was barking so loud I could wake the dead.
"What the fuck is so damn funny?" he was mad, he was irked, he was pissed beyond belief and it only increased my laughter. I couldn't say how long it took me to get it together but when I did he had long gotten over giving me any notice. I think he called me a nut job and something about our kids not being left alone with me. That was what brought me out of it. He was all serious, trying his best to hide himself. Button up shirt with a high collar, sweater over that. Both pulled up only showing a quarter of his arms because he was at home. All his piercings removed. Even the fun ones no one but the two of us could see. He was trying to hard, he was trying to prove what didn't need to be proved. I sobered my state and really got a good look. I didn't like it. I had had enough, there was nothing to prove to anyone.
"Look at me" he didn't. I knew I had pissed him off. "look at me babe." I saw the small head shake.
Leaving my coat on the counter I had to march over and make sure he knew I was coming for it. You don't sneak up on a mad spouse with a hot spoon in hand. Sliding my hands around his waist I disarmed him. I remember the tense grip he had. He was ready to use it. Next was pulling his shirt out from his jeans. Then he let me pull the sweater over his head. Then the buttons. By the time I was done I had had him pulled away from the stove, his shirt free of a nice amount of buttons. His hair crazy, messy and how I loved it. He still hadn't turned to face me. He was compliant and showing no emotion or even showing he agreed to what I was doing. But he was letting me, even helping so I knew I was breaking the miffed.
"I'm sorry baby, it was just, well you have been trying to hard." tossing his sweater over my shoulder while the other hand ran up and down his taught body. I loved how I could feel every line of him, how slim and perfectly defined he was. "You don't have to be perfect for them, you are perfect for me. You will be perfect for our family. Don't hide you, ever."
I turned him when he didn't on his own and saw him in the form I loved best. Every line and color mapping his body. I had never given a second thought to them they were him and sexy as hell. He hadn't cared, they were him. That was until we took it all public. Then he was forever trying to shrink form all of his ink. I was never having it, and honestly there were only a handful of those that mattered that did. Even they saw beyond them within minutes of knowing him. But still I knew what he was doing here. He was trying to look the part, hide himself just to please a small mass.
"If a mother, an agency, a single person doesn't love you as you are. If they don't see how far you, we, have come. If we never get to save a child based on the ink on your skin or the hell and back you have come from then screw them all. But I know you. I know us and we will go another way. But please stop with the Donna Reed routine. I hate to have to start taking viagra before I am fifty."
The rest of his buttons went flying as I was met with the sweet smirk I missed. I knew it was going to get dirty real soon.
"Donna Reed?" his brow quirked high and his jaw ticked in a cross between pissed and amused. Then I was pushed back to the fridge.I may have had a good seventy pounds on my husband but he had power when he needed it. That night was proof.
His shirt was off, mine halfway so and my head was in the vise of his hands. Before I was kissed to with in an inch of my life his growl startled me.
"Don't ever think I am going to be waitin in pearls with a pipe, your slippers and paper." Then he proceeded to show me why not.
I didn't even care how cold and hard the tile was as it bit into my back. With in seconds it seemed he was arching over me. Both of us bare and sweating. His masterful mouth had played me top to bottom. It didn't matter the size difference. He was always in charge, his words on his neck said it all. And so it goes, and it did. He knew the spot on my shoulder that made me whimper when he bit it. He knew to slide my hard cock just right along his. He always knew the pace to set. It would seem erratic and unpracticed I am sure if it were on a screen but for us it was the quick and slow, the hard and soft that was the best sex we always had.
Panting and sweating, the smell of burning stew and sweaty sex hung in the air as the door buzzer sounded and I was in for a world of words. In seconds he scrambled to the intercom and turned surveying the kitchen and his eyes landing on me, that was it. I really tried to look sorry. I did but I just couldn't pull it off as I shoved up and we raced around.
"See, this is just perfect isn't it." he said as he shoved each leg into my pants then took them off and I caught them in the face. "No need to be perfect, no." as he marched down the hall. "Perfect how you are." as he sprayed fabreeze and threw the stew down the disposal. He came back in the room looking like conservative perfection. The only thing missing was the Barbie wife on his arm. Breath taking and beautiful and perfect. And I hated it.
"Who was it Edward?" I knew the answer as I tried to clean up the rest of the mess we made in nothing but my unbuttoned pants. He glared.
"Who? Really? Who?" Him and his damn Donna Reed were showing again as he whipped around touching everything. "The who is what before you made a huge idiot out of yourself I would have told you about. The who is the person that holds our future parentage in her hands. The who is the person that I got the tip from Ang that we were going to have a pop in visit from." There was a big old oh fuck that flashed through my head as we heard the foot steps and the knock. I never moved so fast in my life I am sure as I threw his shirt at him and raced down the hall. There was no time to get actually proper but as I did a sixty second shower and shoved into sweats and a tee I realized how perfect it might go. This was a pop in, a random visit. I knew how the hall echoed and knew that the sounds of what he thought was impending doom gave us a full three minutes. It was a weird layout of the building and the path from the elevator to our door for us was maybe two for a woman in heels that we clearly heard the click of was a good three to four. As I make sure there is nothing to out of place or to neat I yell for him to relax and look casual. I know he will try to put on sports and fidget on the couch but it is better then him pulling his hair out.
I came down the hall just as the knock is at the door and he shoots the panic at me. I have screwed up to much to let him down now and though I am shaking to the core I hope I give him the cool what for as I throw a pillow and rumpled blanket beside him on the couch. A quick peck on his lips. I hope he can play along.
"Trust me" is all I can get out before a second stronger knock happened...
It was funny how worried he had been about how he looked and who he had been for years. Always worried that he would be the one to put a wrench in things. After that visit, I was the one that had the most work to do. Sure the social worker understood and all. I explained it was my night to cook and I wasn't the best in the kitchen. I bit my tongue hard on that one. She wanted to grill me on what else I would forget, but him, he was the saint that the moon and stars hung on. He doated and laughed and joked in good humor about how smooth the house usually runs when he isn't hung up at work. Work that he would be quitting when the baby came home. He was perfect, and it didn't even hurt or twinge that I was played the fool. Because I was a fool.
"Hey get out of that head of yours already." I hadn't even realized I had stopped moving. I went to check on Abe and caught site of the skyline and it all flashed back.
"Sorry Princess." her long auburn hair curled around her young sweet face. I never could resist tucking it behind her ear. "I just got lost in thought for a moment."
" I know," her smile was one you usually reserve for the feeble minded but one I knew since she was eight. "But Daddy is freaking over the duck something or another and J.J. is boring Aunt Ang with another big idea and frankly I cannot take one more of Grams telling me how to find a good woman and settle down." The way she pulls at her hair reminds me so much of Ed in frustration. Everything about her is all him. "When will she get it through he head that I am straight? I like co,"
I hold up my hand right there. "Easy there are somethings we share but please for the sake of my sanity today can we not go there."
Brina's laugh echoed softly through the stairwell landing, Not enough to carry to far but enough for me to hear the laughter of her early years. Back when she was running from us when she first laughed, back when she first walked back when it all was young and new.
"Fair enough Papa Bear, but I tell you if she tries one more time..."
"She will, sorry, but she will."
"Damn J.J. For being straight." She had her huffing and puffing and we did our fair share of it too. J.J. Showed all to early how much he liked the girls by getting his first girlfriend pregnant at sixteen. Becoming a father at seventeen and having three at the now age of twenty two. He was a good father though, and was married to the same girl, he just had his head always on the next big thing. Brina on the other hand she had my mother on her from the start. Of course she was to be the gay daughter, the next cause. Only to announce she was straight and shoot my ever loving activist for a cause mother to her knees. But she had her daddy's fight. We agreed to never ask whose dna produced her but there was no doubt. She was Edward through and through.
"You can't blame anyone for who they love." She and I laughed softly as we both peeked in at Abe. J.J.'s newest addition to our family. Sweet and innocent and so full of life. "What will his fate bring him?" Her squeeze of my arm told me all I needed to know but she said it anyway.
"You know you both were the best anyone could ever have asked for right?" I couldn't speak as I led her down to the gathering downstairs. I just held her hand on mine. She wasn't going to stop though. Stopping us back in the shadows she had that moment I am sure many parents dream about. But funny in the position it is a bit uncomfortable.
"Papa, you have to know, as much as Daddy tries to be perfect and you try to be right. As many times as you butt heads or Grams tries to interfere, you both were everything to us. You are the axis to our worlds and," her choking up had me actually pulling out of myself and had the dad radar on high alert. The sounds were so like her dad.
"I know sweetie, I know." I pulled her close but she pushed back.
"No I need to tell you. I know how you wanted to keep dna out of it, you wanted everyone equal. You wanted to prove a point to Daddy. But everyone knows. And you know what, it doesn't make a difference. There was no fate to trick, there was no traits that are passed down because of a few bits of sperm. The fates were never fooled. They knew all along who to put us with, because you both were destined to be together, put us together as a family, to show Daddy the ink and past mean nothing he is a caring and loving soul, to teach you that he has his faults and you can't fix them all no matter how hard you try, to teach everyone that a young stupid guy who made a bad choice can make him turn into a man, and it can turn Grams from a social climber to a real parent and grandparent. Daddy was meant to go through the hell he did to make him a better man and perfect father. And you my dear Papa Bear, you were meant to be humbled even more then you had always been because it was all destined to be. So the point here I am rambling on like I have learned from my Papa is," She pulled me to the top of the stair and showed me the scene below.
And it was gorgeous, even through blurry eyes. There was my family. Not all blood, not all perfect but they were mine. Rose and Ang still beautiful even into their fifties. Angela laughing and showing the same dimples that Brina has. Rose at her side stroking her back and rolling her eyes at something her wife said. There is JJ trying to convince them that this one was the sure thing while his young wife is with my mother in the kitchen trying to coax the older two into something the obviously don't want to do but will anyway.
Then there he was, sleeves rolled back sitting on the kitchen counter with his feet swinging slowly and looking at them all. His smile is small but I know exactly what he is thinking. Finally his eyes come up to meet mine.
"The point is, we are here, predestined. We had no choice in the matter because no matter where we were born, where we were raised. The struggles and how much we fight against it. The times we push it away, the times we try to hold it so close. It was all going to happen anyway. You and Daddy had no chance because all of this chaos you see before you was going to happen anyway."
There is no point in trying to hide the tears rolling down my cheeks. I am just thankful that I can keep the snorts and sniffles back. She is so like her father, not just the looks or mannerisms but the soul. She has always seen the good and bad. But she always sided on the good. He wasn't as quick to trust the good but deep down he did.
"Thank you princess." I take the chance to kiss her cheek and have a moment. She though has never been one to let a moment linger, she is quick to pat my face and walk on down to the others. That's fine by me it gives me a chance to look and watch.
I have been long told I am a sentimental fool and I guess they are right. I look over every face and catch each voice and it brings back more then a memory. It all brings back a feeling. I don't have my husbands gift, I can't recall every detail but I know the feelings. I can't remember the clothes or the exact words but I remember the joy, the tears, the comfort, the love.
"Love, mmm," He may be graying at the temples, some of his ink may be fading but his arms sliding around me have always felt the same. I pull him from around back to my side just so I can hold him too. There has been a ton of shit times, hard times, good times, great times and down right heartbreaking times. But as long as we held on to each other we got through them.
"What has you all sappy today?" His eyes light up as he looks out over the family too.
"Oh, I don't know. Vanna was telling me about a boy she thinks has a crush on her," I feel his groan rather than heard it, he was always the worrier in the dating department. "and then she asked how I knew if you liked me."
"What did you tell her?" his arms around me told me he always did and always would and I have to think to what I did tell her. I got so lost in my head I'm not even sure when she had left the room.
"I told her I always knew. I just did." Looking down into his soulful old eyes I still do.
"My god I knew you were always a crier, I just didn't think it would take kids and grandkids to actually get you to do it." he jokes I know but it is true, he always did try for some kind of strong emotion out of me it just took a few decades to get it.
"How the hell did we get all this?" Everyday was still crazy and mixed up and I still struggled to match point A to B.
"In the beginning I knew, it was all already mapped out. There was never a path we could take that would change a thing. Somehow it was all going to play out like it was suppose to. If it was a missed bus or plane, there would be another one missed down the road to make it all play out just like this. The stars aligned at some point and decided this was it."
"Then why was it you fought so hard to avoid it?" The question always hung there but we never talked about his rough years to much. I never wanted to really know why for fear that I would hear he didn't want this.
"I always wanted this, I just didn't know how it would turn out. I knew you were my path, I just figured it would go a whole different way. I didn't want to wake up and have this being the dream."
Taking that in I can see that.
"It was easier to dream and when reality hit there was a hit of something else waiting to make it go away." pulling me down by the face he rests my forehead to his and strokes my neck. "I wake up everyday afraid it will all melt away, but okay with opening my eyes because the dream if it is that is worth the glare of the truth."
Pulling back a bit and holding his face I stare in wonder. How after all this time?
"Baby, after all this time stop that, this is us, this is ours, this is real. Forever and ever this is fate."
