My Biggest Mistake Read online

  He grabbed a pink booster seat without a back, set it in the front of the cart, and then pulled out two large boxes from a lower shelf. They were identical to each other, both grey and black with a booster seat and removable back piece. In a hoarse voice that sounded as if they were the first spoken words of the day, he informed me that they would last the boys until they were out of assisted seats. I could only nod, not trusting myself to respond. The tone of his voice saddened me and threatened to tear me apart. I hated to see him this way, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Do you need help putting them in the car?” he asked in the checkout lane.

  I thought about it for a moment. As much as I wanted to be around him, I didn’t know if I could handle it. He looked so lost and sad. The word “no” lingered on my tongue before realization dawned that I didn’t exactly know how to install them. It would be safer to have him assemble them and help me. I nodded and then looked away.

  I stood in the parking lot, wrapped in the heat of the sun while Donnie quickly put the seats together. He only had to attach the backs to the bases for the boys’ seats—Livvy’s seat was ready to go. Once he finished, he leaned inside the backseat and set them all in place, mumbling something about a bigger car.

  “Are you all right?” I asked without thinking.

  He pulled himself from the car and looked right at me with eyes so intense they startled me. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “You just seem off today.”

  He ran a hand over his face and around to the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’m just peachy.”

  “Oh, you seem pissed or something.”

  “I’m tired, Edie. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  I winced, why hadn’t I dropped it? I knew I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t need to hear him tell me how tired he was; I knew exactly why he was so exhausted. I felt it, too. However, he didn’t need to know that I had been up all night watching him through my window. I might have gone a little crazy over the past few years, but he didn’t need to know the levels of insanity I had actually reached.

  I nodded and offered a small smile, which he didn’t return. Without another word, he spun around and started to walk back to his car. No bye, have a nice day, go to hell, nothing. Just silence as he left me standing there, watching his back as he walked away from me.

  But then, he stopped at the row of cars in front of me and spun around. His features twisted with an emotion I couldn’t place—desperation maybe, mixed with sadness and pain? “Do you have any plans right now?” he shouted to me.

  I shook my head slowly, unsure of what he would say next.

  His head jerked curtly, gesturing me to follow. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

  My feet shuffled beneath me, reluctantly carrying me to him. I followed a few paces back to where he parked the van and hesitated at the passenger door. He got inside behind the steering wheel and stared at me through the window, silently telling me to get in. I complied while holding my breath.

  I tried to look around the familiar van discreetly. I had expected it to feel and smell the same as it had before, but it didn’t. It smelled like a different car, one I’ve never been in before. But it still looked the same. Change still sat in the cup holder where I used to throw it all instead of my wallet, the dangling crystal still hung from the rearview mirror, and the armrest still had a coffee stain on it. If I closed my eyes, I felt as if I sat in a strange vehicle, but if I opened them and looked around, it was my van. The same van I used to drive all the kids around in and play children’s music over the radio. Remembering all of that was enough to pull my already dark mood even darker…making my self-hatred run even deeper.

  There were no words spoken in the car between us, no music playing on the radio, and no clue as to where he planned to take me. It wasn’t until he turned down a dirt road that I knew where we were. I hadn’t been there in about eleven years and didn’t know why he had decided to take me there.

  When we were fifteen, neither one of us could drive so we’d meet each other at the end of the dirt road. We’d slip through a fence made out of logs and then spend our days at the sand pit. We weren’t really sure what the place was other than a giant, open area with sand. The middle of the area had been dug out, leaving massive sand dunes that we’d either play in or just sit and talk…amongst other things.

  He parked in front of the locked gate that connected one side of the log fence to the other. I always thought the gate was funny since it never really kept anyone out, except vehicles. I glanced at Donnie, but he didn’t look my way. Instead, he got out of the van and waited for me in front of the fence.

  We slipped through the spaces between the logs like we had done so many times so many years ago. It was harder than what I remembered, but still not difficult. Once I took in the sight in front of me, I gasped, trying to catch my breath.

  The sand was gone. The random pine trees from before had multiplied and filled in the entire area with more pine trees. The ground was covered in pine needles and pods. It was as though our secret place had never existed and it filled me with sadness.

  Once I took everything in, I turned to him, silently asking for answers.

  He didn’t answer me; instead, he walked further between the trees. He stopped a little ways in and looked around. “We carved our names into a tree one time,” he started without looking at me. “We laid out a blanket somewhere over there, next to our tree, and we gave ourselves to each other for the first time. This was our place. I came here once after you left; I guess I needed to feel a connection to you. I needed to feel the sense of security this place used to bring me. So I came here, looking for peace. Instead, I found this. It was like God was trying to tell me something.

  “We see things in our heads, making them what we want them to be. We see the perfectness of the past and avoid looking at the messiness of the present. I came here, expecting to find it exactly how it was when we were young and happy with a bright future ahead of us. That’s not what I found. I found land that has been overgrown with trees, making it impossible to find the single tree with our names carved in it. Just like in my head, you were perfect. But when I went searching for you in my memories, all I found was a shell of the woman I had fallen in love with, making it difficult to see the place in your heart where I had carved my name.” His words were so full of pain and despair as they echoed around me.

  I reached out to touch his arm but he pulled away, looking right into my eyes.

  “You destroyed me, Edie. You’re still destroying me.”

  What the hell was I supposed to say to that? “What do you want me to do?” I asked in a pleading voice, needing him to tell me, direct me. I didn’t have answers or any clue as to what I needed to do. I just knew I wanted to make things right.

  “I want you to have never left me.” His voice was broken, sounding the way one does just before breaking down into tears. It made my eyes flood with warm saltwater. I blinked them away as he cleared his throat and looked to the sky. “I want you to have talked to me instead of running. But you can’t change that now. Now…there’s nothing for you to do.”

  “If you want me to leave—”

  “NO!” he yelled, interrupting me. “I don’t want you to leave. Don’t you get it? I never wanted you to leave. I never wanted to live my life without you in it. I still don’t want to live without you, but I can’t live with you. I’m stuck in this endless space of purgatory because of you. I’m unhappy either way. You can’t make that right. You can’t make it go away.”

  “Why did you bring me here?” My question came out in a whisper, barely heard above the rustling of the trees around us. His pain cut through me like a knife, killing anything left alive inside of me, and I wished for something that I could do to take it all away. This was the man I loved with my whole entire being. I had never loved anyone else. He was it for me.

  He shook his head as if he needed to cl
ear his mind before answering. “Because I need you to see that it’s over. Until you realize it, I can’t move on. You’re holding on to me, keeping me in this dark place. I can’t go back. I can’t give you what you want, but I can’t move forward, either. I’m physically stuck here until you let me go. That’s what I need from you, Edie. I need you to let me go.”

  “Do you still love me?” I didn’t care how desperate I sounded; I needed to hear his answer. I needed to know how he felt.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Yes it does!” I fought back, finding the fuel to keep pushing, to keep fighting.

  “Why? Why does it matter how I feel about you?”

  “Because if you do, why would I give up hope? Why would I just walk away when there’s a chance we could work things out? Is it because of Beth? Are you waiting for me to tell you it’s okay to be with her?”

  “Did you love me when you walked away?” His question stunned me.

  “Of course. I’ve never stopped loving you.”

  “Then clearly, love has nothing to do with letting go.”

  “I left because I love you! Because I didn’t want to ruin your life,” I argued, the tears threatening to spill over. How much pain could two people endure?

  “That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard you say.” Donnie’s voice came off hard and edgy. He might’ve been holding back his anger, but he still sounded pissed off, amongst other things.

  I didn’t think; I opened my mouth and let the words out in a sobbing mess as I gave into my weakness and allowed the tears to fall. “I had my tubes tied. I left and had it done because I didn’t want any more kids. I knew you did and the guilt suffocated me.”

  His blue eyes widened and darkened at my confession.

  “I’m sorry. I know I should’ve talked to you about it, but I couldn’t. I felt desperate and isolated.”

  “Why?” he asked with a raised, beseeching voice.

  “Even after the twins, you talked about more kids. I felt overwhelmed, in a fog, stuck in my own dark place; how was I supposed to tell you that I couldn’t handle any more? I tried one time to tell you how I was feeling and you laughed it off and said I needed more sleep. How was I supposed to tell you that although I love my children, I didn’t want to give you more? I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I hated myself for feeling that way. It made me feel like I was a bad mom, a bad wife…a bad person.” Sobs quaked my body as I admitted it all to him.

  He reached out and wiped my tears from my face, his expression calming some. “Edie, we could have talked about it. You said yourself that you were depressed; maybe that feeling would have gone away with the right kind of help. All you had to do was come to me, talk to me. I could have found the best doctor to help you. Not to mention, you were on that IUD thing…why did you feel like you had to do something as rash as surgery? And despite what you think, I would have been okay with just the three of them. I would have taken the three of them with you, then more of them without you.”

  “I felt terrible because you looked at our babies and longed for more. I looked at them and fought for my sanity. How could I tell you that I didn’t want the same dreams you did? I ended up putting so much pressure on myself. I felt like you deserved so much better. I was just so lost. I don’t think I really thought about much at the time. Everything I did was rash. I left; I…had surgery. My head was just so far away.”

  Donnie pulled me into him, wrapping his strong arms around me. An indescribable sense of calmness overtook my body as I melted into his chest. I had longed for that feeling over the last couple of years.

  I just enjoyed the moment. I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent and enjoyed the security of having his arms wrapped around me.

  His arms released me slightly and I could feel him inhale deeply. “Nothing has changed. We can’t be together. I still need you to let me go, to let go of the idea of us ever being together again.”

  At that, I pushed away from him, keeping my eyes down. I had nothing to say to him; all words had escaped me. I turned and began to head back to the van, needing to be away from the sand pit, away from Donnie, and away from the life I would never have again.

  The only indication I had of him following me were the heavy footsteps on the ground behind me. He made no other sounds as we silently and separately made our way out of the forest. I couldn’t look at him, knowing I’d only see hurt on his face and he’d see agony on mine. That’s what I felt inside, complete and utter agony over losing him forever.

  The car ride back to Target was just as quiet as the ride there, except the space within the car grew gloomier. Sadness and a finality I never thought I’d feel filled it. I didn’t want to lose him, but he had been right. I brought this on myself and had no voice in the matter. I had no right to argue or make any attempt to persuade him. It was my bed and I had to lie in it…alone.

  Donnie dropped me back off at my car without even pulling into a space or putting the van in park; he literally pulled up behind my car and waited silently until I had gotten out before driving away. If it hadn’t been clear up until that point, he made it clear then.

  Message heard loud and clear, Mr. Leery.

  I made up my mind right then and there… I would abandon the two-week wait, I would mentally give up on ever being with him again, and I would start living life for myself and my children. The one thing I wouldn’t do was go knock on his door with a pen in hand, asking for the divorce papers. He would have to be the one to bring them to me. If he wanted me to let go so badly, he could be the one to ask me to sign the papers. I would let him go, I had already decided that, but I wouldn’t be the one asking for it.

  Once I got home, I pulled all of the cards still sealed in envelopes from my suitcase and stuffed them inside of his mailbox along with one of the journals I had kept while I was gone. It would be up to him if he wanted to open them or throw them away. At least he would have them, which was the purpose of keeping them for so long. There were two years of birthday, anniversary, and thinking of you cards. Some were to him while others were to the kids. And then there was the journal. I gave it to him, hoping he would have a better understanding of what I had gone through.

  My eyes closed early that night, before the sun even went down, and it helped keep my mind off the window in the front of the house. It helped ease some of the ache I felt inside and allowed me to find some sort of peace…even if it was only for eight hours.

  It was what I needed…what my heart needed.

  I received a call just after three in the afternoon. It made me thankful that I had gone out and gotten car seats for the kids the day before because Donnie asked me to pick up the kids and keep them until he got home. Apparently, something happened at one of the storefronts in a strip mall he owned and he needed to be there while the repairs took place. I didn’t argue.

  He told me to pick them up at five, but I couldn’t wait that long and picked them up at four fifteen. I was over the moon to have them for however long Donnie would let me. I wasn’t sure what we would do, but I didn’t really care as long as I had my kids with me.

  Livvy helped with dinner while talking my ear off about her friends at school. I loved every second of it, listening as she told me stories of recess and what she did in centers. I had no idea what centers were, but listening to her talk about it, it was definitely the most fascinating part of her day. And I loved that she wanted to share it all with me while helping me in the kitchen. I helped the boys with their puzzles, too. Mikey had a system and didn’t need much help from me, but Gavin had tried to force all of the pieces together. I thought he would become frustrated that they didn’t fit, but he didn’t. Instead, he’d tilt his head to the side, looking just like his father, and then try again. Every once in a while, I’d see his tongue peek out between his lips when he was in deep concentration, and it made me fall in love with him all over again. These were mine, it was hard to believe and wonder all at the same time.

  Mik
ey and Gavin started calling me Mommy, although Mikey sounded more hesitant about it. But he was the follower and seemed to do whatever Gavin did. I had also gotten better about telling them apart now. It had become rather easy.

  Livvy didn’t call me anything. If she had something to say, which was all the time, she would simply start talking, never addressing whom she spoke to. I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt, but I knew she was the oldest and I needed to give her time. At least she hadn’t shut me out completely.

  After macaroni and hot dogs, one Disney movie watched two and a half times, a bath, and three bedtime stories, they were asleep, leaving me alone in the quiet house. It was odd since the house had been quiet that entire week, but after hearing it filled with their laughter, the silence felt deafening.

  I got myself dressed for bed in a pair of cotton shorts and a tank top and then cleaned the house. It surprised me at how much I enjoyed it since it was one of the things I hated most from before.

  Just as I finished with the kitchen, I heard a knock on the front door. I knew it had to be Donnie since no one else would visit me at ten o’clock at night…or any other time for that matter.

  He looked worn out and defeated, but I didn’t dare mention it or ask how he was. He looked around the living room and then glanced at me with one eyebrow high on his forehead, questioning me.

  “They’re in their beds.”

  He looked around again and then laughed. “You have one couch, an old TV that’s sitting on the floor, no kitchen table or any other furniture that I can see, but they have beds?”

  I shrugged. “I’m working on it. I got what was most important first. And I just picked the TV up today. Figured I’d need it for the kids. I didn’t need anything impressive, just something that would play movies. Turns out I didn’t need all of these movies, though; as long as they had Frozen, they were fine.”