He sits back and looks at me. I see the sadness. I hurt him every time I push him away. I drive the dagger of betrayal deeper and deeper. I know because it hurts me too. He gets up and walks out of the room.
At the door he turns to me. “Chelsey, you can’t push this away forever. One day you are going to have to admit what we feel is more than a dirty little secret.”
I know he’s right, and I also know there is no longer anything in our way. He just doesn’t know that I know.
I work like it’s any other day, chat with my clients, let them rub my stomach and repeat.
When one of my real hipster ladies comes in to have her monthly trim and color, she takes one look at me and says, “That baby isn’t waiting for you to be ready. I hope your bags are packed.” I brush her off as mad. My things are packed because Ailee is the most insane Godmother ever, but I am not having this child for another three weeks.
I take my lunch a little late because I had a perm to set, and by the time I open the sandwich I ordered from down the street I am starving. I sit in the corner of the staffroom with Romi as we devour our lunch quickly; we are both booked full for the day and don’t have long before the next clients come in.
My feet are swollen and sore and it’s only halfway through the day, but worse than that is the feeling of doom that weighs me down. Like last night, time slows down and everything moves in slow-motion.
Rain comes up the stairs and walks into the office. The single glance tells me what I already know. The door shuts between them and us, and I try to focus on applying the bleach to Savannah's hair. Her dark roots need to be covered carefully, so I concentrate.
It’s coming. I’m holding each breath, waiting for it. The office door swings wide open behind me and I see Ailee standing there. She calls the apprentice helping Romi over, whispers to her, then calls me. The trainee grabs the bowl of bleach as it tumbles from my hand, and I start walking towards the office and what I knew was coming all day.
The only sound I hear is the beat of my heart in my ears. The sweat burns the gashes my nails made in the palms of my hands last night. Rain is sitting in Ailee’s chair, his head cradled in his hands, not looking at me.
She ushers me to sit in the small sofa chair, her lips move and tears roll down her cheeks as she kneels down in front of me, clasping my hands, but I don’t hear anything. I’m looking at him, and he can’t face me.
I just became a widow.
Only I already knew that, and I should be sad, yet I can’t muster up a single feeling at all. Nothing. I am empty. Worse than that, I’m afraid.
Rain gets up and comes to sit next to me. He puts an arm around me while I listen to the sound of my pulse quickening. I see the red as blood pools its way into my eye sockets, and the swimming light-feeling as I float away.
The light disappears and I know I’m going to faint.
Nineteen
Sweet Cinnamon Blonde
CHELSEY
Throughout this entire nine months, the thing I feared most about having a baby was getting it out of me at the end. I asked if I could just sleep and miss that part — this earned me a mortified look from the midwife.
If it wasn’t inside me – then it was real. A little person that I would be responsible for, have to protect and love, and the emotion of that overwhelmed me and gave me anxiety.
With everything else that was going on around me, all the changes and the stark reality of my new family, I had pushed it aside. Denial had once again became my coping mechanism and I just pretended he would never arrive.
Everything around me was crashing down like a volcano had erupted. The truth is that Sal had become exactly what Rat said he would be. Cold, distant, cheating, and sometimes abusive. I hated to admit he was right about it, or that I had been so fucking stupid.
I’d wanted a picture-perfect little family so badly that I failed to see it for what it was. And in all that, I had fallen in love with Rat. It took just that one kiss, a stolen moment at Sunday lunch.
My heart would ache for him every time Sal touched me, when his whiskey breath kissed me and I would retreat to the memory of how Rat tasted.
I was alone, a lot. Rat, was there. Sal never was.
It started with small touches; little smiles that became too hard to ignore. I tried. I avoided him, hid away and pretended I didn’t want him. That my heart hadn’t been stolen.
Now though, I don’t know where he is, or who anyone is.
They are all hiding secrets, one worse than the other.
I watched Sal die. I saw someone die. The father of my son, his blood on the immaculate floor, his eyes as he saw me seeing him die. Rat just stood there, he didn’t even blink.
When he came to my room in the morning he wanted me, he needed comfort and so did I, but I couldn’t give it to him and he certainly couldn’t give it to me. Our bond was broken. He watched as my security and future was shot down in front of him.
My eyes opened once in the ambulance and Ailee looked at me, with her flowing tears dripping on me. The lucid moment was gone as fast as it came, and the black abyss of my memories came back.
It was all Rat. All of it. He was the one taking care of me behind the scenes. He took care of my mother and sisters without me even knowing, he kept Sal at arms length. He would watch over me. He was the guardian. But I feared it wasn’t me he was guarding, but his little brother.
Faces of customers, and frowning faces from church swim in crowds as I try to find a way to wake up.
Widow.
I’m a widow.
I am alone.
No, I’m not alone. I have a son.
I have two sons.
That sounds wrong. It's wrong.
Rat, I have Rat.
I’m alone.
Am I dying? Is this the end?
I became a widow and a mother in one day. I missed the emergency delivery of my son because I was in shock. I got my wish to wake up when it was all over.
Nothing felt right, it was all wrong. I didn’t want to see him, or anyone. I wanted to be alone, to go back to sleep and never wake up to this nightmare again.
The nurse asked if I was alright. I said no and asked her for more medication so I could sleep. After the fourth time, she wasn’t giving me more, she said my baby needed me.
No one needs me.
I sent everyone away in a rage somewhere in between it all; chased them out of my room. I didn’t want to look at their faces, filled with hope and sadness all at once.
“We want to bring your little boy for you to hold. He needs his Momma, he’s been waiting for you. And we need to get you up and walking about.”
“I don’t want to see him yet.” The friendly nurse went from bubbly, to vicious, in about two seconds.
“Your little man doesn’t care what you want, he needs you. So you need to cut the shit now. He’s got no daddy to watch him, you are all that baby has. Act like it, young lady. Or, I can call psych down here and they’ll call child services.” She isn’t so nice now.
“Fine.” I huff as she lifts my bed up and I’m forced to sit up. It hurts like a motherfucker and I groan.
“Let’s get you up and go fetch him shall we?” She holds out her wrinkled old hand and helps me slither off the bed. I stand like a hunchback holding my flattened stomach, because it feels like it’s about to fall out and splash on the floor in a bloody mess.