The true reality of this situation hits me like a ton of bricks, and I can’t help but make my way to the floor to keep from falling. I’m trying to stop myself from crying, but the more I try, the more I can’t breathe. I reach back to try to push the door closed and rest my head on it. I promised myself I would cry my last tear over him back in Madison and that I would walk through this door stronger, not weaker, and would be ready to close this chapter of my life, ready to begin afresh.
Now I realize I was an idiot for thinking I could just will myself to be prepared for this. I’m not. I’m so tired of feeling like this. I don’t know what I did to deserve this. To fall in love and wrap my life around a man who doesn’t even exist, and now I’m sharing a child with someone who doesn’t even know who I am. How do I explain this to anyone? I’m barely coming to terms with this myself. And now I’m supposed to pretend this all didn’t happen, while staring at the face of the man I’ve felt bound to?
“Lauren, Lauren, honey, what’s wrong?”
I see, through my cloud of tears, a fuzzy vision of Raven and Angela. I try to get a hold of myself, but their touch seems to make my emotions pour out even more. Raven kneels down and wraps her arms around me, rubbing my back. I know I have to pull myself together; her seeing me like this is going to make her think the worst. What could be worse than this though?
“Lauren, what happened? Did you find him? Lauren, talk to me,” she says, her tone calm but growing more frantic.
I try to catch my breath, feeling that I might as well get it over with, when I see Hillary hurry to my other side, near Angela. I make another attempt. This is not how I wanted things to go. Nothing is going how I wanted it to.
“Where’s Caylen?” I say, bewildered but knowing that one of the only things that can calm me down is holding her.
“Caylen’s fine, honey, she’s sleeping,” Raven assures me.
“Lauren, it’s eleven at night. You haven’t answered your phone in two days. We’ve been so worried about you! What’s wrong? What happened? Did you find him?” Angela asks frantically.
“I-I want to see her,” I whimper.
“Lauren, no, not like this. You’ll upset her terribly,” Raven scolds me.
I realize waking up to her mom crying hysterically isn’t the best idea for my daughter at all, and I relent. “H-he’s not real.” I pathetically try to calm down, but I think all of this hugging and coddling they are doing is making it worse.
“What? Who’s not real, honey? Cal? He was really Chris?” Hillary tries to infer.
She’s partly right, at least. How do I even begin to explain this to them?
“That fucking son of a bitch bastard! I knew it, I knew it all along!” she continues. Her voice grows from uncertain to angry in a matter of nanoseconds.
“No-no, it’s not what you think. It’s worse,” I say in between sniffles.
“Come on, honey, let’s get you up and cooled down with a glass of water so you can tell us all about it,” Raven says authoritatively.
They help me get off the floor. We head toward the kitchen, where Hillary and I sit down. Angela paces nervously. Raven grabs a pitcher of lemonade out of the fridge and pours a glass for me, herself, and Hillary. I quickly take a few sips and try to think of how I can explain it. They both look at me, full of anxious curiosity.
“I don’t really know where to start. It’s… it’s all so… so surreal is the only way I can explain it,” I say, staring into the cold glass of lemonade.
“Take your time, L,” Hillary says reassuringly.
Raven nods in agreement.
For the next hour, I give them a play-by-play of the events that transpired over the past two days. I tell them everything from discovering “Chris” on the porch with another woman, who is actually his fiancée, and him having no clue who I am, to his parents revealing his mental illness to me, then to Chris and me coming to an agreement for him to be in Caylen’s life, and finally me basically giving him a pardon on the obligation Cal had to me. Not once during the entire story do any of them interrupt. They’ve all been silent since I finished, and the silence is frightening.
“Please say something,” I urge nervously, trying to cut the thick tension in the room. I’m sitting between three of the most opinionated women I’ve ever met, and I think for once, they’re all speechless.
“I-I don’t know what to say,” Raven says. She looks unsure.
Then I look at Hillary, who looks angry. I was sure she’d have a mouthful to say.
“Hillary?” I ask, almost afraid to hear her opinion, but today can’t get any worse.
“I don’t know what to say either. I-I mean, what can I say to something like this? I mean, basically…” She stops and clasps her hands together as if she’s actually pondering the right words to say.
I’ve never known Hillary to edit her words before speaking them, and I’m touched by the fact she’s trying to be thoughtful, but at this moment, whatever she has for me, I’d rather her dump it on me now so that after today, I can try to leave this feeling behind. “Hillary, whatever you have to say, just say it.”
Out the corner of my eye, I see Angela shoot her warning glare.
“The last time I did that, you ended up fainting.” She chuckles dryly.
“It wasn’t what you said; it’s what you didn’t say,” I assure her.
Words hurt, but she didn’t have to use any. She wasn’t spouting knowledge I had been hiding from; she had just pulled out a newspaper with my husband’s picture under a different name.
“Well, I think this is a load of bullshit,” she says brashly.
For the first time in days, I laugh. It starts out as a small giggle and grows. Raven looks at me strangely then begins to laugh too. Hillary folds her arms and joins in. Angela looks at us as if we’ve all lost our minds, but I can’t explain what a wonderful feeling it is to laugh—truly laugh and not cry.
“I mean, I don’t have a degree in psychology or anything, so I could just be misinformed but… multiple personality disorder? Give me a break! Do you know how many guys will be using this excuse if you let this slide, L? It’ll catch on like wildfire. ‘Honey, it wasn’t me fucking that other chick. It was my alter ego,’” she explains between her laughter.
Then it subsides, and the seriousness of the situation creeps back into the room.
“What do you think of this, Raven? You’re the old—most mature of us all?” Hillary jokes lightly.
Raven lets out what seems to be a much needed sigh and nods. “Well, I know this may be telling my age, but I remember seeing an episode on Oprah about this psychologist who interviewed this woman who said she had fifteen… umm… I forgot what she called them… not personalities. It was another word. Oh gosh, it’s slipped my mind.” Her brow furrows as she seems in deep thought.
“Alters?” Hillary offers.
“Yes, that’s it!” Raven says excitedly, as if she’s won a prize on a game show.
I turn surprised eyes to Hillary.
“I watch a lot of soap operas.” She shrugs. “Well, Ang, you’re the one who’s spending all of your daddy’s money on that degree of yours. You took a couple of psych courses, right? Let’s see how much they were worth.”