I just avoided the whole confrontation and didn’t return his calls until eventually he stopped calling altogether, much to my relief.
If I learned anything from my father, it’s that whatever happiness you get . . . it’s just an island in the sea of misery. It can be a big island the size of Antarctica for some . . . for others it’s like a Styrofoam cup floating in the Pacific. And sometimes you don’t know when you’re getting too close to the shoreline, the wave will just crash suddenly and pull you back out with the tide. “Mom, you deserve this. For as long you can have it with Bob, enjoy every moment.”
I mean it to sound loving and supportive, it’s not her fault or mine that we tend to be Styrofoam cups, but she hears the bitterness. She turns around, and comes over to hug me. “Kat, I know you don’t understand this . . . but I would happily take one blissful day with Bob over a lifetime alone. It’s not a risk to love him and let him love me. It’s a gift, one that I am blessed to have for as many days as we get. Sure, maybe one day it’ll explode and I’ll cry in devastation. But even then, the days of joy will be worth the pain. Even as bad as it got with your father, we had a lovely life for a long time and he gave me the two best gifts of my life, you two girls. So yeah, I’ll take this happiness for as long as I can have it, without bitterness or cynicism.”
I’m taken aback, my mom’s words hitting rather close to home. I am bitter and cynical. And she’s right, because Bob really is a good guy who wants to make her happy.
He didn’t have to ask her to marry him, I know. After his first wife died of cancer, he could have just been a rather well-to-do older bachelor. Mom would have been happy just dating him exclusively, I know it. She never asked for his support, and didn’t need it after she made her way successfully after the divorce. Neither of them needed the other, they just wanted to be together, forever. So when he dropped to a knee on Valentine’s Day and asked her to marry him . . . it was totally legit and love-filled. Even since then, he’s been great while they plan their second weddings as if they were kids doing it for the first time. There’s no reason I should doubt him.
Unfortunately, it’s not just my dad’s influence. I’ve had a run-in or two myself.
The good memories with them definitely don’t outweigh the bad endings. Kevin was, if anything, one of the longer ‘islands’ in my history. Some of us just aren’t destined for happily ever afters. Or even happy for nows.
Jessie pipes up, ever the optimist. “Maybe this new guy, Derrick, will be the one . . . tonight!”
I turn to Jess, ready to go claws and hissing on her, but Mom smiles. “Tonight? Do you have a date? Is that what Jessie’s caterwauling about?”
I try to smile back, but the thought of having a bad ending with Derrick is already pressing on my heart. The fact is, despite whatever guards I’ve put up about Derrick, I like him already. A lot. We’re barely started in whatever this is, but I already know it’s gonna hurt like a son of a bitch when it ends.
It’s not just the sex, or the fact that he pushes me just enough that I feel like I’m stepping outside my comfort zone without feeling like I just got chucked out of an airplane with no parachute. It’s in the way he looks at me, the way he talks with me when we’re not being dirty . . . even the fact he spent hours last night hanging out while I helped Elise through her latest drama, and did it without a single complaint.
Derrick . . . god he’s everything I could ask for. So hot I find myself thinking of him and wondering if I could run to the bathroom at work to send him a quick naughty video, intelligent and perceptive, and even gentlemanly in a lot of ways. If telling a woman you want to fuck her until she passes out from so many orgasms can be called gentlemanly, Derrick’s figured out how.
But that’s what’s scaring the shit out of me . . . every high has to be met with an equal low. Locking a forced excitement to my face, I tell my mom the same thing I told Jessie about it being our second date but we’ve been talking for a few weeks. “Really, it’s no big deal.”
Mom rolls her eyes, refusing to be put off. “No big deal? This is so exciting! New potential, new stories, the anticipation of liking each other and falling in love.”