“I’m sure her family will all be there to help her. We won’t be gone long. I’ll see her when we get back.” Ashley doesn’t even give her time to speak when she looks at Logan and says, “Let’s go. You can drive.”
“The roads are shit, Ash—you should be driving.Ishould be driving.” I’m not liking this one fucking bit.
“He’s eighteen, Lucas. How old were you when you were driving to New Jersey alone? I’ll be with him.” Ashley steps back, apparently realizing she’s Ava’s mother, and gives her a one-armed hug before she all but runs out the damn door and into the attached garage.
Once they’re out the door, Ava looks at me. “What’s going on, Daddy?”
“Apparently, she misses her family.”And your mother has been fucking around for years now, I want to say, but I don’t. I redirect, “Do you know when they’re supposed to be in?”
“No.” Ava walks over to the couch and grabs a pillow before flopping down on it.
I hate seeing her like this. Hate seeing her struggle, and I can’t do anything about it.
“You want breakfast, baby girl?”
“No, Daddy … I just want to cry.”
I walk over and plop down next to her, wrap an arm around her, and tell her, “Then cry.”
She snuggles into me like she did when she was a little girl—hell, she is still my little girl—and falls asleep, crying.
?
With her asleep, I decide to go dig through some boxes in the basement. I look at the shelves that hold our memories in plastic totes. I decide I might as well start going through them. If Ash thought she was taking the house I built for my family, I’ll be damn sure to keep some of the memories.
The first box I grab off the top shelf, I set it on the floor then grab the other five. I start going through our life, one tote at a time.
Looking at them all lined up, anger turns to a feeling of disbelief that this shit is happening to us, but also a feeling that it could be worse. I can’t believe this shit is happening to us … but I accept it and feel that pain again in my chest for Tessa and her kids.
I open the first tote, finding it’s full of wedding memorabilia. You know all that shit girls have to have. The champagne glasses with your names in pretty script and hearts.
I move to a workbench, grab a construction-grade garbage bag, and throw those bitches in there. Next, I grab a bag of potpourri wrapped in tulle and ribbons. “Fucking lame.” I throw them in the trash, too. Invitations, rehearsal dinner programs, wedding programs, and flyers from the Dominican Republic where we went on our honeymoon. A binder for planning every event of our big fucking day. I throw out every piece of shit memorabilia that shehadto keep except for the document we signed, a fake license, one for the bazillion photos that were taken that day. I’d love to super glue that to her forehead so, when she looks in the mirror, she sees it and so does the senator … while he bangsmy wife.
The only thing I keep is the photo album and the case of wine without labels on them. The photo album because, let’s face it, I looked fucking good. The wine because I’m going to get fucking ripped the day I sign those other papers, the divorce ones.
I shove them in the tote, grab thebag of lies,walk up the stairs quietly, and out the garage door to hide it underneath Christmas wrapping paper so Ava doesn’t ask questions.
Walking back through, I peek in and see her still asleep, tear stains on her cheeks, and then I have a lightbulb moment.
I walk back down the stairs and look at the shelf. I’m on a mission. I decide I should organize them, so I go grab a Sharpie.
After emptying the second shelf, I find what I’m looking for.Bingo!
I pull out the pink blanket, hold it to my face, and smell it.
This well-worn and loved blanket was the one Ava had to have, no substitute would do the trick from the time she was a year old. This was the only blanket, out of the hundreds, that would soothe her, help her sleep, to comfort her at night.
We lost it once. Ava was having a fit. I remember tearing apart the vehicle after going to Jersey, and I was sure it was left behind. She cried, stomped, threw the biggest tantrum I had ever seen. I swear to you, she was like the chick fromThe Exorcist. It was midnight, and I was tired, Ash was tired, Ava was way overtired, and I was outside in the snow, digging through bags.
When I found it, I was so fucking happy that I ran in, waving that pink blanket in the air and yelling, “Bingo!”
Ashley looked so relieved, and Ava immediately stopped her sleepy tantrum. She looked up, red-eyed, and toddled to me, putting her little hands in the air. “Bingo, Dada.”
I swooped her up and held her as she loved on Bingo, grabbed Ash’s hand, pulled her up, and we walked up the stairs together, as a family. I kissed my wife’s head and smiled. That was a hell of a victory for us.
As soon as her head hit the pillow that night, she was out. No million stories to read, no sneaking her into her room after she fell asleep. I just laid her in her bed with Bingo, and she looked so damn peaceful.
Ash and I snuck out of her room, tiptoed so we wouldn’t wake the two-and-a-half-foot, twenty-pound ruler of our world. She was exhausted, I was exhausted, but I was on an adrenaline high. Fucking victory rush, and Ash looked good. That was the first time my wife let me in the back door.Bingo.