Forty Five: Stressed Syllables
Leaving Orlando was bittersweet. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself, staring out the circular window of the airplane, at the fact that Disney is the most magical place on earth. In one week, I’d shattered my marriage, gotten my family to avoid me, and received a “maybe” from Gabrielle Carter. There was nothing more magical than that maybe. Maybe let me know that I had a chance- that there was a reason to have hope for my life.
Although I was happy to get out of Orlando with all its commercialized sentiment and tacky, cartoon billboards, I knew that returning to Tulsa meant facing up to the reality of my life. In Disney, it was easy to drown ourselves in chocolate, Mickey ice-creams and happily ever afters. Natalie and I could easily take our children on It’s A Small World and pretend to be the happy, settled couple that really thought life was as simple as mechanical singing dolls on glittery carousels. Landing at the Tulsa International Airport made us human and made our troubles real again.
We returned home from the airport, put the kids down for naps, and lugged our suitcases upstairs where they would lay on the bedroom floor for a few days until we felt like unpacking. It felt like our usual post-tour routine, actually. After tossing our diaper bag onto the pile of suitcases beside the bed, I collapsed on the couch to recover from the exhausting flight of trying to quiet our 1-year-old before receiving too many evil glares from fellow passengers.
“Taylor,” Natalie said to me as soon as I’d closed my eyes. I sat up to see her holding out a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” I said, genuinely appreciative. I took it in my hands and relished in the comfort of the warm porcelain on my palms before I actually took a sip. She sat down next to me with her own mug. I noticed there was whipped cream in it. Natalie loved whipped cream on her coffee… something I always made fun of her for. Sometimes when we felt so old and so worn, I reminded myself that my wife was really just a little girl who liked whipped cream on her coffee. It made things feel better.
I cleared my throat. “We should start thinking about…”
“Taylor,” she cut me off with a sigh. She sipped her coffee before continuing and then looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. How long had they been red for? Had she been crying? “We just got home. Give it a rest for now.”
I wanted to argue that we hadn’t discussed the divorce at all since that night on the balcony, four days prior. I wanted to insist that we needed to start figuring stuff out because there was no point in making the process any longer and anymore miserable than it needed to be. I think what I was really thinking was ‘The sooner this ends, the sooner things begin with Gabrielle’, but I knew better. I just nodded at her, sipped my coffee, and pretended to act interested in the conversation that she started up about getting the digital pictures printed off so we could give Disney pictures to my mother for her birthday.
I must have fallen asleep on the couch, despite my cup of coffee, because the next thing I knew I was awoken by crying. I looked up to see Natalie in the kitchen cooking.
“Can you get her?” she nodded at the stairs.
It registered. Baby crying. Penelope. Awake. Get up and get her. I wanted to roll back over and close my eyes like I would have before, but the thought of Gabrielle in my mind caused me to peel myself off the couch and trudge for the stairs. Old Taylor, old Taylor, old Taylor.
“You getting her?” Natalie asked just to completely fulfill the role of the naggy wife. It’s funny how sometimes I didn’t feel the slightest bit sad about my killed marriage.
“What does it look like, Natalie?” I rolled my eyes and stomped up the stairs. Bad Taylor. Think OLD Taylor. I sighed. I’d never been very enjoyable after taking naps. Sleeping in the day threw me off.
My ex-wife to be muttered something from the kitchen but I just ignored her and trudged into my daughter’s room. She was standing up in her crib with her face tear-streaked. Her crying faded when I stepped in. I couldn’t help but smile. Call me strange, but there’s something about my own crying children that has always been endearing to me. I’m not talking about the “I’m a brat, I’m going to cry to piss you off and embarrass you in front of crowds” kind of crying. I’m talking about the “I want you, I need you, hold me” kind of cry- complete with watering eyes and trembling lips.
“Hey baby…” I said to her quietly, approaching the crib and scooping her into my arms. She held onto me and stopped crying- just like that. It felt strange to be alone with my child. It was rare that I just held Penny in the privacy of her own bedroom- all by myself without any nosey family to watch me. Usually when I interacted with my kids, my mother was breathing down my neck, ready to praise me when I showed a little interest in them. I felt like I was always being tested- always being analyzed.
I bounced Penny in my arms and smiled down at her for the first time in… a long time. She smiled back. I didn’t trust myself. I was enjoying holding my daughter- really enjoying it. But I figured I was just tricking myself into thinking that; I figured I was just trying to like spending time with Penny so I could get Gabrielle back.
Before I could let the moment pass, I went leaping with Penelope down the stairs and stood before Natalie in the kitchen.
“Leave,” I told her, not meaning to sound so callous and demanding. “I mean, I mean I’ll feed the kids, I’ll take care of them tonight…” I dug in my pocket for my wallet and pulled my credit card out, tossing it at her. I wasn’t really sure why I did it, because she already had a credit card of mine anyway, but it seemed like the right gesture at the time. “Go get yourself dinner or something… go shopping for a bit. Take Kate. I’ve got the kids under control.”
She looked at me- confused and stunned. I guess I would have been too. One minute I was groaning about having to go console my crying daughter and the next I was insisting on sole responsibility for them for the night.
“Why…?” she asked me suspiciously, rubbing the credit card in her fingers and looking over Penny who looked surprisingly content in my arms.
“Because,” I sighed, going over to her and pushing her towards the door. “Because I want to know that I can do this… that I can take care of the kids without running to my Mom or freaking out. Can you just go out… enjoy yourself? Get a manicure or something, Nat.”
She leaned in and kissed Penny and then finally said, “I’m not even going to ask anymore questions or argue with you.”
I nodded appreciatively. She knew me well enough to just go.
“Call me if you need, Tay,” she said, clutching her purse from the counter and shoving the credit card into her pocket.
“I won’t need to,” I said. As I watched her leave, I began to wonder if I should have sounded so confident. After a moment of standing there looking at the boiling pasta and salad preparations spread across the counters, I decided that there was nothing scary about two toddlers. Absolutely nothing at all.
I can proudly say that the next few hours consisted of waking Ezra up, serving dinner, and getting my kids in a bath. Ezra complained and screamed when I made him turn off his Disney movie and go upstairs to the bathroom, so I bribed him with food coloring and let him turn the bath water green. I wasn’t exactly sure how safe it was, to be honest, but it didn’t stain their skin and he squealed with delight as we watched the water change, so I was pretty proud of myself.
When Natalie returned home at 9:30, Penelope was sleeping and I was laying under the covers with Ezra reading to him. She stood in the doorway for awhile and did that thing that wives do when they’re proud of their husbands and in awe of their beautiful children. I guess she figured although it was one of the first times she could do that, it was also one of the last and she needed to take it all in.
When I finished the last sentence, Ezra whined as I expected because he said he wasn’t ready for bed yet.
“I need three more books and then I’ll be all ready.”
“No more books. It’s late,” I told him.
“Two more.”
“No more.”
“One more!” he said with sleepy eyes.
I always said I didn’t want to spoil my child, but I was beginning to learn that sometimes spoiling children is easier than fighting with them. I read him Hop on Pop. Bad choice. He proceeded to hop on me. He was no longer tired. I resorted to letting him fall asleep in my bedroom watching a movie.
“We really need to talk about everything,” I said to Natalie that night as I was cleaning up the kitchen. She stood against the counter watching me- occasionally wiping up a few things but I insisted that she let me. I wanted to learn to be independent and to take care of myself again, but I also felt guilty about everything I was putting her through.
She sighed.
“Nat, I know you don’t want to. I don’t want to either…”
“That’s just the thing, Tay. You seem like you want to. You seem so eager to get rid of me that you’re just bursting at the seams! Like you can’t wait to have me out of this house! Am I really that bad?”
“Nat-”
“If you want to shove me out of this house, Tay, then fine. But don’t stand there and pretend it’s hurting you as much as it’s hurting me because you know damn well that it’s not.”
Oh god, I cringed, glancing over at her and seeing what I’d been suspecting- tears. I could have handled yelling and screaming but tears were exhausting to handle and I’d been dealing with a lot of tears lately. I tried to become the Taylor who felt bad about making a girl cry rather than felt annoyed by it.
“Nat…” I said quietly, looking down at the floor studying it and searching for the old me. You’re a jerk. You made her cry. You’re self-centered. Why do you always need to put yourself first? I coached myself into being compassionate again. “Nat, that’s not true at all. Listen to me…” I walked over to her and held her hands in mind, staring at her but she cried at the ground and refused to look up at me.
“Natalie… that’s not true. I just don’t think we can continue to avoid this. We’ve been avoiding this for way too long… longer than just a few days. It’s been years.”
“It just feels so sudden.”
“Everything is so sudden in our lives… why shouldn’t this be…” I sighed.
She shrugged which I think meant she agreed with what I said… I think.
“Nat… I don’t want to deal with this either. It’s going to be painful and stressful and emotional… even though I might not show it, it scares me too to do this, okay?”
“Taylor,” she finally looked up at me and pulled her hands away from mine. She wiped at her eyes with her free hand. “You have someone to go to. I know the instant I move out, Gabrielle will probably be sleeping in our bed.”
“Natalie!”
“It’s true!”
But it wasn’t. I couldn’t admit that I wished it was true. I really did wish that’s how life would go, but I knew that wasn’t what was going to happen. That wasn’t how Gabrielle worked.
“You have someone to move onto. It’s not so hard for you because you have Gabrielle and you know that even though she acts like she’s not going to give in to you, she will. I have no one. What do I have Taylor? My family… Georgia? I’ve spent the last four years here in Tulsa with your family! I have nothing else left! You, the kids… this family is my life!”
“You don’t have to leave the family! We still have the kids! They’re not gone just because our marriage is. Just because we’re over it doesn’t mean you have to leave,” I said, fading as I spoke and realizing it all felt vaguely familiar.
“You act like everything is so simple, Taylor! Of course it’s simple for you. What about everyone?” She sounded like Gabrielle. I even had to look closely at her to remind myself I was speaking to Natalie Hanson not Gabrielle Carter.
“You just complicate things. There’s no reason you have to go back to Georgia because of all this. You’re still welcome here,” I said, and then suddenly, in that instant, it hit me.
Oh god. I was repeating the past. I’d done the exact same thing to Natalie that I’d done to Gabrielle years before. I’d committed, shattered a heart, and then acted like everything was okay- like things wouldn’t be so bad if she stuck around. It was dejavu.
“This is what you don’t get Taylor,” she said, her voice shaking and her tone quiet. Her voice was barely above a whisper and she enunciated every word. “You are always the one moving on. You ditched Gabrielle and now you’re ditching me. But you don’t understand that it’s not as easy for everyone else to move on from you, Tay. I don’t know why it’s so easy for you to assume that I don’t love you anymore just because you don’t love me.”
There, in stressed syllables and piercing eyes, was a point that hadn’t been made to me before. It was weird because I’d always heard the opposite. Gabrielle had always told me how much she didn’t love me… how much she had moved on. But Natalie was so much more honest and less guarded than Gabrielle. She told it like it was. She pointed out that she did in fact still love me.
“I’m sorry,” I said because I really did feel sorry and I wanted to make it better but I knew I couldn’t and I wanted to go back in time and erase all the mess before it even started but…
Natalie turned and walked up the stairs, hurried like she was about to burst into explosive tears any second. She loved me. I’d always assumed that Natalie had never loved me, just as I had never really loved her… not like that. I always assumed that Natalie was just with me out of comfort and familiarity and familial obligations too. Knowing that she loved me, that I was truly breaking her heart rather than just initiating the inevitable… it killed. I think it was that moment that I began to feel again. Not just feel for me again either… but to feel for everyone else.