Chapter 27: Sad Truth

We delayed our celebration. Lily and I managed to get Bruce into bed, but he stumbled out to throw up in the toilet and was retching for half an hour with the two of us trying to make sure he didn’t start bleeding or aspirate something. He was in bed for almost two hours before he returned and started heaving again. This time mostly dry heaves that seemed to be more painful than actually throwing up. Lily couldn’t stand to be in the bathroom with him and by five in the morning, she was in the other bathroom with her daily morning sickness.

Bruce went back to sleep while Lily and I drank tea in the living room. We both looked at the bottle of scotch. It was over half gone.

“Did he drink all that yesterday?” Lily asked.

“Must have. I don’t think we had any scotch. He must have bought the bottle when the liquor stores opened yesterday.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked. “His self-esteem is shattered.”

“I don’t get it. Granted, I’d feel like crap if I lost my job, but it isn’t the end of the world. We’ve got plenty. If we wanted to, we could probably all retire, as long as we didn’t expect to fly first class around the world every year,” I said. “It just feels out of proportion.”

“Not exactly stellar daddy-material today, is he?” Lily giggled.

“And to think I was considering getting pregnant,” I sighed. Lily snapped her attention to me.

“Really?”

“Well, I was going to ask what you’d think if I sort of got preggers, too. You know, so your baby has a playmate, sort of. I wouldn’t do it if you objected—or if Bruce objected, of course. But I was just thinking about having a baby around and I started getting all squishy.”

“Are you still squishy?” Lily asked after she’d kissed me.

“Oh, Lily, I wish you could plant a baby inside me.”

“Maybe we should go into the guest room so we don’t disturb hubby and let me investigate to make sure all the channels are open and receptive,” she said as she cupped my breast. Oh, God!

“I love you. But I think I’d better pick up Emily and go to a museum for a few hours. I’ll see if I can get a ticket for Pinocchio at the Children’s Theater and take her there, too. We need to keep it quiet here or he’ll be right back in the bathroom. And so will you.”

“He’s going to suffer for this all day, isn’t he?” Lily said. “That must have brought him close to alcohol poisoning. We should have called an ambulance.”

“With any luck, he’ll suffer for it for a long time,” I said. Yes, that was evil, but I wasn’t going to let him forget he’d been so drunk we couldn’t tell him he was going to be a daddy.

“He lives!” I said as I came through the door with Emily.

“You’ve been gone a long time. Lily’s cooking,” he said. Obviously, his head still wasn’t on straight. Emily ran to him and he hugged her tenderly. I saw tears slip from his eyes.

“Baby, I think Daddy isn’t feeling well. Why don’t you see if you can help Mommy in the kitchen?”

“Okay!” she said happily. We’d had a good day at the museum and at the children’s performance. It was nearly dinnertime and I was exhausted. Bruce looked up at me with the tears running and the most mournful look on his face. I started to go to him, but he held out his hand to stop me.

“I know you are going to throw me out. I just want you to know I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Bruce, you silly guy! We’re not going to throw you out because you lost your job or because you felt bad enough to get drunk. We love you more than that.”

“They found out I had an affair with a student.”

“They ... A...” A crash sounded from the direction of the dining room and I looked up to see Lily standing in the doorway. A platter of fried chicken lay broken on the floor. Her mouth was open in horror.

“Uh-oh,” Emily said. “We need to go out for dinner.”

“Nooo!” Lily wailed.

“You what?” I screamed. “You what!” I was happy five minutes ago. Lily was going to tell him she was pregnant. I was going to ask him to make me pregnant. Had she told him yet? He was going to tear our family apart to get a piece of ass from a college slut?

Right. Lily and I were family, living together with one man. Loving in any combination and I was ready to dismiss any college girl Bruce got his hooks into as a slut. How long had he played her? How long had it been going on? What did we do wrong?

“It didn’t...”

“Don’t you dare say it didn’t mean anything!” I screamed. “Don’t you dare! Are you going to tell us she was just a piece of meat with a hole in it and you needed to masturbate? Don’t make it worse.”

“Let me finish,” he yelled back. “It didn’t start out to be an affair. No more than you and Lily started out like that. I was just trying to help a student who was having a hard time adjusting. We got to be friends and worked together on sets. It just sort of happened.”

“What show? Once Upon a Mattress?” I fumed. “What did she need help with? Getting dressed or getting undressed?”

Lily hadn’t said anything. She stood there gasping. Bruce was crying and I was raging. I don’t know why Emily chose to go him, except that I’d told her he wasn’t feeling well. She went to hug him and he wrapped his arms around her. NO!

“Get your filthy hands off my daughter! Emily! Get away from him.” Emily looked up at me and burst into tears. She ran to her bedroom and slammed the door. I looked at Lily. She’d taken one step into the room and stopped. She looked at Bruce and then at me.

“Stop it! Stop it!” she yelled. “You’re both making it worse. Stop it before I die. I can’t! I can’t bring a baby into the world without a father. Stop it!”

“A what?” Bruce gasped. “Lily?”

“I’m pregnant. We were going to tell you last night. Please, please don’t destroy everything!” It wasn’t Bruce, but me, she was looking at. I choked. I was going to lose both of them. I turned to follow Emily.

“I need to take care of Emily,” I whispered. I went to my baby.

Back in the old life, the one I thought I was here to correct, I’d had a husband who cheated on me. Repeatedly. For twenty-five years. I’d endured it. Ignored it. Blocked him out of my life until my daughter was old enough to fend for herself. Then I closed the door on him and died.

What the fuck? I hadn’t loved Jesse to start with. In this life, he was easy to get over—even with a daughter to raise by myself. Even he was better off. But Bruce ... I had to admit that I loved him. What was worse was that Emily and Lily both loved him. I realized that I could have walked away from Jesse any time and neither Willa nor I would have cared. Instead, I stayed with him for twenty-five years. Now I was seriously considering walking away from the two people I loved, tearing our child away from them, ruining our lives.