Chapter 5: Collateral Damage

At Christmas of 2007, I split my time between Peter and Nicole. LA and New York are big cities, major metropolises, but outside of the definition, I don't think you could find two places on earth more alien to each other. It was invigorating – or at least it had been – visiting both cities in the course of December in past years.

New York was often snow, frigid winds, surly cabbies and plays; LA a few days later was 70 degree/shirt sleeve weather, hookers in hot-pants on side streets, and the latest movie premieres. We usually managed to stroll down Venice Beach and enjoy the boardwalk, the musclemen and the roller bladers.

I thought about that while I sat in Nicole and Simon's den in their 23rd floor condo holding little Calabria. Despite the name, she was as beautiful a baby as ever breathed on earth, or the most beautiful little girl baby. Naturally I was prejudiced. Austin had been the most beautiful baby boy and now he was the most intelligent and beautiful toddler on earth.

Actually, at this point, Calabria was also a toddler. She wriggled until I let her down and she staggered toward her father Simon's waiting arms. He grabbed her bottom, made a face and said to Nicole, "I think she needs changing, dear. Don't you want to demonstrate the superior connection between mother and daughter?"

She just laughed and said, "No dear. I wouldn't think of interfering with the father/daughter bond. You go have fun."

He made a face, but kissed his daughter and swept her up and out to the bedroom. My brown-haired daughter, who looked so much like her mother that it hurt to look at her hunched forward on the couch, put her hand over mine.

"You're losing weight, Dad, and you look - tired. How are you doing?

I know we talk, but you can't tell anything over the phone. You could be dying, yet you'd be cheerful and telling me funny stories about the bank and you'd never let me know what was really going on."

"I'm okay, Nicole."

"You know exactly how little that tells me. How are you really? I, why don't I think you've ever gotten over - mom?"

I freed my hand from hers and held both mine up in a surrender gesture.

"What's there to get over, baby? She's gone, that's the reality of it. 'Getting over it' doesn't change it. Whether I do or not, she's still gone. She's always going to be gone, and life goes on. It has to. I want to see little Calabria driving you and Simon crazy when she drags home some scuzzy-looking boyfriend covered with tattoos and piercings."

She gave me a sad, half smile.

"I know it's coming, Dad. I shouldn't tell you this."

"What?"

"I promised Mom..."

I couldn't help myself.

"Is she alright? She's not ... sick?"

"Not physically."

"What do you mean?"

"She made me promise."

I just looked at her. I'd been around long enough, I'd dealt with enough people who didn't want to talk, who were afraid of the news I was bringing, who didn't want me to know how badly they had screwed up, to know what to say.

"Nicole, you brought it up. You want to tell me. Whatever it is, you must think it would be for the best for your mother for me to know it. Is your promise more important than your mother's welfare? Whatever it is, you know I wouldn't hurt her. Even now, I would never hurt her."

She sniffed and I saw the first tear trickle down her cheek.

"She told me, months ago. Maybe - maybe I should have told you, but she made me promise. She seemed - it was so important to her, that you not know."

I just sat and looked at her.

"She left him. Two months - two months after she left you and moved to Chicago to be with him. It was less, less than a month after the divorce papers came through."

"Him - Kelly? Richard Kelly? She left him?"

She licked her lips, which were wet with her tears.

"She said, she said - they just realized - it was over. He went back to his wife, and she..."

It sank in on me.

" ... and she didn't come back to me. She never even thought about it, did she?"

She wouldn't look at me.

"You can tell me, baby. I'm a big boy, and the truth ... the truth is always better. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. No matter how hard, it's better than lies."

She finally looked into my eyes.

"She said, she said she never wanted to see you again - she wanted to make a new life away from you. She said you would never check up on her, you might never know, and she didn't want - didn't want..."

She buried her face in her hands.

I sat beside her and held her.

"She said, she didn't want you to know because, you'd try to get her back. She said you'd never stopped loving her and she didn't want to hurt you again. She just - she just, didn't want to ever see you again."

That was as simple as it gets, no second thoughts for Mary. I was part of her past, a part she never wanted to lay eyes on.

"I'm sorry, Dad but, I knew she was telling me the truth. I could see it in her eyes. You're still in love with her. If you knew she was through with him, you would have ... you'd have gone after her again and she was just going to hurt you all over again. Telling you would have hurt you both. I did it for you as well as her."

"Did Peter know?"

"Yes, we talked about it. It was for the best that you didn't know."

I hugged her.

"Can you forgive me? I didn't know what to do. I did what I thought was best."

I hugged her again.

"I know you did baby, and there's no reason for you to feel guilty. If you'd told me, it wouldn't have changed anything. Like you said, she was never going to come back. I guess I knew it all along, but there's nothing like having your nose rubbed in the truth. Thank you for telling me. If I had any daydreams, they're gone now."

That was two weeks before Christmas. I knew, in the roundabout way the kids worked out their schedules, that Mary would be with Peter before Christmas while I was with Nicole, and she'd be with Nicole after Christmas while I was visiting Peter. I flew into LA on December 27th. Peter had been able to arrange for three days off and we ate at a trendy LA restaurant and exchanged our presents under the still green living Christmas tree in their family room.

We stayed up past Austin's bedtime for me to enjoy him and then Marlena, a pretty redhead who had been a nurse at the hospital where Peter had practiced before she'd broken him of his bachelor ways, took Austin to bed and left the two of us looking out the large picture window at a pretty good nightscape of LA. The house was located in the hills, but not high enough to worry too much about mudslides.

"Nicole told me that she told you about Mom and him."

"Yeah."

"Also that I knew and helped keep the secret from you?"

"Yeah, but don't beat yourself up. Like I told her, knowing it wouldn't have made any difference. You were honoring your mother's wishes, and it didn't do me any harm. There's nothing to feel guilty about."

He took a sip of a non-alcoholic beer from a chilled Coors mug and didn't look at me as he said, "I don't feel guilty, dad. I don't think it would have done you any good. What I feel is sad, sad for both of you."

I just looked at him.

"Both of us?"

"Yeah."

He looked at me then.

"You can lie to Nicole, but I know better. You're still in love with her. You might be banging ladies back in Jacksonville, but you haven't moved on. I know you, that's what hurts. You're a one-woman man and I don't think you're ever going to be able to move on."