A lovely shade of I will annihilate your soul
present
I know stress isn’t good for me. It’s a lion that prowls the recesses of my brain waiting to attack and when prodded, it’s a man-eater. It feasts on my well-being, rationality, and health like a gluttonous savage.
Sometimes stress can be backed into a corner and controlled with mental reassessment and a change of perspective. Some problems aren’t as big as I initially make them out to be. And sometimes they aren’t even problems at all.
But what I’m facing now with Miranda and the prospect of her taking my kids to Seattle, it doesn’t get more real than this.
I can feel the stress, physically feel it. In the numbness of my legs. In the blindness of my eye. In the loss of appetite. In the insomnia. In the fatigue of my muscles and the headache crashing like cymbals between my ears. It’s bleeding through me, too thick for my veins, filling me like a bloated balloon on the brink of bursting.
I’m sitting in the reception area of Miranda’s lawyer’s office. Everything about the room is orchestrated to scream dominance: from the masculine, oxblood leather sofas; to the dark wood paneled walls and bookshelves, to the artificial musky scent in the air. It’s a testosterone fest. I’m sure if they’re defending you it offers a sense of security, like being cocooned in Superman’s cape. But if you’re on the other side, staring down an unknown future that’s in their hands, it makes you feel two inches small…to their ten feet tall. Mission accomplished.
This meeting was called out of the blue a few days ago. It was presented to me as a civil offering with a mediator to settle the issue. I’m hoping Miranda came to her senses and is reconsidering, but my gut and the pounding in my head tell me that’s impossible.
“Mr. McIntyre?” The voice is professional. It’s the veil that cloaks the bared teeth and claws that hide underneath.
“Yes,” I answer without meeting his eyes. It’s an intentionally evasive gesture to set the tone. Bitterness has me standing at the edge of sanity looking down into the deep, dark pit of future regret. I fear my mouth may get the better of me this morning. Sleep deprivation has put my sense of decorum and tact through a grinder and left me with shredded remnants of sensibility and preservation. I need to keep myself in check. I grab my cane and stand to follow him down the hallway to a conference room.
Miranda is already sitting inside. She’s wearing a black tailored suit jacket and a crimson silk blouse. The color red represents power. It’s her favorite…color to wear and distinguishing trait.
I take a seat where I’m instructed, directly across the wide table from her. She’s five feet away, but I can feel intimidation tumbling at me in violent surges of aggression. I blaze my eyes in return to let her know I’m not taking her shit today.
Her lawyer, Dean Bergman, clears his throat to break the silent pissing match we’ve already begun, and says, “Why don’t we get started?”
I’m drunk with rage. I raise my eyebrows in challenge. “Why don’t we?”
He slides a neat stack of papers across the table toward me. They’re deliberately neat like they’ve been tapped on all sides on a flat surface several times to ensure perfection and add to the overall presentation of superiority.
I take them heavy-handedly, jostling them into disarray and erasing the posturing they’re vying for.
Revision of Custody
Kai McIntyre
Rory McIntyre
Kira McIntyre
Those are the only words I see on the page. My sight shifts in and out of focus and suddenly I can hear my headache. Hear the cymbal crashing with each beat of my heart as if the blood rushing through me is keeping time for the disaster unfolding. I defiantly squeeze my eyes shut and will the world, and everything in it, except for the names on the paper in front of me, to burst into flames and burn white hot until they’re reduced to ash.
“Mr. McIntyre?” Bergman wants my attention.
I rub my temples with my eyes still closed, silently cursing his existence. “Yes.”
“Would you like me to summarize the document?”
No, I wouldn’t. “Yes.” I pry my eyes open, and Miranda is staring at me, her expression unreadable.
“Mr. McIntyre, Mrs. Buckingham is—”
I cut him off because his voice clashing with the thundering in my head creates a dissonance I can’t bear. “I changed my mind, I’d like a few minutes to read through this myself. Can I have some privacy?” Mutiny from within is upon me. I’m beginning to sweat, a light sheen that’s the predecessor to nausea. As soon as I think the word, I swallow hard and fast because my morning coffee is preparing for emergency evacuation. Backtracking the way it came in, rather than completing the journey to the traditional exit on the other side.
“Of course,” Bergman says politely.
Miranda takes her time standing to leave. I’m sure I look a mess, and she’s taking pleasure in having a front row seat to my unraveling.
The solid door shuts with an echoing click that signals privacy, and I turn in my chair just in time to grab the trashcan behind me and spill the liquefied contents of my stomach into it. My body purging it with authority like it’s trying to extract the evil I’m immersed in. My body relents and when it does I feel like the hate has been temporarily exorcised. The room smells. The unmistakable odor of undigested food mixed with stomach acid and an insufferable ex-wife. I tie off the bag and turn my attention to the papers.
My vision is blurry. I can’t see through my fury. It takes longer than it should to read them.
When Bergman and Miranda walk back through the door, I’m seething. My thoughts alone could rip them to shreds. They take a seat across from me. Bergman is on his game; he’s wearing a compassionate, but disheartened expression, just short of a predatory smile. Miranda, on the other hand, isn’t holding back. She looks triumphant and celebratory.
I know she’s waiting for me to shout and spew vengeance. I want to. I want nothing more than to crucify her to the wall behind her, driving my words through her flesh until she bleeds out and pleads for mercy. But I don’t. Because she would love that. Instead, I say the only thing that I know will speak to her power hungry attitude, “How did I ever fall in love with you?”
Miranda loved the way I loved her. My love was unconditional and absolute. She never loved me that way, she’s not capable of it, but she relished in the knowledge that she was the keeper of my heart. She treated it like a caged circus animal. Praising and feeding it just enough to make it perform despite the pain she put it through. My love fed her insatiable ego.
Miranda is the master of control, but she felt my words like a slap in the face. I saw it in the minute recoil of her body as she absorbed them and by the pinched look in her eyes as she tried to reject them. It’s confirmation that I no longer love her, something I’m sure she never thought would happen. She’s delusional enough to think my love is undying.
Bergman clears his throat. Whether he’s trying to gauge the atmosphere or prompt someone to proceed, I’m not sure.
I don’t speak. There’s nothing else for me to say. It’s all there in black and white. An intricate web of lies and a few truths spun until they mix into a damning portrayal of an unfit father…in black and white. She hired a private investigator who’s been following me since she left for Seattle months ago. There are dozens of photos: me holding Mrs. L’s joint, Faith and I half clothed making out on my couch, Kira hugging Faith. The photos are followed by affidavits confirming the decline in my health, exaggerated in large part, and time I’ve missed at work due to it; the names are all made anonymous to me, of course. Detailed lists of what my kids eat, what they wear, how they act, including a letter from an independent psychologist Miranda must’ve hired, stating his “concern for the children’s mental and physical well-being” and “signs of neglect.” This is all bullshit. How much is she paying these people to lie? But the next photo in the stack is the one that stops me dead in my tracks, it’s a photo of Faith topless on a stage. What the fuck? It’s followed by affidavits from multiple men stating, in detail, sex acts Faith has performed in exchange for money. Again, their anonymity protected, of course. My first instinct is to deny because Miranda is so damn good at fabricating untruths.
The shocking finality of my dissipated love has passed as Miranda remembers why she’s here and the crimson color of power stains her pale, stricken cheeks to a lovely shade of I will annihilate your soul. An evil smile creeps back in. “It seems you’ve been busy, Seamus. Dating a prostitute—”
“She’s not a prostitute. And we’re not dating,” I say angrily through gritted teeth. I don’t know if any of my words are true or not.
She laughs haughtily. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you paying for her services?”
I inhale deeply, and I can’t speak because I want to yell, and I feel like anything I say will dig me deeper into this imaginary hole of doom Miranda has created.
“You have my children spending time with a prostitute and a drug user.” She eyes me disdainfully. “Not to mention, you’re smoking marijuana.”
I roll my eyes because I can’t help it. “I didn’t even take the hit when she offered it to me.”
Bergman speaks up, and his voice carries an air of authority that I’m sure is convincing in the courtroom when he’s defending something that a high-priced fee for his representation has justified into defendable and right. “Seamus, Miranda is only looking out for the children and their best interest. She has hired a caretaker, who’s already moved into their home, and has registered them at a private Catholic school with an excellent reputation as one of Seattle’s finest educational institutions.”
“The kids aren’t even Catholic. Neither are you,” I pronounce in stunned confusion.
“They begin their studies Monday,” Bergman continues as if I hadn’t spoken.
“Monday?” I question. The shock is so heavy I don’t sound like myself. Today is already Friday.
“My flight leaves this evening. I’m picking the children up from school and taking them with me,” Miranda clarifies, sinking the knife in deeper.
“What?” It’s a word released on a punch to the gut, a pained gasp of breath.
Miranda looks at Bergman, who nods, and then returns her gaze to me. “Don’t fight me on this, Seamus.” That was a threat, bold and immoral.
“Why not?” I challenge.
She picks up her cell from the table and looks at it thoughtfully. “It’s hard to parent, even on your limited holiday schedule, from prison.”
“What?” The pounding in my head is all-encompassing, it’s trying to blot out reality, to dampen her words out of existence.
She raises her eyebrows. “There’s enough marijuana in your bottom dresser drawer to put you away for twenty years, my dear. All I need to do is make a call, and the police will have your apartment searched before you can limp out to your piece of shit car.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “You set me up?”
She smiles. It’s broad and bright and toothy, and all I see are rows of shark teeth gleaming razor sharp and deadly back at me.
Anger is rising in me, pure and irrationally dangerous. I picture myself leaning across the table and strangling her with my hands. Delighting in the sensation of life draining out of her beneath my grip. My body is vibrating with an undeniable need to exact retribution. And when the anger is so strong that it’s erased ethics everything goes quiet. Everything goes black.
I wake lying crumpled on the floor like a balled up, discarded piece of trash. Bergman and Miranda are standing over me like royals ruling over a peasant.
“Mr. McIntyre?” Bergman asks.
I side-eye him in response and have the urge to punch them both in the ankles.
“Are you all right, Mr. McIntyre? You passed out. Do you need me to call paramedics?” The amplification of his words hints toward genuine concern.
I heave my body into a sitting position and test out my failing faculties. Everything’s in order though I feel like throwing up again. “Get her out of my sight,” I grind out through gritted teeth.
Miranda leaves the room.
I sign the papers under duress blinking back tears and gather them up into a neat pile. I hold them in my hand and look at Bergman standing across the table from me. “You just handed three precious lives over to the devil herself. I hope your conscience eats you from the inside out, you bastard. This isn’t the last you’ve heard from me. I’ll get them back or die trying.” I throw the papers up into the air and watch them flutter down in a flurry. I look him hard in the eye. “Oh, I almost forgot. One more thing. Fuck you.”
I march out stabbing at the ground with my cane.
I drive straight to the kids’ school and park in the lot in a visitor’s space near the front doors. School doesn’t get out for another forty-five minutes, but I’ll be standing here waiting for them.
When they exit, Miranda is standing twenty feet behind me with her arms crossed. It feels like she’s hovering over me. I pull my kids aside and explain to them that they’re going to have to go live with their mother for a while. I break it to them as gently as I can and try to put a positive spin on it despite the words burning like acid on their way out. It kills me to watch their reactions. Kai goes stone-faced. Unblinking. He’s shut down and crawled into his cave where he mulls over things that kids his age shouldn’t have to contemplate. Internalizing them until they’re a cancer on his soul. Rory pins Miranda with a stare that’s contempt. He’s already blaming her with his eyes for an unwelcome future and then he yells, “No!” That’s all he says. And my little girl, she cries. She cries like I’ve never seen her cry.
And my heart shatters for the second time today. It’s blown apart into so many pieces, the shrapnel spread so far and wide, I know what remains will never fit back together again. Puzzles don’t work when you only have half of the pieces. Same goes for hearts.
I hug all three of them at once because I can’t fathom excluding any of them while I hug their sibling alone. I hug them. I kiss them. I tell them all I love them more than anything else in the world, and that’s when my eyes fill up. I’m trying with everything in me to hold back the tears because they’re already scared and sad, and I don’t want to stir up any more heavy emotion in them. But I can’t help it, I feel like Miranda took an ax to the top of my head and split me in two. You would think everything inside me would feel dead, but it’s the opposite. Everything inside me is exposed nerves, all raw, tingling, unmistakable pain and agony. It’s emotional torture.
Her words are like salt poured in an open wound. “Come, children. We need to get to the airport. We have a flight to catch.”
I sniff back the tears and wipe my eyes before I turn to look at her. “Follow me to my house so I can pack their things.”
She shakes her head. It’s hard; I swear there’s no softness in this woman. “We don’t have time. I’ll buy them everything they need when we get home.”
Kira’s face loses all color. I’ve seen joy vanish temporarily from someone’s eyes when a happy moment passes, but I’ve never seen it flushed entirely out of someone before. Kira just lost her innocent joy. It’s gone, snatched away carelessly and thoughtlessly. “I need Pickles.” Trepidation is rising in her voice. “I can’t leave without Pickles.”
Miranda looks at me in confusion. She didn’t just see our daughter lose her innocence. She’s annoyed that her schedule’s being delayed. I explain, “She needs her stuffed cat. She can’t fall asleep without it, Miranda.”
Miranda shakes her head impatiently again. “We don’t have time to get it, Kira.” She says Kira’s name but she’s looking, she’s talking, to me. “We’ll get you another tomorrow.”
Kira screeches in horror, “I don’t want another one! I want Pickles!”
I struggle to kneel down on the ground, afraid I’ll never get up again, take Kira’s tiny hand in mine and kiss the back of it before I rub it to console her. “I’ll mail Pickles to you, darlin’. I’ll make sure you have her first thing in the morning. I promise.”
The tears continue to stream, but she quiets for several seconds as she thinks over my solution. “Okay, Daddy.”
I kiss her hand one more time and echo, “Okay.”
And then I hug my kids again. I kiss my kids again. I tell them I love them again, and then I tell them, “I’m sorry. So much more than sorry.” And I mean it with everything I am.
And then I watch them walk away with their mother.
And I feel myself die inside.
Everything wilts. Emotions, organs, thoughts, memories, hope…it all wilts. Like a leaf wilts due to lack of water or sunlight, they all turn in upon themselves until the edges are curled grotesquely and shriveled into something unrecognizable.
I walk home, partially because I fear driving would put others in danger—I’m enraged—and partially because I want to punish myself. I want my body to be forced into the action it rebels against. I want my muscles to struggle and my legs to protest. I want my head to throb angrily. I need to fight something, to fight someone, and since I’m the only one available, I’ll fight myself.
After checking my dresser drawers and finding them weed-free, I grab Kira’s stuffed cat from the couch and head right back out, down the stairs and to the post office three blocks away. I fall twice, even with my cane. There’s a hole in the knee of my pants, and I could care less. They’re khakis. I only wore them for the court related matters today because they’re conservative and look like something Middle America would wear, which should earn me brownie points in the parental department. It didn’t today, obviously. The palm of my left hand is also bleeding from the run-in with the rough concrete. But I get Pickles into a Priority Express box for overnight delivery five minutes before they close.
And then I walk out and sit on the bench outside. The sun sets before I rise again.
I stop at a convenience store and make an impulse buy that is driven by soul-searing anger, along with a stick of beef jerky, and a cheap bottle of wine. I shove the angry purchase in my pocket and eat the beef jerky, chasing it with swigs of red on the walk back home.
I’m buzzed by the time I round the corner in front of my apartment complex, and I don’t want to go upstairs. I’m too tired, so I sit under the tree, and I nurse the bottle until it’s empty. And then I fall asleep like a proper wino, on the ground under the canopy of Mother Nature. I hope Miranda’s private investigator is still watching because I’m putting on one helluva show tonight. I hoist my hand, middle finger raised, into the air before I let sleep pull me under just in case I have an unwelcome audience.
I’m awakened by the sound of Faith’s scooter pulling up in front of her apartment. When she kills the motor, the world goes quiet. I hear her keys jingle followed by her door opening and closing.
That’s when I struggle to my feet. My head is swimming in alcohol, and my legs don’t just feel numb, they feel like they’re made of lead.
Walking to her door is slow.
Knocking is clumsy.
She answers in her horrendous Rick’s BBQ t-shirt, and I can’t help but think how beautiful she is before I remember how much I’m supposed to hate her for her part in the Shit Father of the Year award I was presented earlier today. “Seamus, what’s wrong?”
“Everything,” I mutter as I stumble my way in. “Close your curtains.”
She shuts the door behind me, draws the curtains closed, and watches me cautiously. Her apartment is a studio, just one room, and there’s nowhere to sit except the futon cushion on the floor that has a blanket and pillow on it. I turn and glare at her remembering why I’m here. “Are you a prostitute?”
She narrows her eyes at me, but the shock I see in them is all the answer I need. It’s innocence. “No. Why would you ask that?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration; anger is rising in me. “Have you ever been a prostitute? Ever taken money for sex? I’m begging you to be honest with me right now, Faith. What remains of my sanity depends on it.”
She shakes her head and takes a step so that she’s standing directly in front of me. “No. What’s going on, Seamus?”
I believe her. She’s just another pawn in Miranda’s game. Any ill feelings I felt toward her disappear, but the anger is still bubbling within me, like a volcano preparing to erupt.
I reach out and run my fingertips along her cheek. A light touch and the restraint is physically taxing. Smashing things would relieve stress and anxiety; softness only makes it roil. When I get to her mouth, I switch to my thumb and increase pressure. Her bottom lip drags under my touch.
“Seamus?” she whispers my name. Her chest is rising and falling visibly now, and my mind is too fucked up to tell if it’s fear or lust filling her lungs so purposefully.
I lower my forehead until it’s resting against hers. My hand moves to the back of her neck. It’s a gentle movement, caressing the skin there.
Her hands are on my chest now. She’s not pushing me away. She’s fanning her fingers apart and then squeezing them together tightly. It’s the blatant, repetitive motion of someone restraining herself. Stalling until she’s given permission.
“I need to forget it all for a few hours, Faith. Make me forget who I am.”
I see a flash of understanding in her eyes. Sadness emerging. Demons of her own. Empathy. Agreement. She needs this too.
Our lips crush together. There’s desperation in the union that makes kissing impossible. It’s a battle to purge the hurt and assuage it simultaneously. Confusion reigns supreme in the clash. Tenderness is lacking. It’s feasting and biting and sucking.
Buttons are torn from my shirt in an effort to remove it quickly. The swift release of my zipper sounds like a cannon in the silent, small room.
“I hate this shirt. It’s fucking cheesy,” I tell her as I rip it over her head.
“I hate these pants. Khakis are fucking boring,” she counters, as she pulls down my pants and boxers in one swift jerk to my ankles.
There’s a temporary truce in the war as we stand, looking each other up and down. She wasn’t wearing any panties. We’re both naked—physically and emotionally.
“I hate her,” I hiss.
“I know,” she says, willingly absorbing the venom.
“I need to get this hate out. I’m so full of it I can’t breathe.” The hate and anger is so intense I swear I can see it, touch it, smell it. It’s driving me insane.
“Give me your hate, Seamus,” she whispers. “And I’ll give you mine.”
“Deal,” I say the word against her lips.
And just like that, we’re at each other again. Mouths and hands are greedy. There’s no trading of affection, no taking turns. We’re just two people vying for their own bodily pleasure as if it’s a hazard instead of gratification. Stimulation, touch, is reckless and rough. And though the wine has freed all my inhibitions, I feel like a different person. We’re feeding each other, off of each other. My mouth is moving its way across her chest. Her teeth are skirting the hard edge of my ear. My hands are mapping out her body like they’re memorizing the path to the Promised Land. She’s touched every inch of me from the waist up and currently has a firm grip on me below the belt. Pulling the pin out of a grenade is how this all going to end, one giant, mutual explosion between the two of us.
“I need to lie down.” My legs are unsteady and everything rushing through me isn’t helping.
I grab my pants from the floor and pull my angry purchase, a box of condoms, out of the pocket and tear one end open. Pulling a strip from inside, I let the box fall like an afterthought before moving to her bed on the floor.
I’m on my back when she curls up next to me on the mattress, watching intently as I tear the packet open and sheath myself. When I roll on my side, she presses up against me. Her eyes and fingertips are slowly and affectionately tracing the features of my face. Calling on connection. Urgency is gone. What has been, up to this point, animalistic, just turned intimate. And the intimacy governs my hate, taking control and diluting it with Faith’s innate goodness until all that remains is the need to pour love into this woman. The need to show her how she deserves to be loved.
And over the next hour, I learn something important.
Love is an act.
What we just did. The way our bodies and minds partnered to please each other—to put the other first—was making love. I’m in awe as I lie here beneath her, her body still trembling from aftershocks, my body slack from my release only a moment ago.
The kissing.
The careful attention shown.
The connection.
The words spoken.
The pace.
The quiet assurances.
The rhythm.
The climax.
Every last detail was an act of love.
I’ve never been given this gift.
I’ve never given this gift, not like this.
Which makes me treasure it even more because even though we’re not in love, the transfer of love was so damn real.
I smile at her when she looks at me. “You took my hate and turned it into love.”
She smiles back. “Gladly. You took mine, too, Seamus.” It’s her soft place to land voice.
I take a deep breath to calm my racing heart and initiate an embrace.
We wrap each other up in a tangle of limbs.
The hug lasts hours.
It endures deep sleep and emerges intact on the other side.
“Morning, neighbor.” I know she’s smiling before I open my eyes.
“Morning, neighbor.” I’m smiling, too, until my hangover announces its intention to ruin my day. My stomach is queasy, and my head is ferociously reminding me that it doesn’t like wine.
After I use her bathroom and dress, I sit down on the corner of Faith’s bed. She’s wearing the horrendous BBQ t-shirt again. I stare at the letters when I speak. I stare so hard that after a few seconds they’re not letters any longer. “Miranda took my kids. They’re gone.” My voice is hollow, like my heart.
When she doesn’t say anything, I pry my gaze from the blur of color on her shirt and meet her eyes. They’ve turned to liquid, sliding down her cheeks. She shakes her head. “How?”
“Lies. She’s an evil bitch.”
“What kind of lies? You’re a great dad, Seamus.” Her voice is calm, but the tears are still flowing.
“Apparently, I’m a drug user who’s dating a prosti—” I cut myself off because I can’t say it. I don’t want to drag her into my nightmare.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out before she finishes for me. “Prostitute. She thinks because I’m a stripper, I’m a prostitute.”
I nod. “It’s worse. She’s has signed statements from men who claim they’ve paid for sex. With you.”
The tears are no longer silent. A hiccup sets off a deluge. “I’ve never, Seamus. You have to believe me. It takes everything in me to dance in front of strangers. Everything in me. It’s degrading and makes me feel like an object, rather than a human being. I could never have sex with a stranger.” She squats down in front of me and puts her hands on my knees. She’s looking at me through mascara smeared eyes. “Last night was only the second time I’ve had sex, but it was the only time it mattered. What I gave you last night was special. You have no idea how special. I wouldn’t do that with some random guy.”
I hold her face in my hands. “I know, Faith.” I do know. What happened between us last night was special. “I’m sure she paid people to write the statements. Or, hell, for all I know she wrote them. Like I said, she’s evil.” Faith’s so fragile, so pure; I still can’t erase the image of her topless on a stage from my mind. It doesn’t reconcile with the person I know. “Why do you do it? Strip, I mean. I know you said it’s part of your research, but there has to be more.”
“I need the money.” She sounds a little ashamed and a lot determined.
“Get a roommate,” I challenge.
She looks around the room. “Where are they going to sleep? Not too many roommates like to share a bed, Seamus. This space isn’t exactly conducive to more than one bed.”
I nod. “Move somewhere else and get a roommate?”
She shakes her head. “My lease is almost up, but for now, I need to be here.” She’s adamant.
“Why?”
“Research,” she says simply.
I shake my head at her evasiveness. “Research is not the answer to everything.”
She closes her eyes as if she’s frustrated. “It’s my everything. I’m trying to find my birth mother. I thought maybe I could save some money and pay someone to help me search. I need to figure out who I am.”
I scrub my hands over my face and mutter in agreement, “I need to forget who I am,” before I look at her and say, “And you need to keep searching for your mom. That’s important.”
“You know who you are, Seamus. Don’t forget. You need to fight for him. You need to fight for your kids. Get them back. They belong with you.”
I nod. And then I huff. “It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Get them back.” I huff again and run my hands through my hair. “Short of driving to Seattle and kidnapping them, it feels impossible.” I look at her glare and correct myself, “It’s not impossible. I know that, but it’s daunting, you know? Like searching for your birth mother. Miranda has me by the balls. And she has money. I don’t. That makes the fight that much harder.”
She nods.
“I want them back now. I want to walk upstairs and see them sitting on the couch. Waiting another week to see them is too damn long, let alone Thanksgiving.” Tears are threatening now. “Jesus Christ, my life is so fucked up.”
She smiles sadly. “I’m sorry your children’s mother is the Antichrist,” I nod in agreement, “but you’ll figure the rest out.”
I nod.
“In the meantime, it sounds like my company is doing nothing to help your situation.” It’s an apology that comes before the apology…that comes before the delivery of bad news.
I narrow my eyes.
She smiles sweetly, but her eyes are already welling up. “I’m sorry, Seamus. We can’t be together, we both know it. You’ll never get your kids back if we are.” She looks up at the ceiling blinking rapidly, but it doesn’t dam the tears. They break free and roll down her cheeks. She’s still not looking at me. “You have no idea how much it hurts to say that. It fucking kills me.” She drops her chin and lines her eyes up with mine, and I feel the words in her stare. “I’ve moved around a lot in my life. I’ve met a lot of people. I like your heart, Seamus.” She cups my cheek, kisses me softly on the corner of my mouth, and whispers, “My heart really likes your heart.”
She’s right.
I don’t want her to be right.
But she is.
Goddammit.
I stand up with her help. And we have a long conversation with our eyes. I tell her everything my mouth can’t say because words are futile and don’t have a future beyond her front door.
And then I ask her for another hug.
The embrace is everything we just said with our eyes. Every promise we couldn’t make. I don’t want to let her go. Her t-shirt is balled up in my fists in a desperate attempt to wring every last bit of Faith out of this moment and take it with me when I walk out that door. Her tears have soaked the front of my shirt by the time we part. And when I walk out neither one of us says anything, because there’s nothing left to say.