Jackie

I stumbled out to the van and leaned against the door. I glanced backwards, hoping against hope that Leo might be coming after me. But why would he? He wasn’t impulsive and emotional like me. He was all planning and rational thought. Relationships were in a box for him, and I had tried to bust open the box. Bad Jackie.

I drove away, my breath shallow and fast. I couldn’t breathe, so I rolled down all the windows and the night air came rushing in.

Where should I go now? I had planned to stay over at Leo’s, and my new place had zero furniture in it. I drove automatically to Sharon’s place.

“Hey.” She opened the door with an expression of confusion. Then she took in my face. “What the hell happened? You look like shit.”

“I broke up with Leo.”

“You broke up with him?” She sounded surprised, and no wonder. I looked like complete crap, and I was barely keeping my tears in. “You guys seemed so happy at Saturna.”

“Yeah, I know.” I swallowed. “Hey, is it okay if I stay over tonight?”

“Oh sure, come in. Kayla’s asleep, and Neil is over.”

“Sorry, am I interrupting something? Maybe I should have gone to a hotel or something.” I had enough money in the bank right now that I didn’t need to camp out here.

She pulled me inside. “Don’t be silly.”

Neil smiled up at me from the couch where they had clearly been snuggling and watching a movie. Which was exactly what Leo and I had been planning. The tears went from simmer to full boil and poured down my cheeks.

“Jesus, Jackie,” exclaimed Neil in a panic. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I whimpered. “I just need a minute.”

Sharon wrapped an arm around my shoulder and magically produced a box of tissues. “Did you want to talk about this?”

“Men are idiots,” I sobbed.

“Perhaps I should leave for this conversation.” Neil half-rose.

“No, sorry. Not you, of course,” I replied. “Leo’s an idiot. And Brent. Anyone I get involved with, apparently.” But as my dad always said, if everyone around you is an idiot, maybe you’re the real idiot.

Neil left anyway but quickly reappeared with a wine glass and poured me some white. I had a sip and took a deep breath.

“Thank you. Well, I’m not ready to dissect this whole thing, but you know one thing? I’m proud of myself.” Damn it, I was going to focus on the positive side. “This time it was me. I chose to break up with Leo because there was no future with him.”

Sharon nodded, but looked a little mystified. “I thought you didn’t want anything serious.”

“I don’t. But I do want the possibility. You know, at some point in the future.” Did I sound psycho? It was all so confusing. “I understand where Leo is coming from. He’s got a job that means he has to move a lot, and he’s been burned before.”

Of course I was hurt when I told Leo I loved him, and he backed away so hard. But he was being a big chicken. We fit together so well, but he had all these stupid rules that he wasn’t willing to break. “Anyway, it’s his loss.”

Sharon was instantly supportive. “Yeah. Obviously, he’s not as smart as he thinks if he lets you get away. Fuuuuuck, it’s like he used you as a babysitter for Charlotte. And now that she’s gone, he doesn’t need you any more.”

“Oh God. I never thought of that. Am I now past the point where guys use me for sex? They use me because I’m a good mother?”

I buried my head in the pillows on Sharon’s couch. Both Wendy and Sophie had said something similar. And I was so quick to jump in and prove what a great mom I was when Charlotte was unhappy. I had done this to myself.

Neil cleared his throat. “Uh, if I could speak up for all men—without getting my balls handed to me on a plate—sometimes it’s hard for guys to commit emotionally.”

“It’s not like Jackie’s jumping the gun here,” Sharon replied. “You guys were going out a while.”

I raised my face from the cushions. “Six months.”

“See? A fucking eternity. He’s an asshole, I never liked him,” Sharon said.

Neil questioned this. “Really? Because last week, you were saying what a good—ouch!”

Since I had my head buried back in the couch I had no idea what painful thing Sharon had done to Neil to make him shut up. It wasn’t enough that I had wrecked my own love life, now I was spoiling their evening together.

I sat up. “You know, I think I’d like to go home and be alone right now.”

Sharon squinted at me. “But you haven’t got any furniture yet. Where are you going to sleep?”

“Maybe you could lend me a sleeping bag and pillow? Oh shoot. I left my overnight bag at Leo’s place.” It had my makeup and clean underwear in it too.

“I’ll take care of that for you. And lend you whatever you want now. But are you sure you want to be alone?” Sharon asked.

“Yeah, if you stay, we won’t even flaunt our happiness in front of you,” Neil said. Sharon delivered a kick to his shins, and he yelped. That was completely adorable and I felt even worse. When would I find someone whose shins I could kick?

The drive home only took two minutes because we were almost next-door neighbours again. I walked into a completely empty house. Even Minx had been banished to my parent’s place until the movers had come and gone.

The first time a guy broke up with me, I was fifteen and completely heartbroken. Dane Owen, my boyfriend of two months and two days, told me he needed to concentrate on lacrosse (something I still don’t understand). I cried all night. The next day my mother, who was the world’s cruellest mother, forced me to go to school. I spent half the day in the girl’s washroom, attended to by whoever of my friends had spare at the time. I continued wallowing for a week, sporadically crying, not eating, and listening to the sappiest songs in the world. And then Greg Perkins asked me out. I said yes and felt immediately better.

But the thing about Brent leaving was that there was no wallowing time. There was no time when I could retire to my bedroom and turn my little nose up at the dinners my mother made. He left one night and then the next day, I had to get up, make breakfast, pack lunches, and try to explain away my puffy red eyes as allergies. At the beginning, I told the kids that their dad was on a business trip, but when he came back to get more clothes, I made him explain everything to the kids. After all, how could I explain something that I didn’t understand myself?

The kids were the reason I never got to completely break down. Instead, I broke down little by little and managed to keep things going. Was it better to wallow and get things out of my system or put on my big girl pants and get on with things? I’d never have the luxury of knowing.

And now, even though the kids were with Brent, I had so much to do before they got back. I had to clean, paint, and convert our rental house into a home. If this place was a mess when they walked in, it might make them regret the move.

I decided to give myself one night to wallow. One night to feel completely sorry for myself, and then I’d get on with everything. I laid out Sharon’s sleeping bag on the cleanest square of floor in my new bedroom and crawled inside.

I closed my eyes and thought about everything I loved about Leo. The way he constantly touched me when we together, holding my hand or rubbing my arm or shoulder. He made me feel sexy and desired. He was so strong, both physically and mentally. His firm opinions were very appealing to a waverer like me.

He was good to the kids. Tristan adored Leo and had so much fun practicing hockey at the cabin. I had been instructed to wrap Tristan’s new Lucky Luczak stick in bubble wrap until he got home. Hannah was more reserved, but Leo kept trying and I admired that too.

Leo was a perfectionist who defined himself by being a coach on the fast track to success. But what I loved most about him were his vulnerabilities: the way Charlotte could dismantle his resolve with a blink of her pretty eyes, his mangled clichés, and how easy he was to seduce. I even loved the nerdy way that he turned every analogy into hockey.

I loved his protective instincts. Leo wanted to fix everything—people, situations, and even crappy hockey teams. I had been broken when he met me, and he kept reassuring me how great I was—until I believed him. And why did he do all that? It wasn’t for sex, he could have hooked up with anyone. Maybe his coaching instincts were awakened by people like me who clearly need help. But he had to know that he couldn’t walk away from me like another hockey team. Breaking up with me would only break me down at the end.

Or would it? Leo swore that only the truth made people feel better. So every good quality he saw in me must be real. Anyway, my belief in myself wasn’t based in what Leo had said, it was based in the things I had done. I had changed. I was painting more and making good stuff. I had quit the art supply store, and now I was going to concentrate on better jobs. Working with Fiona in September. Finding a house to reno with Sharon. Oh, what about Amanda? Would she still want me to shop for her if I wasn’t Leo’s girlfriend? Of course, she would. She was an honest, reliable person, and we were well on the way to being real friends.

Feeling slightly comforted, I finally drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, I felt even worse. A sleeping bag on a hardwood floor was fine when you were hungover in your twenties, but forty-something bodies needed a real mattress with pillow tops and lumbar supports. I got up and stretched. My back was killing me. Maybe I needed a run in my new neighbourhood to get things loosened up. My running stuff was in the big suitcase from Saturna Island, so I dug it out and ran to Trout Lake and back. Awesome. Now my back hurt and my lungs were burning. I took a shower and pondered what to do next.

Make a list. If I kept busy, I wouldn’t have to keep reliving the loop of last night. What if I hadn’t used the word “love”? We could have kept going on for months if I hadn’t said anything. But it was how I felt. I went into the relationship under Leo’s terms, but now I wanted more. People change. At least I did.

I plugged in my ear buds and started listening to podcasts for distraction. The movers would be here this afternoon, so I had the rest of the morning to clean and paint. Then I’d have a ton of unpacking to do.

I could pull myself together before the kids got back. Because they’d already seen me fall apart completely when their father left, and they didn’t need to see that again. Or to find out that their mother needed a man to be happy.

When Brent first left, Tristan took it the hardest. His schoolwork, his sports, his friendships, everything was affected. So I had taken him to a therapist who specialized in kids. I had to sit in on the first sessions until the two of them developed a rapport. The biggest problem was that Tristan was completely inarticulate about how he felt, and Oscar had to find new ways to communicate. One day, he brought out this pain scale made up of simple faces with expressions on them. I had looked at the last face, a drawing with the features contorted and tears running down its cheeks. Isn’t there a face beyond that, I wanted to ask? Because I felt like someone stuck a knife in my guts, tore out a big piece of every vital organ, and then said, “Off you go, Jackie. See how you do.”

But it wasn’t as bad this time. How could I compare a marriage of fifteen years to a relationship of a few months? I couldn’t even blame Leo. He had warned me that he wasn’t the type to get serious. He had posted a big neon sign saying, “Don’t get too attached.”

But that wasn’t my nature. I put my heart out there. Someday I was going to find someone who appreciated that. I would be more discerning and not fall for the next good-looking guy who walked in wearing only a towel.

I shook my head to clear my worries and grabbed cleaning supplies. I wanted to be so exhausted that I’d fall into my actual bed tonight and sleep right away. Even with my fried brain, I was still able to go through the motions. Start from the top down, sweeping cobwebs off the ceiling, wiping down walls, baseboards, and then floors. Painting walls was something I loved. Refreshing the walls in new colours and making everything bright and new.

A new house where I got to make all the decorating decisions. Of course, I’d let the kids make choices for their rooms. A fresh start. I had to feel positive about a brand new start.