Page 24 of His Bittersweet Regret

“Your mom and I were having one of those tough times. She thought I was working too much, kept nagging about taking a vacation, and I agreed. When the time came to take it, I wasn’t able to because of contractual obligations at work. Granted, it was me who screwed up the scheduling for those obligations in the first place.

“She put pressure on me to just go anyway, and I refused like the idiot that I was back then. I thought I knew better than she did and said some hurtful things to your mom, which caused her to start ignoring me. That is where the danger lies in any relationship. It’s not when you screw up or forget to make time. It comes when you stop communicating at all.

“Because of everything that was going on, and my secretary working long hours with me, I confided in the wrong person. I talked to her, instead of my wife, about my marital issues. The problem with doing so was that she had her own agenda.”

“She was in love with your father,” Mom interjected, not allowing him to sugarcoat things for us.

Dad sighed. “It’s true. She had fallen in love with me somehow during all those long hours working on projects with me. The feeling was not mutual. I need all of you to understand that. She was more of a sounding board for me. But the advice that came back from her was skewed in a way I didn’t see at the time, because she wanted me for herself, and her advice was meant to make that happen.”

“Your father was an idiot because he’s always been blind to how attractive he is to the opposite sex. It’s something I’ve always been prideful of because it meant that he only saw me that way. I never realized it could be the beginning of the end for us because he didn’t see what was happening – not the real extent of it - until it was almost too late.” Mom and Dad both looked at one another for a long moment before she continued the story there.

“I couldn’t take the space between us any longer, so I packed this big ol’ lunch up to take to the office as a peace offering.” Mom sniffled and her shoulders hunched in on themselves before she spoke again, so softly that we all had to lean forward to catch what she said.

“When I got there, your father, and the witch, were kneeling on the floor facing one another. Papers were scattered all around them on the floor. I guess some files had fallen, and the witch was apologizing while giggling and touching Ed’s chest. He leaned in and pushed her hair out of her face. They were just about to kiss, when I made some kind of noise that caught their attention.”

“Would you have kissed her?” Bastion asked our father.

The guilty look on his face was answer enough. “It was a moment of weakness that probably would have happened had your mom not shown up. Would it have gone further than that? I don’t think so. I’d like to say a definitive ‘no’, but that’s the part of me talking who has perspective at his back. Instead, I was lucky enough to receive a wake-up call before anything else progressed. It made me realize that there was no world in which I’d want to live without your mother by my side.”

“But,” Mom threw in, “it also meant we were arguing about it a lot. We thought we hid that from all of you, and apparently, we didn’t do a good enough job. Everything that happened between your father and me proved we forgot to appreciate one another. We forgot that making things work is something you can’t just do effortlessly and without spending time together talking and doing other things.”

My dad looked directly at me then. “Son, the biggest mistake you ever made was deciding to leave Opal and not including her in the conversation.”

I started to argue, but he held his hand up to stop me. “You didn’t give her a chance to have her say. Even if you thought it was truly what you both needed, to have that time apart, then you should have talked to her about it. You made the same mistake I did. You talked to your brothers instead of the person who mattered. The way you went about things was the most disrespectful thing you could have possibly done. You blindsided that poor girl, and at the worst possible time too. You couldn’t have known she was pregnant, but did you at one time love her?”

“I still love her.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” my mom interjected. “Why on earth would you ever want time away from Opal? You two were always so happy together. Or was that just an act?”

“It wasn’t an act. We were happy, but sometimes things felt like there wasn’t anything exciting anymore, it was just… I don’t know… Status quo.”

My father laughed. “One day, Son, you’re going to be thankful for those status quo moments where you can just be content with what you have. Think about what you’ve put yourself and Opal through over the past few months. Which would you rather have? The exciting dating life you’ve been living, or status quo with the love of your life?”

There was no denying what my answer would be as I hung my head in shame. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my father was right. As I had been miserable alone and on the many dates I attempted. Now, I had the baggage of having slept with another woman to carry around with me too. Not only did I have that baggage, but Opal knew as well. She had the image of another woman bringing me my underwear while she was standing on the curb crying over me, over what I threw away, over the family we would probably never be.

“How did I let everything spiral so far out of control.”

“I can answer that,” my dad said in a tone that meant business. “First off, that best friend of yours has wanted your girl for as long as you’ve had her. Why the hell you’d let his jealous ass influence your decisions, where she was concerned, was beyond me.”

“He’s never liked Opal,” I argued.

“No, Son. He’s always liked Opal, far too much. He’s never liked the fact that she picked you and not him.”

I stared at my father for a few minutes and then turned to my brothers, who both nodded in agreement. “You guys agreed with Crayfish,” I argued.

“For different reasons. I thought you’d be happier without her. Seriously, Bro, I only saw the fact that she was holding you back from experiencing things that you used to talk about doing when we were younger.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“You always wanted to follow in Dad’s footsteps and go to his school.”

“I decided not to go there because I didn’t want to start my life out in debt,” I argued. “Turns out, it was a wise decision considering you still need a roommate to get by and can’t even afford the new truck you keep drooling over because of it.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t just that. What about all the adventures you wanted to go on? There was even the cross-country road trip we all talked about, but it had been your idea.”

“That was mine and Opal’s honeymoon plan,” I admitted. “We were going to go explore the country together in one of those rental RVs. The smaller ones are perfect for us, and don’t cost as much as going to a resort for the same amount of time.”

Bastion punched his twin in the shoulder when I admitted my dreams hadn’t changed all that much, just the timeframe and who I was going to experience those things with.

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