Page 11 of Stealing It
Oh, okay. I had something far more nefarious in mind when you said auction.
No one is selling sex at the auctions I attend,I reply, rolling over again.
Aidan’s message bubbles up.You just gave me a hard-on again.
You don’t have to pay for my sex. I’m your girlfriend, right? Isn’t that part of the gig? I give it to you for free?
The gray bubble pops up and disappears for a few moments. He’s struggling with how to respond. He begins typing again and his message arrives.How long is our relationship arrangement scheduled for?
My stomach sinks.How long do you think it should be? How long do you need to hold a relationship to fake everyone out and make them think you’re a changed man?He is the prime example of what happens when you screw your way through a small town. You’re left to focus on damage control.
We can play it by ear?
Your hard-on disappeared that quickly, huh?I try joking.
No, it’s still here. Sort of shocking actually.
Sleep never comes while I talk to Aidan until sunlight begins to invade my room. The words always drifted back to sex and his dick, but in between were real flashes of two people getting to know each other. He’s estranged from both of his parents and he has no siblings. He didn’t want to admit to that, but did after I volleyed information he wanted. There’s more to that, to his childhood, and the reasons he isn’t on speaking terms with his parents, but he closed that topic quickly and I was left with a heap of questions and a bad taste in my mouth.
Is that how Kendall will view her childhood? Will she never speak with her father again? Will he become an estranged memory that is painful to talk about? A man she doesn’t claim. A man who will never be in her life to celebrate in her victories and cheer her through failures? A chapter in a dark place in her life she won’t share with the man she falls in love with without prodding? My stomach flips and I hate that I recognize the hurt in Aidan and compare it to what Paul did to Kendall.
My daughter bounds into the room after knocking furiously several times, a rule we both formed when we moved into the new house. I give her space, she gives me mine, and we knock before we enter each other’s respective spaces. “Momma!” Kendall cries out, a bouquet of youthful energy. “Are you awake?”
“Good morning, baby. I’m up,” I croak, rolling to look at her. She’s wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt with googly eyes. A souvenir we picked up when we went on vacation to Orlando, Florida when she was five. She begged for the shirt while at Disney World. I bought it several sizes too big for her at the time, and still to this day that shirt is worn as soon as it’s clean. She says because it’s old and soft, but I know the real reason she loves it. It’s my line of business. She loves the memory attached to it. A feeling of love and fullness, a dank grasping for a time when things were simpler, and her family was full and untainted by infidelity.
“We need to swing by the hardware store before we head to school. I told Juliet I’d pick up gold spray paint. Ms. Jenny and Juliet left here early to get started on the float.”
Kendall sits on the edge of my bed, gazing out the window. “How many cans do you think you’ll need?” I ask, sitting up, hoping I don’t look like the changed woman I feel inside. I assumed everyone was asleep when I crept in last night. Jenny spent the night here with the girls. Our house is big, old, and drafty. It has more guest rooms than we’ll need, but because of the age, location and the price was right, it’s ours forever.
Kendall sighs. “I don’t know. Four? Maybe Five? It’s for the skirt of the float. I ironed my skirt so you don’t have to,” Kendall says. “I couldn’t sleep so I already ate, too.”
I didn’t hear her. Not one sound to indicate she wasn’t peacefully asleep in her bed tucked in tight. “Oh,” I reply, swallowing hard. Laying a hand on her shoulder, I say, “Everything okay? You want to talk about it?”
Her eyes narrow as she looks at me. “He called me last night,” Kendall says, eyes watering. “While you were out. I don’t want to talk to him, Mom. I don’t want to ever talk to him again.”
“That’s your decision. It’s your right, Kendall. Don’t talk to him until you’re ready. Remember what the therapist said? It’s all up to you, honey.”
A tear drops. “I talked to him last night.” She says the words like it’s her last confession. My heart squeezes.
“What did he say?” It’s a morbid curiosity I’ll never outgrow, I think. You think you know every single thing about a person only to come upon a day when the man you once loved is a stranger. I’ll always be interested in his life regardless of how much he hurt me. It’s irrational, I know, but the hope is one day it will merely be curiosity without any emotions attached to the update.
“He’s marrying Pamela,” Kendall says, scoffing when she says her name. “He asked me to come to the wedding. Told me it would be a fresh start. The start that should have been. He wants me to pretend I didn’t walk in and see him cheating on you. With that awful woman…girl, whatever she is.”
I can’t help it. My stomach heaves at the knowledge. I knew they were still together, but I assumed he’d grow tired of Pamela in the way he grew tired of me. Never for a second did I think he would move on with her in a marriage capacity. Live together? Sure. Give her the same vows he gave me? “Excuse me, honey. I’m not feeling so well. One second.”
Shuffling across the hardwood, I enter my bathroom and close the squeaky door, and vomit into the toilet. It’s unfortunate I can’t control it, can’t hide my shock and horror at this knowledge for Kendall’s sake, but it’s too much to hide. Too much. She knocks on the door.
“Mom, it’s okay. I told him I’d rather die than go to his wedding to that whore,” Kendall says through the closed door.
I squeeze my eyes shut and swallow down the acrid taste of vomit. “Don’t talk like that, Kendall. That’s a horrible thing to say.” Thank God she said it. Thank God. “You need to call and apologize to your father.” Thank God I have her. Thank God she hates him. Pamela is a fucking whore. Her father is a horrible human. The worst. “Do you understand me, Kendall?”
She stays silent, waiting to talk to me to my face, I’m sure. I splash water on my neck and cheeks and brush my teeth quickly, staring at the person in the mirror. He is marrying Pamela. How can he do this? Ask Kendall to be a part of that atrocious abomination of a day? I’m going to call him as soon as I have the house to myself. Give him a real piece of my mind. I open the door and Kendall flies into my arms.
“I don’t want to apologize to him. He’s not a nice person. You told me to always be kind. If I can’t be kind, then be silent. I don’t want to be silent. I want him to know that he hurt me. That he hurt you. He doesn’t deserve to be happy.”
He doesn’t. Anger and rage boil to the surface. I hug Kendall, tucking my head into her hair inhaling the scent of her fruity shampoo. “I’ll talk to him. You don’t have to go, okay?”
She nods. “You should have come to me when you couldn’t sleep, Ken,” I say, pulling her long hair into a ponytail, peering into her eyes. “I’m so sorry you have to deal with this.”
