In Between Men, page 27
Ray’s laugh was full of contempt. “I don’t give a fuck what you do. I’ll bring the boys back to the house tomorrow. It would be great if you were already gone.”
“Ray–”
He cut her off before she could finish her sentence. “I’m not trying to hear what you have to say. I’ll hire somebody to look after the boys when I can’t. Just please yourself like you always have. Now, like I said, I have work to do.”
Hope stood up slowly from the chair. She could tell from Ray’s expression that it would do no good for her to continue to try explaining to him. She walked toward the door, and just as she was about to turn the knob Ray called out from behind her.
“I must say, Hope, you look like shit. I guess that grass is not as green as you thought it would be.” His laugh was full of bitterness and spite, and she was glad that she had not turned around to face him.
Chapter Thirty-nine
“So how did it go this weekend?” Ellen directed the question to where Hope was sitting on the couch in her office. Hope had started seeing her the day after she left Ray’s office.
“It was fine. The kids were happy to see me, and I didn’t realize I had missed them so much.”
“How long had it been?”
“Three weeks. I hadn’t seen them since Ray picked them up for school that day. That’s the longest period of time I have gone without seeing them since they were born.”
“How is Ray doing?”
“I don’t know. The kids say a lady picks them up from school and makes dinner every night.” “How do you feel about that?” “About what?”
“About someone else taking responsibility for your children?”
“I don’t necessarily like it, but I know I need this time, and this week I’m going to talk to Ray about keeping them with me one night and taking them to school the next morning.”
“That’s great.” Ellen smiled at her encouragingly before looking down at a notepad that she held loosely in her hand. “Friday you were talking about your mother and her expectations of you.”
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that too. My mother never really had any good experiences with men until she met her husband. So all my life she told me what I needed to do to be okay, and then when I met Ray, her entire conversation changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was growing up she would say things like, ‘go to school,’ ‘keep your panties up and your dress down.’ That was her favorite.” Hope laughed as she remembered the conviction with which her mother would repeat the instructions; then she continued soberly. “She told me what I should give a man.”
“And what was that?”
“Nothing. She would say, and I quote, ‘don’t ever give a man nothing.’ She made herself a living example for me. Every time something would go wrong in her relationship she would say, ‘see what I mean?'”
“Sometimes mothers tell their daughters things to try to protect them. Is that what you think your mother was doing?”
“I understand that. But she changed without any explanation. She loved Ray. When I told Ray I would marry him, I told him I wanted to wait until I finished grad school. He didn’t want to wait, but my mother … I think she thought that if we waited, Ray would change his mind. She kept telling me how lucky I was to have a man who was willing to take care of me.”
“Do you think maybe she was projecting some of her own desires and feelings onto you? From what you’ve told me so far, her life wasn’t very easy.”
“I don’t know, but I do know it made me feel bad … unsure.” Hope shifted gears suddenly and sat up straighter on the couch. “I don’t want to talk about my mother anymore. She died long before I got myself into this mess.”
“Why don’t you want to talk about it?”
“Because I don’t want to be one of those women who come to therapy to complain about my mother or cry about the fact that I never had a father.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Hope opened her mouth and closed it several times before speaking again. “I don’t know.”
“If you have some negative feelings about your mother, it doesn’t mean that you didn’t love her or that you didn’t appreciate the things that she did for you. I know from personal experience and from many of my clients that not having a father can have a profound impact on us.”
Hope picked up her purse from the seat next to her and stood up. “I have to go.”
Ellen stood up and smiled softly. “We have more time, but if you need to go, I’ll see you on Wednesday?”
Hope knew it was a question, but she left the office without answering.
Hope sat in the living room of her friend’s apartment flipping through the channels on the TV. It was seven o’clock and she hadn’t eaten dinner. She was waiting for the clock to strike eight so she could call her children and ask about their day, and wish them sweet dreams. She could hardly remember the time when her daily routine had included working all day, picking the boys up from the Y, cooking dinner, getting the boys to bed at a reasonable time, and doing whatever she needed to do to entertain her husband. She never really had time to sit down and rest; now all she did was rest, but she was more tired than she had ever been. She wondered if it was possible to have some sort of happy medium.
She had been determined to put her life back together, but sometime during the last several weeks she had realized that it was almost impossible to do because her life was on the opposite side of town. Ray still refused to say more than two words to her. She had told Ellen that her weekend visit with the boys had gone well, and it had… as well as it could go with sullen, angry children.
She went to Lighthouse two times a week–Wednesday for Bible study, and Sunday for morning service. But every night when she got on her knees to pray, she became scared. Scared to ask God for what she really wanted, thinking that she didn’t really deserve forgiveness, didn’t deserve another chance with her family. And there was always that voice that came from nowhere telling her that she didn’t really want a family, that she never had been committed to being a wife and a mother. That she should cut her losses and leave it alone. The voice frightened her more than anything, because sometimes it made the most sense.
“Are you ever gonna come home, Mommy?” Jordan whispered into the telephone so as not to be overheard.
“I told you, Jordan. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I do know that I love you and your daddy loves you and you’ll always be taken care of. I’m going to see you again tomorrow.”
“I know you don’t like Daddy anymore, but can’t you come home anyway?”
“I never told you that I don’t like your daddy. Who told you that?”
“Nobody, I just know. You’re never coming home … why don’t you just say it.” His voice was no longer hushed, he was sobbing into the phone.
“Jordan! Jordan!” Then he was gone and Ray was on the line.
“I would appreciate it if you would not call here and upset the boys. They have enough to deal with, and you constantly add to it.” He hung up without giving her a chance to respond.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about our last conversation about my mother. And I think you were right. I am mad at her. I tried to make my life everything that she wanted for me, and I never took the time to think about what I wanted for myself.”
“I’m not sure I understand.” Ellen smiled encouragingly at her.
“I mean she wanted me to have this husband and this house and this job, and if I ever hinted at wanting something different, she just shut me down. I don’t think she really wanted those things for me, I think that she wanted them through me. And then she was dead and I had all of these things and I didn’t even know if I wanted them … if I had ever wanted them. Now it just doesn’t seem fair. Sometimes I think I should just forget about everything and start over.”
Hope looked up, surprised, because Ellen was chuckling softly to herself.
“Is what I just said funny to you?”
Ellen sat up straighter in her chair and looked Hope directly in the eye. “I’m going to do you a favor. I could allow you to continue to come here for months and examine every aspect of your life, and then you could come here for several more months and examine every aspect of your mother’s life, and then your marriage and so on and so forth, but you don’t have that much time. I’m going to be totally honest with you. You came here to figure out what went wrong in your life. Let me tell you–you were greedy and spoiled.
“Many women come in here with your same problem. Their husbands don’t give them the attention that they desire, they work hard, their children get on their last nerve … they become discontent. To deal with their discontentment, some women work obsessively, some women start to mistreat their children, some women tune out, and some women like you, Hope, have affairs. That’s the easy way out, Hope.
“I’ve listened to you talk about your husband, and I can see that there were some problems in your marriage. I also know by listening to you that you contributed to the problems. Every marriage has problems. It’s hard for people to live together. You met Tony and decided to step out and see if the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. Men and women do that every day.
“And when it turned out that the grass was not only not greener, but that it was the same type of grass, you became depressed. I could send you to a doctor who could prescribe a pill for your depression, but that’s not going to fix the problem.”
Hope was offended. “I didn’t come here for you to judge me. You invited me to your office… you said that you could help.”
“Hope, I can help you; that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m not judging you… it’s not my place. I’m telling you what I’ve observed in the weeks that I’ve been seeing you. You haven’t said it, but I know that you want what you gave up. Your home, responsibility for your children, your husband.”
“Ray has made it clear that he doesn’t want me anymore. He’s not even civil toward me. I’ve told him that I’m sorry, I’ve told him that I don’t see Tony anymore … I’ve told him that I’m trying to get my life back together. What am I supposed to do? Beg him?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to tell him over and over again how sorry you are until he hears you. You’re supposed to put your pride aside and listen to what he has to say to you without becoming defensive or angry. You are to truly humble yourself and wait for the true healing that can happen in your marriage. You are not supposed to come in here and examine everything but the actions that got you into your present situation so that you can shift the blame to your mother, or your husband, or anybody other than yourself. I can’t let you take the easy way out again. That’s how I can be of help to you.”
Hope sat with her eyes closed as she absorbed what she had just been told. Ellen was right–she did want her family back, but she wanted things to be better if possible. The total truth was that if things could not be better than what they had been, she still wanted her family back … she wanted her husband back. “What do I need to do?”
“You need to get a job. You need to start being a mother to your children again … they really need you. You need to have some sort of closure with Tony–”
Hope cut her off. “Are you saying that I need to see him again?”
“No, I’m not. You don’t have to meet with him to let him know that you’re never going to see him again. Write him a letter, explain to him what happened. Explain to him what’s really important in your life.”
“Have you seen Tony?”
“We’ve seen Tony, and I think that he needs some closure also.”
“How is he doing?”
“He’s not doing well, but that’s not your fault. He knew what he was getting involved in. As adults we reap the consequences of our actions.”
“I don’t miss Tony. That’s so strange, because for months I thought he was my only friend. I believe at one point I may have thought I was in love with him.”
“Sometimes the price you pay for a relationship ruins it.”
“I guess so.” Sitting on the sofa talking with Ellen, Hope felt more in control than she had in months; she felt in control enough to voice the question that had plagued her since Ray had left their home. “What if Ray doesn’t want me back? What if it’s really over?”
Ellen walked around her desk and sat with Hope on the sofa. She took her hands gently into her own and smiled softly at her.
“Then that’s the consequence that you reap, and you learn to live with the choices that you made.”
Hope thanked the therapist with her eyes for her honesty. “Should I come back next week?”
“No, the next time you come back I expect that you will have your husband with you. I’d like to see the two of you together.”
Chapter Forty
Tony,
I’m sure you’re surprised to get this letter from me. I’m surprised to be writing it myself. I hardly know what to say, so if I ramble on please forgive me. I hope that your business is doing well and that everything has worked out or is working out with your daughter.
I guess I’m writing to explain to you from my point of view what happened between us, and why it happened. I really felt a connection with you. I know we ended very abruptly and there are some things that I need to say to you.
You came along at a time when I was lonely and scared… I don’t believe I knew how lonely and scared I was until I met you. I was confused about my marriage, and was unsure about what form I wanted my life to take during the next thirty to forty years.
I was lost and I didn’t know why or what to do about it. To be honest, I still haven’t figured it out. I had three children and a husband who wanted me to depend on him and consult him about everything. I was so uncomfortable with that, with letting go and allowing myself to be a wife and a mother. For me that was hard … remember, I’m a woman who grew up with a mother who was living proof that a woman should not depend on a man. And it seemed as if Ray wanted me to give up my job and my dreams and depend on him for everything … he did want that. I know for some women that’s a dream come true, but I wasn’t one of them. The thought of him having so much control over my life scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t say that to him, though, and I couldn’t admit it to myself, so I fought against him, and he fought against me.
Now here you come, and suddenly there’s a man in my life who thinks what I want makes sense. I had something separate and apart from Ray and the boys, something he couldn’t control or criticize because he didn’t know anything about it. And then when he did find out–I don’t know why, but I felt like if I stopped seeing you at that point it would be him making the decision for me, that I would be giving up control to him. Does that sound crazy? It sounds crazy to me, because now I know that I should have stopped seeing you at that point–that I never should have started seeing you in the first place. I think I was trying to prove something to him. Your attention was nice, flattering, and so good mainly because I knew it was something that I shouldn’t be entertaining.
Didn’t I tell you that I would probably ramble on? What I guess I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry for allowing you to involve yourself so deeply in my life. I got caught up, Tony. We got caught up together. I was looking for an escape. You were something to look forward to.
When I would have an argument with Ray or he did something that I didn’t like, I would think about you. Sometimes I think that I stayed mad at him deliberately so I would have an excuse to go on seeing you. Wait! That sounds like I was using you, doesn’t it? I don’t believe that I used you any more than I think you took advantage of me. We’re both adults. Remember you told me that first night we were together that I needed to go into it with my eyes open? I thought I could, but now I realize that at that point in my life it was impossible for me to go into anything with my eyes open.
You asked me several times when we were seeing each other if I loved you. I never answered you because even in the thick of it I knew I didn’t love you like family… not like I love my husband … not like I love my children. I knew that, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. I liked you, Tony, maybe I even loved you for a while, but that’s not enough.
I’m trying to put my life back together. Ray and I are still living in separate places. I’m staying in a friend’s place for now. Sometimes it takes getting what you think you want in order to know what you really want. I don’t want to be apart from my husband and my children, and I’m committed to doing whatever I need to do to put my family back together. I guess that includes letting you know what my plans are and making sure you know that we made a mistake and that I’ll never walk down that road again.
I made a commitment when I married Ray, I made a commitment when I had my children, and it was childish and selfish of me to allow myself to become involved with something that could prevent me from seeing it through.
Please don’t write me back, Tony. I know that may seem unfair, but I can’t be concerned about that right now.
I wish you everything good that life has to offer.
Hope
Chapter Forty-one
After she dropped the letter to Tony in the mail, it took Hope another month to figure out exactly what she wanted to say to Ray and then another week to build up enough nerve to broach the subject.
She had started spending more time with her boys and had been looking into getting her real-estate license. She decided she needed a job more flexible than any she could find in the banking industry, and she could fulfill her dream of helping people find affordable housing, and she could work from a home office. Where exactly the home office would be depended entirely on Ray’s reaction to her… proposition?
