Leah felt a sense of peace fill her after she typed those final words. There was no anger anymore. She let go of the hurt for her sake and for his. His affair hurt, but she knew a sober Alex would never have cheated on her. A sober Alex wouldn’t lie so easily and steal and manipulate those around him. He would have to take responsibility for his mistakes, but punishing him for them forever was not the solution.
Leah couldn’t afford to wallow in the past, and reliving all his mistakes would just keep them stuck in this stasis where they couldn’t move forward, couldn’t heal. They both desperately needed to heal.
She decided to email the article to Alex. He probably wouldn’t even check his email, but at least she could try to send it to him. There was something else she wanted to send to him as well.
From:
[email protected]
Date: November 17, 2012
Subject: Please Read
Hey Alex,
I don’t know if you even bother checking your email anymore but I figured I would give it a try. It has been a month since your overdose. I don’t really know how you’re doing. I’m assuming you’re the same. Your mother invited me to her intervention for you this evening, but I couldn’t bring myself to go. I am sure you didn’t show up either, but if you did go, I wanted you to know why I didn’t. I knew you didn’t want me there and I really wouldn’t have known what to say at the time. I hope you don’t think I bailed because I don’t care. I care more than you will ever know. I still love you, Alex. As I promised you when we were kids, I always will love you.
After hours of staring at my laptop, I finally found the words I have wanted to say, but couldn’t before now. I really want you to read my latest article. I know you are not too interested in this stuff, but this one you might care about since it is about you, about us. I hope you understand why I wrote it. I needed to for me. I’ve attached it to this email along with a picture. It’s a picture of our daughter. I had another ultrasound and my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to know the sex and I wanted you to know.
Anyhow, I know our last conversation was painful for us both, but I’m glad you told me the truth. Even though the truth hurts, I am better for knowing. I should have been more honest about things as well.
I accused you of being a runner, but I am just as guilty. I ran from the truth when I should have fought for it. I won’t run again. Not from the truth, not from you. I’ve learned a lot about me during this time and I haven’t handled everything perfectly either, but I am doing better and I am learning from my mistakes. I hope you learn too.
Please get well. I miss you.
Love eternally,
Leah
Maybe he would see this article and realize that she’d forgiven him. Her forgiveness might empower him to forgive himself. Maybe she was dreaming again, but this was a dream she would hold to for now.
Leah knew the likelihood of Alex seeing the email and reading it was slim to none, but it felt good to send it. To let him know that they were having a little girl. She wondered if he would feel anything if he saw the sonogram or would he just delete it the way he seemed to have deleted her from his life.
Leah also emailed the article to Marcus. She wished she could see his face when he opened it. The woman who prided herself on privacy just willingly opened herself up to thousands, perhaps millions of people. Maybe it was time to step out of the shadows. If she truly wanted to make a difference for others, she needed to show she could relate to them. For she has been living the pain in which she writes.
Less than ten minutes later, the phone rang and, not surprisingly, it was Marcus on the line.
“Hey, boss.”
“Hey, Leah. I read it.”
“That was fast.”
“Actually, I read it twice. I don’t know what to say.”
“Just say you’ll publish it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes and no. I need you to publish it. I just need to be brave enough to let you do it.”
“Okay.” He paused for a long moment as if struggling to find the right words. “I hate that you are going through this. I hate that I can’t help you. You don’t deserve this. Neither does Alex. What an insidious disease this is.”
“It truly is, but it doesn’t have to win.”
“It won’t. Not with you fighting against it. I would bet on you any day.”
III
“Grant Deverson wants to marry you,” Marcus exclaimed as he sat on Leah’s desk. “The comments have been pouring in, and I mean pouring in all week. I think our site might crash. You article touched people. Have you read some of these?”
Leah had read most of them, although she hadn’t planned to. Once she starting reading them, she couldn’t stop. So many people experiencing just what she faced. It was comforting to know she was not alone. This was a struggle that millions went through every day. Many won, many lost, but there was such comfort in those kind words.
At first she felt so exposed when the article was published. She wanted to retreat to her home and hide from the world, but the comments ignited a bravery she didn’t know existed. For once, she didn’t feel quite so alone.
“I’ve read them,” she responded. “I’m still surprised by the reaction.”
“You and me both. Although there a couple in here you may want to ignore. You have a couple of offers for a reality show. One about you and Alex and another one that sounds like a dating show in case things don’t work out with Alex.”
Leah bristled. “No thanks.”
“I figured as much. Look superstar, get out of here, go home, and put your swollen feet up.”
“Hey.” She slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “My feet are not swollen.” That was a huge relief. So far her pregnancy was progressing well. No more signs of protein in the urine. She wasn’t totally out of the wood for preeclampsia, but for now the baby was thriving.
“I thought all pregnant women had swollen feet. Well, it doesn’t matter. Go home and nap. I do know that all pregnant women like naps.”
“You are such an idiot.” Leah put on her wool coat and grabbed her bag. “Marcus, thank you. You’ve been a great boss, but an even better friend when I really need one.”
Marcus cheeks turned a surprising crimson. Clearly he was not used to compliments. “Yeah, well, you’re not so bad yourself. Now get out of here and think of a follow-up to that article.”
Leah stopped at the local Chinese food restaurant on her way home. She was craving sesame chicken and pork fried rice. Not exactly the ideal health food, but it would be worth every extra pound. According to her doctor, she was a good size so a few extra pounds shouldn’t hurt. That was why she stopped and bought a three-scoop brownie sundae for dessert.
As she approached her apartment door she saw a figure in a white wool coat standing by her door. The figure turned to her direction. It took a moment but recognition dawned along with shock.
“Mom?”
“Hello, Leah.”
How could her mother be here? It had been years. Of course the flawless Francesca Rhodes looked as if she hadn’t aged a day.
“What are you doing here?” Leah could not conceal the contempt in her voice. No calls, no visits, no letters, nothing from her parents in nearly four years. They cut her off as if she didn’t matter to them. As if she had never existed at all. Her only crime, disobeying their wishes because she chose to stay with Alex. She built a life with a man they felt unworthy to associate with their upper-class world. He was garbage to them, yet she chose his love over their money. For that choice, her parents turned their backs on their only daughter.
Leah had attempted to reach out to them, but their cold disdain was too much to bear. Eventually, she let go of them the way they had so easily let go of her.
Yet here her mother stood at her apartment door as if no time and harsh words had passed between them. She was so annoyingly calm and controlled that Leah wanted to shake her to get some type of reaction out of her mother. She was seething, and her mother’s passivity fueled the flames of her overwrought emotions.
“May we go inside? I would prefer not to talk to my daughter in a hallway.”
“For the last few years you preferred not to talk to me at all.”
Francesca dismissed the hostility of her daughter’s comment. “I would prefer we not catch up in a public hallway where anyone could hear us talk. If you do not want me in your home, maybe we can stop at a coffee shop or something? I only ask for a few moments of your time, Leah. After four years, I would think you could spare that for your mother.”
Only her mother could manage to make her feel guilty when it was her choice to cast her aside for four years. “Of course,” Leah gritted, opting to take the high road even though she really wanted to slam the door in her mother’s emotionless face.
Leah opened the door and her mother followed her inside. Her much-anticipated dinner would have to wait. She put the bags in the kitchen and went to the living room, where her mother stood stiffly as she surveyed the apartment and was undoubtedly criticizing every aspect of it. She didn’t bother hiding her disappointment. This tiny apartment with its second-hand furnishings was beneath the likes of Francesca Rhodes. Leah would not let her mother intimidate her. She was proud of the home she and Alex created with so little money. Despite their problems, they had survived on their own, and not once in four years did she ever have to go crawling back to her parents for help. No matter how difficult things had become, she refused to ever seek help from those who had so easily tossed her away.
“Charming home.” Francesca smiled emptily.
A veiled criticism. Leah was used to those. It looked like Mommie Dearest hadn’t changed one bit.
“Why are you here, Mom? You asked for a few minutes, which are more than you deserve. You’ve already wasted a couple of those minutes. So why don’t you tell me why you bothered showing up at my front door after all this time?”
“May I sit?” Francesca replied.
Leah was fuming. Maybe it was the hormones or the hunger, but she was not in the mood for her mother tonight. “Sit, stand, leave, do whatever you want. Just tell me why you’re here or get out so I can eat my dinner in peace.”
“Ouch. Clearly the lessons in tact I taught you as a child were forgotten the day you left my home. In any case, I will get right to it. I’m here because I read your article. I read all your articles. I have to say you are a surprisingly good writer. I’m not sure how much money you can hope to make as a journalist, but you certainly show signs of talent.”
Her mother had actually read her articles. Leah wanted to believe that was a sign that her mother cared, but too many years of experiences to the contrary stopped her from reading too much into her mother’s words. She would not allow herself to soften towards this woman, who would inevitably stomp all over her feelings as she had done most of her life.
“Well Mom, you might have known about my talent if you had taken the time to read anything I wrote when I was in school, but you had no interest in anything involving me.”
Francesca sat on the couch so stiffly that Leah thought she must have had a rod in her back. “I can see why you might think that. I was not the most maternal of women I admit, but I never felt like you needed me to be that way. You were so independent, so strong. I didn’t see a place for me in your world. You only seemed to care about the boy, Alex.”
“You are my mother. Of course there was a place for you in my life. My relationship with Alex had nothing to do with my need for you.”
“I regret if I failed to give you the attention you required. I did the best I could with what I had to work with, and if it wasn’t enough for you then I am sorry for that failure. Parenting is not easy, especially when you didn’t have good role models to teach you.”
Francesca rarely spoke about her parents. They had died before Leah was born. Any time she asked about them, Francesca would dismiss her questions. Leah always wanted to know more and this seemed like the best opportunity to get her mother to open up even just a little. There was so much she did not know about the woman who brought her into this world and she didn’t want her mother to be a stranger her whole life.
“What were your parents like, Mom? You never speak of them but I always wanted to know where you came from.”
“Oh, Leah. You always wanted to know where I came from and I spent my entire adult life trying to forget.” For a moment, Leah thought that nothing had changed and her mother would ignore her question, but surprisingly she answered. “There’s not much I can tell you about my parents, especially my father. He left when I was two and Eddie was just an infant. I have no memory of him. No picture to even know what he looked like. My mother raised us in a trailer park in West Virginia. ‘Raised us’ is a generous term. She gave us a place to live, but she was useless as a parent, as a human being. She was a violent drunk that struck out against anyone who got in her way of more booze. Mostly that was Eddie, occasionally me.”
Leah was floored. Her mother with her nauseatingly perfect etiquette had grown up in a trailer park. It was like she was seeing her mother for the first time. The more she learned, the more she wanted to know. Finally, the puzzle that was Francesca Rhodes was coming together.
“My mother finally grew weary of her two brats and so she gave us up to her mother in NJ. She dropped us off on my seventh birthday for a visit with my grandparents. She said she was leaving to get me a birthday cake. Eddie and I sat on the stoop waiting for her to come back. We sat there all day and then most of the night. Eddie fell asleep on my lap, but I stayed there with him, waiting. My grandparents tried to get us to come inside but I refused. I was determined to wait for her, but finally even as a child I understood she wasn’t coming back that night and eventually I knew she never would. I put Eddie to bed and I curled up next to him afraid that if I woke up, he would be gone too.