Out Through the in Door (6 page)

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I fumbled through all the pockets in my coat  but couldn't find the keys. I turned the knob again hoping this time the door would open. On the other side, Walter scratched and whined. It would be hours before Joe, my partner, got home and the dog would have to go out well before then. I looked at the ugly gnome in the corner of the porch. How many times had I told myself to hide a key in that damn thing?
             
I took off my scarf and wrapped it around my hand. The only way in was to break a small side window, reach through, and unlock the door. I tapped glass lightly. It was thin and would easily break. But as I readied myself, the door opened.
             
Kylie, Joe's teenage daughter, stood there with a big smile. Amidst my surprise was annoyance. I hid behind a fake smile. I'd forgotten that she and her brother Liam were here this weekend. I walked in to hugs and dog kisses.
             
It had been a hectic week and when Friday finally arrived, I expected to
come home, crash on the couch and fall asleep watching TV until Joe got home, then spend the rest of the weekend being lazy. But with the kids here that wasn't going to happen. Still, I wore my adult face and pretended to be interested in what they were doing when what I wanted was to turn off my brain and ignore the world. 
             
I sat on the couch watching Liam play a video game on the television. As I watched he explained the finer points of avoiding enemy soldiers, setting land mines and executing effective sniper attacks. I heard little of what he said wishing instead I could sit in silence.
             
After my divorce, my life had gone from high drama to quiet resolve. Days and nights bled together with little distinction. For years, I lived in solitude. I didn't mind the quiet. I was free of my partner's lies and deceit. I was free of the illusion I had allowed to become my reality. What I did mind was defining my life by what it wasn't.  
             
I longed to end my loneliness, but loathed the idea of a relationship or my dependence on it. Being in a gay marriage had been challenging enough, But because my ex-husband used love like currency and it was now an abstract thing to me.  
             
When I met Joe, I wore my pain like armor – hard and impenetrable. I would never allow myself to be hurt by love again. Six months had passed, Joe moved in and still I remained resolute. I was an observer of my own life. I watched but didn't look too deeply or become too involved. My heart was a closed book. If it bothered Joe he hid it well. And, if it did, I didn't care.
             
  “Walter,” Kylie was yelling at the dog. She chased him through the
kitchen. “Give that back.”
             
The clamor shook me from my catnap  I followed the noise to Liam's room. The dog was standing on the bed with a shoe in his mouth. He caught my disapproving look and slid off the bed onto the floor belly up – his big eyes big as saucers.
             
“Really?” I rolled my eyes and gave him a smirk. “Like that works.” I scratched his stomach.
             
His tail twitched softly. He let go of the shoe.
             
“That's the second shoes he's chewed,” Kylie groaned.
             
“At least they match now,” I added. I handed it to her.
             
Walter got up and pranced away, satisfied with the outcome of the game. He was a rescue from a local shelter. We had adopted him two months earlier. A mix of chocolate Lab, hound and a few more breeds for good luck, he was gentle, good-natured and stubborn. He liked to be with his people and hated being left alone – essentially an eighty-pound lap dog.
             
He was a challenge. After two dryer hoses, three sweaters, a countless number of socks, two candles, earphones, a glass vase, a pair of jeans, three oven mitts, a ficus tree and the aforementioned shoes, he still hadn't figured out what
bad dog
meant.
             
I  grabbed his leash and Kylie and I took him for a walk to the nearby park. I let him loose. He ran a few feet and turned waiting for us to join him. I sat on a bench.
             
“You okay?” Kylie asked..
             
“Yes,” I replied. “Why?”
             
She looked at me with those blue eyes. They were her father's eyes –  piercing and searching. “Just wondering.” She grabbed a stick, tossed it and ran after Walter. She never asked a question without a reason.  
             
I watched as they played tag. She chased after Walter. He would stop, drop the stick and wait. When she got close he grabbed it and ran. When she finally caught him he flopped on to his back for a belly rub. For all his difficulties Walter was happy and had adjusted to his new life. I envied him for this.
             
After a while the dog was panting heavily and it was time to go home. We found Joe and Liam playing a video game together. I went into the pantry to start dinner.
             
A few minutes later Joe came in, kissed me, and watched. “How was your day?”
             
“Fine,” I replied. “Busy.” I pulled some bowls from a shelf and fumbled through the cabinets looking for ingredients. “You?”
             
“Busy. I'm glad to be home.” He changed his stance and was now leaning against the wall. “I wanted to talk to you about the kids.” 
             
“Is everything okay?”
             
“Yes.”
             
I mixed spices in a bowl and cut up chicken.
             
“I want them to spend next month with us.”
             
I stopped and looked at him.“What about Veronica?”
             
“She's traveling for work which is why she asked me about it?”
             
“Of course.” The words came out like broken glass.  It meant they would further invade my space and my privacy.  
             
“Really?” The doubt was obvious in Joe's tone. There was no question about what he wanted. As it was  – he only got to see his children every other weekend.
             
“Whatever you want.” I turned away to grab another bowl and avoid eye contact.
             
“If there's a problem – ”
             
“No,” I interrupted. “Its fine.” I held back my anger. Perhaps he was expecting exuberance or excitement, but I didn't feel that way.
             
“Elliot. If there's a problem with the kids coming...”
             
“If you ask again there will be.”  I  put a finality in my tone. I didn't like making concessions. My previous life was built on them. Joe turned on his heel and went back into the den. I finished dinner and set the table. I wasn't hungry now and instead reorganized the entire pantry and cleaned up while they ate.
             
The next day the awkwardness still hung in the air. Joe left early to run errands and Kylie went out with the dog. The only one that it didn't bother or who perhaps didn't notice was Liam. I was folding laundry when he asked if I wanted to play a new game he just got. I looked at the laundry and then at him.
             
“It's not like anyone is going to steal it,” Liam offered. “Or worse, fold it.”
             
Liam looked like his father. He had the same ice-blue eyes and full round face. While Joe was bald, Liam possessed a mop of thick, wavy brown hair. He was easy-going, always had a punch line at the ready and a talent for finding humor even in the most serious of situations. He could always make me laugh.
             
He set up the game and explained each button on the control pad. When I was a kid, the joystick had one big red button and one stick. Now I was holding
two joysticks, two triggers, and ten buttons on what looked like something you would fly a plane with. The games of my time were simple. If it had more than one color it was pretty high-tech. Here I was sitting in front of this life-like simulation getting the crap shot out of me.
             
Patiently, Liam walked me through the game until I was at least able to walk and shoot at the same time. When we played as I team. Liam was the commander armed to the teeth and ready to kill zombies. I was a female character with a machine gun. I was so preoccupied with my big boobs that I failed to see the zombie hoard approaching. Liam yelled at me to shoot as he fought them off but I was too busy dancing around in my skin-tight camouflage commando suit to notice.
             
His expression when we lost was not happy. Where he saw the game as serious business I saw it as fun. Without another word, he reset the game and was now on single player.  I had been rebuffed. I went back to my laundry. His reaction was strange. His anger was far too serious to be caused by just a game.
             
             
Kylie returned from a walk with the dog. A quick hello was followed by her bedroom door closing. She was clearly angry. At last count, the only one who wasn't mad with me was Walter.
             
I knocked on her door. A faint but stern voice allowed entry. She was on her bed painting her toenails. She was a beautiful young girl on the verge of becoming a beautiful young woman. Long voluminous hair framed a rounded cherubic face. Her infectious smile and her skillful mastery of the arched eyebrow made her formidable. And at seventeen she was insightful beyond her years. “My dad told me what happened yesterday,” she offered.

             
“I figured as much.”
             
“He's so confused.”
             
I gave her a quizzical look
             
“I think sometimes you scare him. He loves you, but he doesn't know how to talk with you when he knows you're conflicted.”
             
“Conflicted? He told you this?”
             
“Yes.”
             
“I've always been honest with him.” As the words passed my lips I knew it was a lie.
             
Like her father, Kylie could discern as much from how you answered as from the answer itself. She looked at her toes and touched them up.
             
The silence, measured by my heart pounding, was too long. I could see the hesitation in her eyes. The words were there. “And?” I asked.
             
“Sometimes when you answer a question, your words say one thing but your body says another. It's confusing because you seem....”
             
“Conflicted?” I finished. “That's not true.” Another lie.
             
She returned to painting her toes. She was done with this conversation.  I was certain she knew I was lying and of the emotional torrent churning in my head. How could I tell her I didn't want a family? What words would soften the truth and make her understand?
             
I went back to my laundry. The kids shouldn't have bothered me and yet they did. Kylie's words echoed in my head. Liam's silent anger upset me. I was angry and ashamed. The more I thought about it the worse I felt.
             
When I lost the game I thought it funny but Liam did not. I saw it as merely a
game – unimportant. He probably saw my actions as dismissive or uncaring. Where I thought I was sly, Kylie saw deceit. To Joe, my guarded behavior looked like conflict. Laughter to one person could look like crying to another. Salvation to one – damnation to another. It was just a matter of perspective.
             
I didn't want to be alone so I had re-invented myself from the fragments – made myself somebody even I didn't recognize. I inserted myself into a family under false pretenses. A wave of guilt washed over me.
             
Joe came home to find me sitting on the front porch staring off into space. He sat next to me. “What are you looking at?” he asked.
             
“Loneliness,” I replied.
             
“Whose?” He put his hand on my knee.
             
“Mine.” I pulled away. “I am a deceiver, a liar. I'm not who I pretend to be”
             
Joe leaned back in the bench.  “Who are you?” There was no malice or sarcasm in his tone.
             
The question was genuine but I couldn't answer.
             
“It's tough keeping your guard up all the time,.” he said.
             
“How long have you known?”
             
“For a while.”
             
“Why didn't you say something before now?”
             
“You would have denied it.” He folded his arms. “Or given me the usual speech about two choices – the front door or the back.” He shook his head as he imitated me.
             
Joe had gone through divorce as well. He perhaps understood my feelings better than I. He gave me the one thing I needed most – time. I was so blinded by my
internal dilemma I failed see it or to care about the effect it was having on those around me. 
             
“I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't want to be hurt. I don't want to be alone. I'm jealous of what you have with Kylie and Liam.”
             
“So you don't want a family but your jealous because I have one?”
             
“I'm the outsider looking in.”
             
“What are you afraid of? Being part of a family?” He touched his hand to mine. “Being loved?” The words couldn't be undone. They floated in the air. “You think you're the only one that stands to get hurt if things fall apart?” His tone had changed from soft to firm. “You're so damn practical about everything. Last time I looked three people who loved
you
stand to get hurt. Three to one – you do the math.”