Without a Paddle

I explained to her that we'd ridden to her office together. "Do you two still live together?" she asked.

"Of course," I said. "Why wouldn't we?"

"But you're going through a divorce," she said. "Right now everything seems amicable, but what happens when you start fighting and arguing over things. What happens when you both want something or both don't want something?"

"We talk about it," I said. "And if I really want something all I have to do is ask. Trust me, we love each other. I really should be kicking his ass for even bringing me here."

"So, the two of you are fighting? Do you want me to get you a restraining order, so he can't come into the house?" she asked.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" I asked. "Can you get one so he HAS to stay within a certain range of me. I don't want him away from me."

"Then why are you getting a divorce?" she asked. "The settlement was extremely fair. Why did you need me?"

"I didn't think we did," I said. "He insisted that we get someone to look out for my interests. He didn't want to have two lawyers for the whole process because it would just cost us more money, though. I don't want lawyers in the first place."

"Do you even want the divorce?" she asked.

"Nope," I said. "I want to save my marriage."

"Then let's do that," she said smiling. "I'll ask for counseling. And file a motion preventing him from disbursing any of the marital assets for ninety days. That will prevent him from being able to move out."

"You're fired," I said.

"But why?" she asked. "I'm just trying to do things that are in your best interests. We can even petition to dismiss the divorce petition."

"You don't give a fuck about my best interests," I said. "All you care about is your own best interests which are best served by billing me for a bunch of hours. Have a super sparkly day."

Mark and I drove home. On the way there, I reached over and tried to hold his hand. "Mark, I don't want a divorce," I told him. "It's a waste of time and money that we just don't have. I want the house. I know that I shouldn't be asking you for anything, because I'm the one who messed up our marriage. But deep down in my heart I don't think we're done. I love you too much for that. The only reason either of us would need a divorce would be so we could re-marry. I have no intention of ever letting any man other than you touch me. I want the house because I'm sure that in the end, you and I will be there together. So you figure out the bills and all of that and just let me have the house so we don't lose it."

"Then you go out and find your super model. Screw her brains out, move in with her and do whatever you're going to do. I owe you fifteen years and a day. If you decide to marry her or you haven't come back to me in that period of time, I'll give you the divorce. Can we do that, please?" I asked.

I like to think that God or fate or whatever there is up there was smiling don on me because Mark agreed to it.

He decided to still give me half of his check and half of everything else anyway. I tried to argue the point with him, by telling him I was the one who cheated so he deserved more of our assets and with me keeping the house our agreement was extremely lopsided. That was one way that I knew that Mark still loved me.

The hardest day of my life was the day he moved into his condo. I cried my eyes out, even though I knew it was coming. Mark took very little of the furniture or anything else beside his personal things and tools. I knew that he didn't want the house to seem any different. I'd hidden a few of his older sweatshirts in one of my drawers so I could keep them. He'd worn them recently so they still smelled like him.

I never wanted anything in my life as much as I wanted my husband to stay with me but there was nothing I could do about it. Mark had warned me. He'd told me the exact day that he was moving and I'd prayed that time would stop, but it couldn't of course.

Even worse were the people he'd gotten to help him move. He'd gotten two guys that he worked with, our son and the girl who might end up being my daughter in law. Mark Jr. never said a word to me. Mark had to tell him several times that he'd been brought up to be polite to people and to speak when spoken to. Anger was not a reason to forget his manners. That got me all of nine words. One word for every month that I'd carried him in my womb.

"Hello Mother. Excuse me I have work to do," he said. Then he stepped away.

"I'm sorry Miriam," said Mark. "He's still hurting really badly." Before he left, Mark gave me a check. He'd settled out of court with George for about half of what he'd wanted for the alienation of affection suit. He'd wanted a half million dollars and George had coughed up half of that thinking he'd gotten a deal. George's lawyers were trying to get him to settle as many of the suits as he could. No matter how this came out, George was going to end up broke. Cora was trying to take every nickel George had. Mark had two suits against George, with the biggest one still to come. I was suing him as well.

Apparently George couldn't leave well enough alone though, because he came over and handed Mark a paper saying that he was counter suing Mark and me for preventing him from having access to his son. His smirk set Mark Jr. off and George ran across the yard with my son chasing him. If Mark hadn't called him back, Mark Jr. might have hurt George badly.

"Fuck you. I don't want to be your father anyway," yelled George.

"You never were," shot back Mark Jr. "Even if I'd known, I wouldn't have wanted to have anything to do with you."

After that day, I feared that I'd never see my men again. It took two weeks for us to get together again. From the first day that Mark moved out, George tried to move in. He often sat in his yard and watched me as I worked in mine. If I sat on the deck reminiscing about the good old days, he'd try to talk to me over the fence. He even came over and knocked on the door a few times. Finally, two weeks after Mark had left; George cut the lock on the gate in the fence and came into my yard.

"Miriam, this is stupid," he said. "We've been friends for over twenty years. Cora has left me. Mark has left you. Our son has left us both. We're all alone. We should be together." He reached out to try to stroke my arm and I moved it, knocking my cell phone and my glass of lemonade off of the table.

"We were good together for a lot of years, Miriam. That's actually why I didn't try to convince Cora to stay with me. I hoped that you and I could have a chance. Maybe I can't be a father. Forgive me for saying this but Mark has obviously poisoned our son against both of us." He reached for my arm again. "I think we should go into your house and get back to doing what we do. And now with Mark out of the picture, I can have all of you instead of just a piece."

"Get the fuck away from me asshole," I said. "You ruined my life and my marriage. I lost the only man I'll ever love and my son because of you. Get the fuck away from me loser." When I said, "loser," something changed in George's eyes. He grabbed me. And that's the way we were when the heads of the two policemen popped over my fence on the other side. I'd called them just as George started cutting the lock off the fence.

George ended up having to move into a hotel because with the restraining order I got against him, he couldn't stay in his own house until we went to court. The restraining order also helped my blackmailing civil suit against George. Unfortunately, I never got to collect a dime. After the police got there, Mark pulled up. The police took George away and held him over night. Mark told George's lawyer that he wanted to get together to discuss settling the child support suit. They didn't actually work anything out and the case would be settled in front of a mediator. That came later, but it wasn't what Mark wanted anyway.

Mark followed George from the lawyer's office and beat the cowboy shit out of him. George spent three days in the hospital and Mark spent three days in jail. George agreed to drop the charges against Mark, if I dropped my suit against him. As usual, I had to protect my men so I agreed.

George ended up paying Mark for raising Mark Jr. and the judge refused to listen to George's counter suit. He said that George was a reprehensible individual and there was no evidence that George had ever asked for time with Mark Jr. or that we'd refused to allow it; especially since Mark never knew about Mark Jr.'s paternity.

Mark again gave me a check for one third of the proceeds of the suit. He gave another third to Mark Jr. He actually convinced Mark Jr. to bring me the check. That was also the day that George sold his house. With both of Mark's suits against him draining him of his finances, George was nearly broke. He had to sell his house and move into a much smaller place because his divorce from Cora was eating up money in legal fees rapidly. George had wanted everything. It looked like he'd end up with nothing.

While he dropped off the check, I'd asked Mark Jr. if his father was okay. After he beat up George and went to jail over me, I hadn't seen him.

"He's fine," said my son. "In fact, he has a date tonight." I'm not sure whether my son told me that to hurt me, or simply because he didn't want to be around me and wanted to get it over with.

I don't think he noticed or cared about the tears that flowed freely from my eyes as he left. I knew the possibility existed, but I'd hoped that Mark would never find another woman. I never expected it to happen so soon. I know that I'd told Mark to go out and find himself another woman but God damn it, I hadn't really meant it.

I knew roughly where Mark's new condo was so I followed him home from work one day to get his exact address. He'd never invited me over so I didn't have the address. Once I got it, I spent a few days waiting and watching. Shit, I was still retired. I had nothing but time on my hands. I was finally rewarded after a week.

Mark pulled up in his Mustang and a woman came right over to him. She was carrying some bags that looked like she'd been grocery shopping. She'd obviously come over to cook dinner for him. I hated that bitch on sight.

He'd done exactly what I'd told him to do. She was far younger than us. She had long dark hair and was very pretty. My husband was fifty–five God damned years old. This woman couldn't have been a day over forty. Even as they turned to go inside of his condo, the bitch tried to kiss him.

I ran back to my car and was barely able to hold it together long enough to drive home. When I got home, the flood gates opened up. I cried for almost the entire night. I even ignored the phone when it started ringing. The ringing didn't stop though and finally I had to answer it.

As I picked up the phone, I tried to calm myself down. I didn't want to cry over the phone in case it was a serious call. Before I said anything, I heard a voice screaming at me.

"Mom, Dad is in the hospital. I know that you and I aren't talking but please go there. It'll take me at least an hour to drive down there. Once I get there, you can do whatever you want, okay. I'm on my way."

Suddenly my head was clear and I knew what I had to do. I grabbed my keys and was out of the house in under a minute. I was more than a bit pissed at my son. How dare he insinuate that going to the hospital would be something that I wouldn't do? In fact, taking care of his father was far more my business than it was his.

Mark was still my husband no matter what he or his son thought. There was no way I'd stand on the sidelines and watch if either one of them was sick or injured. I calmed myself down as I drove. I felt again that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach that I'd been having lately. I'd try to get some antacid tablets in the pharmacy while I was at the hospital.

I wondered where Mark's new girlfriend was and how she was handling this. From the way she was all over him as they walked into his condo, I was sure that she'd be at the hospital. For Mark's sake, I'd be polite and courteous to her.

When I got to the hospital, I ran, not walked, to the nurse's station to find out where Mark was and what was wrong with him.

The woman at the desk was amazingly uninformed. She looked him up by his name and then looked at me. "Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm his wife," I snapped at her.

"I'm sorry ma'am but can you prove that?" she asked.

I grumbled and reached into my purse. I pulled out my driver's license and showed it to her. She smiled.

"I'm sorry ma'am, normally if you know that a patient is here we can tell you which room they're in. But in this case, since he's part of a criminal investigation, security is higher. He's in room 514."

I took the first elevator I could find up to the fifth floor and watched the numbers as I walked down the hall until I found room 514. There was a uniformed police officer outside of the room. I didn't care. I walked up to the door and had it about halfway opened when the officer held his hand out.

"You can't go in there ma'am," he said.

"Who's going to stop me?" I growled loudly.

"Officer, you'd better let her in," said Mark. His voice sounded as if he was in pain or extremely tired. I rushed into the room.

Mark had a bandage around his head and was lying in a bed. There was a tube in his arm and he looked like he could barely keep his eyes open.

I went over to the bed and collapsed on top of him.

"Shit," he said. "Is every woman in the world out to kill me?"

"Sorry honey," I said. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get here, but Mark Jr. just called me."

Mark looked like he was barely keeping his eyes open. His words were slurred as if he was drunk.

"Honey, what happened?"

"...Mmm...Love you Miri," he mumbled and then he was asleep. I started silently crying then. I didn't know what was wrong with him and I guess not knowing was the worst part. Whatever it was we'd go through it together.

I sat down in a chair by his bed holding his free hand. I warily watched every person who came into the room. His nurse smiled at me as she took his vitals and nodded her head.

"His heartbeat is still too slow for a man his age," she said with an irritated look on her face. "He's such a nice man. When they find the people who hurt him, I hope they throw away the key."

"What's his heart rate?" I asked.

"I can't give out patient information," she said. "His son is on his way here and..."

My sense of reason snapped and I lashed out at her. "Look bitch, I'm his wife. I love this man more than anyone else on the planet ever could; including our son. I'm trying to help you help him get better. Now what is his fucking heart rate?" I yelled. The cop outside the door opened it and looked into the room.

When he saw that everything was okay he closed it again.

"His heart rate is 54 beats per minute and normal is..." she began.

I just smiled at her. "Why are you smiling?" she asked.

"Because that is normal for him," I said. "He runs every day, so his pulse rate is lower."

"Thank you ma'am," she said.

"Can you tell me what happened to him?" I asked.

"He was robbed is the only thing I know," she said. "Someone hit him in the head and then drugged him. From what we could see when they brought him in, they gave him an extremely large dose of some kind of sleeping drug. It almost killed him. The police don't know whether it was accidental or if they were trying to kill him so there's a guard on his door. If they were trying to kill him, they might come back."

She left and I sat there in the chair beside his bed holding his hand. I don't know how long it took before I dozed off too.

The next thing I remember hearing was the sound of voices in the room.

"Awww...They look so cute together," said a female voice. I liked her instantly. "She must really love him."

"Appearances can be deceiving," said my son.

I sat up and wiped the sleep from my eyes. "Thanks Mom," he said. "I owe you one. You can go back to whatever you were doing."

He was standing over me as if he expected me to move so he could take my spot. Apparently, in his mind, now that he was there, I was no longer necessary. Rage flowed through me. I had already failed Mark repeatedly. It would never happen again.

I stood up but only to get within in range. I slapped my son harder than I'd ever hit anyone in my life. "I brought you into this world and I can still take you out," I told him. "You're not too old for me to whip your ass and send you to your room."

The woman beside him smiled as Mark angrily rubbed his cheek. The slap had taken more out of me than I'd expected. I felt warm all over and the discomfort in my stomach was back with a vengeance.

"Can you keep the noise down?" said Mark, waking up. "My head is pounding like a drum. Hey son. Hi Janet. Miriam, what are you doing here?"

"I'm here because when someone you love is in trouble nothing can keep you away from them; not stupid nurses, rude cops or even uppity kids can keep you from their side," I said. "Or to put it in smaller words that even you can understand, I'm here because this is where I belong."

"What happened to you, Honey?" I asked.

"Miriam, I told you that you have to call me..." he began.

"Shut up," I snapped. "I can call you whatever I want." I was smiling again.

"I know you Mark and you know me. Do I need to tell our son what you said just as you fell asleep?" I asked. "Your heart knows things that your brain doesn't." He looked at me strangely and then changed the subject.

"Debra had decided to make me dinner at the condo," he said.

"Is Debra that child you're dating?" I asked pointedly. "She's too young for you. You were trying to screw her weren't you? She almost killed you."

"Can I finish or are you going to keep interrupting me?" he asked. I smiled because that was the way we always spoke to each other. If I thought he'd let me, I have taken his hand right then. I wanted to so badly. I felt really warm and really weak, but I was so glad he was awake.

"She'd brought over a bunch of groceries so she could cook for me," he continued. "We'd been out on several dates and she'd been inside of my condo a couple of times but only for a few minutes each time."

"And let me guess," I said angrily. "The lights had never been on and she hadn't gotten past the couch."

"Miriam..." he began.

"Did you at least have the sense to use condoms?" I hissed. There were already tears running down my face and I angrily folded my arms across my chest.

"Miriam, what I do or did is really not your business anymore," he said calmly. "Besides wasn't it you who told me to go out and find someone?"

"But I didn't really want you to," I sobbed.

"If you really have to dig into my business, Miriam," he said. "I never had sex with Debra, or any of the other women I've gone out with."

"There were others?" I screamed.

"Miriam, I hurt," he said sadly. "You have no idea what it feels like to find out that the person you love most in the world doesn't love you back..

I slapped him almost as hard as I'd slapped our son. Mark Jr.'s girlfriend covered her face to avoid laughing.

"You don't have any idea of what that feels like either, Idiot," I yelled. "Let's go over this one more time. I screwed up. I screwed up royally. But I did what I did to protect the two people I love most in the world. What I did was as wrong as three left shoes, but I never stopped loving either of you. You can call me stupid. You can refuse to talk to me. And you can tear my heart out by moving away from me but you can't ever try to tell me what I feel. Both of you two assholes know that I love you, now don't you?"