February 8, 2013

• Love Parade (story #13)

  Lance was the first person I wanted to call when I discovered I was pregnant.   A few months later, he informed me there was a baby in his immediate future, as well.  I remember driving by as white chairs were set out in his front yard and people arrived to witness him marry Katrina.  I remember changing into sweat pants and an Extra Extra Large T-shirt and laying on my couch trying not to bust.  When his daughter was born, I gave her Luci's old clothes.  I dropped off extra formula for them at the end of the month.  I invited them to Luci's 1st birthday.  Katrina and baby girl arrived without Lance.  

  I was a newly single Mommy.  The ring finger of my left hand felt wonderfully free.  My baby girl could walk and tell me what she wanted.  I had successfully climbed out of my year and a half long depression, and entered into life again.  My phone rang in the middle of supper one evening.  "Katrina and I are over."  What a coincidence!  me too. We caught up.  Time for him to cry in my lap again.  Time to get to know each other in this new life.  We start an actual friendship again.  I couldn't count the number of times he went crawling back to Katrina.  Only for the sake of the baby, he claimed.  Luci and I attended her 1st Birthday.  A completely awkward few hours where I sat on Lance's right side and she sat on his left.  There are pictures to document the fiasco.  On the nights he doesn't see his daughter he is usually drinking. I am his drunk dial.  If I heard him say he always loved me, no matter who he happened to be with at the time, I would punch him in the face. Again.  I stood up for myself a little more this time around.  I told him it didn't mean anything if he kept choosing to be with someone else.  But, of course that falls on drunk ears.  Somehow on New Years I find myself going out with him and Jones.  I should have probably forfeited my night away from Luci, but I stayed with Lance instead.  

  Then, that horrible day happened.  Miss Dixie had fallen.  I had shown up to teach and she never came into the studio.  The door was locked connecting to her house.  I had to continue class, and worry, and call for help, and deal with students' questions.  As soon as I turned on my car to come home, I was calling him.  I found my self crying into his chest.  A place I kept coming back to over the next few weeks while I dealt with the added pressure at work.  He came by to see Luci and I on his lunches.  Called every night after the girls were asleep.  Usually to discuss the divorce plans.  Hanging up the phone with an 'I love you'  which felt natural and truthful in contrast to other people I had heard it from.  If only that was what mattered.  By the end of February he was "going to give it another try with Katrina".  He hoped I understood.  

  I told him that I understood, and I was proud of him for going back to his wife.  I didn't tell him he should have left me alone in the first place.  Or that I understood he had been with Katrina on Valentine's Day and didn't have the guts to tell me goodbye two weeks sooner.  I didn't tell him his "we can still be friends" speech was useless.  Not because we couldn't, but because his wife was about to make him fall of the face of the planet, again.  Never to speak to me... Until a year later when he called to say he had filed for divorce again.  I replied with a "that's nice", and I wasn't surprised when they were still married later on.  I've gotten the same call two more times.  The last time was the most recent Christmas debacle.  Involving Katrina aiming a shot gun at Lance's chest with baby girl (now 4) in the next room.    Right now, my guess is they are still miserably, hatefully married.  

  I needed him for some crazy reason 3 years ago.  Now, I know there is no way he could ever be what I needed.  And when I went through that Miss Dixie fall again only half a year later, the thought crossed my mind to call him.  I no longer needed him.  Or anyone to help me through.  I let my tears fall on my own chest.  

  Leah K.

  • 12:19 am
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