The Selfish One by Lisa Moreno

The Selfish One

"Selfish!  Selfish!"  Greg yelled, waving his golf club around like a maniac.  The foursome in front of him was playing too slowly for his purposes and hadn't offered to let him and his partner walk through.

            "There's that character again," said one of the men, a retired minister.  And the foursome played on, at the same pace, as if Greg didn't even exist.

            Greg Hoover was indeed a character.  A former alcoholic and heroin addict turned social worker who still gulped down Vicodin by the handfuls, he had picked up the "selfish" concept from Alcoholics Anonymous while trolling for women.  Everybody was just selfish, that is if they didn't do exactly what he expected or wanted them to do.

            His partner, Ray O'Brian, said "Thanks, Greg.  Now they'll just slow down even more -- on purpose.  You just pissed them off."  Ray was one of the few people Greg had any respect for.  In fact, as far as anyone knows, he was the only person.

            Greg had spent his youth as a total hedonist.  His life revolved around sex and drugs.  Girls were in and out of his life, but none of them meant anything to him.  Sure, he had some longer relationships, three or four years here and there, but he was never monogamous.  Sadly, a few of the young ladies actually loved him deeply in spite of the fact that he was a narcissistic asshole and treated them like slaves.  If ever one strayed away, he would pursue her as if she were the only woman in the world until she came back,,. just to prove he could get her back.

            Thirty years and two marriages later, Jillian still carried a flame for him, even though he had dumped her for a prostitute when she was 19. They had started dating when she was 14 and he was 19.  Her father, who must have been out of his mind himself, let the young lovebirds come live with him after Jillian's mother threatened Greg with statutory rape charges.

            She would speak of him often, constantly reminding me that she had lost her virginity to him.  "He wrote me the most romantic sonnets and read them to me as we sat in our favorite spot in the woods," she would say.  If she had told me that once, she had told me a thousand times.  "He didn't always act like this," she would add.  "It's the drugs; they destroyed his brain."

            "Acting like this" meant pursuing a woman, conquering her, treating her like dirt, then pursuing another woman. 

            "He dumped you for a prostitute, Jillian, " I always reminded her.

            "Oh, that was later.  We had the best relationship in the world for years," she explained over and over again.  "He didn't start doing stuff like that until he got into the heroin."

            "Yeah.  Meanwhile he turned you into a raging alcoholic by the age of 17, got you pregnant and made you get an abortion, and talked you out of your dream of going to college to be a veterinarian."  I would tell her.

            The truth is, in spite of his belief that everyone just loved him so, she was probably the only person in the world who still gave a damn about him.  Not to mention that she was also hooked on painkillers, so the two would share whatever they could get their hands on.  All these years later, it was still about getting fucked up one way or another. 

            Greg was spoiled, but he didn't grow up that way. Although his family had money, a lot of money, his childhood was miserable.  Both parents were simply upper class drunks, with his mother throwing in an addiction to painkillers.  They fought in front of him constantly.  Late nights of drinking and fighting would lead to oversleeping; Greg would get up and go next door, where a kindly neighbor would feed him breakfast with her children and make sure he got to school on time. 

            As he grew older, he adopted his parents ' behaviors, and they didn't notice because they pretty much ignored him completely.  By the time they divorced and, eventually got themselves straight, it was too late for Greg.  He was not only using drugs, but also dealing them.  He was, in fact, the first person in Columbia, South Carolina to get arrested for selling marijuana.   His mother ended up worshipping him, but he didn't give a damn about her.  His father despised him for the loser he had become, yet Greg idolized him.

            But, before learning any of this information, I was one of the women Greg managed to ensnare. After hearing about me from a mutual acquaintance, he tracked me down through my first husband's obituary.  When he told me this, he laughed and declared, "I'm going straight to hell when I die!" 

Oh, he was charming at first, downright suave.  He wanted to spend time with me; he wanted to spend time with my son.  And, since he didn't work because he had a supposedly hefty trust fund to live off of and was studying for his Social Work degree part time, he had plenty of time to spare. 

            Before long his true colors came through.  "Will you come over and watch a movie with me?"  I would agree, but then he would call back.  "Can you go to Food Lion and get me some milk, bread, and bologna?"  I didn't mind this.  But when he started demanding I clean his house, which never got dirty because he lived there alone, rarely left his bedroom, and never cooked, I was history, but there was something tragic about him that caused me to remain friends.

            Maybe it was the way he would lie around in his long-dead father's robes and slippers and wear his old pants to go golfing.  Maybe it was the pitiful calls he would make when he wasn't getting attention from anyone.  Or maybe it was just because I knew he was putting on a mask for the rest of the world to hide what he really was - a miserable, lonely, sickly hermit.  Yes, his evil ways had pushed most everyone away at some point.

            Ironically, however, it was through him that I met Jillian, who would become my best friend, and Ray, who would become my husband (much to Greg's dismay).  He had lost me and was in the process of pursuing me again when I met Ray at his house.   Greg was ill, and I had been nice enough to pick up a prescription for him; Ray was dropping off some homemade chicken noodle soup. 

            Oh, Greg remained a character in our lives long after Ray and I were married.  He may have lost me, but damn it, he wasn't giving up his golfing partner.  Every Saturday, Greg would take my husband for the morning.  According to Ray, Greg cheated his way through every hole.

            "He must carry 20 clubs in that bag.  The limit is 14," Ray came home and told me one day.  "And he shaves points.  He thinks I don't notice."

            "Why don't you call him out on it?"  I asked.  I was in my underwear washing dishes.

            My husband was kinder than I would have been, saying, "Nah, it doesn't make a difference in his score.  But then, he lies about that, too."

            "Doesn't sound like much fun to me," I told Ray, secretly wishing he would just stay home on Saturdays.

            So, Ray continued to play golf with him, religiously.   And the stories came home with him.

            One of my favorites was about Charles the duck.  I had known that Greg took crackers to the course with him to feed a duck, but it was Ray who told me the whole story. 

            Charles was a duck that had taken up with the geese on the golf course.  Why he didn't like the other ducks was a mystery, but he chose to hang out with the geese.   Unlike the geese, however, Charles liked to beg food off of the golfers.  Greg claimed full responsibility for the naming and taming of "Charlie," as he called him.  But, Greg had to take credit for everything.  He was insidious on so very many levels. 

            Yes, everything revolved around Greg, at least in his own mind.  He would spend 30 minutes standing in front of the mirror in his dark bedroom trying to arrange his hair just right.  It was fine, thin, and, in my opinion, poorly cut.  No matter what he did to it, it looked the same.  Dull and lifeless.  But, in reality, Greg was dull and lifeless, too.

            Greg's life revolved around a big lie; he tried to seem important, wealthy, and socially liberal.  Outwardly, he supported women's rights, gay rights, and civil rights.  In reality, he thought himself to be superior to all of these groups - and most anybody else, for that matter. 

            One of the most disgusting things he would do is share the stories of his clients with anyone willing to listen.  He would go into vivid detail about their marital problems, which particularly disgusted a psychiatrist he played golf with from time to time.

            "That's not right, Greg.  You shouldn't be sharing that information with anyone, even on the premise of getting my feedback.," he finally told him.  After that, he lightened up a little, but not completely. 

            When a man shot his wife and killed his father-in-law in a mall parking lot, he actually called to tell me that they were his clients.   I commented, "Well, it must not have worked out to well."  Then I added, "It's none of my business, anyway" before he could go into further detail.

It was a way to brag on himself, even if he was failing at the counseling.  Of course, we all wondered how a man who had never been married and never had a child had ended up counseling couples and children.  The thought of him advising children and teens horrified us all.

You see, he hated children.  He had no patience with them whatsoever.  If a woman had a child but had somehow come into his sights, it was a strike against her that would eventually become a point of contention.  After all, he wanted undivided attention.

He attended various churches, not for the fellowship or the messages, but to meet women.  And he looked for the weak and vulnerable, as I was when I met him. Karma is hell, though.  Oh, he believed in all that stuff - karma, transcendental meditation, etc., but he didn't practice it.  It was just another way to be different than everyone else.

            Greg kept coming down with various ailments.  Bizarre things, like an ankle swelling so badly that fluid started to leak out.   Whatever pain he claimed to be in became worse to the point we all believed him for a change. 

            Eventually, he went into renal failure.  And it was at that point he had to admit he had Hepatitis C.  Still, he lied about that.  He would tell one person that he'd known about it only three years, someone else heard him tell a doctor ten . . . we all wondered just when he would start telling the truth.

            But, when he had found out, he had not gone through the treatment because he had heard it was agonizing.  This may be true, but it also saved your life.  Besides, nothing could compare to the agony he went through when he finally started dying.

            He was in and out of the hospitals, any hospital, until some refused to see him anymore or give him any more prescriptions.  He mainly went in to get painkillers and tranquilizers and then left against medical advice, once wearing nothing but a hospital gown.

            All of his pride and vanity were a thing of the past by 2009.  Oh, he was still mean, and he would still lie.  Once, while recovering from a drug overdose, which may have been intentional, Jillian went to see him in the hospital.  She said that he would say things, some bizarre, and then add, "You know I'm lying."  She told him that he had been lying his entire life.

            When he was between hospital visits, he would call us, often in the middle of the night, begging for painkillers or tranquilizers.  We didn't have any, and we told him that repeatedly.  We finally had to start taking our phone off the hook before we went to bed.

            But it was the overdose that, in a way, caused the doctors to feel some mercy.  They had been limiting his pain medication because of his history of addiction and abuse.  However, while he was unconscious, they managed a liver biopsy and an MRI of his abdomen.  He had cancer everywhere.  His pain had been real.  They kept him there a few more days, then released him to go home with a hospice nurse and enough pills to satisfy even him. 

            Jillian stayed devoted to him.  She became his Power of Attorney, Medical Power of Attorney, and Executrix of his will.  She visited almost daily, bringing groceries, prescriptions (which she was helping herself to), or whatever he needed.  He continued to be mean to her, the hospice nurse, and anyone else trying to help him.

            She did finally ask him, "How long have you really known this, Greg?  That you had Hepatitis C?"

            "Fourteen years," he admitted.

            "So, you mean to tell me that you have been exposing women to this virus for fourteen years without warning them?  You mean you exposed me, too?"

            "It's hard to catch.  The risk is minimal," he replied.

            "I don't care how minimal it is.  That was just wrong!"

            For the next few months they engaged in this danse macabre that was worse than any soap opera I had ever seen.  They would fight, make up, then fight again.  She would call us, flipping out, because of something new that would crop up - liver failure, fluid in his abdomen, and so on.  I said, "Yes, he's dying.  Things like this will happen.  You keep acting like he will mysteriously recover."  But Jillian had to make everything very dramatic, and she got on everyone's nerves doing so.

            Finally, the time came for inpatient hospice.  In one final act of cruelty, he forbid Jillian to see him.  He ordered the staff not to give her any information.  She wouldn't know anything until it was over and she would take over as Executrix. 

            For three days, she was nearly out of her mind.  She did get reports from a few friends that dropped in to see him, but, sure enough, she didn't hear from the facility until December 26, 2010.  He had died, heavily medicated and resting comfortably.

                                                ______________________________

            I attended Greg's funeral, along with maybe 30 other people who felt like they needed to make an appearance.  Only one cousin showed up; the rest of his family didn't seem to care about anything until they heard that they were not in his will.  Then they demanded this and that, sued the estate, called Jillian and blamed her for things - you name it.  And, as mad as I was at him for all that he'd done to people, especially knowingly exposing women to Hep C, I felt sorry for him.  This was the family that produced the wickedness that was Greg Hoover.

First Flight by Lisa Moreno

Between the classes I was taking and the classes I was teaching, I was exhausted by that Friday.  I decided to skip the bank and deposit my measly paycheck on Monday.  I just wanted to rest.  Eduardo had Collin for the weekend, per our temporary custody arrangement, so I could just go home and crash.  I fully intended to keep my mind clear for two whole days.  I wasn’t going to worry about the divorce and the custody argument, which constantly preyed on my thoughts; I was going to be all about me.

            I went inside and made a sandwich before settling on the sofa to watch some TV.  I quickly found myself lost in the news of the world, particularly the situation with Elian Gonzalez.  That whole story hit a little too close to home.  After all, Eduardo was born in Cuba, and he seemed to feel that men should do all the decision-making.  As a result, our divorce was dragging out into eternity.  I knew in my heart he didn’t want custody or our almost four-year-old son.  He wanted control and control alone. 

            I must have drifted off to sleep around 3:00, because I looked at the clock when the phone rang, and it was almost 5:00.  I was irritated that my much-needed sleep was interrupted, most likely for something unimportant. 

            “Hello.”  I answered, feeling somewhat dazed.

            “It’s me.” said Eduardo in a husky voice.  It almost didn’t sound like him.  But his voice was getting rougher and rougher.

            My heart sank.  What was it going to be this time?  Had I sent the wrong clothes?  Had the daycare complained about something Collin had done that day?  What was it?  He usually didn’t call me when he had Collin, wanting to spend “quality time” with his son.  I grew to hate the phrase.  But when I had him, it was another story.  Call any time to bitch and moan and try to persuade me to just give in and give him primary custody. 

            “I have to talk to you in person,” he went on, “It’s important.”

            Jesus Christ, I thought.  Here we go again.  The “in person” sessions were particularly annoying.  It was harder for me to cover up the terrible anxiety I felt over the situation.  Yes, it was harder to hide that I was scared to death that I was going to lose my son.  All of my fears that he preyed upon were right there out in the open.

                                                 ----------------------------

            He was so surprised the day I called him at his office.  I had made a promise to myself to never call him there.  Part of the head games of dating, I suppose.  But I had big news.

“What’s the one thing you least expected at this point in your life?”  I asked, almost unable to contain my sheer joy. 

He guessed right the first time.  “A pregnancy.”

I noticed he didn’t answer with “a baby.”  I guessed it was hitting him too hard.  After all, he was 45 with a grown daughter.  Here I was at 29, with my whole life ahead of me. but shocked to be pregnant.  I had already had two surgeries for endometriosis, been warned I may never be able to conceive, and I was on the pill.  A baby had simply not been in the picture, at least not then.

“Yes!”  I exclaimed.  “I am on the way to Doctor’s Care now for a blood test, but the home pregnancy test is positive.  I even took it twice.” 

“Wow,” he mumbled.  “I guess we need to get together tonight to talk about this.  Call me when you get the blood test results, though.  I can’t talk now, I have a meeting with a client in a few minutes.”

Eduardo was a reasonably successful attorney.  He didn’t make a fortune, by any means.  He was a sucker for pro bono cases involving Mexicans who could barely afford food and clothing, much less a lawyer.  They needed his representation, though, and he always managed to fit them in.

“You’ll be the first to know,” I answered.  “I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

Actually, he wouldn’t be the first to know.  I was meeting my best friend, Jeanine, at the doc-in-a-box.  From there we were going to lunch.  The lunch part had been planned for several days.  The blood test was her idea, after a false negative home test with her first child.  She had predicted I was pregnant, convinced in spite of the negative test I had taken the month before, when I missed the first period.

Sure enough, I was pregnant.  The blood test confirmed it.  And with that knowledge, Jeanine and I ate our Chinese food in absolute silence, both wondering how things were going to work out. 

On the way home, Jeanine started talking.  I valued her opinion over anyone else’s.  Her daughter was also a surprise, but we were only 19.  “I don’t care what your mom or Eduardo think.  A baby is coming, so we might as well be happy!  Start getting ready now.   Every time you go to the store, buy diapers so you will have a stockpile.  We have to be practical here.”

            “Yeah, my mom is gonna die.”  I inserted.  “D-I-E!”

            “Well, I thought my mom would, but she’s still alive.  Hell, Hannah’s her favorite.”  Hannah was Jeanine’s first.  Then she had Brandon, and her sister had Katie. 

            “That’s true.”  I felt some consolation.  I had always heard that unexpected babies were the most loved.

            “Go ahead,”  Jeanine went on.  “Call your mom.”  She was already digging around in my purse for my cell phone.

            “Yes.  It’s better to do it from the car by phone than in person, I think.”  I laughed as I dialed my parents’ house.  I ended up breaking the news to everyone while driving from Lexington to Columbia.  And I made my plans with Eduardo, who already sounded less than enthusiastic.

                                                            _________________

            “What are the options?” he asked, peering over the table at the Italian restaurant I used to work at.

            “Well, I am having the baby.  No abortions.  You knew how I felt about that issue.”  I explained.

            “But I wasn’t expecting this.”

            “Well, neither was I, but you knew the rules of the game, and you chose to play.  For two years  before we started dating we debated every side of every ethical issue imaginable.  It was almost a mating ritual for us.”

            “Okay, it was just a thought.  You just don’t know how relieved I have felt to have successfully raised my daughter.  Now, she is on her own and I am – was – free.”

            “No one said you had to be involved in our child’s life.”

            “But I can’t have a child out there and not be involved.  That’s not what I want.  I didn’t mean I couldn’t handle the responsibility.  I just thought I was done with the responsibility.”

            I told him what Jeanine had said, about there being a baby coming and us needing to be happy about it.  He was far from happy, though.  I was simply feeling nervous, like I am sure every first-time mother feels on finding out she is pregnant. 

            We had a wild evening before it was said and done.  I figured it was too early in the pregnancy to worry much about drinking, so both of us ended up having a few too many.  We started laughing about what different people we knew were going to say, like the mutual friend who had introduced us and pretty much pushed us together, in spite of the fact we were different in so many ways.

            Back at my apartment, we both fell asleep on the sofa.  At some time during the night, he moved to the bed.  When he got up around 7:00, I had been sitting on the sofa for two hours, staring out over the Columbia skyline and wondering what on earth was going to happen to my baby and me.  He came in and kissed me on the cheek.  “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said.  “You can do this.”

                                                _____________________

The next eight months flew by, with the exception of having morning sickness all day long.  We had parents and friends to deal with at first, and everyone had an opinion.  I had girlfriends try to talk me into an abortion.  One told me of her sister’s friend who couldn’t have children; she’d practically arranged the adoption for us by the time she told me about it.  I stuck to my guns though.  I was 29 and almost had a Master’s Degree.  I could take care of a child, with or without a man, regardless of what people thought.

Eventually, I moved in with Eduardo at his house.  That was good enough for me.  He would be able to be there during the rough times . . . the sleepless nights, colic, diaper changes. 

I was comfortable enough with that plan.  I was pretty healthy during the pregnancy.  We had our girl name and boy name picked out, not knowing the gender because they couldn’t tell at the 16 week ultrasound.  But a routine visit to the doctor threw a wrench into things.  At seven months, I was measuring small.  They suspected intrauterine growth retardation.  I was petrified as they swabbed my belly with gel for an emergency ultrasound.  And I had no one with me.

After just a few seconds, the technician said, “This baby is fine.  It looks like a 6 ½ or 7 pounder.”  Then she went on, “Do you want to know the gender?”  I was beside myself.  I was dying to know the gender!  I had felt like it was a boy the whole time.  But that would beat the odds in Eduardo’s family.  From three sons my mother-in-law had five granddaughters, two step granddaughters, and a great-granddaughter on the way.  These men simply didn’t produce male offspring.

“Yes!”  I exclaimed, both relieved that the baby was okay and excited about what I was about to learn.  “Do tell me!”

She moved the sensor around to the other side of my stomach.  As she started to fill in the gender blank, I could clearly see Collin’s balls right between his buttocks.  Before she could tell me, I told her, and she confirmed I was right.  I was thrilled.  I could barely wait for her to wipe my stomach off so I could get dressed and start letting people know.

I tried to call Eduardo, but he wasn’t at work and didn’t answer his cell.  I searched my wallet until I found the pager number that was only supposed to be for emergencies.  I paged him, and he called me back from the law library at USC.  “I need to see you now.  It’s important.”  I didn’t want to scare him, but I didn’t want to give it away over the phone.  Fortunately, I was close by, and I met him in the parking lot.

I presented him with a blurry photograph that had the my name, Lovett, and the word male typed on it.  He looked surprised.  “How can they tell from this?  I can’t see a thing!”  He was so excited that the hand holding the picture was shaking.  I turned it around and showed him his son’s testicles.  He finally got it, or at least pretended to, and he hugged me.

“The vessel,” he said.  I think he meant well, but something about being only a vessel bothered me.  It was my son, too.  I was the one going through hell at the time as both my temperature and the July temperatures outside kept rising.

“Yes,”  I said.  “I told you it was a boy.”

We laughed awhile, but he had to go back in to work on his case.  We made dinner plans, and I went to my parents’ house to tell them.  Even they thought I was having a girl.

                                     ________________________

That night at dinner, Eduardo looked particularly dashing.  Although 45 years old, he didn’t look a day over 30.  He took good care of himself, ate wisely, and exercised frequently.  He had an occasional drink or cigarette, but otherwise had no bad habits.

He was very calm and charming as usual.  But there was something different that night.  Something I couldn’t put my finger on.

All of a sudden he looked at me and said, “I guess we should get married.”

I was taken totally off guard.  His mother and mine had both been pushing for this, but we had remained adamant that we didn’t have to follow convention.  Besides, who would I be fooling at my size?  I almost choked on my garlic and artichoke heart pizza, one of my frequent cravings.

“But I thought . . .”

He interrupted me.  “No, I mean it.  I want to get married.”  He added, “It’s the right thing for Collin.  It’s the right thing for us.”

I didn’t cry or carry on like I always thought I would when this moment came.  I was too shocked.  Never had two people been more determined not to get married than us.   I think I also knew that it just wasn’t what I wanted to do.  Not in my heart.  Something just wasn’t there.

“Okay.”  I said.  I figured I had just better go along and make everyone happy.  That’s how I had been my entire life:  make everybody happy even at my own expense.

                        ________________________________

It was a small, simple wedding at one of his lawyer friend’s office.  It wasn’t romantic.  I had to sign a prenuptial agreement; you’d have thought I was marrying Donald Trump.  We said our vows, had some champagne, and took everyone in attendance, which was only family and a couple of friends, to Garibaldi’s for dinner.  I was eight months pregnant, a few days more actually.

Marriage didn’t suit me.  It didn’t suit Eduardo.  Perhaps his attitude towards it influenced mine.  Suddenly, I felt like I had to answer to someone else, like I had felt when I was a teenager.  I loved my freedom.  I loved living alone in my one bedroom apartment.   All I needed was my cat. 

About 20 days later around 11:00 p.m., while Eduardo was out with friends, something he was doing more and more even though I was about to go into labor, the contractions started.  They didn’t start out mild and far apart.  I was basically in full labor by the time I got in touch with him to tell him to come home.  I called the doctor who told me to try to make it until 8:00, when he could see me in his office.  I paced around the house and dealt with the pain until time to go to the doctor.  They sent me home because I wasn’t dilated.

Going back and forth to the hospital and doctor’s office --- it went on for three days.  I was about to lose my mind.  I thought I’d never get admitted.  Finally, on Saturday August 10 at 5:30 a.m., I was admitted.  Collin was born seven hours later by c-section.

As soon as we got Collin home, I became fully aware of why I had had that gut feeling about our marriage.  It was a sham.    I was a mother, wife, housekeeper, cook, and full-time grad student.  I didn’t have time to breathe.  I developed a horrible case of postpartum depression.  Everything about life became one melancholy blur.  And, when I was about to graduate with my Master’s, I finally moved out.  Collin was 18 months old.

Because he was an attorney, I had trouble finding someone to represent me.  He immediately started in on me about my mental state and fitness as a mother.   I felt like the whole marriage had been an experiment to drive me crazy, and it just about had.  What nerves were left were shredded as the divorce proceeded.  Lawyers and legal bills.  Marriage counselors and shrinks.  It was hell.  Plus, I had my first teaching job at a school for special needs students.  I had not been trained to teach special needs students.  Absolutely nothing was going right. 

I finally told a counselor at the psychiatrist’s office, “I feel myself pulling away from Collin, like I’ve already lost him.”  She looked at me, probably wondering along with me if I already had.

                                    _______________________

So, Eduardo was coming by at noon.  Once again, I assumed, the subject would be our three-year-old son and where and how he would live.  Eduardo was a control freak, as I had learned during and after our marriage.  He wanted to control everything . . . what I ate, what Collin ate, when laundry was done, how the shelves were lined up.  You name it, there was a rule, written or not. 

I showered and tried to not look so tired.  Leaving my job turned out to be the easy part.  Going back for my Ph.D. was kicking my ass.  As I put on my makeup, I felt myself holding back out of habit: Eduardo didn’t like a lot of makeup.  Oh, so many of his preferences were already ingrained in my everyday activities.  I would check things behind myself to make sure they were as they should be, even though he wasn’t there to tell me how they should be anymore.

I had composed myself and waited for the doorbell.  I remembered my last comment to him, as he was putting Collin in the car the week before.  “You’re not looking so good, Eduardo.  Your girlfriend must be taking a toll on you.”  I wasn’t lying.  His hair was graying overnight.  He looked weak.  Maybe the divorce was getting to him, too.

By 12:15, I was looking out of the window.  “Late as usual,” I thought.  Of course, all of the times he was late was carefully documented in several notebooks I had accumulated based on my lawyer’s instructions.  Soon I saw his Nissan Pathfinder pull up out front.  I met him at the door.

“Hi,” I said.  “Come on in.  Sorry, I am working on a paper and grading exams, so stuff is kinda strewn about.”

“No,” he replied. “I think I’d rather just sit on the porch.”

I offered him a Diet Coke, which he accepted  “Thank you, dear.”

“Dear?”  I thought.  “Where did that come from?”

We each chose a rocking chair and sat down.  We were separated by the steps, I guess in case someone needed to make a quick exit.

“How is school?”  he asked.  My future financial independence was of utmost importance to him.  He was fighting me tooth and nail over the 500 a month my attorney felt he owed me in child support.

“It’s fine.” I told him.  “I am making straight A’s again this semester.”  I added with pride.

“That’s good,”   he said.  “You’ll make a great professor.  You are so dedicated.”

I thanked him and asked him, “So, what’s up?”  trying to act calm and expecting to hear more crap about custody.

“Well, my back pain has gotten a lot worse.  I went to the doctor about it.”

“And . . . “  I said.

“And I have cancer.”

I coughed.  “What?”

“I have cancer.”

“So . . . “ I went on, not knowing what to say.  “What’s the treatment plan?  How are you going to get rid of it?”

“That’s just it, LeeAnne,” he paused for a second.  “I can’t.  It’s terminal.”

I don’t remember what I did next.  Apparently, I ran over, put my head in his lap, and started screaming over and over again.  At least, that’s what my neighbor told me. 

“What kind of fucking cancer is it?” I asked, my thoughts racing.  All I could do was wonder what the hell I was going to do.

“It’s everywhere,” he said.  “I have 27 tumors in my abdomen and liver.  They don’t know where it started.”

I don’t know how long he stayed or how long we talked.  I cried and cried, and so did he.  We both agreed we had not wanted things to end like this.  Poor Collin had no grandfathers, both were dead by this time.  Now he was going to lose his father.

“How long do you have?”  I dared to ask.

“With chemo and radiation, possibly a year,” he explained.

“God damn.”  I said.  “God damn.”

He hugged me and left.  It was the first time we had been civil to each other in months.  And it took death to bring us together?  That was sick on so many levels.  Hell, I had even wished it on him a few times, but I had never meant it.

Eduardo was dying.  There would be no more custody issues.  Someone much higher than any judge around here had already called that shot.

                         ______________________________

His best friend Barry called.  There had been no year.  There had not even been three months.  I had let Collin spend every possible minute with him.  He wasn’t quite four, but I wanted him to remember everything possible about his dad.

“He’s on a respirator now,”  Barry explained.  “He won’t be coming off.  You can visit him, but I wouldn’t advise you to bring Collin.”

“”No, never,”  I agreed.  “I wouldn’t want him to see that for anything.  As far as Collin is concerned, I guess he’s already gone.”

“Basically, yes.”  Barry agreed.

I went to see him at the hospital.  His eyes were no longer chocolate brown, but a putrid green.   He was in an induced coma, and all the signals started going off when I went in and spoke to him.  I don’t know what his reaction was, but he was reacting according to the nurse.

I was beyond tired at this point.  I wasn’t even exhausted; I was delirious.  I had kept up my studies and my duties as a teaching assistant at USC.  I wasn’t going to let my students down.  My professors were cutting me breaks, though.  Even when I had a chance to sleep or eat, I couldn’t.  I dropped 20 pounds in those months, and I may have gotten three hours of sleep a night.

Not considering myself to be his wife anymore, I backed off and let his family take care of him and whatever needed to be done.  I just did what was asked of me, dropping everything at a moment’s notice.

Collin supposedly didn’t know what was happening.  Eduardo wanted it that way.  He didn’t want Collin to know he was dying.  That put a huge burden on me, but I agreed to his wishes.  Collin wasn’t stupid; in fact, he was a very bright child.

I disagreed with some of the things his family did, and occasionally said so.  This didn’t make things easier, but I knew Eduardo better than his brothers and nieces died.  As for my grown stepdaughter, she showed her ass the entire ten weeks.  I got blamed for everything from him getting hiccoughs to the fact that he had cancer. 

One night, when Collin was sleeping with me, he woke me up in the middle of the night in a panic.

“What’s wrong, baby?”  I asked.

He grabbed my hand and looked at it.  “Mommy, you don’t have feathers.”

“Of course not silly,” I said.  “People don’t have feathers.”

“Daddy does.  On his hands.  I’ve seen them,”  he said, still holding my hand.  “He’s growing wings.”

“What?”  I asked.  I wondered if someone had told him something.  I said, “What have people been saying about Daddy?”  I hoped to get some information, but it’s hard to get much out of a three year old.

“Nothing,” he replied.  “Daddy just doesn’t feel good. sometimes”  Then he turned over and went back to sleep.

                                    _________________________

The call came just as I was walking back in the house from taking out the garbage.  Eduardo had been on the respirator and life support for five days.  Even though I was skipping my office hours that day, I sent Collin to daycare to give myself a break. 

Again, it was his best friend.

“Yeah, it’s Barry,” he said when I answered the phone.  “It’s over.”

I cried, as I knew I would but hoped I wouldn’t.  “Was it peaceful?”  I asked.  I had watched my dad wince and moan in pain the night he succumbed to cancer. 

“Yes,” answered Barry.  “They had him heavily medicated.”

“Good.  I wouldn’t want any more pain.”  I had seen his pain medications go up in strength over the past few weeks until he was finally on a drip at the hospital.  He had stopped making sense two weeks before.

“Well, Barry,” I went on.  “I need to go.  I know you have other people to call.”  I tried to sound as if I were doing him a favor by not making him talk to me.  But the truth is, I didn’t want to talk.

I sat on the back steps, crying and smoking cigarettes.  Thank God for Xanax. It was the only thing between me and absolute insanity.  I would pay a price for it later, but for now it was all that kept me going.

I called the daycare and told them I was coming to pick Collin up.  I didn’t tell them why, but they did know Eduardo was dying.  They probably assumed the worst.

When I got there, I checked in with the front desk, then I went and got my baby.  I was so scared.  After all, it was only going to be him and me from now on.  I was so sad and so scared, but I  pulled myself together before walking into his classroom.  I just looked at his teacher and nodded.  She knew what I meant.

I took Collin home, and we read his favorite book.  It was a picture book someone created using Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”  We read that book every night.

Finally, I had to tell him.

“Collin, do you know what angels are?”  I asked.

“Yes,” said Collin. “They are the people who live with God up in the sky.”

“Okay,” I went on, “That’s right.  I have something important to tell you about angels, Collin.  Are you ready.”

He folded his hands in his lap and replied, “Okay.”

“Daddy is an angel now.  You won’t be seeing him anymore.  He’s gone to live with God.”

Collin looked at me quizzically.  Then he stood up and put his hands on my shoulders.

I shed a tear, and I know he saw it.  But before I could wipe it away, he was up and moving already.  He was running around the room in circles, his arms waving like wings, like he was flying with Daddy.

The Chest by Lisa Moreno

I was about 12 years old when my parents finally decided it was time to open the chest.  I had been asking them about it for years.  It was an old cedar chest that had been in our basement my entire life.  I knew it had belonged to my sister, who would have been 21 years older than I had she lived.  But, succumbing to encephalitis that developed from a bad case of the measles, she died when she was three.

The chest was always a mystery to me. Our washer and dryer were in the basement, so I saw it frequently.  When I was really young, I actually thought my sister was buried there, as if it were her coffin.  Later I learned that it held some of her belongings that my parents saved.  And I wanted to see them. 

It was a Saturday when Daddy finally said, “I’m going to bring Susan’s chest in.  The thing is falling apart and her stuff is going to ruin, if it hasn’t already.”

Momma looked sad and nervous.  “This is going to be hard to do, Henry.  There are things in there I haven’t thought about for over 30 years.  I’m not sure I’m ready.”

“Oh, please Mom!”  I begged.  “I really want to see what’s inside.”

“No, today is the day, Jewell.  “It’s falling apart down there,” my father replied.  “Today is the day.”   He headed out the back door and down the steps.   Momma followed him, still looking concerned.

A few minutes later I heard them struggling to get it in the house.  Long before it had split open and begun to rot away, so they had to be very careful.  As they struggled with its bulk, I knew they must have been struggling to hold their hearts as well.  After all, it did contain memories they’d tried to store away 30 years before.  Memories I was worried about watching them deal with.  It was going to be sad.

Once it was in the house, they placed it on the kitchen floor.  The first problem we encountered was a lock that was too rusty to open, even if we had the key, which we didn’t.  Daddy went to the hall closet and returned with a hammer.

“This should do it,” he said, as he held the hammer about two feet above the chest.

“Do we have to do that?” Momma asked.  “It will ruin it.”

“Jewell,” he responded.  “Look at it.  It’s already falling apart.  Besides, this is the only way to get it open.”

“Well, okay.”  Momma replied.  “I guess you’re right.” 

It took about five blows with the hammer to break open the lock.  And when it broke, it shattered like glass leaving little fragments of metal and wood all over the floor.  Then, Daddy tried to open the lid.  It didn’t budge, even though there was a huge crack right down the middle.  It had become warped and swollen from the years of the dampness of the basement.

“Now what are you going to do?”  asked Momma.  “How do we get the lid off?”

Daddy replied, “The hammer.  I’ll tap it all along the edges.  That should loosen it up enough to take it off.  We may have to break the hinges, though.  They look as bad as the lock did.”

You could tell Momma regretted having to damage the chest any further.  But Daddy was right. It was already damaged beyond repair, and the only way to get into it was to pretty much tear it completely apart.

Daddy carefully tapped the hammer around the top of the chest, but it didn’t help.  He went back around it with more force.  Then, with two hard strikes, he smashed the hinges.  This time, when he went to pull the top open, there was a loud crack.  The lid came off in two pieces, which he leaned against the wall.

All of a sudden I was filled with emotion.  I finally could see the contents of the chest, which had haunted me since I was a toddler and first understood that I had a dead sister.  Yet, at this point, I felt like something wasn’t right about this.  Like I was intruding in a time and place that belonged solely to my parents. 

Daddy could tell I was upset, and he hugged me.  “It will be alright, baby,” he told me in a gentle voice.

The first thing Momma pulled out was a doll wrapped in a pink receiving blanket.  She handed me the doll, which I had known was in there, because I collected dolls.  It was a composition doll dressed in a white christening outfit complete with a bonnet.  Unfortunately, it too was severely damaged from age and dampness.  Her face had a crackled appearance, and that disappointed me.  It was also sad.  Here was Susan’s doll, something she probably treasured, and it was ruined.

“Oh no!”  I exclaimed.  “It’s all messed up!”

“That’s too bad, “ replied Momma.  “We made a mistake by storing these things down there as long as we did.”

I carefully placed the doll on the kitchen table thinking that it probably had been Susan’s only doll.  Momma was 18 when Susan was born; Daddy was 21.  They were, by any standard, poor.  I came along when they were 39 and 42.  Daddy was a train master with Southern Railroad, and I had not had to do without at all.    In fact, I literally had hundreds of dolls that they had given me as birthday and Christmas gifts.  Every Christmas morning I walked into the living room to find at least 10 Madame Alexander dolls under the tree.  I caught myself feeling angry at my parents for not taking care of something so important.   It was definitely a day of mixed emotions.

Momma held up the receiving blanket.  “We brought her home from the hospital in this.  Remember Henry?”

“ Yes, of course I do.,  he responded.

Everything else in the chest was either in boxes or wrapped in newspaper.  We came across a few more toys that had been carefully placed inside.  One by one we unwrapped them and placed them on the table.  There was a miniature rocking horse, a little plastic clown, a ball, a little stuffed dog, and, of course, a teddy bear.  These looked worn, but not from the years in the basement.  It was easy to see that they had been played with a lot. 

I tried to imagine my sister playing with these toys.  They had called her black-eyed Susan.   I had seen many pictures of her.   Like me, she had eyes so dark that they appeared black.  But her head was covered in ringlets, whereas I had long, straight hair.  She also had an olive complexion, like Daddy.  I had Momma’s fair skin and freckles.

While I looked over Susan’s treasures, Momma and Daddy had started opening boxes. 

“I remember this one,” Momma said, holding up a tattered dress.  It was white with big red polka dots.  She handed it over to Daddy asking, “Do you remember it?”

“Yes,” Daddy said.  “I can almost see her in it now. “

I noticed that his face had softened into sadness since we had opened the chest.  Momma had been the one I was worried about; she had been so hesitant to open it.  Now Daddy was the sad one.    I think Momma had put more energy into dreading it than she had put into what we were finding.  Daddy, on the other hand, was sentimental, like me.  This was getting to him.

A small box contained her birth announcement; a newspaper from October 1, 1945, the day she was born; cards of congratulations; her birth certificate; her footprints from the hospital; and similar items.   It held all of the things that proved her existence.

“We need to put these in a fireproof box.”  Momma said.  “This box is falling apart anyway.”

“Yes,” replied Daddy.  He was only halfheartedly listening as he read through some of the cards. 

Finally, there was only one box left.  “Are you ready?”  Daddy asked Momma.

“I think so.  It has to be done,” she replied.

Daddy placed the crumbling cardboard box on the table and opened it.  I saw why they had waited to open this one and why they dreaded it so.  It contained all of the evidence of her death.  There were at least 50 sympathy cards.  A letter from their family doctor was mixed in with the cards, expressing his sorrow that he had not been able to save her.  Her obituary was in there, as well. 

Finally, Daddy pulled out a poem about little girls and began to read it aloud.  But his voice cracked and the tears came quickly.   Momma took it from him and read it silently.  Then she offered it to me. 

I waved it away.  I didn’t want to be sad.  Actually, I was feeling rather happy, even though I felt sorry for Momma and Daddy.  That afternoon they were reminded of what and of whom they had lost.  It was different for me.  For, in that same afternoon, I had gained something.  Susan was no longer this ghost-like figure or angel that seemed to be in my family’s midst all the time.  She was a real person to me.  She truly was my sister now.