I think I read once that it's important for human beings to keep anniversaries. We celebrate and remember the days that loved ones are born, or die, or whatever. I think women do this more than men, but I don't have the statistical data to back that up. So for me, I will always remember June 10, 2000, June 29, 2002, July 5, 2007, and April 25, 2008 as, respectively, the two best and two worst days of my life.
On June 10, 2000, I was waitressing at a pizzaria where my aunt worked as the cook. I was on summer break after my first year of college, and looking to earn a little extra pocket money. It was a Saturday night, but the dinner crowd had just left and there was only one remaining table. I heard the bell over the front door ring and what I took for three teenagers -- two boys and one girl -- walked in. They sat in the back and I got them menus and took their order.
The girl looked familiar but I couldn't remember where I'd seen her before. I was furiously trying to figure it out when she asked me if I was still dating Nate. Then I remembered. She was one of my ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriends. I had met her at his graduation party. Still furiously searching my brain for her name, I answered her question. "No. I broke up with him in January." The truth is that it was a horrible relationship. He was (and probably still is, if he's not a "Darwin Award Recipient" by now) the most moronic person I have ever known and quite possibly the most moronic person in the State of Pennsylvania. More on him later. The girl (re)introduced herself, but not the two boys she was with.
Leaning in conspiratorially, she added, "The reason I ask about Nate is because my brother thinks you're cute and wants your phone number." In an uncharictaristically bold move for me, I leaned in and asked, "Really? Who's your brother? I don't think I met him." When she pointed to the boy seated across from her I felt my face turning eight shades of pink and mumbled something about having to get back to work.
A week later, Michael and I went on our first date. My mother urged caution. I had dated Nate off-and-on since 9th grade, and had never had another serious boyfriend. She and I had a nice, long talk about it and she pointed out that just because two people go on a date does not mean they have to instantaneously become a couple. Ten seconds into our first date, I gave Michael the same speech. Two years later, we were married. That was the other "best day of my life".
Undeniably, the worst day of my life to date was only a short while ago, but the events that led up to it began last August. I had a friend named Jamie, not to be confused with another friend, Jaimi. Jamie is later referred to as "the evil friend Jamie". You will soon see why.
Last August, I was working second shift as a CNA (So, I still haven't "found my calling". So sue me.) at a live-in care facility. I was due in November with our third child. My husband was unemployed, having been laid off when the company he was working for left the area. They offered him a nice severance package and he decided to use the oppurtunity to go back to college. He was genuinely excited about it -- he even bought a new computer with part of his refund check -- and was starting that coming Monday.
That Saturday night, I got a phone call at work telling me there was a family emergency and I needed to come home right away. Thinking the worst, I called home before leaving work. Michael said that Jacob, our first-born son, who was four at the time, had just bitten Jane, our daughter, who was not yet two. I thought, "That's not too bad." but I cleared it with the nurse in charge and came home. "Biting" does not begin to describe what our son had done. Her back was red, and bruised. He had broken the skin in two places but the bleeding wasn't bad. I stopped counting bite marks after 25. Mike wanted to take her to the emergency room but I pointed out that there was nothing they could do there that we couldn't do ourselves. I washed her back, then patted it dry, and slathered on the antibiotic ointment. I put her in a one-sie and gave her some baby Tylonol, then put her to bed. I asked him what had happened. He said that he had put her and Jake in their bedroom for a nap before dinner, turned on the baby monitor, and come downstairs. He was having some difficulty with his new computer and was "tinkering" while the kids were asleep. He got absorbed in his work and realized that dinner time had passed, so he was going to load up the kids and go to McDonald's. He walked upstairs, calling, "Jacob? Do you want to go to McDonald's?" That was when he saw the blood.
To this day, he insists that he didn't hear her cry. I myself had laid the kids down and heard them cry, but walked away, knowing that they wouldn't sleep with me standing right there. I myself had left the kids in the house unattended for two or three minutes (to take out the trash, to carry in the groceries, etc). I asked Michael if any of this had been the case. Perhaps he had washed the dishes and couldn't hear her over the machine. Maybe he had even nodded off at the computer screen. He kept saying, "No. I was awake. I was listening through the monitor. I swear I didn't hear her cry. Not even once." I offered numerous explanations to the authorities when Michael was prosecuted for neglect. Since most of the bite marks were on her back, perhaps her face was in a pillow or blankets as she was bitten. Maybe, just maybe, she really didn't cry at all.
When he was formally charged with child abuse, I went to a lawyer. We had just had both kids tested for developmental delays. They are both autistic. Jake's repeated biting was because he literally didn't realize he was hurting her, and Jane didn't cry because she literally didn't feel the pain. She is sensation-seeking, and bangs her head off of walls, doors, and the floor. She has since been seen to bite her own arms and fingers, pull her hair, and otherwise inflict what would be pain on herself. She's not masochistic. She just doesn't feel it as pain. And Jacob is not a sadist. He just engages in repetitive activities sometimes without realizing what he's doing. This was the first time Jake had ever attacked his sister. At the time of the attack, we didn't know about the autism. Michael was still charged. I learned that day that even though audial supervision is acceptable for most kids, mine need visual supervision at all times. That still wasn't the worst day of my life. It wasn't even the second worst.
So, we had a problem: the State said that we needed "proper supervision". I had a friend who I thought might help. Jamie was someone I knew loosely from college. She had been engaged to another friend of mine, and two years before, the two of them had lived in our spare room for a time. However, they had broken up just months after getting their own apartment. He had moved in with his mother, and she had moved in with some other friends from college. As of last August, she still hadn't found a job and needed to get one soon. I invited her to move in with us again. She could use my car to go job hunting. Until she found a job, she could watch the kids in exchange for room and board. I might even be able to pay her a little. At least she could use our attic instead of forking over $2/day for a storage locker. She moved into our utility room, just down the hall from the other bedrooms.
Having her around certainly made life easier. I was still responsible for the kids when I was home during the day, but she made nice dinners for the kids so they wouldn't always be eating take-out, hot dogs, and cereal for dinner. At Christmas, though, when we were all at Mike's mom's house, I ended up sitting with the kids (as there was only one guest room and we were all sleeping together). The kids were asleep and the young adults were in the garage drinking. Mike's brother invited me to join them but I declined. Someone had to stay with the kids. Jamie was there, but she was drinking. Since I was now nursing a newborn, I wasn't going to drink anyway, so I may as well be the odd man out. I woke up with Michael next to me, and Jamie on the other side of him. I let him sleep while she and I packed up the stuff and the kids. Then we loaded up for the five-hour drive home.
As anyone who has ever had a baby knows, nursing can be exhausting. Since I was the only one working to pay bills, I often worked 16-hour shifts, then slept for a few hours, then worked another double. Michael and I hardly ever saw each other over the next few months. On my nights off, I would ask Jamie to watch the kids so that Michael and I could go out, but we had a heck of a time finding things we both wanted to do. He had more in common with Jamie, who at least would watch horror movies with him, than he did with me. I e-mailed a friend saying how nervous I was having an attractive, intelligent woman living right down the hall. He reminded me that I too was attractive and intelligent, and that Michael adored me. I had nothing to worry about.
We went out to dinner one night and I said that I felt we were drifting apart. He said he felt it too, and that I was working too hard, getting too "pent up" and not getting enough time out of the house and away from the kids. He essentially ordered me to go out and have fun at least one night a week. I said that we needed to talk more. We had been married for over five years and now had three beautiful children, but we hardly even spoke to each other. No marriage is perfect, and every relationship needs work.
He and I agreed to work out our problems. He had already been sleeping with Jamie for the past two months.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment