Page 39 of The Interview
“Thanks, Ash,” I say with a fake smile.
“And you let us all laugh and joke about it, take the piss out of you?” Kiki asks, her voice rising with every word.
“I didn’t want you to think of me as any more flawed,” I whisper, looking between my daughters. “I couldn’t even growyou inside me. I was already physically flawed. I didn’t want you, Dad, or anyone to think of me as mentally flawed, too.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Kitten,” Cam says, and I turn to watch him rake both hands through his hair.
I want to reach for him, tell him I’m sorry, but right now, letting go of the secrets of my past is more important.
“I knewI wasn’t perfect, but I wanted to be as perfect as possible for you four. For Dad, for my family, the world. Lu, you talk about people saying, ‘Oh, your poor mum lost everything’? Well, I hate that, too. I hate it now because it’s so not true, but I hated it then because I didn’t want to be that broken person. I couldn’t fix what I’d lost, couldn’t bring Sean, Beau, and Baby M back, but I could fix, or control at least, what kind of wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend everyone saw me as.”
Despite the weight they hold and the screaming in my head, silent tears track down my cheeks and puddle at the corners of my mouth. Silently, they drip from my chin onto my chest, and I’m not sure if I feel better or worse for letting them, my words, and my secrets free. For finally baring my soul, laying myself out in front of the people I love the most. People who thought they knew everything about me.
Staring across the table, I note Len and Marley are striking identical poses, both slumped back in their chairs, arms folded across their chests. My girls are sitting in a similar way. Ash is twisted to the side, knees pulled up to her chest. Jimmie’s knees are pulled up, too, her head resting on them as she stares down into her lap. I know without seeing her face that she’s crying, because that’s my Jim.
“I was taught coping methods back when I was in therapy,” I continue. “And they’ve mostly got me through life. Every now and then, if I’m stressed or emotional, it all goes to shit, but mostly, without medication, I’ve got it under control.
“Going back to what you said about me leaving Dad for Sean, Lu, yeah, I did. Sean was my obsession. I laid eyes on that boy when I was just eleven and decided he was the one. I planned our entire lives, our wedding, our house, our babies’ names. I obsessed over him till we became something somewhat resembling what you’d call official when I was thirteen or fourteen. When I was just sixteen, he asked me to be his wife. I went home to plan a wedding; he went to a hotel room and sniffed blow off a girl’s tits before getting arrested on a rape charge. The perfect life I’d planned, the wedding, the house, the babies… it was suddenly gone. Very publicly ripped out from under me.”
I take a large gulp of the red wine I’d switched to with dinner and debate how honest I want to be with my daughters. Finally, I think,fuck it, I’ve come this far.
“The only way I could survive that, to have control of a situation that was totallyoutof my control, was to cut Sean out of my life. To do that, I needed a new obsession, which was the gym and counting calories. As I’ve explained, that didn’t work out too well for me, so to stop everyone worrying about my reclusive behaviour, other than my obsession with the gym, I started clubbing. Ecstasy and cocaine soon became my new best friends, and just for a bit of fun, I added revenge sex into the mix.”
I pause, watching for judgment,something, some kind of reaction from my girls, but I get nothing.
“And then your dad swept in, scooped me up, and better than any therapy, he began to put all my broken pieces back together. He let me cry—something I hadn’t been able to do in such a long time. Thinking about it now, that was probably another control thing. But still, he held me.” I’m choking my words out around my sobs now, determined to voice them. “While I cried over another man, he held me. He fucking held me.”
Mirroring my friends sitting around the table, I pull my knees up, wipe my tears away on them, then rest my chin there as I try to explain where I think things went wrong with Cam and me on our first go around.
“He made me feel. I’d kept my heart behind a wall for four years, my emotions locked down so tightly I didn’t even know what made me happy at that stage. But Cam made me feel, and it terrified me. Not feeling for him, your dad, that didn’t terrify me. It was not being in control of what I felt… I wasn’t ready to let my walls down, to let him in. At least that’s what I told myself, so I started to pull away.
“Then, one night, after me and your dad had a silly row about something, I stormed off.”
“As you tend to do.” Lu can’t help but get another jab in.
“As I tend to do, I stormed off, went to Jim’s, and Sean answered the door. As much as you’re gonna hate hearing this, his being there felt right. It felt perfect. I literally fell into his arms and the fairy tale life I’d had snatched away from me, suddenly, once again became a possible reality.”
I take a turn at meeting the eyes of everyone in the room before finally looking up to meet those of my husband.
“But I never forgot what I felt for your dad, and over the years, with age and experience, I realised that Ihadloved him, but I’d been so wholly obsessed with Sean, I hadn’tallowedmyself to feel or acknowledge the fact.” I stare at Cam as I speak before turning to face everyone sitting around my table.
“I loved Sean, but I also loved your dad, and I don’t care what anyone says about the rules that this or that is impossible, but I was, and still am, in love with two men, and one does not, in any way, detract from the other. I’ve been blessed to have two true loves, two soulmates, and I won’t ever let anyone make me feel less than for that. I will also never, not ever, let anyone make your dad feel like second best because of it, because it’s simplynot true. I do my best every fucking day. I do my best to make sure your dad knows that.”
The room again falls silent. The only sound coming from the hidden sound system is Elton John’s “Your Song”.
“Do you know it?” Lu questions Cam, still not ready to let it go. I hate that she doubts me but love how fiercely defensive she is of her dad.
“Unequivocally,” is his immediate response.
“You know that counts for all of us, right?” Marley says, and I’m not sure if he’s talking to me, Cam, or Lu. “I know Maca was, is, whatever the fuck he is to all of us, but that doesn’t mean we don’t love you, Cam. That we don’t consider you as much a part of this family as he was.”
Cam stills beside me. Jimmie glances his way, and even though I can’t see him, I know something just passed between them.
“What?” I ask, feeling oddly paranoid about the unspoken exchange I know has just occurred between my husband and oldest friend.
Jimmie shrugs her shoulders. “I’ve not said a word,” she states.
I look up to see Cam give a slow nod before letting out a deep sigh. “I questioned earlier whether you lot love me, or what-the-fuck-ever, or if you’re just grateful that I swooped in and saved Georgia.”
