Release: Symbols of Love, page 33
“Kevin, it’s not dead. We have a family, we have Anthony, and we’ve built a life.”
As I say this, my heart knows it’s not true. But this was not supposed to happen. It can’t happen. This was everything I’d worked so hard to avoid.
I'm trying to remain calm. There has to be a resolution that doesn’t include him leaving me to go live with someone else.
“This life is a life you’ve built, Milly. I don’t want to live like . . . this.” He says the last word at me as his arm sweeps across our beautifully decorated bedroom, his eyes full of disdain as they follow the arc of his arm.
“Sex is boring, we don’t talk about anything but my job and Anthony. You’re totally consumed with us, you have nothing of your own, and I feel smothered.” He looks me up and down, his eyes narrowed, and then he shrugs.
“Your body is still nice, but I can’t get it up for you anymore. Haven’t you noticed?”
Every word a tiny prick, puncture, making holes in the integrity of my composure until I feel it start to falter.
Sex is boring?
Nothing of my own?
Can’t get it up for you anymore.
Haven’t you noticed?
These words ping around my skull like a metal ball in an arcade game, hitting all of my most sensitive places.
I flush, hot and hard. It’s true we haven’t had sex in a while, but honestly, I don’t mind. Sex had never been my favorite part of our relationship. I’d never had an orgasm with him inside me, and he didn’t like oral—giving or receiving—so it was usually over once he was done.
“Kevin, when we got married, this—” I sweep my arms out mimicking his earlier movement, “is what you wanted. Me at home while you went to work. I keep this house pristine, your son is happy, smart, and loving.”
“I noticed you skipped the sex part,” he says mockingly without turning around.
I glance down at my hands, folded in my lap and watch as the tears I didn’t even realize were falling land and run down my hands.
It’s Friday night and Anthony is out with my mother. Kevin waited for him to be gone so he could drop this nuclear bomb and then leave like the complete coward he is.
He grabs the last of his underwear from the drawer and the slam of it makes me look up again.
He continues talking without looking at me.
“You have that trust fund you haven’t touched in years, you can have the house, your car, and I’ll pay Ant’s tuition. But this is it, Milly.”
He says these things, these words that are like pieces of shrapnel tearing through the fabric of my life, like he's telling me that maybe I need a new car.
“Kevin.” My self-control disappears, my panic completely takes over, and I stand up and walk toward him.
I take him in as I approach. He shaves his head completely bald to hide a thinning crown, but it works. His mother’s Puerto Rican legacy left him with perpetually olive skin and thickly lashed, dark-brown eyes. He works out and is still as trim at thirty-three as he was at twenty-one. But now, I can’t see any trace of the handsome man I decided would make a good partner for me and a good father to my children.
I reach out and grab his arms, but he yanks out of my grasp.
“Listen, it’s too late for this shit, Milly. I’m sorry, but I'm not the man for you. Maybe I never was. I don’t know. But I'm done wasting my life with a woman who I don’t love and don’t even want to fuck anymore.”
I rear back as if he struck me.
“Kevin, how . . . ?” My question trails off; I don’t even know what I'm asking.
But, he seems to. And he straightens to his full height, his eyes meeting mine directly for the first time in a long time. They are full of so much contempt that I take a step back.
“I’ll tell you why, Milly. You’re pathetic. I bet the thing that bothers you most about what I just said is the word ‘fuck.’ You’re boring. And I don’t want to live in this pristine prison you’ve created. And now this shit with your father has given you baggage I just don’t want to be associated with.”
I feel like the entire foundation of my life has been pulled out from underneath me. My knees give out and I fall, gracelessly, to the ground. Kevin steps over me like I'm one of the dirty socks he always leaves littered on the floor of our closet. I hear the teeth on the zipper of his suitcase as they engage, closing over his belongings and signaling the end of my life as I know it.
This sound spurs me into action. I spring to my feet and lunge for him.
“Kevin, you can’t. You cannot leave me. I want more,” I scream as I clutch his shirt front, clinging to it like it’s my life vest in a raging sea.
He grabs my wrists and starts to pry my hands loose, I only cling tighter.
“Milly, stop this. What the fuck are you doing?” His eyes go from plain disdain to burning fury as he starts to try to shake me loose.
“No! You can’t,” I scream again as I begin to cry in earnest and move my arms up to wrap around his neck.
“You are crazy. Stop this.” I'm a tall woman, but Kevin is taller and at least seventy pounds heavier than me. There is no contest and with his next shove, I go flying, my trajectory broken by the frame of our king-sized sleigh bed. I land on our mattress, flat on my back, and staring at the ceiling.
I hear his footfalls as he approaches, and I close my eyes to avoid having to face him. He's struggling to catch his breath as he speaks to me in a voice so menacing I feel a shudder run through me.
“Don’t get up, Milly. Stay there. If you even think about moving from that bed, I will call the fucking police,” he commands.
And, I don’t move. Not because of his threat, but because I’m physically incapable. My entire body is arrested in a state of shock.
I don’t say another word as I hear him pick up his suitcases and start toward the door.
His footsteps falter just as he starts to open our bedroom door and he says, “Oh, and Milly.” I open my eyes, thinking that maybe he’s not leaving. I’m wrong. “Happy New Year,” he says as he walks out of our bedroom.
I don’t move as I hear the front door slam shut with a finality that tells me he won’t be back.
I don’t say a word as I hear his car pull out of our driveway.
I lie there, not moving, not speaking as my whole life leaves me.
* * *
I got back from visiting my sister, Addie, in London a few months ago. It was such a bittersweet visit. Addie has always been the most distant and removed of the three of us. She carries so much resentment, but I didn’t realize how much until she unleashed her anger on my mother and me the night before we left. Her words about me and how she perceived the way I have chosen to live my life cut me like a hot knife cuts through butter. It was painful to hear her say she feels like I have given up my dreams for my husband.
Having a husband was my dream, it’s all I ever wanted. From the time I was a little girl. I used to watch my parents dance around the living room when they thought we were all in bed. I saw the way my father watched my mother, like the sun rose and set on her head. I knew one day I would have that kind of love.
My mother had been a lawyer before I was born, that is how she and Daddy met, but then she became a full-time mom. She was our class mother, the carpool driver for after school activities. She packed every lunch, cooked dinner every night, was at every practice, every game, every recital. Our house was where all of our friends hung out after school. It was my little slice of heaven and I couldn’t wait to grow up and replicate it.
When my dad left our world completely crumbled. We moved to Maryland to try to get away from the threats, the press, and stigma of his stunning betrayal.
I knew then, like I know now, that my father’s disappearing was not something all men do. Unlike my sisters, Addie and Lilly, it didn’t make me wary of committed relationships, if anything it made me more desperate for one.
I saw how my mother, in the weeks before my father left, was constantly asking him questions, demanding to know things he didn’t want to tell her.
I saw how in the days before he left, she wasn’t trying as hard with her appearance. She stopped wearing makeup, always had her hair up in a bun, and stopped smiling. I don’t know what happened, but I knew I would be a stronger wife than she was.
I would, no matter what, always be pretty, always keep the house tidy, never push too hard and never make him feel like I wasn’t happy. And that’s what I’d done.
The current state of my life highlights my youthful miscalculation.
From the moment I met Kevin during my sophomore year at Brown, I committed to being the model girlfriend and then, wife.
He’d been a year ahead of me. When he graduated, and went straight to Wall Street, I was sure he’d forget about me. But he didn’t. He proposed to me on the first weekend I went to visit him and I said yes. We were married three weeks after I graduated, and I never looked back. I was only twenty-one, but I knew that this was the life I was meant to live.
So, in the dawn hours of this new day, as I lay in exactly the same position he left me in, flat on my back, in the middle of our bed, I don’t know what any of this means.
Who am I, if not a wife? Am I even anyone?
I think about Anthony and a little flame of sadness licks at the inside of my chest, reminding me I’m alive and have a very good reason to stay that way.
Thinking of Anthony also renews my panic. What am I going to tell him? He and his dad aren’t particularly close, mainly because Kevin is gone so much. But, he loves his dad and wouldn’t understand him not being here at all.
Kevin wouldn’t try to take him from me, would he? Would he?
This makes me sit right up. Oh, dear God. He mentioned paying Anthony’s tuition, which means he’s telling me I won’t be responsible for it, so that likely means Anthony will be with me.
I lie back down, as my momentary flash of anger is replaced by sadness and fear.
What am I going to do? What would my mother say? What would my sisters say?
My mother lives in the same house. I couldn’t hide it from her, but Lilly was in Miami—I think. Addie is in London, they didn’t have to know.
Kevin and I could work this out. We could. Didn’t all marriages go through this?
A woman who I don’t love resounds in my head, like an alert, reminding me that my thoughts of reconciliation are pure folly.
I feel a fissure in my chest, a crack so deep I know if I reach down to touch the spot, my fingers will come away covered in blood.
I haven’t cried in almost ten years—unless you count the first time I held my son—but this, this wasn’t crying. This is a deep lament. I wail, and scream into my pillow.
I cry for the children I won’t have. I cry for the fracture Kevin has caused, which no matter what happens, would never fully heal. I cry for my son. I cry for myself, and for my failure as a wife.
I remember that on another New Year’s Day, I cried myself to sleep over another man. I open my bedside drawer and dig to the bottom of it. I pull out the picture I haven’t looked at in years and stare at it. Dean’s smile, the happiness in my gaze is too much. I don’t think I can bear the weight of my pain.
I cry until I finally fall asleep. I don’t hear my mother come in and cover me with my comforter. I don’t feel the brush of my son’s lips across my forehead.
I sleep for the next eighteen hours, and while I sleep, I call out for my father. It is my mother, as always, who answers. She crawls into bed with me after she has fed Anthony and put him to sleep.
She holds me all night.
* * *
Read more here.
Chapter 1 of Thicker Than Water
The first thing I notice are her hands. They’re fine boned and small with short nails that are painted bright red. They’re not elegant hands. But they’re beautiful. Hands whose character has been shaped by use. They look like capable and strong.
And, apparently, they are. Those hands wrote the book that has taken the country by storm. Throw Away the Key has been sitting at the number one spot on the New York Times Bestseller’s list week for almost thirty weeks. It’s being hailed as the book of the year. And all of this from a first time author, who self-published her book, initially. Those hands have my respect.
As does the rest of her.
She hasn’t done a single television interview since the book gained national prominence. Her pen name L. Vega and her bio, which refers to her in the first person, don't indicate whether she's a woman or a man. Honestly, I hadn’t cared either way.
Until I saw her.
Now, that I know she’s a woman, it’s all I can think about. She’s beyond beautiful.
She’s tiny. She can’t be more than a couple of inches above five feet tall. And every single part of her in perfect proportion. Her dark hair tumbles in seemingly perpetual waves, spilling over her shoulders and hanging almost to her waist in the back. Her full lips, are painted in the same vivid red as her nails. Otherwise, she is completely devoid of makeup.
In this town where people dress to impress, she appears to have made practically no effort at all. She not even wearing a suit. Her jeans have more holes than fabric, her white shirt sits off one shoulder and falls short of reaching her belly button. All that caramel, smooth skin is a feast for my eyes, almost daring me not to look.
Her beauty, her appeal is all effortless. She has what we, in this business call, presence. She’s captivating and I already know that she’s going to sell this film for us. When we put her in front of a camera, the public will eat her up. Add that to her obvious talent and clear ambition, and I can tell this woman’s a winner.
She sitting across from me, her beautiful face placid. It’s like she doesn’t have a care in the world. And she shouldn’t. When it comes to her book and the movie studios vying for the options, it’s definitely a seller’s market. I don’t care about the other studios. The film belongs at my studio and I’m prepared to do what it takes to make that happen.
“Thank you for agreeing to talk to us Ms. Vega. I know you’ve been approached by several other studios about your book,” Zev says in his trademark, brisk, no nonsense tone. He’s the studio’s President of Development and normally he’d be running this meeting without me present. But I don’t trust him not to fuck this up.
He’s not interested in turning Lucia Vega’s book in to a film. He thinks it’s a waste of time and money. Normally his opinion is worth its weight in gold. But, not today.
I’ve got a good feeling about this book. The timing and the story are perfect. It’s a topic that's on a lot of people's minds. And if it's not, it should be. And, it’s going to win us awards and make a shit load of money. So, I’m here to make sure we get this done.
“We were surprised to get your call,” her agent, Sol Kline, responds. Sol is one of country’s biggest literary agents. He knows everyone, understands the ins and outs of this business and can smell bullshit a mile off. The fact that he is her agent tells me that they aren’t surprised at all. He only seeks out and represents very successful writers.
“I was surprised to be making it.” Zev says, with a chuckle that fails to mask his disdain. “But Mr. Carras insisted.”
I cut an ire filled glance at him before I interject. I lean forward and look at her directly for the first time.
“Yes, I did insist. I read your book. It’s great. And it’s a story that needs to be told. And, I’m going to be stepping into the role Zev would normally play on this project and will oversee it myself.”
The room is silent at my declaration. I’ve surprised everyone. Including myself. I feel Zev’s eyes bore into me, but ignore him. Sol tips his head to the side, studying me. I don’t give him more than a passing glance as I train my gaze on Lucia.
“You know who I am, don’t you?” I ask her, looking only at her. Speaking only to her. And when our eyes meet, I can see things in her expression that I didn’t before. Her wide, rich brown eyes give me a glimpse into her thoughts. She’s excited, but wary. Hopeful, but unsure. And whatever she sees in my expression makes her eyes widen with surprise.
She blinks hard and when she opens her eyes, the surprise is gone, the calm enigmatic expression back in place.
“Yes, I do.” She answers. Her voice is deep- almost smoky- and surprisingly soft. She tips her head to the side. Her hair falls with the motion, and it caresses her bare shoulder leaving a ripple of gooseflesh in its wake. I force my eyes back to her face and my mind back to the conversation. I clear my throat
“So, then you know that I’ve spent years involved in activism on this issue. Trying to raise awareness, to get people talking and thinking and to get law makers to take action. Your book has done, in a matter of months, what I’ve spent a decade trying to achieve.” She flushes and I can’t tell if it’s pride of embarrassment. But it lends her an air of innocence that’s unexpected and charming.
“It shouldn’t surprise you that I am chasing the option rights for this book so stridently. I want to take this story and put in front of an even wider audience you’ve reached already.”
Her book, Throw Away the Key is told from the point of view of a young girl, named Azalia. She belongs to a class of people who are entered this country illegally as minors, or before the age and therefore typically entered with parents and not on their volition. They earned the moniker of DREAMERs from an acronym for a piece of legislation that’s currently rotting in committee in the United States Congress. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act would give the millions of people who meet the criteria a path to permanent and legal residency status in this country.
In reading the book, the reader gets to walk in Azalia’s shoes as she navigates life with this cloud of being undocumented over her head. The book is a work of fiction; yet her character’s struggles are real. I’ve heard real stories like the ones she tells. I’ve seen them with my own two eyes. I’ve lived them.
