I don’t know her history, but I know single moms shouldn’t have to do everything alone. I stand on that with every breath in my body.
Four
Josie
Sleep: a mother’s best friend that forgets to visit regularly
* * *
“What am I even doing?” I ask the urn knowing he won’t reply. I throw myself back on my bed. “I make one bad decision after another. Since losing you, I can’t get a grip.”
Inhaling deeply, I can’t shake off the feelings inside.
“I wasn’t supposed to be one half of the whole. We were a team. I’m not supposed to make all the decisions for me, for our son, for life alone. You were my partner. Five years without you and I still struggle. Maybe I should have moved home.” I look to the urn even though I know it doesn’t have the answers. “Do I sell the house and go back to Arkansas? Is that where you would want to be?”
I feel the tears filling my eyes. “We never talked about life after the Army. We didn’t get a chance. We didn’t talk about life apart. How am I supposed to do this?”
The grief overwhelms me again. Some days are normal. I can get by without him being my every thought of every second. Other days, I get consumed by losing him and what should have been. There are so many things we didn’t get to plan. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve been floating through the days without him. Looking to my ceiling, I sigh. I have to get myself together. For Justice, I need to sort things and figure out my life, our future. He deserves the best mom he can get. I have to be mom and dad, and that means I can’t sit here wallowing remaining undecisive.
If I sell the house, I’ll have the money to move. How much will I need to give Brett? He didn’t pay for the house, as in purchase price, but he did pay for the upgrades here and there. Legally, we were married, but it came after I purchased the house. I didn’t think it was marital property until I met with my lawyer. Regardless of when I bought it, North Carolina law gives him a stake in the value of the home. The entire divorce is full of complications because Brett didn’t want it. A contested divorce is a whole extra process. While I managed to prove I have been separated from him for one year (the requirement in North Carolina) all it granted me was an actual divorce. Division of assets is a separate matter and one that Brett has been dragging out. There seems to be no end in sight for me.
How can I even sell the house in order to move home? Will Brett even consider this? Would he move out easily? How can I make him understand? We won’t work. Not ever again. I don’t know that we ever worked in the first place. Grief, moral obligation, and vulnerability tied us together, but that does not make a marriage. It took me some time to clear my head, to get out of the fog. Once I did, though, I knew it was over. Two years I’ve tried to get him to let me go. He challenges every move I make. This rental is okay, but I need to figure out a real, long-standing home for me and my son. One I make for myself.
In a cloud of grief, I thought Justice needed a father figure. I thought I needed a man. Brett knew Jonah. This simple connection gave me an odd sense of comfort, I can’t explain it. They served together, Brett and Jonah. Brett was one of two in the unit to make it home. He convinced me, Jonah made him promise to take care of me and Justice. He claimed he had a duty to be around for Jonah. Friendship carried over unexpectedly into something more. Early on, I felt the spark. I thought we shared this special bond tied up in Jonah. I quickly learned everything with Brett is altogether something different. That something doesn’t work. He has shown me; it doesn’t work now and won’t work ever. He isn’t the man I want to raise my son and there is no doubt Jonah wouldn’t want him being the example for Justice.
With every passing day I am away from Brett, I see more clearly. I can do this. I can raise my son, keeping his dad’s memory alive, and teaching him all the things on my own. If I find love, it’s going to have to fall in my lap. I want to take care of Justice and myself without having a man involved. Living with Brett, no matter how many times he told me this is what Jonah would want, or he is the next best thing to Jonah for Justice, I have learned, he is wrong. There is no way to replace Jonah, and I don’t want to. I never did. Jonah is Justice’s father; I will make sure he knows that. His dad died a hero and there is no reason to brush that under the rug or act as if he didn’t exist. He lived life to the fullest and Jonah forever lives on in Justice.
“What do you think, Jonah? Do I stay here? My job is good. Really good. I love working at the AG department. How will transferring work?
Of all the places for me to move, I end up next door to the Hellion. Sure, Sara tells me it’s the safest place for me to be. She loves Country Boy and has embraced life with a biker. I don’t know that I understand it or find comfort in a biker being next door, but it’s my reality. Not that I realized he was my neighbor until the day I moved in when Sara told me. Sara swears its good karma to land me right here. I don’t know if I believe that. What I do know is this house is on the opposite side of town from my old house, it is in a neighborhood that seems safe, and I can afford it. My options were limited after Brett made the scene at the last rental. I knew I needed to get out and fast. This place fit my needs and budget. Raff as my neighbor, well, time will tell me if that is any added benefit. Somehow, she thinks Raff will be around to scare off Brett.
Except there is a problem with her theory. Raff isn’t around very often it seems.
Even right now. His house has been closed up without a change to a single light for a week. Not that I should be paying attention to his house. What he does or doesn’t do isn’t any of my business. I didn’t ask where he was because it’s not my business. Sara brought it up, so I didn’t have to feel ridiculous for asking about the stranger next door, though. I wasn’t going to tell her to shut up. According to her, he’s on a club run. I don’t know what a run is, but she didn’t make it sound like it was a 5k or a charity fun run. In fact, it didn’t sound like he would be doing any actual running.
Do bikers even own sneakers?
Random question to live in my mind for no reason because I certainly won’t be asking any of them. I have learned my lesson about men. The only man who gets my attention these days is Justice and I’m going to keep it that way. It’s obvious my choices in picking men aren’t the best after Jonah.
My phone ringing draws me out of my wallowing. “Hello,” I answer seeing it’s my cousin Danae calling.
“Tell me something good,” she instantly remarks. “I need to get my mind off shit here.”
I laugh, “if only I had all the good news. I got a whole bunch of the same. Justice is cute. That’s all I got.”
“Come on, I’m drowning in my own pity party. Give me something to be happy about,” she half whines.
I sigh laying back on the bed with the phone to my ear. “I have a good job, a good kid, and a house that I’m not feeling a crazy urge to check the windows and doors eight times before attempting sleep. That’s what I got, girl.”
Danae is my cousin and best friend. We are only three months apart in age and have been inseparable our whole lives. Even when I moved to North Carolina with Jonah, Danae never let more than a week pass without checking in by phone. When I lived in Arkansas there wasn’t a day I didn’t see her. If one of us got sick, the other brought schoolwork, snacks, or soup to fill each other in. It helped we lived on the same street just a few houses apart, but even if we couldn’t walk to see each other, I knew we would have found a way.
Jackie is my older sister. She’s great, but when I was younger, we fought more days than we got along. I think our seven-year age difference for her meant I was forever uncool until we became adults.
Danae knows all my secrets, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
“Brett still a problem?” she inquires like every call.
I know she worries. I wish she didn’t. I wish I hadn’t told her how bad things had gotten.
