On the Rocks

"You know we can't. It's a great fantasy, but that's all. Besides, you'd get tired of me and kick my ass out when I got old."

"Older," she said with a grin. I poked her in the ribs and we threatened to ruin the swing with our wrestling. I pulled her to her feet and we went inside to make dinner. We made slow careful love that night, right up until the end when we rocked and rolled like wild animals. I rubbed her sweat covered back until she went to sleep. I lay awake a long time before sleep took me. I looked everywhere inside my conscience. Search as I might, I could find no trace of guilt.

There was little conversation during the drive back home. As I pulled into the driveway I saw that Shelley's car wasn't there. I opened the door and called out but there was no answer. Apparently Allie had not yet returned from camp. I checked the schedule on the fridge and saw that she wasn't due until 9:00 that night. When I turned around I saw the note on the table.

"Dear Pete:" it began. "You know as well as I do that things haven't been right between us for a long time. The girls hate me and I know you must, too. I was happy with you at first, and I know it isn't you that makes me unhappy now. It's something inside me that will never, I think, be satisfied with what I have.

"I'm such a coward that I can't even face the girls to tell them that I love them, but I can't live with them -- or you -- any more. They love you more than me anyway, and I know you'll be good to them. You'll all be much happier with me out of the picture.

"I won't tell you where I'm going, but I have a good job there. I'll send money through a remailing service to help out. Even if you divorce me like I expect you to do. I don't know how to close this letter. I don't think I love you any more than you love me by now. Take care of them and yourself.

Shelley"

Beneath the note was a typed sheet. It was a letter granting me formal permission to seek medical treatment for Allie (since Billie was eighteen, she was technically an adult). There was also a money order. I realized the amount was just half of what Shelley's paycheck would have been that day. She was showing more consideration than I would have expected. I almost felt sad she was gone.

I collapsed into the chair by the dinner table. This was a shock. I realized that under the anger I was feeling at her desertion of her children was a profound relief. Now I had to figure out how to tell Billie, and later, Allie. Just then Billie wandered out of the hallway. She had gone to her room, tired, but alive. Now she looked like a shellshock victim. She had a piece of the same notepad in her hand. Tears rolled silently down her cheeks.

I gathered her to me and we sat there in the dining room. Her note from Shelley said pretty much the same thing mine did. I wondered if she had left one for Allie, too. I eased Billie from my lap and stood up. In Allie's room there was a similar note on the pillow. I read it. The only difference was that she had urged her younger daughter to take good care of me when Billie went off to college.

We pulled ourselves together and agreed we had to be strong for her sister. It was likely to hit her the worst. The mood was gray that evening, but I still sensed a relief in Billie similar to mine. It would have felt wrong somehow to speak of it yet, though.

When Allie came home I sat her down on the couch. I told her the situation and handed her the note. She read it silently, frowning. When she looked up at Billie and me her face smoothed out. Then she broke into a big grin! "Great! Now maybe we can have some fun around here again." I looked at Billie and she looked at me. Then the corner of her mouth twitched. Then her lips curled into a smile. I felt my own mouth bending into the same expression. I hoped Billie wasn't readjusting our relationship and the agreements we made last night. I still intended to maintain a careful discretion between us for Allie's sake.

We walked down to the ice cream parlor on the next block for a late treat. I hadn't seen Allie so animated and truly happy for a long time. I realized it must have been the hardest on her of all of us. She was just now barely thirteen. Billie had been the one to help her through her first menstruation, not me. I was glad of that. It was difficult enough for me with Billie. Allie and I didn't have the rapport that Billie and I did when she was the same age.

At home, Allie emptied her backpack in the laundry room, then went upstairs to shower. Billie and I sat side by side on the couch in the living room. We held hands, but kept a space between us. It was all too much to absorb. First becoming sexually involved with my stepdaughter, then finding myself separated and a single dad all at once. I couldn't imagine how Billie was feeling. I looked at her. When she turned to me, she fell into my lap and sobbed for a long time. I was still sitting there rubbing her back when Allie padded into the room silently. She went to her knees and hugged her sister and my legs at the same time.

"It's okay Beebee," she said in her little sister voice, "We're still a family. Mom needed to be happy, too. Now we can all be happy." That, I realized, was the bottom line. I stroked my daughters' hair as the night deepened.