Happy Hollowdays Pt. 01

Jill's mouth was open again and I knew it wasn't going to close for a while yet.

"Long story short, Andy and his mom, Rita, told me what happened after I left to pick up the carryout." I paused, "Brenda and Andy had looked at each other and just threw themselves together... i-in a kiss." I looked down, I could feel my lips were moving, I didn't hear any words coming out. I stopped the inaudible gum flapping, clamping down in a quiet bite to make sure I kept my composure. "Then the kiss became... a coupling. In my apartment, on my couch, with my girlfriend, that wore the engagement ring she accepted from me.

"As Andy confessed, each separate fact he admitted hit both Andy and me like a slap. You can say it's better in that situation to not be the transgressor. Well, I can tell you that guilt doesn't have anything on the loneliness when everyone leaves and you are alone, and the fucking transgressor has the girl you love waiting for him."

My guest, Jill, looked at me with a brow furrowed in agony. I could tell something inside of her wanted to scream, but also that something inside her held her back, something dark. Did she have a story like this? Had this lovely polite woman been the transgressor?

I continued the narrative, "Rita told me she grilled Andy and Brenda trying to find both a suitable penance for them, and restitution for them to make to me. Then she told me her findings and the outcome: Andy and Brenda were in love, and they should be together, and that meant I was odd man out. Rita offered her services to me."

Agog; that's the proper word. Jill was agog.

"I told Rita I respected her offer, but if her services led to my losing the two people I loved most in my life, then I never wanted her intervention on my behalf again. I told Rita I wasn't sure I would survive her "services" this time, I certainly didn't want to give her the chance to finish me off." She was shocked and embarrassed at my statement. She knew damn well this wasn't my interpretation of matters, this was my highlighting what had, and was, happening to me and not letting her off the hook for her part in in it.

"Before she could recover, I made sure Rita could never say she didn't understand, telling her, "I would very much like to hear your reasoning on why my finance should leave me for your son. That sort of conflict of interest should preclude you from offering advice to the, um, happy couple." I let that sink in before lowering the boom, "But I'm happy you got what you wanted for your son. You have confided in me more than once that you wanted Andy to find a nice girl to spend his life with just like I had. Now with your help he has a girl exactly like I had.

"Rita's head fell, and she stared at the carpet. She had trodden a fine line in acknowledging what the happy couple may have together. She saw plainly enough I felt she should have reinforced them, if that was truly necessary, in more like six months not six minutes. She also knew I was right.

"To his credit Andy still approached me. "Tim, this sucks. You wanted Brenda and me, to get along. You wanted us both in your life. You were going to arbitrate, uh, like my mom did."

"Yeah, except the way I was intervening I was still going to have a best friend and shortly a wife."

He looked away. "I know. I really do. But Brenda and I blew it sky high before bringing mom in. I don't even know how to approach this with you or how to say I'm sorry. Do you still want to see us, or one of us?"

I said, "Brenda isn't with you, so it seems like she doesn't want to see me."

"Tim, she is so broken and ashamed she can't look you in the face."

"But she's thrilled to have you. Right?"

"Uh, actually yeah."

"Well... buddy, I'm sharing this again with my oldest friend as I have constantly; Brenda's the missing part of me I have looked for all my life."

He cringed, "I-Is that how you felt about her?"

"It's how I feel, present tense, about both of you. But Brenda is very special to me, I've told you that a thousand times. You know that's not bull."

"I know. It's why you were trying to keep us both in your life. I'm so damn sorry."

"Why don't you stop being sorry and bring Brenda back home?" Clearly, I meant back to me. Andy just stared, it wasn't just selfishness driving his actions, I have known him since we were kids. Brenda must have really requested strongly she not see me.

Astonished I asked, "You two really belong together? You both think so?"

"Yeah," Andy answered unhappily.

"Is she really happy with you?" He couldn't help but hear the conflict and loss creeping into my words.

"Yeah."

I felt my eyes burn. From Andy's and Rita's reaction to watching them my eyes had to be intense; they were frightened, "Okay. I'm trusting my life-long best friend here, man." I glanced at Rita. I used to like her. Perhaps I was transferring my sour feelings for what my buddy had done onto his mother. "I need you to be honest with me, I know you won't lie. Don't spare me, you can't. It's really important, okay?"

Andy nodded earnestly.

"Is Brenda happier with you than me?"

"Oh God, Tim, what do you want me to say?"

"The truth!"

Andy looked right at me. With tears beginning to flow he answered, "Yeah man. I'm so fucking sorry."

I admit I cried a little bit. I said, "You understand I can't make myself buy into that fully until I hear it directly from her." His eyes winced even more than his mouth cringed. "I don't give up on people, Andy. That's what led to this. I'm not built that way." His wince deepened understanding that I was not exaggerating. "I have a history with her, I can't let go until I hear it from Brenda." Still, the die was cast, I put out my hand, "Take care of my girl. I love her, so you gotta take care of her."

We shook, he moved to hug me; he saw where getting too close meant a hospital stay for him. Our relationship was irreparably damaged. This was a handshake goodbye. It was awkward, amazingly, it was about to be worse."

Jill's eyes flared, not understanding how the situation could possibly go downhill from where it was.

Andy shuffled, "Hey, ah, one last thing, Tim I don't know..."

"Well, spit it out, it can't be worse than what we just went through."

I glanced over to Andy's mother once more. I think if Rita weren't married, she would have taken me to bed to comfort me. She looked absolutely miserable at the proceedings. She saw how much I cared for her son and my, well now his, girl. Also, there was no way out of her son paying a large price, one way or the other, for his transgression.

"Uh Tim, Brenda didn't know how to... she uh... she thought she should..." He shook his head and tentatively held out his hand.

I was immediately pissed as I figured it out, "Don't do that," I barked forcefully.

"But man..."

"Don't you dare!" But there it was in his open palm. The words poured out of me, "Brenda took my ring off her finger?! A-And sent it back to me - with the man who stole... who took her from me? SHE doesn't respect me enough to give that back in person?!"

He saw I was seething. I was beginning to shake with rage.

"Buddy I.... she's really broken up..."

I cut him off, "Oh, is she? All she had to do to not be broken up or so ashamed, was not screw my buddy as soon as I left our apartment. If you guys are meant for each other, I can almost see THAT. But THIS?" I was enraged for a dozen different reasons, all of which were pretty damn apparent to everyone in the room. I was surprised my eyes didn't set the ring on fire from the intensity of what I was feeling looking at it.

Suddenly, I was losing the anger. I was hemorrhaging. Rita called my name. I looked at her. She wanted to help and was looking for some encouragement as to what she could do.

My question, though obvious, still caught her up, "Does Brenda love your son? I mean it, does she love him a lot?"

Sympathizing, she nodded, knowing she was twisting several of the knives they had put in my back.

"Well, understand this, I don't believe a woman who loves a man would send back his engagement ring with the same man she broke the engagement to be with. That's a great way to get both men destroyed!"

She saw the truth of it in my eyes. I looked at my broken engagement in the form of my former finance's ring laying in the palm of my former best friend's hand.

"You take that damn thing out of my sight. I saved for it forever. It's worth about nineteen grand." Andy gasped. "Not bad for a kid out of college two years. You know how long I've been saving? Even back when we were still in college!"

Andy was grim. He knew I was better off financially than most, but also that was still a lot of money for us and that I was saving long before I had my fairly lucrative job. He knew I had to be diligent over a large frame of time to make that commitment. His head hung like the tendons supporting it had snapped. I turned to his mother. A mix of rage and growing sorrow.

"I can't believe she ever loved me if she returns the symbol of our love this way! Brenda and I had plans. She made plans as to what we would do, about our house, our vacations, our kids, our intermingled lives. She and I made intricate detailed plans. Now this? She changes her mind about our entire lives in the time it takes me to walk out of a room?! And I don't even get a goodbye? You want to know what to do for me, Rita? Sell the damn thing! Get them near top dollar. I never want to see one red cent of the proceeds. No buying me a gift with that fucking thing, that's blood money to me. Brenda fooled me. She let me believe she loved me! Who knows, maybe she did it just to be around your son."

Rita was distraught. This had not gone as she hoped. I hadn't put her son in the emergency room, but this seemed just as ugly to her if not worse. Not the least reason was it was something she knew she was doing to me. She desperately wanted to help for every reason she could think of.

"That's not right Tim, Brenda tried to send him away so she could marry you." Rita pled with me to understand. Her problem was I did.

"I'm sorry, Rita. I tried to help them, I trusted them, I even went out to buy them dinner. And in the short space of time picking up beef and broccoli, egg drop soup, and would you believe a "happy fucking family" Brenda fucked Andy, dumped me, wrecked my family, burned a whole lifetime worth of plans and me to the ground, abandons me, refuses to face me, and then she insults me like this! It's infuriatingly unbelievable."

I was on a roll, "It's not like we were intimate or anything, it's not like she didn't tell me she loved me and planned to marry me, oh wait, that's exactly the case. We knew the family names we would use for our children for Christ's sake! We have all that together, forged over years of being together, and she sends my ring back, with of all people, the guy she left me for? I take it that means she never plans to face me again: ever.

"I brought the two of them together so I wouldn't be without either of them, now with no more than a dismissive wave of her hand she decides she never wants to see me again? Not even to apologize, not even to say goodbye? That's... that's outrageous!"

Eventually the unbelievable can no longer be avoided. God help me my own words began to sink in. They looked at me as I fell back on the sofa. I said quietly, "Oh God, she doesn't, s-she doesn't love me... at all!"

I heard Andy trying to say Brenda didn't think of all that and didn't mean that. what was I going to do debate him? He couldn't change what I felt and I couldn't change him that my wife wanted him more than me.

I got up like some wounded military officer trying to make a last address to his troops and look to their comportment before being consigned to oblivion.

"Don't let them squander the proceeds of the ring on a car, Rita. Cars are transitory, what I put into that ring isn't. What they feel for each other should not be either. The proceeds should be added to the down payment for a house, or security deposit on an apartment, or something they need in order to get their lives together off on a good start, okay? I want them happy." I glanced at my friend, Andy. Then I looked back to his mother, "But I don't want to see them for a long, long, time. Neither of them had my best interest at heart, when they both knew they had my all. Do you get that?" I held her stare until she answered.

"Yes. Yes, I do."

She was sad and resigned. She understood she had a hand in this. She understood I saw her as completely unethical now too. Her son was happy, and as a result I was condemned. She had recommended he trade in his best friend for a girl. And that my girl leave me destitute, in a situation that would make her son happy. That's not fair. If they are the love of each other's lives, then they both made the right call. But don't expect me to applaud. That's a bridge too far.

Rita was still nodding her understanding barely able to withstand my gaze, "Then take him out of here." There was a sneer in my voice as well as on my face.

She looked at me trying not to be a counselor so much as a woman who had known me most of my life, a boy who had spent tons of time in her presence. I was wondering if she was wondering how she could ever look my parents in the face again, when my finance was with her son, and she had approved of it, actually taken steps to ensure it happened. Because of our family's history together, my parents would expect Rita to take my side, not the Brenda's. And if her taking her son's side meant my parent's son had to suffer, they would hardly approve. She was going to have to face the music eventually, whether she had figured that out or not.

Rita's voice was lathered in sympathy, her face heartbroken dismay. Somehow, she thought things would go differently; better. At that point I decided she must be one of the worst counselors I had ever heard of. I thought what should have been expected was me, the cheated party, atop a thoroughly battered Andy strangling the life out of him. This was all a bed of roses compared to what my heart was telling me the natural and just thing to do was. She tried to put the pieces together, "That ring really tore things, didn't it? The situation seemed unfortunate, but above board." She may have been talking to herself.

Rita made the mistake of asking so I gave her the answer, "If you believe that, I'm sorry, you aren't a very good counselor. I mean "the situation" could just be insulting to me, except I care and love the people who are doing this to me, including you; that care and love dictates a strong reaction. Damn it, worlds and futures are being shredded here and by supposed allies. Allies I was enjoined in aiding, while they betrayed me. So perhaps I could see Brenda's callus return of my ring and just be insulted, but that hardly seems likely, or objective. Brenda owes me a face to face. Death of love by heartless injection isn't right, lethal injection by remote control is just contemptable.

"I hate, absolutely hate, that when I tried to keep Andy from being exiled, he repaid me by fucking my finance. Sorry if those terms are base, their actions were worse. They say they cared for me, but they screwed, here, in my home, on that sofa." I pointed to the offending furniture like it was guilty too. "I should make you take it with you. You know I will sit here and glare at it as an eight-foot knife in my back."

Rita actually shook in frustration. She wanted with all her heart to remove that piece of furniture that would wound me so and she didn't have a prayer of budging it. She felt worthless to the task. The sorry truth of it: she was.

I still raged, "Now they want out of my life because they want to start a new life for themselves and forget their world is based on the destruction of mine. They aren't just leaving my life: they are knocking me out of my life too! And they don't want to finish me off, or bury me properly, they don't even want to take the fucking sofa, which, damn them, is a literal term now.

"They ran away before having to face me, they left me alone without answers. They let me continue being faithful to them all night. Hell, they probably screwed again last night, cheating on me this time with malice aforethought. They thought of themselves first at each juncture. Why didn't you, miss counselor, tell them any of that? You call that innocent and above board? Why did you come along on this trip anyway? Why wasn't Brenda here? Don't tell me she couldn't face me, if she's going to put the knife in my heart, she owes it to me to face me while doing it. To stay away and at my rival's house is twisting the blade. And taking off my ring? She needed to do it in front of me, hand it to me herself. But to send the man that she traded my bed for, are you joking? That's not innocent, nor respectable. There is no thought of me there. That's callus, contemptable, and one more slight I don't deserve. No, this is not above board!"

Rita's eyes were gleaming with unshed tears. She looked around fighting for time hoping some bit of wisdom or sophistry would come to her to relieve my pain and make me alright with sacrificing my life for her son's. She saw those very words playing in my mind too and looked away again.

"But Tim, when seen in the prism of their love, they seemed to do their best."

I looked at her with the scorn she deserved, she felt it in full measure, "Did their best? Really, even by me? Even though they did me dirty? Did you hear a word I just said? You just want Andy happy. I get that. However, there is no one looking to provide for my happiness. That is damning of them considering they were my wife-to-be and best friend! It's their job to look out for my happiness. Damn it, I was looking out for theirs! I expect people to do the right thing; when they can't I expect them to do the best they can. You and Andy have struck out there, Brenda still has to come up to bat. So far, I don't see anyone trying to do their best.

"How about you? Did you tell Brenda to come back and hash this out with me? did you tell her in was mandatory to talk through what she wants and needs with her fiancé?

Did you tell her to take six months to think it through and then decide to leave me or start dating Andy? Moving forward then only after she has made sure she knows what's best with a clear head? Did you recommend any of that? Did you do your best, Rita?

"You have a happy son and a lovely possible daughter in law. You used the word "unfortunate" that I am not happy. Fortune played no part; my unhappiness is the result of deliberate acts. Now I have nothing, my expected and planned future is gone. Taken by the woman who planned it. Unfortunate? My best friend is no friend at all, and my wife is a cheater. Yes, it's all unfortunate, so unfortunate you will have to kick back with a glass of wine to put it all behind you tonight. Tomorrow, you'll wake up with your happy family and never have to think of me ever again. I think you have managed this beautifully Rita, you finally have your happy ending for your son."

She had started to stand up to my challenge then thought through what I was saying. The truth of it made her shrink, then blanche. Then she felt the flames of guilt. By the time I stopped for a breath her immolation had left her dazed. She stood there weaving shaking her head "no". Not to deny what I said, but in response to her own culpability. I wasn't finished.

"For me there is no upside, nothing to offset any of my loss. That callus attempt to have Andy return my ring is just Brenda being too ashamed, or too selfish, too done with me, to bother doing the right thing. There was no attempt to do right by me. Apparently, that's all I merit: nothing, and I loved her. Hell, she said she loved me! Even betrayed I'm still trying to do the right thing. At least Andy came here and apologized!! That was tough, but he owed me. He did the right thing, on that score anyway. I can't imagine Brenda not knowing how insulting her gesture would be to me. She has to know because she loves me!