Linda's Legacy

"What? You can't mean that."

"It's not just about you, Emma. This is a marriage. This is a partnership. If you step out of that partnership, then you're not my partner anymore. Simple as that. We work TOGETHER, or we don't work out as a team."

"I can't believe you'd bring up divorce so casually. I haven't even done anything! You won't divorce me over going to a conference."

"I'm divorcing you anyway. I've decided. We're done. I might as well go for the nuclear option, since you've already killed us. We'll figure out the house and the kids and the money and everything later. I'm getting a lawyer tomorrow, and you can expect to be served sometime next week, I guess. If you want me NOT to do any of that, if you want it to STOP, then you're going to do what I've told you. Go See Your Mother. Now."

"It's... Oh, come on. I wouldn't even get there by midnight."

"She'll be waiting up for you." He picked up his phone and tapped it a few times. Was he sending a message? "I talked to her twenty minutes ago. She knows what it's about."

My phone rang.

"You should get that," he said.

I looked. It was mom. Shit.

"Hi! Mom. What's up?"

"Emma. Get in your car and get over here as soon as you can, or you won't have a husband to come home to when you get back from Chicago."

"Mom, this isn't that serious. He's kidding."

"Emma Louise Johnson Smyth, he is NOT kidding. You have no idea what's going on. NONE. This situation is out of your control. Do you hear me? OUT OF YOUR CONTROL. I've been married five times now. FIVE. Trust me, I know what divorce looks like. Now do as he says, or you'll spend the rest of your life looking back on Bradley as your 'first' husband. I'm baking cookies. I'll see you in a few hours. Drive safe. I love you." She ended the call.

Holy fucking shit.

My phone rang again. It was my brother Tommy. Bradley must have sent another message.

"Tommy?"

"Jesus Christ, Sis, you really stepped in it, didn't you? Listen, we've still got the other room set up as a nursery, but there's a nice bed in there, and Bern and I are still co-sleeping the baby. So that's all yours as long as you need it. I don't know how much time you'll spend with mom, but just call me when you're on your way over. Don't worry about waking us, we don't really sleep anyway with all the feedings."

"I'm not coming over, Tommy. You don't have to..."

"OH HO HO Yes You Are. This is not up for debate. If I don't see you here by tomorrow morning at the latest, I won't see you at all. You won't be my sister anymore. You're not going to be my kids' godmother, either. Don't you dare ask us to take your side over Bradley's, cause we won't. He's in the right about this one. Nobody wants to see you fall to the family curse. Now get moving. I'll be taking everybody out for IHOP tomorrow." He hung up.

I just stared at Bradley.

"What the fuck did you say to them?"

"I told them the truth," he said, getting up from his chair. "And they were extremely helpful. They had more than a few insights to share. Finish your coffee and pack a bag. I'll make you one of those double-shot caramel lattes that you like, for the road." He picked up the Yeti cup, then turned and looked at me. "I'll handle the kids. I'll tell them as much of the truth as is appropriate. I'll bring my family up to speed tomorrow, too. I'll hold off on calling Chuck and Bethany, but only because I don't want it to get back to your father right away. It's gonna kill him when he finds out. Jim's a good man, and he's seen too much of this in his life. He'd rather die than see it happen to you, too."

"What the hell? What are you talking about? And what was Tommy saying about a family curse?"

"That, my dear soon-to-be-ex-wife, is what you need to talk to Linda about."

***

After the one coffee with extra skim milk and two Splendas I had on my way out the door, a sixteen-ounce Yeti cup of double-shot nonfat caramel latte, one stop for fuel and two more for bathroom breaks, I pulled into mom's driveway at ten minutes past midnight. The garage door rolled open for me and I parked in the empty bay. Huh. Where was Doug's car?

"Glad you made it, honey," mom said. "Happier than you know. God. If you hadn't come..." She shook her head. "Well. That would not have been good. Come on in. The cookies are in the kitchen. Would you like some tea?"

At sixty, mom was still a handsome woman. She still had her figure, gracefully aged though it was. Her posture was amazing. Despite having had two children, she looked like she'd never be touched with osteoporosis. Her dark hair was shot through with gray, but still shiny and beautifully styled. And her eyes were as deeply blue as ever. Like mine. I hoped to look half as good at her age. She started pouring tea, even though I hadn't said I wanted any.

"Nothing with caffeine, please. I'm jittery enough. Bradley made me drink a coffee and a double shot."

"This is chamomile. You'll be fine." She looked me up and down. "You, ah, you were wearing that dress tonight, when you had your conversation with Bradley?"

"Yeah. He didn't let me get changed when he hustled me out the door. He just made me throw some things into a bag and kicked me out."

"Oh, dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear."

"What? What's wrong with the dress? I look good in blue!"

"I know, honey. I do too. But a dress like that... well, I suppose it's too much to be a coincidence."

"What coincidence? What did Tommy mean about a curse? What is going on? Why isn't anybody talking to me?"

She handed me a plate with some cookies on it. Ginger snaps. Homemade. She carried a tray with a teapot and two proper bone-china teacups. "Come into the sitting room and make yourself comfortable. I'll tell you everything."

The screen was on, showing a paused football game, which surprised me. Mom never watched football. If anything, she avoided it.

"Where's Doug? His car wasn't in the garage. And why do you have football on if he's not here?"

"That's part of it, I suppose. Doug doesn't usually spend the night here. He's with Bryan."

"His friend Bryan? But why? You mean they're... you mean he's...?"

"Gay. Yes. They've been together almost twenty years. They were already a couple when I met Doug."

"But... then... why? Why are you married to him?"

"It's a complicated story. I needed to be married. Doug did, too. I know, I know, gay couples get married all the time now. It's accepted in a way that was unthinkable when we were younger. But at our age... Well. There are all kinds of closets. There are closets within closets. Doug never really fully came out to himself. He doesn't think of himself as gay, even though he is, and he knows it, and even admits it. But that's not what he sees in the mirror. He would never live the lifestyle of a gay man, or as part of a publicly gay couple. He just doesn't have it in him. Don't get me wrong- he doesn't think there's any shame in it. It's just not who he is. In order to feel... complete, I guess, he needs to be married to a woman. He thinks of his relationship with Bryan as a kind of an exception. They're very much in love. It's very sweet to see. And I'm very happy for him, I'm happy for them both. I'm what people used to call a 'beard.' It's very old fashioned. Lesbians and gay men would marry each other and live together to fulfill society's expectations, but they'd have their private lives outside the marriage. Oftentimes, the arrangements were very friendly, even affectionate, even if they never were romantic."

"But, but, then, why do YOU do it? You're not gay, are you?"

"No, dear. I'm not. I'm just a terrible, terrible wife."

"What? How can you say that about yourself?"

"Because it's the truth. I've destroyed every one of my four other marriages by being selfish, insensitive, muleheaded, and even cruel. None of my husbands deserved what they got from me. I took each of them for granted and walked roughshod all over their hearts. That's especially true of your father." A few lonely tears ran down her face along well-traveled tracks. "I still love that man. I always have. I think you know that."

"I... yes, I guess I do. I mean, the two of you don't have much to do with each other. But I think I've seen it over the years."

"Well. You love Bradley."

"I do."

"Then don't end up like me." She looked up at me. "Don't BE like me. Please." At that point, she broke down crying.

"Mom. I don't understand. Don't be like you? Don't be like what? What's going on?"

After a moment, she stood up. I tried to join her, but she shooed me back into my seat. "I have to go get something. I have to show you. Stay right there."

I heard her rustling around in one of her spare bedrooms. While she was gone, I looked at the screen. It wasn't showing the game, it was paused on a shot of two commentators, handsome men in their late fifties or early sixties. They'd probably been football players themselves, back in their prime years, before their bodies softened and slowly went to seed.

Mom came back with a blue dress in a clear plastic dry cleaning sleeve. It wasn't exactly the same as the one I had on. The cut was completely different, but the skirt was nearly the same length, and the color was almost an exact match.

"I was wearing this the night I ended my marriage to your father. That was almost thirty years ago, now. I don't know why I keep it. Maybe it's to remind me of what a fool I am. Maybe because it takes me back to my time with Jim. Or maybe because it's a nice dress and it made me feel beautiful. I only wore it one other time, on my birthday that year. I ended up making everything worse. Since then, I could never bear to put it on again.

"It was February. The weather had locked the city down. We were snowed in half the time, and we barely saw the sun. I bought this dress to go out for Valentines' day that year, but our plans had to be canceled. We ended up staying in with the two of you, and Jim never saw the dress. To make things worse, it was a leap year, so we had an extra day of that dreadful month.

"At the time, I was friends with a group of women and their husbands. I don't even remember all their names, now. As couples, we were all polite and jovial, but when it was just us girls, well, you never saw such a scheming, cackling, backstabbing coven of shrews. We were always going on about what sluts we'd be whenever the right stud came along. One girl, Dee, made a habit of stepping out on her husband and then bragging about it to the rest of us. Another one of us was making plans to have an affair with a co-worker and we all conspired to help her. Thankfully, her man wised up and it never got that far. I never actually did any of that, until the day I did.

"There was a local sports hero who liked to go out to bars and clubs where he'd prey upon married women, snatching them away from their husbands. I think that humiliating the men was the part he enjoyed the most. He'd take the ladies back to his hotel suite and give them the fucking of their lives, trying to ruin them for all other men forever. He was a real hunk, he was big and strong and rich and famous and powerful, so he could get away with it, over and over again. His hunting grounds were a kind of an open secret for women who wanted to be 'chosen.' I have no idea how many marriages he destroyed, but it was more than a few. He'd made a game of it.

"One of those places was a dinner-dance hall that had an arrangement with the hotel. Our little crew of cheaters and wannabes decided we'd take our men there on the last day of February, leap night, to reconnect with our spouses and each other. You and Tommy were staying overnight with the Porters and we all had hotel rooms. What our husbands didn't understand was that showing up there with our men was like buying raffle tickets. Marc LaValliere would be taking one lucky lady away for the evening and making her his whore. That was why the night out was so exciting for us girls."

My eyes went to the screen. Marc LaValliere. The commentator on the left. His name was in a graphic under his chest.

"Yes, that's him. Or, as you came to know him, that's 'Mommy's Asshole Boyfriend.'"

The bottom fell out of my reality and I was instantly dizzy and sick.

"Asshole."

"You remember?"

"Not really. Something about spending the night at Nana and Pe-pop's. And dad was... gone for a while. You were really sad."

"You were six years old. We did what we could to protect you. I wouldn't expect you to remember any of this. Your father vanished for weeks. I only saw him once in all that time. We met with a marriage counselor, a 'neutral third party,' so that I wouldn't 'manipulate' him or try to get him 'back under control,' as he put it. He was correct, that's exactly what I meant to do. Anyway. It was a disaster, and then he stormed off to Atlanta for ten days. I didn't know where he'd gone until later. That was when he started taking all those temporary work assignments out of town.

"I'd chased him away from the marriage. He was so, so very angry with me. And he was right to feel that way. I'd treated him like absolute shit. Marc had come over to our table and took me away for a dance. He didn't even ask. He danced with me for several numbers and told me to sneak out the back with him. I crept back to our table to collect my purse, and I had to face Jim, who'd been forced to watch the whole thing. I could barely look him in the eye. Dee covered for me, making some excuse and keeping Jim busy so I could get away. That was the last moment I was married to your father. The estrangement and divorce took another year and a half, but that's when it really ended."

"I'm sorry. That sounds awful."

"It was beyond awful. But it wasn't the worst part."

"God. What was worse?"

"WHY it happened. I would have eventually ruined my marriage whether Marc the Asshole had chosen me that night or not. Remember, I did pretty much the same thing three more times, three different ways, to three more husbands. And I never let myself see why. I was too self-absorbed and entitled. Just like you are, right now."

"I'm not..."

"Shh. I said I couldn't see it at the time. Neither can you. Only the right perspective will reveal it. That's why we're talking. This is a kind of an Intervention, you see. We're all hoping that my story will give you enough insight to turn yourself around before it's too late, if it isn't already.

"Let me tell you what was in my head: I had a good marriage with Jim. He loved me, and I loved him. We were deeply, powerfully committed to each other. Nothing could ever break us. We had our children, and our happy home. There was too much at stake for anything to disrupt that. Jim was a good man, a good husband, and the strongest spirit I'd ever known. There was surely nothing he wouldn't forgive me for. He'd conquer every fear, every silly male insecurity, he'd overcome his own ego, just to love me and keep me and make sure I was happy."

"Mom..."

"Please. I know this is hard to hear, that's the point. I had an Opportunity. A Once-In-A-Lifetime Event. I was CHOSEN. Marc Lavillere, a God among men, was going to turn me into a glamorous, free, sexy, uninhibited goddess. I'd always have that one magical perfect night and the best sex of my life, the best sex any woman would ever want, and then I'd get to go back home to my loving husband afterwards. Sure, Jim's feelings would be hurt for a while, but he didn't own me. I could do as I wanted Just This Once. He'd get over it eventually, and I'd spend the rest of my life Making It Up To Him."

***

I awoke with a cold cloth on my forehead, in one of Mom's recliners with my feet elevated. She touched a straw to my mouth. It was water, in a plastic tumbler with a lid.

"You fainted, dear."

"Mom..."

"It's okay. I was prepared for this. I fainted, once, too, while in marriage counseling with your father. He confronted me with something ugly that I'd been lying to myself about." She offered me the plate of cookies. "These will help get your blood sugar up."

"How long was I out?"

"About thirty minutes. I'm sure it didn't help that you were tired when you got here. It's almost two in the morning."

"I should go to bed."

"You won't sleep. Trust me."

"I think I will."

"Not if anything I said sounded like what's been rattling around in that bean of yours. It should be pure nightmare fuel. And I think it rang a few bells, didn't it?"

"Uh. Yeah. I guess so."

"You're my child. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And I'm certain this Richard Taylor is cut from the same cloth as Marc."

Her blue dress in its clear bag was right next to me. They really were the exact same color. I took a cookie and drank more water, not saying anything. Am I my mother's daughter? Am I doomed to ruin every marriage I'm a part of? Do I have such faith in my husband that I take him for granted while I cheat on him with other men? I mean, I haven't cheated. Not yet. Not technically. But you were going to, let's not kid ourselves. Shut up, little voice. No, not this time. You better start paying attention to me or it's lights out for your marriage.

"Little voices arguing in your head?" She asked.

"How'd you know?"

"That's what happens when you're conflicted. It's a good sign." She sighed. "I'm afraid I had a real talent for shutting down the one that I knew was right."

See?

"I'm supposed to be the one who's a clinical psychologist."

"Didn't you tell me that the one person a clinical psychologist isn't qualified to diagnose and treat is herself?"

"Yes. Stop being right, please."

"Oh, no, no, Emma. I spent most of my life with my head so far up my own butt that I could practically see out my belly button. I know all the things you've been telling yourself about how it's perfectly okay to offer yourself up to another man. 'It's exciting, and it makes me feel alive and worthy. And it's no risk if Bradley doesn't know, but even if he does, he's such a Good Man that he's sure to forgive me or accommodate my indiscretions somehow.' That kind of thinking is a drug. You'll overdose on it and hurt yourself. You might even kill yourself with it. And if it was just you, just your own life, well, that would be tragic, but at least it'd be isolated to you. But it's not. It affects Bradley, too. And Braelyn. And Cayden. And Tommy. And Me. And don't forget your father. Watching three generations of Johnson women fall to the same pattern of self-destruction would be more than he could take."

"Three generations? Nana never cheated on Pe-pop, did she?"

"Not that I know of. But she's not a Johnson, she's a Reed. I was talking about Gamma Carol."

"She cheated on Bob?"

"No, she cheated on James, Jim's father. While he was sick and dying, she had a boyfriend named Ralph. After James passed, she married the man. It didn't last. They were both cheaters, so there was no trust. She met Bob in some cancer family support group a few years later. Jim barely spoke to his mother for six or seven years. He blamed her for his father's death. Not for the cancer, but because James had lost the will to live. He'd found out about Ralph right away and didn't last long after that. You were just a baby. I'm not surprised you didn't know any of this."

"I only got to know Gamma Carol and Bob when we started going to visit them in Colorado. I think you and dad were already divorced by then."

"That's right. Our divorce was when he started talking to her again."

"He forgave her?"

"Eventually. But it was always a sore spot. Carol blamed herself for James' death, too. She and Jim agreed about that. It helped them bridge the divide. And then Jim made friends with Bob, who hadn't done anything wrong."

"So, dad forgave his mother. But he didn't forgive you."