Rebirth

"Happy birthday, Gwen."

***

Time blurred. I can sort of remember her pleading with me not to leave; I can recall her voice but not the exact words, and I can't remember her face at all. I don't remember leaving. There was this vague sense of motion, her sobbing on the front porch and me sitting in the car, pointedly not looking at her. And then I was driving away.

I should count myself lucky that I didn't get into an accident. I came to my senses while driving on the highway, and at first, I didn't even know what route I was on or what direction I was headed. Some part of me needed to be away, and so away I had gone without any destination in mind.

When I finally got my bearings, I pulled the car into the next rest stop. It was one of those small ones. There was no gas station or convenience store, just a plain brick building with bathrooms and vending machines. Stepping out, I managed to get myself over to a bit of a grassy area where there were picnic benches.

Reached the treeline, I finally let myself be noisily sick all over the bushes. The vomit kept coming as I heaved my guts out, leaving me feeling empty physically as well as emotionally. Falling backward, I sat against a nearby tree trunk to catch my breath. My skin felt clammy. The bile burned in my raw throat and clung to my tongue. Rubbing at my face, I wanted the world to go away.

"Hey, buddy!" The voice was older, thick. I opened my eyes to see a trucker making his way towards me. "You OK?"

I nodded, letting my hands fall into my lap. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess." I took a deep breath. I was lying. There had been enough lies today. "No, I guess I'm not."

He squatted down and peered into my eyes. Overweight, grizzled, a battered baseball hat, he was your stereotypical trucker. "Don't smell booze on you. Your pupils ain't shot all to hell, so it don't look like you've been doing drugs. Don't look the type, either. You do look like shit, though. You sick? You want me to call an ambulance?"

Shaking my head again, I managed to give him a half-grin. "No. Well, sort of. Love-sick, maybe. Brokenhearted. You know how it is."

This total stranger nodded solemnly. "Shit. I've got a good idea, yeah. Sorry to hear it, buddy." Looking back over his shoulder towards the highway for a moment, the teamster chewed his lower lip for a second before returning his attention to me. "Look, you were weaving in and out pretty badly back there on the road. I pulled in after you to give you hell for it, but I don't think I can make you feel any worse than you look already. Still, you getting behind the wheel again don't make me feel too comfortable. You got someone you can call?"

There had been two people in this world that I trusted beyond any doubt. Now there was only one.

"Yeah. My sister. I can call her." With numb fingers, I dragged my phone out of my pocket. The trucker rose and stepped away a bit to give me some privacy, leaning against a picnic table not too far away to keep an eye on me. I was oddly grateful.

The phone rang twice before it picked up, and I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I heard AnnaBelle's familiar greeting. "Hey, jerkface! What's up? I thought you were going to be whooping it up with Gwen today."

I smiled. "Hey, dingdong. Things, uh, things didn't go as I'd planned." Understatement of the year, right there. "Can you come and pick me up? And, I know you and Duncan have got the kids and everything, but can I crash at your house tonight? Just for the night, I promise."

AnnaBelle went quiet. Anyone who knows her knows that her going quiet like that was never a good sign. "What happened?"

Taking a deep breath, I let the smile drop away. "I caught Gwen and Joe. In bed. Together. An hour or so ago."

There was another long, frosty silence, followed by, "THAT BITCH!" Then AnnaBelle went into business mode. "OK, where are you?"

I felt a little foolish asking the trucker exactly where we were, but he said nothing unkind about it. Relaying the location to my sister, I could hear her nodding over the phone. "OK, I'll drop the kids off at my brother-in-law's house; Tammy and I babysit each other's kids all the time. Give me about twenty, maybe thirty minutes, and I'll be there." AnnaBelle's voice went soft as she added, "I'm sorry, big brother."

"Hey," I drawled with more humor than I felt, "Not your fault, dumb-dumb. See you soon. Love you."

"Love you, too, Jack." She must have been worried about me. My sister and I rarely used each other's first names unless it was serious.

The call ended, and I looked up towards the trucker. The man swayed his bulk back over to me and lowered onto his haunches again. "Sorry. Tried not to listen, but I heard enough. She cheated on you, huh?"

I couldn't trust my voice again, so I nodded.

Clicking his tongue, he spat to one side. "My wife left me a while back. Found some college shithead and dropped me cold." He raised an eyebrow. "You got kids?"

I shook my head. "No. We were going to, eventually, but..."

"Hate to say it, but that'll make things easier. I don't think my daughter forgave either of us." Reaching back, he pulled out a battered leather wallet on a chain. A dog-eared business card was produced and offered. "Doubt you know what you want to do yet, buddy. I know I didn't at the time. But if push comes to shove, give this guy a call. He did me right."

Taking the card, I looked at it. "Thomas Linn. Who is he?"

"A divorce lawyer. A good one. Decent guy, we still go out for a beer now and then. Maybe you and your lady will work things out, maybe not. But it can't hurt to give him a call. He'll play it straight with you." Sticking out his hand, the trucker introduced himself. "Ted. Ted White."

I shook the open hand. It was a solid handshake, too, not some limp gesture or domineering grip. I felt bad that my palm was sweaty. I liked this guy. "Jack Brandt."

"I gotta get back on the road, Jack. You gonna wait for your sister?"

"Yeah. Yeah, driving right now doesn't seem to be that great of an idea."

"Good enough for me." Ted rose and hitched up his pants. "You take care of yourself, Jack. And trust me, things seem bad now, but things have a habit of working out. Least, that's what they tell me."

Ted left, and I closed my eyes again. Leaning back against the tree, I tried to relax. Life didn't make sense anymore, though. The person who should have most had my back in this world had betrayed me, and a total stranger had cared enough to check up on me. The whole world had turned upside down. For a short while, I drifted away. The background noise of the highway faded, and I remembered....

***

"Are you alone?"

I looked up from my beer in surprise to find a petite, urchin-eyed goth girl smiling at me. That she bothered with me out of all of the guys in the bar was surprising, especially considering that I wasn't dressed anything like them or her.

My friends and I were gaming geeks, right out of college. We played tabletop RPGs, talked about sci-fi and fantasy, traded comic books, and played in collectible card game tournaments. A couple of us were into historical re-enactments. Coffee shops and libraries were our haunts of choice. Music tastes? All over the place! But it had to have some meat to it, not badly dubbed samples run through a repetitive chorus with a simple bass line.

So how the hell had we ended up in a club frequented by goths and (what was then) the start of the emo scene?

Someone suggested it as a change of pace. There were jokes about playing vampires at the gaming table, so 'hey, let's go out and meet some!' We all laughed at that. We didn't go to make fun of anyone, though, we just wanted to go to see something different.

Everyone dolled themselves up in black leather and fishnets. It had been fun watching some of the guys try to put on makeup and not ending up looking like a bunch of clowns! Thankfully, the internet had recently evolved into something useful and tutorials were to be had. A trip to a mall yielded a number of spiked accessories to round our crew out. We had looked... OK, I suppose. God only knows what the actual goth-scene folks thought about us!

I didn't dress up, not like my friends did. No makeup for me, either. My wallet was next to empty, so I went in for whatever I could scrounge from the local charity store: slightly torn black jeans, a stained white T-shirt with a skull on it, a checkered flannel shirt of dark red and grey, and my raggy-ass sneakers. Back then, my light-brown hair had been waist-length and tied into a ponytail with several hairbands.

Had I looked 'goth?' No. Looking back, I probably came across as more of a skinny, depressed lumberjack than a sexy, elegant creature of the night!

I sat at the bar to nurse the first of my two-drink minimum while my friends went off into darker corners. While I didn't feel unwelcome, I was sorely aware that I probably stuck out like a sore thumb.

So why this short, pixie-faced, waifish goth girl in a gorgeous black dress right out of the 19th Century approached and spoke to me was puzzling. Yet my heart started to pump faster at the sight of her. There was this intoxicating scent about her: flowers and spices mixed in with something more primal.

And God, her eyes! My gaze could have drifted anywhere on her body. I could have checked out her breasts, looked down to see if she was showing any leg, tried to figure out if she was wearing a corset. But I found it impossible to not look into those big, dark eyes with their extenuating lashes.

"Are you alone?" she repeated in a louder voice when I hadn't responded. The thumping techno music had made conversation at a normal level impossible. Her smile hadn't slipped.

"Um, no. No!" Did I stammer? I think I stammered. "I mean, I'm here with some friends. They're out on the dance floor somewhere, I think."

"But are you alone?" she pressed.

Oh. OH! Dumbfounded that she'd ask me, I rapidly shook my head. "You mean... No! No, I'm not here with anyone special or anything."

Her smile grew wider and yet also more demure. Relief crossed her face.

"Good," was her reply. Then, bold as anything, she plopped herself onto the barstool next to me. It couldn't have been an easy thing for her to do with the small bustle that was part of her ensemble.

We sat next to each other for several minutes, just glancing at each other and not really saying anything. People laughed and whirled around us. The music shook us to our bones, and the bartender had kept giving the two of us funny looks.

Finally, I swallowed my nervousness and tried to break the ice. An infatuation had begun to take hold, and I realized that if I didn't say something to her soon, I would probably lose any chance of ever seeing her again. The very idea of never seeing those eyes again pained me.

"I'm sorry, I have to ask," I politely inquired, "are you wearing a corset under all of that? And full petticoats?"

She rewarded me with a laugh. "If you're good," she teased me, "maybe you can find out later."

I blushed, not used to be flirted with.

She saw my distress, though, and she extended a black-gloved hand by way of greeting.

"I'm Gwen."

***

AnnaBelle's voice gently brought me back to the waking world, banishing the sweet memory, and I opened my eyes to find her peering down at me from beneath her blonde bangs. My sister smiled in relief.

"You realize you could get robbed out here, right, stupid?"

I grinned at her. "What, like that's going to make my day any worse?"

Against her will, she chuckled. Then she hugged me hard. "God, I'm sorry, Jack. I know how much you love her."

AnnaBelle was here. My little sister had come to my rescue as she always had before, and my arms went around her to cling to her. The tears started falling again. This time, there was no stopping them.

"Take me home, AnnaBelle."

***

Our car ride back to my sister's place was a silent one, but I was looking forward to being home again.

Was it odd to call it home? AnnaBelle had lived there with her husband and the twins; it was her home, not mine. But it used to be mine, as well. The old farmhouse had been in our mother's side of the family for four or five generations. When Mom passed away four years ago, it was left to me and AnnaBelle. Since Gwen and I already had our own single-level ranch, it made more sense for my sister to have it. It was a sprawling building with plenty of additions added on over the years. There was no shortage of bedrooms! When she and Duncan had gotten married, I signed over my half of the house to them as a wedding present. So it was their house now.

But I had grown up there. Our mother and grandparents had raised us in that house after our father had left, and while I had moved out, in some ways it was still my home, too. The familiar scent of the place filled my nose as we entered, welcoming me back. There was the scent of 'baby' in the air now, little Jaqueline and Diana being only a year old. That was OK, though. They were my nieces, and I loved them. They were part of my family, part of my home.

"I called Duncan and let him know what was up," my sister was saying as we walked into the kitchen. The front door was for visitors; the back door was for family. "He said he'll pick up the girls on his way home."

"Does anyone else know?" I wasn't ready for the entire world to know I'd been cuckolded.

Thankfully, my sister shook her head. "No. Duncan won't say anything unless he clears it with you first. Tammy asked when I dropped the twins off, but I left it off at there's an emergency on my side of the family."

I sat down at the table while she made for the kettle. "Considering that our side of the family is only you and me now, it won't take her and James long to figure out who you're talking about. Do your brother-in-law and his wife even know about the extended clan?"

"I doubt it. Not like we've heard from either Aunt Helen or Uncle Josh since Mom died. It kind of broke them, I think. As for our cousins? Sharon's up north somewhere doing volunteer work of some kind, Josh Junior was in Pennsylvania doing something with watches and clocks last I heard, and who knows where the hell Doreen is. Still, while James and Tammy will probably figure out that it has something to do with you, they're both discrete enough not to get involved unless invited. They've got their hands full with their kids anyway. Their youngest just hit the terrible threes."

"Isn't that the terrible twos?"

My sister snorted. "Trust me. My youngest nephew is a terror."

She brought over two cups of steaming tea, placing one before me before she sat down on the opposite side of the table. It felt good to be there, talking with her, talking about family. It was everyday stuff. I could handle that. The two of us talked for a good two hours. It was a good distraction that calmed my mind and gave me some distance from the immediate trauma.

Eventually, the inevitable had to be faced. The gorilla in the room could only be ignored for so long.

My sister reached out across the table and took one of my hands into both of hers. "So what happened?"

Taking a deep breath, I felt a tremor go through my body again. I told her everything that had happened, including my losing my temper. AnnaBelle raised her eyebrows at that. I started with my plans leading up to Gwen's birthday and ended at the point where the trucker found me. I had more to say than I thought I would. I'd love to say that it was cathartic, that it was good to get it all off of my chest. The truth is that it was more like picking at an open wound, making it larger. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if the wound wasn't right over where my heart was supposed to be.

My sister, God bless her, listened. She was good at listening.

"No warning at all, huh?" she asked sympathetically. Both of our cups of tea had gone cold, half-drunk at best.

"No. I didn't know anything was wrong, I can't think of anything that would have been a sign that anything was wrong, and I still can't get it around my head, you know?" I sighed. "I mean, yeah, Joe was around a lot, but so are a lot of our friends. She was friends with him first, but it's not like I'd come home to find him lounging around on the couch. Gwen didn't talk about him more than anyone else we know. Maybe she spent more time dancing with him when we've gone out, but I've always been there. Nothing ever went on in front of me."

AnnaBelle grimaced. "I hate to ask this of my own brother, but what about sex?"

Here, I could only shrug. "It's been great, I thought. She's never complained, always came across as being satisfied. More than satisfied! Between you and me, she introduced me to a lot of stuff I would never have -"

Embarrassment brought me up short. There were some things that I wasn't sure I wanted to explain to my little sister! AnnaBelle only grinned wickedly in response. With a delicate cough, I continued.

"I mean, we used to screw like bunnies the first year or so we were married, and things did slow down after that. Once every other day down to maybe once a week." Was that the sign right there? "But I've read that that's what happens in long term relationships, stuff slows down a little bit. She never said anything, and once a week is still pretty, I don't know, still pretty good, right?"

AnnaBelle huffed wryly. "I've got two one-year-olds. Ask me how often Duncan and I can get it on right now."

I didn't want to go there, so I tried to steer the conversation towards a different topic. "I don't remember what happened when I lost my temper. I know sort of what I said, but not exactly. And I don't remember leaving the house or driving on the highway."

"Shock," my sister informed me. She had briefly worked as a trauma nurse in the county hospital before it got to be too much. "Your mind couldn't fully process what was happening, so parts of it shut down to help you keep going. I've seen it before. Accident victims would come in with barely a scratch on them, but they'd gone into autopilot after seeing what was left of a loved one. Same sort of thing. If you keep having lapses, though, you should see a therapist or something. Right now, though? I wouldn't worry too much about it."

"The real question, big brother, is what do you want to do about this?" AnnaBelle lifted one of her hands away from mine to forestall any answer on my part. "You don't have to answer that immediately. Take some time to think about it."

Closing my mouth, I nodded in agreement. "I should call work, I suppose, see if I can get a few days off. And we'll have to work out getting my car from the rest stop."

AnnaBelle and I made what plans as we could. Getting off from work for a few days proved a bit trickier. I explained as much as possible to the Human Resources agent as I felt comfortable with, argued for family leave, was denied, but they granted me the use of the three days of 'personal time off' that I had left. It was Wednesday. That would give me five days off with the weekend, so I had until Tuesday morning to try and figure out what the hell I wanted to do. I was finishing an email to my boss when Duncan came home with the twins.

My brother-in-law was an odd character. Duncan and my sister looked like the ultimate mismatch. She was nearly as tall as I was, full-figured (all the more so after giving birth to her kids), naturally blonde and blue-eyed, and something of a knockout. Her husband, on the other hand, was barely over five-feet tall, scrawny, weathered, and looked like a grinning monkey half of the time. There was also the age difference: they were a decade apart.