Standing at The Cliff

When I gave up, a piece of me died. She was my mom, after all. No matter what, I still loved her. I was hurting too. Couldn't she see that?

Things between Tabby and me took a nosedive for the worse. We existed in the same house, but I was an empty shell to her. I guess a part of me was punishing her for the part that she played in my parents' breakup. I can admit that. But a lot of it was just plain distrust.

My attitude towards women in general decreased drastically. Between my mother's cheating on my day, her rejection of me (and expecting apologies for the consequences of her behavior) and my declining marriage, I saw little to appreciate in the opposite sex. They became lying, evil, manipulative cunts to me. They were the enemy. I saw the double standards of our society as an act of war. Each time I encountered one, it enraged me.

I even began a sort of boycott. I stopped opening doors for women, stopped giving up my seat if I saw a woman standing, stopped complimenting them, everything. Chivalry was dead to me. I saw it as a system of subjugation to turn men into willing lapdogs. I vowed to myself to stop being a sucker for the all-mighty vagina.

No one felt this more than Tabby. She tried to apologize for lying to me. She tried to make it up to me. But I wouldn't let her. I was stuck in my universe of anger and rage.

Like me, she gave up trying to get closer when she continuously encountered my harsh rejection. She didn't greet me when I came home anymore. We didn't watch TV together anymore. Our once vivacious sex life was on life support. There was no laughter, no deep talks other than the bills, no...life.

The only good thing that came out of it was my dad got to keep his business, which was one of his main concerns. Since it was successful before he married my mom, and his lawyer was very good, he got to keep it free and clear. He had to give her alimony though, and she got to keep the house. But compared to giving her half of his business, it was tolerable.

Today, my dad told me to go visit my mom. He said she would need me. The final papers came today, and he wanted to make sure that she was okay.

This was one of the times that I wished I wasn't an only child. Why couldn't I have a younger sibling who could do this instead of me? It wasn't that I didn't want to see her. I was just tired of being rejected by her. How could she expect me to become her accomplice in lying and cheating, to my own dad no less? I felt like I did the right thing. That was what they taught me to do; to stand up for what I knew was right, even when everyone else was against me.

Then again, they taught me a lot of shit that they themselves didn't believe in. Why should that be any different?

But I made a promise to check on her, and that brought me to her house after months of not even driving past it. After the third time knocking and not getting an answer, I thought about going home. But a promise was a promise, so I used my key and opened the door. I was slightly surprised that the locks hadn't been changed.

I expected everything to look different. This place had been a home to a family once upon a time. My family. Now it was something else.

It was the same as I remembered; yet at the same time, nothing was the same. The only physical difference was the absence of all the family pictures. However, that one missing component changed everything. It made this house nothing more than a beautiful tomb.

I found my mom in the living room, watching TV. In front of her on the coffee table was an unopened manila envelope. I didn't come in and sit on the couch. I just stood in the doorway and called out.

"Mom? It's me, Andre."

She didn't acknowledge my presence. She just sat there on the couch ignoring me like I was some ghost that she couldn't see or hear.

"Mom, I know you hear me."

Finally, she turned to look at me. I still saw brimming anger in her eyes, but they were mostly filled with sadness. After a moment, she turned back to the TV. "What do you want, Andre?" she asked in a bland voice.

"I...I came to check on you. To make sure you were ok." I said, trying to hold my emotions in.

"I'm fine." She answered in her lifeless voice. "I'm Fine" is a phrase that means something very different when spoken by a woman in that tone. It doesn't mean "I'm okay". It actually means, "fuck off".

I was almost ready to turn and leave, but I didn't. Months of being shut out all came to the surface, and it mixed into a ball of "I don't give a fuck".

"You know what, mom? You're a real bitch."

That got her attention. She turned to me with her nose flaring like an angry bull's. "HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME THAT WAY."

I didn't back down. "Oh, now you wanna speak to me? Is that what I have to do to get you to acknowledge me?"

She leaped of the couch and stormed over to me. "I am your mother, boy. I brought you into this world, not the other way around. Don't you EVER think that you can come into my house and speak to me like that. DO YOU HEAR ME?" She bellowed at me, jabbing her finger into my chest repeatedly as she did so.

I stood my ground. This was the first conversation that we'd had in months, and I wasn't going whimper away and let it die.

"If you're my mother, then ACT LIKE IT! I'm your son, and you treat me worse than you treat a stranger in the street."

Her eyes were still filled with anger. "You're my son, but that didn't stop you from stabbing me in the back!"

"I stabbed you in the back? What about what you did to me?"

"Did to you? DID TO YOU? Grow up Andre! That was between me and your father. It had NOTHING to do with you."

"YOU RUINED MY FAMILY MOM! On top of that, you stole the very foundation of my marriage from me. That has EVERYTHING to do with me!"

"Come off it Andre..."

"No mom! Don't you get what you did to me? Everything you taught me was a lie! Everything! Remember, you told me that if I treated a woman like a queen, then she will treat me like a king. Remember that?"

For the first time, she was quiet. I took this opportunity to say what I'd been desperately needing to say to her since all this started.

"Growing up, you always told me to look to dad as an example on how to treat women. I based the very idea of a man's role in relationships on that. According to your words, you should have been treating dad like the king of kings. Yet you went out and FUCKED THE MAN WHO TREATED YOU LIKE TRASH! What does that tell me about marriage? Huh?"

To her credit, tears started to fall. She didn't comeback with some rationalizing bullshit to turn everything around and make her the victim. She didn't look to me as a scapegoat for her situation. She just stood there and cried silently. Then, she suddenly pushed past me and ran upstairs.

I stood there for a few minutes, listening out for any sounds that would let me know what she was doing. But the house was big, so I got nothing. After a minute or two of silence, I went to go find her.

I found her in her bedroom. She was lying face down. Her shoulders shook as she cried.

"Mom..."

"Go away, Andre." I heard her say.

"Mom, please. Talk to me." I pleaded. She continued to cry. I stood there in desperate silence, watching her cry. I wanted to console her, but at the same time, I wanted her to suffer. When I realized that she wasn't going to let me in, I shook my head and turned to leave. That's when I heard her talk.

"Don't go." She begged in a quivering voice that was barely a whisper. It was so soft that I didn't think I heard her correctly until she said, "Please, don't go."

I walked over to the bed and sat next to her prone body. As she sobbed, I gently stroked her back in an effort to sooth her.

She cried into her pillow for at least an hour. I stayed with her, touching her to let her know that I was there. Even when hunger cramped my stomach, I stayed.

Once she sat up, we talked. Really talked.

"Why mom? Why?" I finally asked the question that plagued me daily. She shook her head sadly.

"Because, I never stopped loving Charles. He had a hold on me that I couldn't shake. Even after all that he did to me."

"Didn't you love dad, though?"

She looked at me for a moment, and then sadly shook her head again. "Yes and no. I did love your father. I did, believe it or not. But, I was never in love with him. I didn't love him like I loved Charles. I know that you wanna hear something else, but I owe you the truth now. I do believe that I could have fallen completely in love with him if I'd met him first, but I didn't."

"Then why did you marry him?"

She exhaled loudly and wiped a new tear that was coming down her face. "Because of you."

"Huh?"

"Henry loved you Andre. From the moment he saw you, he loved you. The two of you formed an instant bond. Plus, he treated me nicely. We'd been dating for months when I realized that I couldn't love him like he deserved. I almost broke it off with him several times. But each time I was ready to let him go, I saw the two of you together. I couldn't bring myself to end it with him."

"So, you married him?"

She nodded sadly. "When he popped the question, I couldn't say no. I just held on to the hope that eventually, I would fall in love with him like I did Charles."

"How long were you cheating on him, mom?"

She sighed and looked down. "I don't know, for a few years. At least physically. And it wasn't a continuous thing. It was sort of on and off. While you were home, I was a good wife. I took care of my husband. I was faithful to him. I made love to him when he wanted and tried not to nag him too much. Then, not long after you started college, I saw Charles in the grocery store. It was like fate's cruel joke. He was with another woman. They were walking down the aisle, shopping for taco shells, or some shit like that. He had his arm wrapped around her shoulders as he whispered in her ear. When I heard her laugh out loud, I became jealous." She huffed out a sardonic laugh. "Funny, isn't it? I became jealous over a man that I hadn't seen for over 15 years."

She paused as she looked off at the wall. I didn't interject anything, even when she stopped talking. This was her show. Her memories. I needed to know what happened, and I didn't want to stop her flow.

"When he saw me, we talked for a minute. Nothing really significant; after all, he was with another woman. But I could feel the spark between us. It went straight to my stomach and sent the butterflies into a tizzy. I knew then that I was still in love with him. That selfish man."

She paused once more, more tears streaming down her face. Still, I didn't say anything. I just waited until she picked the story back up.

"That's when he started calling me. I don't even know how he got my phone number. But somehow he did, and invited me to lunch. He said he wanted to apologize for how he ended things with me. So, I went to lunch with him. I didn't sleep with him that day, but it wasn't long until I crossed that line."

"Did you feel guilty about it?"

"Yes, I did. All the time. The first time, I couldn't even look at Henry after I did it. I was so ashamed that I couldn't even bear to be around him. After a couple of days, I got over it. I showered Henry with love, and I told Charles that he had to leave me alone. I was a married woman and he had to accept the fact that I'd moved on."

"How did it pick back up again?"

She gave a slight smile of nostalgia. "Charles was never good at taking no for an answer. He pursued me and wore me down for months until I gave in again. That's how things continued to be with us. We would go at it hot and heavy, I would feel guilty and tell him to back off, he would relentlessly chase me down until I gave in again. It became our thing."

"Was it worth it?" I asked.

Her face darkened. "It was the worst mistake of my life." She said simply.

I didn't really know what I felt at this point. Anger and disappointment were definitely there, but for some reason, I also found myself feeling sorry for her. She had a long, lonely road ahead of her. Who knows, karma may even come back around for her like it did Henry. She definitely deserved it, but knowing she deserved it did nothing to quell my sympathy. After all was said and done, she was still my mother. No son with any decency could avoid feeling sympathy for his mom when she is suffering, whether she brought in on herself or not.

"Did he ever ask about me?" I asked. I know it was selfish, but this was another question that had plagued me. I didn't even know why I cared. My dad - Henry - was and is a great dad. I didn't need or want anybody else. But there was still a feeling of rejection there. To know that the person who created me left so easily and never wanted anything to do with me left a hole that no amount of hatred could fill. Then, to find out he still sought out a relationship with my mom (or whatever their "thing" was) for the past few years was another slap in the face. He wanted her, but not me. That hurt. I didn't want anything to do with him, but I'd be lying if I said that it wouldn't have been nice for him at least acknowledge me.

This time, it was she who looked at me with sympathy. "Just a little, Dre." she answered, knowing that it wasn't what I wanted to hear. "He asked what was happening in your life when we first connected, and I did show him pictures of you at your wedding. I told him all about your wife and how well you were doing. But, he didn't really want to see you. He was just making small talk."

I couldn't help the sick feeling swirling around in the pit of my stomach. I loved my mother, but I was disgusted by her at the same time. To think that she jeopardized her marriage for this man who callously rejected her only son made me angry all over again. The very fact that she had any feelings whatsoever for this guy made it hard to move past. I fought the urge to lash out at her again.

We sat on her bed quietly for a few moments. Then she reached out and grabbed my hand.

"Dre, I know that you're angry with me. I know that I disappointed you, and probably screwed your head up with giving you advice that I didn't follow. I'm so sorry for that. What I did was selfish and hurtful, and I wish that I could take it back."

I just nodded in acceptance. I couldn't look at her, so my gaze fell to the bed. She grabbed my chin and lifted my head until I was looking at her. Then she looked me right in the eyes with a stern look.

"Now, I know that I'm the last person to be giving you advice. I know that. But I feel like I have to tell you this, before you repeat mistakes made by your parents."

"What mistakes?"

"With your wife."

I scoffed out a sardonic laugh. "You mean the one who lied to me to cover for you, right?"

"Yes, she lied to you. She was wrong. But I was the one who put her in that position. She found out about me and Charles by mistake. One day she came over just as Charles was leaving."

"YOU SLEPT WITH HIM IN DAD'S BED?" I asked incredulously, raising my voice significantly.

She shook her head vigorously. "No! No, son. He knew Henry was out of town, and he tried to pop up unexpectedly. I didn't let things go that far. He tried, but I didn't want to do it in the house. When I realized that he was going to keep pushing it, I put my foot down and told him that he had to leave. When he left, we kissed. That's when Tabby saw us. I begged her not to tell you. I made her promise. She told me that she would keep my secret, but she wasn't happy about it. She urged me to think about what I was doing and end it."

"You still let him in dad's house. You may not have slept with him, but it was still disrespectful."

"I know. Like I said, if I could change things, I would." She said apologetically.

I shook off my further disappointment in my mom and asked, "So how did Tabby go from 'not being happy about it' to covering for you?"

"I broke it off with Charles after Tabby caught us. It was a wake-up call. I stayed clear of him for a while. During that time, Tabby and I grew closer. She really became my daughter then. I suppose that a large part of me was grateful to her, and that made me love her even more. But by that weekend that you and your father went out of town, Charles and I had started back up again. I was supposed to spend the weekend with Tabby. She and I were going to get manis, pedis, and do a whole girl weekend thing. But then Charles called and said that he had tickets to the new ballet that was in town. I tried to cancel things with Tabby, but she was disappointed and kept asking why. She said that she was looking forward to 'girl's day out'. Because she kept pressing, I had to be honest with her and tell her the truth. I never asked her to lie to you, but I think she did it because you knew that she was supposed to be with me. She didn't want you to ask her why things got canceled.

"That still doesn't let her off the hook." I said. For some strange reason, I also found myself wondering what kind of man takes a woman to the ballet on Super Bowl Sunday.

The kind of man who wants to get laid, that's who.

"I know Dre. But, don't you think she's suffered enough? Don't you think she's sorry? How long does she have to live in purgatory?"

I jumped up from the bed. "This isn't about making her suffer. I DON'T TRUST HER! She lied to me to protect you. Your little adulterous liaisons were worth more to her than I was. Her promise to you trumped her vows to me. Why would I trust her?"

She nodded thoughtfully. "So, what are you gonna do? Why haven't you divorced her yet? If you can't trust her, you should get rid of her and move on with your life."

That stopped me in my tracks. No matter what, I never seriously thought about leaving Tabby. What my mother said next sent an arrow straight into my heart.

"I say that because I guarantee that if you keep treating her like this, she will leave you. Right now, she's sorry for what she did. She desperately wants to rebuild your relationship. But the longer you push her out, the less it hurts. The less it hurts, the easier it becomes for her to be without you. You don't want wake up to the day that she stops crying over you. That's when she will realize that she is better off alone than being miserable with you. Trust me on that son. On that day, she will leave you, and there will be no turning back."

***

As I drove home, I thought about what my mom said. Yes, I was angry with Tabby. I didn't trust her, though deep down I knew she didn't cheat on me. But she covered up for a cheater, and that was really hard for me to fathom. But, I also knew that I definitely didn't want to end my marriage. Underneath all the anger, I loved her.

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't make myself trust her. I couldn't make myself forget that she was capable of keeping secrets that would hurt me. Once you know that a person is capable of something, it becomes hard to expect anything less from them if the situation requires it.

When I made it home, I sat in my drive way for twenty minutes. I wasn't ready to go into the house yet. I couldn't face Tabby.

Once again, I was standing on the edge of a cliff. When you think about it, that's what love and trust really is. It's like jumping off a cliff. You have to trust that there is something down there that will break your fall. If not, you will only be able to watch in despair as you plummet towards an inevitable end filled with pain and death.

I wanted to jump. I really did. But I couldn't. I was no longer 100% certain that there was something down there to keep me safe.

My dad's voice came to me from nowhere. A latent memory of sorts from one of the many lessons he taught me.

Son, when a person is faced with a seemingly impossible task, he does one of two things. He either runs away from it, or he tries to figure out how to do it. The answer doesn't always come to him right away. Sometimes, the only thing he can do is take the first step, and fight like hell until an answer presents itself. If he doesn't fight, he will never be in a position to win.