Self-Preservation

Self-Preservation

By Nolen Thornton

March, 1995

Metairie, Louisiana

Annnnd…so I kicked him out. 

Here’s how it worked. 

Jeff had finally come downstairs and I was sitting at the kitchen table, when he walked in and sat down across from me.  

We looked at each other for a few minutes, me wondering how the hell this had happened. 

What had I missed? 

I thought we were happy, and I was struggling to believe that he was having an affair with a woman in Las Vegas. 

I searched his face.  

Oh, please, Las Vegas? Not possible. Wouldn’t I have known if you were in Las Vegas? 

He was rarely home, but that was the way it had always been, it was always me and the kids. 

Was there any possible way he could have gone to Las Vegas and me not have known? 

I wasn’t a suspicious wife; I wasn’t a jealous wife. I didn’t think I had to be. 

So, could he have? 

I hadn’t seen any airline tickets or any other expense out of the ordinary. 

Then, the phone call from that morning crashed into my brain and my eyes narrowed at him.

Graham was twelve, so he walked Summer to first grade every morning and back home in the afternoon for me. Z, barely two, was snuggled in my arms, sound asleep since breakfast, as I sat down in my office, booting up the computer, checking phone messages, sipping some coffee, absentmindedly running the fingers of my left hand through Z’s blond curls.

The phone rang and she startled in her sleep. I grabbed it quickly.

“Hello?”              

“Is this Eve Coyne?”

“Yes, can I help you?”

 The man on the other end of the phone continued. “Did you know that my wife is pregnant with your husband’s baby?”

Speechless, I sank back into my office chair, clutching Z tighter against me.

And then my brain kicked into gear.

I didn’t know this man. How did this man know me? How did he know who my husband was?

“Look,” I said, “I need a few minutes. Can I have your name and number and I’ll call you back?”

“Sure,” he replied. “I know how shocked you are. I was, too.”

I was just about to hit the end button on my phone when I heard him say, “The proof is on its way.”

Proof?

Sure enough, Federal Express showed up with an envelope, which at first, I thought nothing of. Once I’d started having babies, I opened a court reporting agency and ran it out of my house, so I got deliveries all the time. I didn’t even bother to see if was addressed to me. And when yellow bird feathers fell out, I could only stare at them. There were pictures in the envelope, too, obviously one of those sexy lingerie photo shoots.

So. This was…her.

With shaking fingers, I called the man back. 

Now, I had questions.

Furious, I called my husband at work and told him to come home right away.   

Not fifteen minutes later, he walked in, saw the feathers and pictures scattered on my office floor, turned and walked upstairs. I sat in disbelief at my desk. 

Chicken shit bastard. 

Walking up those stairs to our bedroom, though, a feeling of dread filled me. This was all just so bizarre.

Taking a deep breath, I opened our bedroom door, and immediately felt faint. Not only did I not know who this person was, but now I was looking at his naked body stretched out on our bed, his hand wrapped around his penis, masturbating furiously while he held the phone under his neck, moaning and muttering about what he was doing. He stared at me as he kept going. 

“Hang up that phone right now.” Where I found my voice, I have no idea.

“I have to go, baby”, he said, with a frustrated sigh. “She just walked in. I’ll call you back later. I love you.”

She? Me?

He hung up the phone and jumped up to stand on his side of the bed, breathing heavily, and his erection going nowhere.

“I want you,” he said, staring at me, his normally light green/blue eyes stormy with arousal. 

But not for me. For her.

It was as if a hot poker jammed into my spine.   

Was he really standing there staring at me, and telling me he wanted me? 

“Get your clothes off. Now.”

The insane urge to laugh bubbled up inside me and I let loose with it.

He never told me what to do. 

Ever. 

“I think you’ve lost your mind!” I hissed. “Get dressed. We need to talk. I’ll be downstairs.”

Staring out of the window, unseeing, I waited for the coffee to finish brewing, more confused than ever, but on a calm, steady simmer.   

Man, I loved my kitchen. 

That’s what I’d been thinking when Jeff walked in. 

When we’d gotten this little castle of mine, it needed some work. Jeff was always very hands on when it came to fixing things and making things, so we had stained glass windows that he’d made popping up in different rooms. 

Summer and Zanna had a playhouse in the backyard. Graham had a skateboard ramp. I wanted the kitchen painted white with white appliances. I wanted a black and white tiled floor, and I wanted bright red accents all around. Jeff did it all.

He must have loved me then, right?

I got up, pouring myself a cup of the hot, fresh coffee, leaning against the sink and wondering how to start this unpleasant conversation. 

“I didn’t know we were having problems.”

My husband shook his head. “We’re not. I’m very happy. Aren’t you?”

I looked at him in disbelief. “I thought I was. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“Well”, Jeff said, lighting a cigarette, “I want you both. I love you both.”

My “simmer” began to boil. Rapidly.

“Wait, wait, wait!” I cried, “Wait.” Putting my mug on the counter, I stared at him incredulously. 

“You love this woman? You love this person?”

I turned back around, grabbing a fresh mug out of the cabinet, filling it with coffee, grimacing slightly when a few drops spilled on my hand, and ignoring the mug I had just set down. Turning back to him, I blew on the steam. I couldn’t look at him, focusing instead on the black and white tiles under my feet.

This just can’t be real…

“How is this supposed to work? Do you want a divorce?” I cringed to hear him, scared of what he would say. 

“No!” Jeff rushed to say. “Of course not! I love you, Eve. I always have. You know that. Don’t be silly!” 

I peeked at him and he smiled at me. 

A spark of hope blossomed at his words, but I was glad I was still leaning against the sink as he continued. “But I love her, too.”

I looked back down at the tiles.

He’d worked all weekend on that one project, just because I wanted it. 

He must have loved me then.

 “Well, you have to give her up.” I said, feeling nauseous. 

“Oh, no,” he said, “I can’t do that. I won’t.”

“You…you won’t give up some woman who lives in another state? How could you have ever even met her to get her pregnant? How could you even have gotten her pregnant?” I hissed, incredulous. “You had a vasectomy!”

Jeff narrowed his eyes at me, started to say something and then stopped. 

“Jeff, I was there, remember?”

He smiled, like I was stupid. “Ever heard of a vasectomy reversal?”

“Hah.” I smiled grimly. “You really are delusional. After you were numb, your balls were blown up to the size of cabbage balls, the doctor slit your scrotum, located the vessels, held them up and snip, snip with the scissors. One side, then the other. Then he knotted it. And then he burned the ends. And then he stitched you up.”

His now pale and cringing face made me smirk. 

“Change the subject, Eve, or I’m going upstairs.”

“For what? To call your girlfriend who’s married to some other man named Steve and bearing a child that cannot possibly be yours?”

It was so hard to hold onto my temper, and I managed just barely. Putting my unfinished coffee cups in the sink, I rinsed my hands, dried them and turned to face Jeff, folding my arms.    

“You have to give her up,” I repeated, “Call her and tell her that it’s all over.”

I willed the threatening tears away.

“Tell her we’re going to work on our marriage.”

He shook his head. “No. I won’t. I can’t.”

“Well, you will.” I retorted. “You will give her up, because if you seriously think you can sit there and tell me that you love me and this strange woman in Las Vegas, and you think she’s actually bearing your child…that you want both of us, and think you can actually have us...both…at the same time…is…Jeff, it’s just beyond ludicrous. You make me think you’ve lost your mind. Because you know me, and you know that I will never stand for that.” 

Never. 

Angry tears filled my brown eyes. “I’ve never lied to you or cheated on you! I’ve done what we agreed to when we talked about the children you didn’t want, and the children I desperately did! I took care of them, all by myself, just like you said I had to if I wanted them. You had me, and that’s what you said you wanted. When did I begin to lose my appeal to you, Jeff? I’ve done my best to be a good wife and mother.” My fingers itched to slap him. “And what about our children? What are they supposed to think about this?”

Jeff shrugged. “They’ll do what we tell them to do.”

“And you think I’ll tell them that this is okay, that this is okay with me?”

“Yeah, babe. That’s exactly what I want you to tell them.”

I swiped a hand against the damn tears that began to trickle down my cheeks.

“You can’t do this, Jeff. You can’t! I will never, ever, accept this. Never. It’s me and the kids…or her. You need to choose. Now.”

Jeff stood quickly, his chair scraping loudly on the black and white tiled floor. 

His green blue eyes were as cold and distant as I’d ever seen them. I was used to those eyes filled with warmth and humor, laughing at something I’d said or something he’d done. Normally, he was a pretty cheerful guy.   

“Don’t make me choose, Eve”, he warned in a voice I’d never heard him use, shaking me out of my thoughts. “If you do, you’ll be sorry.” 

He clasped his hands to the sides of his head. “When I hear her voice, I’m like a dog in heat…I just have to get to her.”

I shuddered at the visual that popped in my head and went into self-preservation mode instantly, pushing away from the sink.  

“So, that’s it?” I asked, stopping next to his chair and looking him squarely in the face. 

I loved that face…

“Jeff? That’s the last thing you have to say? Are you sure? No counseling, or...”

He shook his head before I could even finish my sentence, then sat back down at the table, lit another cigarette. “I’m sure. I love you both and I can have you both.”

At ten pm, I was alone on the sofa watching the news. Jeff came downstairs, obviously going somewhere.

“I have to go to work”, he said, striding towards me. “I’ll be home around six in the morning. One of the operators called in sick.” 

And I’m supposed to believe you?

He leaned over, angling his head to kiss me. I didn’t move a muscle and I didn’t kiss him back. 

Jeff sighed and stood up. “It’ll be fine, baby, you’ll see”, he murmured, touching my hair. “I love you”.

The door shut behind him.

Hurt, angry, confused tears ran down my face, and I sobbed into a sofa pillow so the kids wouldn’t hear me. Margaret Orr went on and on about the weather.    

Sigh. How in the world could he not want me anymore? How does that work?  He promised to love me forever.

A full hour I sat on that sofa, getting out the tears out and deciding what to do, then, I got up and got busy. 

I called a locksmith, and he was there within minutes to change all the locks in the house. I cancelled all the credit cards, changed all the alarm passwords. 

Methodically, I went through the house…and it wasn’t small…picking up anything that belonged to him, being as quiet as I could so I didn’t wake the kids. 

I filled my arms with Jeff’s things, clothes, shoes, albums, tapes, books, pictures off the wall…marched to the front door and hurled it all into the middle of the lawn.   

I guess the neighbors had great coffee conversations the next morning when they saw the junk piled on our front lawn, but no one ever said anything to me. 

I went through every room, making sure I didn’t miss a thing. 

You don’t want us anymore, you don’t love any of us, even a little? You want me to accept you with another woman? Over my dead body, you stupid ass!

So, there was a huge pile on our front lawn in no time at all. I had gotten to our bedroom and was going through his things, preparing another load to the lawn when I tried to get into a closet that he had a dresser in front of. I saw that dresser every single night, knew there was a closet behind it. I just didn’t know or care what was in it. I really thought it was just blankets, but I didn’t know for sure because I’d never opened the door once the dresser went in front of it. I guess I should have asked why he had to have it there, but at the time it was no big deal. We used the dresser, and it was a piece that matched our bedroom set, and it wasn’t like there was anyplace else for us to put it. I hadn’t minded losing the closet space for the dresser space; we had another closet. It had been there for almost a year.  

There was so much adrenaline rushing through me by this point, I felt I could do anything, including moving that heavy dresser by myself. 

What I saw chilled my blood and again I had that surreal feeling…

...this has to be a dream…has to be…

There, in the closet, were a few blankets, but taking up most of the room, were rifles. Many rifles. Along with boxes of bullets. 

Oh. My. God.

I shoved my panic back down firmly. This night was just getting better and better. 

What were they doing here? Where had they even come from? When had they come here? How did I not know? 

Well, these sure in the hell weren’t staying here now that I knew they were there. Heck, I didn’t even know Jeff had one gun, much less a closet full. I hauled all fifteen down to my van and shoved them into the back until I could figure out what to do with them. 

I’d have to think about that one. 

Now that guns had come into the equation, I wasn’t staying there with the kids tonight. I was too freaked out. 

Why the fuck were there fifteen rifles in my house? 

I needed time to think.

Racing back into the house and up to our bedroom, I knelt down to check under my bed to make sure I hadn’t missed anything of his since I was famous for shoving things under beds. I pulled out some boxes, filled with my favorite paperbacks. And, there, behind my boxes, were the knives.

If the guns had stunned me, the knives terrified me. I didn’t know Jeff collected knives; I didn’t even know he liked them. The knives, big and little, sheathed and not, underneath me as I slept every night…dread gripped me, and my hands turned clammy as panic threatened.   

“No”, I muttered, rubbing my face. “think of the kids…can’t panic, think of the kids, think. Just think, Eve. Do NOT panic.”

I was thinking, all right. 

Like, what if he came home and was so pissed about the clothes and shit on the lawn and the changed locks and all, that he came after me with one of those guns or knives? Or maybe me and the kids. 

Oh, God. 

He’d never wanted children. And now he wanted that other woman more than me.

Before I’d seen the guns and knives, I was hurt, angry, and planning a divorce. 

Now, I was terrified. We would not be here when he came home, just in case I’d missed some sort of other weapon. I didn’t know this man, and I no longer trusted him.  

He could turn his back so easily on us? On his children? For another woman in another state and pregnant with someone else’s baby?

Fresh anger and adrenaline flowed through me. 

My life would never be the same again, and neither would my children’s. I was 35. Graham was 12, Summer was 5, Z was barely two.

And not a single one of us knew how incredibly lucky we all were just to be alive…because my husband, their father, was out to get us all.

…to be continued…