Chapter 5

After our pie, we went into the living room and Sara put an animated movie on for Sareen. We sat on the sofa and Sareen snuggled up on one side of me while Sara kicked off her shoes and curled her legs up under her in that impossible way women have.

“That was delicious,” she said. “You haven’t lost your touch in the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Sara, I hate to ruin the mood, but what is it, exactly, that you’re doing?”

“I’m throwing my hat back in the ring,” she said. “I’ve been trying to explain myself to you for a long time. I came over to sit down and talk to you three days after I moved out. You were gone. You disappeared. After I heard you were back, I tried to talk to you. I don’t know your phone number, so I couldn’t call you. You blocked me so that I couldn’t email you. I must have sat outside your office a hundred times, once I found out where you worked. I don’t know how you did it, but you never came out.”

“I had the security guard tell me when you were there,” I said. “I went out another door.”

She gave a sad little smile. “I thought it was probably something like that. I came here and parked down the street. I saw you leave, sometimes, but I couldn’t ever tell if you were home. You never came home while I was here.”

“I always checked,” I told her. “If I saw your car, I just went somewhere else.”

“Well, that’s why I never got a chance to tell you about Sareen,” she said. “You were gone all the time I was pregnant. I brought the test kit, John.”

“Just leave it when you go,” I told her. “Assuming you’re telling me the truth, now what?”

“I need my husband,” she said. “Sareen needs her father.”

“What the hell?” I said. “You drop a bomb on my life, move out, after giving me some psych mumbo-jumbo, waltz right back, drop another bomb and tell me you ‘need’ me. Well, I needed you, Sara. You didn’t give a da…” I glanced down at Sareen. She was enrapt in her movie. “You didn’t care at all about me needing you. Why should I care about you needing me?”

“You’re wrong about that,” she said.

“Okay, you tell me where I’m wrong,” I said. “What, was my co…” I looked down at Sareen. She was still absorbed in her movie. “Was I not big enough for you? Did I not do it for you?”

Sara looked horrified. “Oh, no, John, don’t ever think that. Se… that, was never a problem for us. You know that. No, you rocked my world. You’re huge! I never… Jesus, John! What’s wrong with you? You’re such a man! Why do men think things like that? Do you think every woman is a size queen? Do you think we’re all panting for a ten-inch dong?”

“Are you a queen, Mamma?” Sareen piped up. Damn, she was listening!

Sara laughed. “No, baby, but you’re a princess.” Sareen giggled. Nice save, I thought. I reached down and squeezed her knee. She smiled up and me, and my vision got blurry.

“I want her, Sara,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean I want to be with her,” I said. “I want her to stay with me, I want her on the weekends, I want her for Christmas.”

“Okay, I thought you’d feel that way,” she said. “I know how you feel. The problem is, I want her, too. We can work things out.”

“I want her to spend the night,” I said.

“We’re sort of a package deal, John,” she said.

“Sareen, would you like to spend the night with me and Tomy?” I asked her.

“Yes,” her curly little head bobbed.

“Baby, do you want to stay with just John and Tomy?” she asked.

She shook her head, this time. “No,” she said. She was very emphatic. “I want you to stay, too, Mamma. I might need you.”

“You just can’t think about you, John,” Sara said. “She’s more important than that. You have to think about what she would want, too. I’ll work with you and you can have her nearly any time you want, but you have to be sensitive to her needs, too.”

That made sense, so I nodded. It didn’t sound like the old Sara, either. “I get that.”

“This isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said. “John, I need to ask you something. When I told you what was going on with me, I was 100 percent honest with you. It had nothing to do with… you know what. The idea of you not being big enough is ridiculous. Ten-inch dongs are something men are interested in, not women. You’ve been reading too much porn.”

“What’s porn, Mamma?” Sareen asked. We both burst out laughing.

“It’s nothing, Sareen,” I told her. “Um. It’s kind of like corn except yucky. You aren’t ever going to have anything to do with it.”

Sara was nearly in hysterics. “This is too much,” she gasped. “Anyway, it wasn’t about that, John. It was about me not being a very mature person. I was so in love with you. I still am. I felt like I was being swallowed and there wouldn’t be anything left of me and it scared the hell out of me. I panicked and did something stupid, okay? I thought I needed to get away from you for a while. I never meant it to be permanent. I thought we’d get together a couple of times a week and I’d…” she looked at Sareen and giggled, “I’d knock your socks off. I know this all sounds like BS. It does to me, now, but it didn’t at the time. I was an immature child and I thought like one.”

“Why didn’t you say that?” I asked. “It sure as he… heck seemed like you intended for it to be permanent to me.”

“I did say that,” she insisted. “I said exactly that, but either I didn’t say it very well or you weren’t listening very well. Did I ever, once, say, ‘I’m leaving you, John. I don’t want to be married to you anymore’?”

“No, you said, ‘John, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m moving out. I have a place over on Pine Street and I’m moving in next Saturday. I need some time by myself. I need to find my own ‘identity’, or some stupid sh… junk like that.” My voice got a little louder and Sareen looked up at me.

“It’s okay, sorry,” I said. Her eyes went back to the TV, but I knew her ears were on Sara and me. This wasn’t working.

“This is too awkward,” Sara said. “I want you to be able to say what you want to say. Are you doing anything tomorrow?”

“I was going to watch some basketball, drink some beer and wash and vacuum the car,” I said. “Why?”