Taking Back Mary Ellen Black

CHAPTER H

Happiness

Although I didn’t want to raise any hopes in my children or my mother, I took extra time with my makeup and clothes. I had some pride; it was about time that I showed it. And showed Eddie what he’d given up… The girls. I wanted him to want them back, to want to spend some time with them. I didn’t want him to want me. Okay, maybe I did, but I didn’t want him back.

“Going to the restaurant today is a really good idea, Mary Ellen,” Mom said, nodding at my hair and makeup, the highest praise she’d ever given me.

Even staggered by her compliment, I had to clarify, “For the girls, Mom. Yes, it is.”

“Maybe for you, too, honey.” She really did care, did love me. “Good luck.” But she would never understand me.

“Good luck with what?” Dad asked on his way out the door to open the store. Jesus was back to help him with the Saturday-morning crowd, and I didn’t know who was more relieved—me or Dad. He bussed my cheek on the way out the door. “You look good, honey. I’ll miss you today. It was great having you at the shop.”

“It was fun being with you, Dad.” And despite the neighborhood gossips, I had enjoyed spending time with my dad. While I knew Eddie would never have the kind of relationship with Amber and Shelby that I had with Daddy, I wanted him to have some relationship with them, any relationship.

As I pulled the Bonneville into the restaurant lot later that morning, I realized I should have accepted my mom’s wish for luck. Luck that Eddie would be happy to see his girls, that he would show them that they’re important to him.

But as I parked in the shadow of the concrete building on the east side of Grand Rapids, I didn’t feel lucky. I should have called him, should have warned him. But then, wouldn’t it be just like the little weasel to have refused? He’d done it while we were waiting for the divorce. In fact, I could scarcely remember the last time he’d seen his children. And while I hated him for that, I hated myself, too. I should have done this for the girls sooner.

“Is Dad here, Mommy?” Shelby asked.

“God, you’re stupid,” Amber snarled. “Dad’s always here.”

The shadow of the building grew, swallowing me in the darkness. This, not some twenty-year-old cocktail waitress, had been my husband’s mistress and not just for the last couple of years, but for all eleven years of our marriage. A new hairdo wouldn’t make him want me, wouldn’t make him regret what he’d thrown away. I couldn’t compete with bricks, a brass bar and jovial customers.

I threw open the door of the restaurant and stepped out of the shadow. As the light washed over me, I realized something else D-day had done for me. I didn’t want to compete anymore. I didn’t want Eddie to act like a husband or a lover, ex or jealous. I wanted him to be a father, nothing else.

The Saturday lunch crowd wasn’t what it used to be. But then not much was. I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure who I was yet, but I wasn’t Mrs. Edward Nowicki. Still, the staff glanced up with trepidation when we walked in. Perhaps they expected a repeat of my hysterics on the day the bank had slapped the foreclosure notice on the house. The hostess, standing behind her podium in the foyer, smiled politely, looked at the girls and then back at me. Her pouty mouth fell open. “Mrs. Nowi—”

“Ms. Black. Mary Ellen’s fine,” I corrected her. “Trina, isn’t it?”

Her head bobbed, her fine blond hair bobbing with it. “Yes.”

“Is Eddie in?”

Amber snorted at my rhetorical question.

“He’s in the office, Mrs.—Mary Ellen.” Trina’s heavily mascaraed eyes widened with a hint of panic.

“I’ll go back and let him know he has visitors,” I offered. “Would you mind seating the girls for me? They can order, too. They know what they want.” A father. And I intended to make him act like one, if only for a few minutes.

“Mrs.—” The confusion over my name stopped her protest, and I slipped past her and down the hall, past the rest rooms to Eddie’s office.

The door was ajar, so I pushed it open the rest of the way. Well, so much for my hopes and dreams. Obviously Eddie’s dick hadn’t shriveled up and fallen off. All three and three-quarters inches of it jutted out of his pants then disappeared between the lips of the girl kneeling in front of him.

“Excuse me—” Both of them jumped.

“Don’t look guilty,” I said at their stricken expressions. Good thing I’d come back alone.

“Mary Ellen—”

“It’s okay, really,” I insisted as Eddie dragged the blond girl in the tight, black waitress uniform to her feet with one hand, while he struggled to zip up his pants with his other hand.

Obviously he still had the same reaction to me, new hairdo and all, that he’d developed the last couple of years. I could deflate him faster than anyone. “We’re divorced. It’s okay now.”

Now. Before it hadn’t been. When he’d first told me about this young woman in his life, I’d been devastated, hysterically heartbroken. Now I was just quietly bitter. The divorce decree made a difference. This wasn’t my husband getting a blow job in his office. This was my ex. I honestly didn’t care. In fact, I was amused by the blush on both their faces.

“Why are you here? I told you there’s no money.” He finally lifted his chin to face me, and I noticed a yellowing bruise around one of his eyes.

“Money would be nice,” I admitted. “You should help support your daughters—”

“I told you—”

The young girl shrank away, probably wishing in her embarrassment that she could disappear. Maybe she wasn’t a ’ho, to borrow Grandma’s new word. Maybe she was just young and stupid the way I’d once been. But I was older now…

“Eddie, there’s other support than monetary. The girls need your attention. You’ve hardly seen them since you left—”

“You’re staying with your dad, and I can guess how he feels about—”

“I’m going to leave now,” the girl said as she awkwardly tried to slip past me and into the hall. I sidestepped, allowing her to escape what she was probably sure would be an ugly scene. She’d been present the day I’d gotten the foreclosure notice.

“He feels like a father should,” I went on. “He wants his daughter to be happy. He resents whoever makes her unhappy.”

Did Daddy resent Eddie enough to have given him that black eye? Despite his age, Daddy could still be a brawler. And it wouldn’t take much to beat Eddie. Although his driver’s license said five-eight, Eddie stood only five-six in his stocking feet. I could tower over him with heels, and for some reason, I’d worn platform tennis shoes today. I could take him. And if he hurt my girls, he’d be sporting another black eye. “You should feel that way, Eddie—”

“About you?” he asked, his thin lips twisting into a sneer. “Is this for me, Mary Ellen? The hair? Wearing some makeup for once? You think that’s going to make me change my mind? You should have thought of something before you got the dye job. Blondes are more fun!”

A laugh sputtered out. I couldn’t help it. “You’re such an ass, Eddie. The saying is that blondes have more fun, but since that poor girl hooked up with you, she won’t know fun anymore.”

His face reddened again. Despite the bleached highlights in his hair, he showed his age. Forty, prime time for a mid-life crisis. He hadn’t realized all those big dreams he’d had, only owning this restaurant, and he was on the verge of losing that. “You were never any fun, Mary Ellen,” he accused.

I shrugged. “Not since I met you, no. I don’t want you back, Eddie.” I wanted me back, wherever I’d been hiding the last eleven years. I wanted fun, but before I could satisfy my desires, I had to make sure my girls were happy. And they needed a relationship with their father.

“Then why—”

“For the girls. I brought them. They—” Miss him? How? He hadn’t been around much before the divorce. He’d been busy trying to save this sinking ship “—wanted to see you.”

“They did?” His flush deepened, and I remembered that middle age was prime time for a heart attack, too.

“You okay, Eddie?”

“There’s a lot going on right now, Mary Ellen. Now’s not a good time—”

My hand clenched into a fist, but before I could swing, I took a deep breath, exhaled, closed my eyes. I had to keep it together. For the girls. “Just a few minutes, Eddie. Talk to them. Ask them about school, gymnastics…show some interest in them, okay? Fake it!”

He didn’t try to lie to me for once; he didn’t claim to have any interest in them now, as he was obviously preoccupied with something else. And I knew what a mistake I’d made. Without seeing him, they could weave the fantasy that he might actually care about them, but seeing him, seeing the blank, bored expression on his weaselly face, they would know the truth. Even Shelby who was usually so blissfully oblivious…

As he walked up to the table where the hostess was serving them chocolate milk, the girls didn’t meet him with bright smiles. And he didn’t wrap his arms around them, torn apart from missing them. I missed them while they were at school. He hadn’t seen them in several weeks and displayed no joy in seeing them now. Instead, he looked embarrassed, face flushed, and for a man who usually oozed charm, he didn’t look as if he had a clue what to say to them.

“I’m sorry…”

I turned at the meek voice near my shoulder as I held back from the table. “What?”

“I’m sorry…about…”

I waved a hand at the little blonde’s anxiety. “I said it was okay. Really.” And for me, it would be since I was free of Eddie. But it wouldn’t be for her, not unless she ran like hell. I thought about warning her, but I wasn’t that benevolent. After all, she had known he was a married man even if he’d forgotten.

“But you were probably expecting…”

I followed her gaze to the table where Eddie stood above the girls, and they carried on a brief, stilted conversation. My heart ached for the disappointment on their little faces. They wanted what I had with my father; that’s what had inspired last night’s questions. But Eddie would never satisfy their longing. He would never be half the man my father was. “What? A big family reunion?” I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t.” Too much had changed over the last couple of years.

“Eddie feels bad, really he does.” God, she wasn’t just young; she was stupid, too. “About losing the house and not having any money. It’s killing him that he can’t support them. He feels so guilty that he can’t stand to see them.” Her voice cracked. “There really isn’t any money, you know…”

A commotion drew my attention away from the stammering blonde to the foyer. Two broad-shouldered guys strode in, knocking aside some of the ferns I’d potted in brass urns. I winced as dirt scattered across the thick burgundy carpet. Eddie backed away from the table, turning toward the hall to his office without even a goodbye to his daughters.

“Eddie!” the guys shouted and stopped his retreat.

The blonde clutched my arm. “Oh, God!”

I refrained from shaking her off and peered closer at the new customers. “Dougie?”

The guy with the most muscles and least neck turned toward me, staring intently from beneath a bushy unibrow. “Mary Ellen? Mary Ellen Black?”

“Dougie. I haven’t seen you in years.” Not since high school. Dougie hadn’t graduated with Jenna and me, though. Instead, he’d been doing time for some offense or other.

“Great to see you. You’re looking great.” From the appreciative gleam in his eyes, I figured he meant it.

“So you got married?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’m divorced now. There’re my girls—” I gestured toward where the girls sat, wide-eyed at all the goings-on. Plates of pancakes growing cold in front of them.

“Cute kids,” he murmured.

Even a hoodlum’s compliments swelled my mother’s pride. “Yeah, they are.”

“I’ve got a couple of boys,” he said. “I married Sue. Remember Sue?”

There had been about ten girls named Sue in every class I’d attended, but I nodded. “Give her my best.”

“Mary Ellen!” Eddie’s voice rose with impatience. Not that he seemed particularly eager to talk to his visitors, but I guess he didn’t want me talking to them, either.

“I’m sorry. You all have business. The girls and I will leave now. Say goodbye to Daddy.”

I hustled them out the door, not worrying about paying the bill or leaving a tip. Except I did stop near the ’ho. “You can do better,” I told her. That was probably the best tip she’d ever gotten, no matter how long she’d been waitressing.

The girls and I walked past a Lincoln Navigator parked too close to the doors, and headed toward the Bonneville.

“I didn’t like the food there,” Amber said. “Can we get something to eat at the mall?”

As they climbed into the back seat, I fought the urge to drag them into my arms for reassuring hugs. “Sure we can. Shoe shopping always makes me hungry.” And so I’d blow the rest of my poker winnings and leftover VFW tips.

“I don’t want to eat here anymore,” Shelby declared, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout.

“That’s up to you two. Whatever you want.” And it was. Eddie hadn’t requested any scheduled visitation.

“I used to want to go home,” Amber admitted. “Back to our old house. Back to my old school, too. But there’re some neat people at the new one. They don’t care what you wear or where you live…” Not like the wannabe high-class neighborhood where we’d lived. “Some don’t even speak English,” Amber said, probably impressed someone talked less than she did; with her shyness, she usually spoke very little.

Shelby nodded. “Yeah, it’s okay.” And maybe it was. But they deserved more. And somehow I had to get it for them…for all of us.

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