Sometimes It's Just Not Worth It... Ch. 03

Authors preface: Everything I wrote about in the previous two chapters actually happened to some degree or other, some minor details may have been slightly exaggerated, but nothing major. As years progress, life gives us different perspectives on things, we grow, experience things and mature in different ways, I always intended to revisit this story a few years after the original but never 11 years! I'm kind of glad, it's given me real perspective on both sides of things, I've been on both sides of the fence now and it's interesting to say the least.

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Dani looked at me, we sat drinking coffee at the back veranda table, looking in the window at our now almost twelve-year-old son doing his homework. "He's turned into a good boy hasn't he".

I looked at her, sipping my drink, thinking, I replied softly "He's better than both of us. He's the best thing we ever did". I shifted in my seat uncomfortably, no longer the fit-ish (oh come now, I was never exactly Arnie...), spry late twenties I used to be, forty was just around the corner and my bodies creaking and groaning was starting. Dani was the same, no longer that svelte little thing I first met, she'd put on some weight, as we all do when we move into different phases of our lives.

"You've given up a lot for him," she said smiling over her cup at me, "don't think I don't appreciate it".

I frowned a little, not angry, just feeling I should clarify something, "Dani, with all due respect, it's never been about your appreciation. None of it. That's the furthest thing from my mind, it's all for him. I haven't had a holiday in ten years, I haven't been anywhere with him yet, we've never had a vacation together, we've never had the money or time to go anywhere except local places, I mean you've been overseas with him but not me, but finally, it's just around the corner. We're gonna go big, a world tour. I've worked full time all this time and I graduate University, I finally get my teaching degree so no more goddamn factory work driving forklifts, and... and he deserves it. I deserve it. We both do."

"I made a horrible, horrible mistake. I lost so much..." she whispered to herself audibly, sipping her drink again. She looked into her cup, as if she had found the meaning of life in there, concentrating on whatever she thought she saw, "If I could take back," she started.

I cut her off, waving my hand non-chalantly, "We've talked about this a thousand times, it took a long time to heal Dani, years. Five years ago, us sitting here like this, never would've been possible but here we are".

She smiled at me, putting her cup down, sitting up in her chair, "I'm grateful though, letting me back into your lives, both of yours, you could've told me where to go".

I snorted and smiled "Yeah but that'd make me the bad guy right?"

Lance came running out onto the veranda, he'd grown up into a fine young boy, slim, brown hair, brown eyes, a fantastically happy attitude permeated from him that just made him a joy to be around, and so damn polite. "Dad!" he called as he ran out excitedly, "I finished my homework can I..."

"Caaaaaaan you what mate?" I asked feigning ignorance...

"Can I have todays wifi password your lordship?" He begged in a sarcastic tone.

I exaggerated my motions, raising my hands in bewilderment "Oh no! Golly gosh I must've forgotten it!"

Dani laughed at us both, "You two are a riot!"

"Daaaaaaaaad come on Ali told me he's gonna be on now playing Blops zombies!" Lance almost moaned, his pitch changing to minor annoyance, "I've done my homework, changed clothes, fed the dog and scrubbed the loo. I've done everything you asked!! Wi-Fi! Now!"

"Ok fine. The password is... *COUGH COUGH*" I launched into a fake coughing fit. Dani laughed again at Lance.

"DAD!"

"Ok, ok, ok Lance! The password is LanceCanUseTheWifiNowITorturedHim." I smiled as he stuck out his tongue at me as the joke in the password hit him.

"Great password dad...not! Love you Dad, love you Mum!" he called back as an almost afterthought, as he ran back inside, our dog Reinhart, a tiny canned terrier chasing him.

"You've done a good job raising him you know," she said to me looking me in the eyes. "You kept the courts out of it, you never took a cent of child support. You did it all on your own and when I asked to come back into his life when he was five you didn't say no... just told me not to disappear, you've been amazing."

Dani smiled at me, the warmth of it radiating through me in a way I hadn't felt in years from her. We were both growing older, heading to our forties, I guess this is what some people call 'perspective', it was starting to hit us both hard and fast in life. It wasn't lost on me that she had been coming around here more and more lately, dropping by after work to see Lance, in on weekends when she could, we had worked our friendship back up a long time ago, it finally felt like it used to again. It took a lot of work, but it was worth it.

"Why change the Wi-Fi password every day?" she queried with a cocked eyebrow.

I shrugged, "He sits on his playstation way too much, then there's his ipad and social media, it's great for a student's cognitive development and it's beneficial to his social growth as a student sure, it helps his digital literacy as well to be using ICT but he tends to use it too much and it causes a lapse in his..." I paused, looking at her grinning at me.

"Wow, are you trying to explain why you do, or pick me up with all that teacher talk? Now how about in non-teacher talk?" Dani laughed out loud.

"Simply? He's hooked on the shit" I replied, laughing back. We both enjoyed our moment of levity before the tone returned to a slightly more sombre manner.

Everything went quiet, except Lance, we could hear him, laughing, yelling over his microphone at his mates on the playstation.

"Why are you here so much lately Dani?" I asked, laying it all out straight.

I noticed her eyes, they were welling up, I retrieved a tissue box from the middle of the table, handing her one.

"Something happened a little while ago and I kept it to myself. I guess you of all people deserve to know what happened after what you went through, everything you've done for him".

She looked away towards the garden near us, moving her chair out slowly, she stood up and walked to the edge of the veranda near me. "So Grant, my husband, he ah... won't be that much longer," she looked down at her hand, it was only now I noticed what had been gnawing at me this whole time, her wedding ring was gone.

She shrugged her shoulders, a fake laugh, as if to convince herself it was all one big joke, "Fuck. I. I broke it off with him, I'm divorcing the piece of shit".

I noticed she was biting her lower lip, her left hand raised and started rubbing the back of her neck, I remembered this. This was her sign before she would break down.

"Dani, you don't have to..."

She cut me off, "Michael for god's sake you're probably the only person who deserves to hear this, you might even tell me it's hilarious I don't know, but jesus, he was fucking around on me."

She shook her head, running both hands through her hair to compose herself she continued, "He fucked so many women. I mean it wasn't as if it was just one meaningless fuck like I had. I never even cheated again after that! I'm not justifying it I swear, what I did was fucking low, I made a horrible mistake but I've paid, for gods sake I've paid for what I did."

"Dani we've been over that weekend so many times we..." I went to continue but she shot me a look, one that invited me not to continue, not in a mean way, just in a 'I need to explain' way.

"That fucking wrecked me for years after us. I lost you and I lost Lance for what, some stupid obsession with recapturing my youth. One goddamn moment of stupidity cost me everything and I spent a fucking decade regretting it." She burst into tears, streaming down her face, her makeup running with it causing a dark trail down her cheeks.

"My god that... bastard... he just... he hired hookers, hookers for god's sake! He could have gotten diseases Michael! When I fucking found out? I walked into our bedroom? I caught him fucking some two dollar whore without protection! That was the end for me. In our bed, in our house, it shredded our marriage, it was done."

I looked at her face, she looked back at me, she was biting her bottom lip, hard. "I've cried. I cried for weeks over this. I'm done, this is it no more tears after this. I don't love him anymore; I don't know if I ever truly did. It got me thinking about what I did to you, I mean, I've thought about it before and how fucked up it was, but until I was put on this side of shit, I never knew how it actually felt."

I sat back in my chair, winded, honestly they'd seemed so happy the times I'd seen Dani and Grant together, one of those 'power couples' who never have kids, travel, have a house they own, cars they drive separately, do all the things they want to, never with the responsibility of having to raise a child, not to disparage people who don't choose to have children, I guess that's just jealous old me talking. They did seem so happy though?

"You guys were so happy? I mean you went to Greece last year for your seven-year anniversary, with all those posts on Facebook and all that?" I queried hesitantly.

"Yeah Greece," Dani huffed, clasping her hands together, she leaned against the wall next to her, squinting as she looked at the garden and the sunset caught her eye. "That was a trip and a half. Turns out our trip was just a cover for him to sample some 'Greek delights' if you catch my drift while I was off sightseeing and he was 'playing golf'."

She walked over to me, now standing in front of me, kneeling infront of me, she took my hands in hers, I looked into her eyes. Though her skin might have slightly changed, a few more kilos on both of us here and there, a bit more wisdom inbetween our ears, deep down I still knew the woman holding my hands better than any other woman I had ever known and god knows, she knew me.

"I know I've apologised before Michael, but that was before I *really* knew how it felt, that was when I simply knew I did something wrong, but this, this is me saying from the bottom of my heart I know how it feels, I know the pain of having your heart torn out, of feeling that it's over." She brought our hands up to her face, cupping it between them, I felt her skin, something I truly had missed.

"It might be a decade ago, but I am so goddamn sorry for what I did Michael. I'm so damn sorry. For fucking it up. For leaving. For not being here for Lance. For being who I used to be, a stupid little girl who needed to grow the fuck up." She trailed off into a whisper with the last few words, letting go of my hands, she stood and walked to where she was earlier, facing away from me.

I stood and walked behind her, holding her from behind "I forgave you a long time ago Dani, but this means a lot. Thank you. Since you came back into his life though, you've been good, you've been a good Mum and I can't fault you for that, that's what's important. I put up with Grant, I didn't think much of him as a Stepdad, it always seemed like an inconvenience to him. You tried hard though to make up for your time away and you did, Lance and I both know it, we both see it and we've both seen you change and see how devoted you are. That boy thinks the world of you, that's what's most important."

"People do change Michael," she whispered, looking down, I could see tears again, I could hear the remorse, the genuine remorse, "I never have cheated since, I've never thought about it since, never wanted to, I fucked up majorly and I paid. I lost my son for years, I lost you. I ended up with a cheating bastard and I deserved that." She laughed, in amidst a few sobs, "The whore complaining about being cheated on. Ironic."

"You're no whore Dani, don't say that, don't ever." I held her, pulling her into me to comfort her.

We both looked through the window at Lance, rolling around on the carpet, attempting to play his PlayStation 4 while the dog jumped over him, laughing and yelling at Reinhart to stop.

"God he's adorable, and that dog is just too cute," she chuckled, "Michael, do you think maybe, since you're not seeing anyone?"

"I don't know, how about... We'll see Dani," I whispered as I held her from behind, contemplating my next action, my hands circling around and taking hers into mine.

She smiled softly and whispered "Yeah, I like that. We'll see."

Dani moved her hands, turning around in my arms ,looking at me, then towards the window. We both looked in at our boy, both of us content that he was the best thing we'd ever achieved in our messed up lives.

"We've got such a good boy," she said softly, lovingly, smiling as she did.

"He's a terror when he wants to be Dani, believe me, but we've got a good kid," I laughed as we looked on.

Dani turned her head back towards me, and softly whispered "I think I can remember how to do that ice cube trick you used to like, you know... a girl doesn't forget these things."

I laughed, smiling at her as we held each other, "Damn it Dani, I'm not gonna say no... but, I can't say yes straight away."

She looked me in the eyes, rubbing her body into mine softly, holding my hands "But that's not a no right? I know we would have to be slow and careful for him..."

I smiled, "And for us. But he's away this weekend, his mate is taking him camping til next Wednesday, that's five days. Why not come over for dinner tomorrow night?"

She turned around gain, now I was holding her from behind, our hands intertwined again, my head resting on her right shoulder.

I could practically hear the smile break out on her face, "Should I bring an overnight bag?"

"I don't want to go tempting fate but I think we can both see that one coming a mile away," I softly said, smiling inwardly, this felt good to me.

"I never thought we'd be back to this point, ever Michael," she sniffled as she finished her words, pressing her head into my shoulder, hugging me now.

We stood there, swaying quietly, holding each other in the afternoon breeze on my back verandah. Neither of us said a word for what seemed a long time.

We both looked in at Lance, now ignoring the playstation, furiously wrestling with the tiny brown fur ball Reinhart, screaming with laughter as the dog playfully wrestled with him, wagging its tail in excitement.

In the end, it may have taken eleven years for everything to come around, for maturity to settle in and life to change, it may not have been worth it then, but it sure feels like it is now.

The End.