Eileen’s son returns to rehab, and her ex is getting divorced again – can she find hope when her life is orbited by tragedy?
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| Image generated with OpenAI |
Eileen secures her phone in the holder on her dashboard and follows the route to Tyler’s next rehab facility. Her phone chimes: Brenda left Rick. They’re divorced. Her grip tightens on the steering wheel as the GPS voice fades into the background. The road blurs for a moment. She exhales and refocuses on Tyler and their rehab mission.
“You have the toothpaste and mouthwash with you?”
“They’ll just take it when I sign in.”
He scrolls through his phone with fanatic desperation, tapping on different apps and swiping through screens. A notification pops up, which he dismisses with a sharp flick.
He says, “This isn’t going to work.”
The last time she drove him to rehab, Eileen had said, “The third time’s the charm.” There’s no catchy idiom for this fourth attempt, just “good luck'” or “keep the faith.”
“Try,” she says.
“Yeah. I always try.”
“Please try.”
“You try even when it doesn’t work.”
“You promised.” He did. He had promised her, his long-time absentee father, and his sponsor; the only reason she allowed him to stay in her apartment.
Tyler says, “It hurts.”
She adjusts her hands on the steering wheel. She’s been gripping it so tight her fingers hurt. “I know, but they’ll help you.”
Eileen walks into the rehab facility with Tyler and witnesses him sign in. She stands by as they inspect his bag. While the orderly checks his mouthwash for alcohol and confiscates his phone, Eileen strokes her screen with her thumb and rereads the message: Brenda left Rick. They’re divorced.
The staff escort Tyler down the hall. He doesn’t say goodbye.
Eileen collapses into her car seat, drives down the block, parks along the side of the road, and weeps. When she runs out of tissues, she digs MacDonald’s napkins stuffed at the bottom of the center console to wipe away the snot. She prays and hopes. She has done this every day since she was a child and her mother taught her to pray. And doesn’t prayer require hope?
She picks up her phone: Brenda left Rick. They’re divorced.
Eileen had a husband before him and after him, but no one like Rick.
She rubs the tattoo that covers her right shoulder and chest in the same circular motion as the birds in the tattoo fly. She presses her fingers against her flesh and feels the warmth and strength there.
The drive home takes an hour and forty minutes, during which she feels as if she’s floating beside her body, dissociated from the emotions that burn through it.
At home, she opens her laptop and lets her favorite Instagram content play: families taking on the singing challenges. She heats a wedge of the Quiche Lorraine she made yesterday.
“Don’t cry!” she commands herself as she eats.
She’s relieved she made Tyler fold the sleeper couch – she couldn’t handle that alone now. As night falls, she checks Facebook and sees that Rick and Brenda are divorced.
She and Rick stayed married for three years. Shared melancholy bonded them. It got them talking about how they could be each other’s support system, the one bright spot in each other’s lives. They succeeded for a while until he asked for a divorce. Eileen cannot describe their connection purely as love, but she still misses their intention to act with love.
Eileen writes to Rick, deletes the message, rephrases it, calls herself crazy, and stops. Time grows heavier after midnight. Thirty minutes pass, but it’s as if every minute thickens the air around her. Before she retreats to her bedroom, before she loses what little courage she has, before she surrenders to a world where an empty tomorrow waits for her, she sends her message to Rick.
Rick stays up until 3:00 a.m. deleting all references to Brenda from his Facebook page: their wedding, their annual vacations to Nantucket, and all the foster cats – except for Bon Jovi, who was left to him in the divorce.
What a shitshow life has been. Three wives, three divorces, each with its own financial expense and emotional cost. After all that love and sacrifice, and buying this too-big house because Brenda wanted it, now he’s alone.
A message alert pops up on his phone. Hi. Would you like to have dinner?
It’s from Eileen. They haven’t communicated since his mom died.
Wife one and three left him, but not Eileen. He initiated that separation, the cause of which he primarily blames on her family intruding on their lives and, then, well, her kid, Tyler. What a mess, addicted to crack at thirteen. Being a stepfather to a teenager was difficult enough, but being the stepfather to an addict didn’t work. Still, Rick’s idea of a perfect evening was watching TV with his body pressed against hers, and that intimacy might have made it work if not for Eileen’s Mom and brother treating Rick’s home like it was their own. They ordered pizza and invited themselves to dinner. Her mother sat on their couch knitting blankets and dictated what television programs to watch. It got so bad that Rick hardly had time alone with her. When he divorced Eileen, he divorced them all.
Rick shakes his head and ignores Eileen’s message. Instead, he reads other emails and messages from friends and family:
So shocked and sorry. Thought you had a good one.
We never thought Brenda would be such a bitch. You’re lucky she’s gone.
LIVE! BUDDY LIVE!
The next day, a Harry and David fruit and cheese basket arrives from his older sister, Pam, whose marriage spans forty-two years. His brother, Kevin, Zooms with more financial advice on investing and preserving what remains of his 401(k). All the while dismissing that Rick is a CPA and does not need advice. Still, he knows this is how Kevin expresses his support. On the video feed, Kevin’s wife moves in and out of the background, feeding their dog treats and setting the table for dinner. The imaginary loser sign on Rick’s forehead burns brighter, and he says. “Hey, can we continue this tomorrow?” and ends the call before his brother can answer.
That evening, Rick gently moves Bon Jovi off his pillow and watches television reruns – things familiar – Seinfeld or Community. The shows provide reliable background noise – George and Kramer buying wine, Jeff fighting in the first paint ball war. Since he knows the plot any time he looks up, he knows exactly where they are and, by extension, where he is. Sitting in bed with his laptop, he scrolls through Facebook: jokes, photos of friends and acquaintances, politics, and ads.
Nothing, not even Bon Jovi’s purring, fills the night. It’s not as if he never thought of Eileen. Sometimes, even when married to Brenda, he missed the cushion of her body. Eileen had a lot of problems orbiting her. He remembers how hard things were when they first met, yet they found solace in each other. Both divorced, Tyler newly addicted, and she wasn’t the only one with family problems. There was his mother’s Alzheimer’s care.
Eileen used to take his mom to the boardwalk or that park with the man-made pond once a week. They’d sit on the bench and feed pieces of raw hot dogs to the seagulls. Each week, Eileen had a new story to tell him about his mom.
He and Eileen had agreed to love each other through the worst times, but he couldn’t hold up his end. He rereads her message. Would you like to have dinner?
Eileen’s phone chimes.
Rick responded, Meet at Dylan’s Steak House this Saturday at 7?
Her belly warms, and she smiles.
Yes.
She controls the impulse to include an emoji.
See you at Dylan’s Steak House this Saturday at 7.
Then, she goes to work.
During the detox phase, Tyler isn’t allowed to contact her. The gravity of his situation weighs on her throughout her work day. Between greeting patients, coordinating appointments, and managing claims, she eats three mini bags of peanut M&Ms, sketches small bouquets of flowers on post-its, crinkles them up, and drops them in the trash. She contemplates how much meaning to place on Rick agreeing to see her and how to guard herself against the stirring of hopeful anticipation.
Rick sees Eileen exit her car. She’s heavier than she used to be, but he now also comes with a belly and graying hair. Rick places his left hand on his steering wheel, his foot on the brake, and traces the outline of the BMW’s ignition button with his index finger. He could take off. Make an excuse. And then what? His sigh fills the car – and then nothing – empty space that even the parking lot lights don’t illuminate. Removing his foot from the brake, he steps out of his car.
Eileen waves from a booth and slides out to greet him. They stand in front of each other. Rick initiates a handshake. Eileen’s hand feels soft and warm. There is no spark, just a recognition of how easily their hands fit together. She smiles, and he nods. They sit opposite each other.
Eileen balances her cloth napkin over her breasts, where any stray scraps of food are most likely to land.
“How’ve you been?” Rick asks.
She shrugs, “How are you?”
“Me?” Rick taps his fingers on his chest, “Just got divorced.”
“I’m thrice divorced, too. My third one didn’t work out.”
“Nice way to put it: thrice divorced. Doesn’t sound so bad that way. Thanks for visiting with my mom at the end. I have the blanket you knitted for her if you want it back.”
“No, she was my friend. I made it for her.” Eileen’s face falls, and her voice turns wistful. “My mom died two years ago. I’m just grateful she passed before Tommy.”
“Your brother died?”
“Car accident on New Year’s Eve. When I talk about it sounds like a cliché, killed by a drunk driver.” She lowers her eyes.
He reaches across the table, placing his hand over hers.
“Sorry you had to go through that,” Rick says.
“It was hard. You think about losing your parents but not your siblings.”
Rick nods. This is how Eileen and he started dating. Both divorced, bonded by tragedy. He never tells people anymore that his first marriage ended when their daughter died. Grief wasn’t love, but it brought understanding. Eileen never told him to get over it or seek therapy. She held him in the darkness.
“Tyler’s in rehab.”
He’s not surprised. “That must be hard.”
“Always.” She sips her iced tea. “I’ve been trying to take better care of myself.” She tugs her blouse down towards her right breast, exposing part of a flock of black birds flying across her chest.
Rick winces. “Is that a tattoo?”
“Yes. I got it for myself.”
Rick cuts his filet mignon. Once he has three evenly cut slices, he forks one into his mouth and chews.
“I went to Jamaica with a girlfriend,” Eileen says.
“I went to Jamacia with Brenda.” He remembers the last time he had sex with Brenda at the resort and how she cleaned herself up right afterward. She spent most of the time in her bikini stretched out on the beach loungers, reading books, with sunscreen glistening on her tight belly and counting carbs. Brenda’s need for perfection had created more distance between them than he’d ever noticed.
Eileen suggests they share a cheesecake with strawberries and whipped cream. In his mind, Brenda and Eileen are like two sides of a scale, and now, Rick weighs one against the other. They split the check. Rick holds the door open for Eileen, and as he escorts her to her car, she takes his hand. He doesn’t return her grasp, but neither does he pull away. She rubs her fingers across his palm.
When they reach the car, she leans back against the door to face him. She says, “I’m glad we could get together. Thank you.”
“Yeah,” he glances down and kicks a small pebble with his shoe. “Haven’t had cheesecake in a long time.”
“Do you have plans next weekend?”
Rick breaks eye contact with her and glances toward the back of the parking lot where he parked his car.
“Okay, sorry,” she says.
Rick holds his palm up. He is dressed in dark clothes, and as he walks away, she watches the night swallow him.
After a week passes, the facility rules allow Eileen to call her son. Tyler doesn’t come to the phone. She turns on her Spotify playlist, does laundry, and cleans the kitchen floor. When the pot roast is done, she divides it into six servings. She packs five servings in containers for her lunches and sits down to eat the sixth. It’s Rick’s family recipe. Interesting, the comforting things you keep even after relationships end: Carrots plump with flavor, perfect gravy, and tender meat filled with the lush aroma of a vegetable garden. She remembers when Rick taught her to make it. That was a good day.
Reconnecting won’t work if he doesn’t want her. While eating, Eileen checks her phone for texts and scrolls through Facebook and Messenger. No response from Rick.
She loads the dishwasher and calls Tyler again.
“Why you calling?” he says.
“Just to check in.”
“Yeah, well, stop checking up on me. I’m a prisoner in here.”
“Tyler,” she sighs. “You know that’s not true.”
“Come get me then.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. This ain’t changing a damn thing, Mom, except making me hate you.”
The call ends, and Eileen says out loud to the kitchen, an indifferent audience, “Hope is a curse.”
That weekend, Rick goes to church. He considers himself the kind of man who focuses on God, feeling holy or uplifted. But Brenda used to go with him. Instead of God, he thinks of her, with desire, defeat, and bitterness. He hates being left defeated or bitter. When he arrives home, Rick finds another Amazon package for Brenda. She left him, so why keep playing games by having her orders still show up at his door?
After their divorce, Eileen didn’t play games. Eileen’s an ordinary person; nothing flashy, but you knew what you were getting from her. Still, he’s unsure about that tattoo. The woman he married eleven years ago would have never done that to her body, and he wouldn’t even have dated someone with ink etched into their chest.
Rick leaves Brenda’s package on the side of the house under the rhododendron, takes a photo, and texts: CHANGE THE ADDRESS. Then makes coffee and stretches out on the couch. Before he turns on Netflix, Bon Jovi leaps onto his chest and looks down at him with intensity. They stare at each other in complete silence, not even a car on the street, a bird call, or a whisper of the wind against the window.
Rick asks Bon Jovi, “Should we invite Eileen over?”
The cat rubs his cheeks against his hand. Rick interprets that as an affirmation.
Rick’s message arrives: How about you join me next Saturday at my house for breakfast? We’ll make a day of it.
Anticipation and anxiety twist into a knot high in Eileen’s chest. She sits down at the kitchen table, holds the armrests of the wooden chair, and shuts her eyes, breathing in and out. Why so much apprehension? Their marriage already failed. How could a date be worse than that?
“Calm down. You started this.” She makes hot chocolate and spreads whipped cream cheese on some graham crackers.
She responds: Sounds good. 10:00 a.m.?
9:00 is better.
She sips her hot chocolate and nibbles on the crackers. She texts back: 9 works.
Rick sends his address. She searches Zillow and finds Rick’s current home: a split-level, 2850-square-foot sage-green house with four bedrooms and a modern kitchen featuring a center island and granite countertops. Both the living room and family room have stone fireplaces and vaulted ceilings. Rick and she sold their home during the divorce, and she didn’t make money on it. She wants to be happy for him – it’s just in her nature – but it stings a little. She’s in a pricey one-bedroom apartment, while he laps it up in a luxurious home in a fancy neighborhood.
On Friday night, she shaves her legs and lays out a mid-length, front-button dress to wear to Rick’s. She packs a small bag with her hairbrush, toothbrush, a change of clothes and underwear, and blood pressure medication. She can keep it all in her hatchback. There is no reason to assume she’ll stay, but there’s no reason not to be prepared.
Eileen checks for body lotion and finds a bottle in the back of a drawer. After her shower, she applies it to her legs and belly. As she moisturizes her arms and shoulders in front of the bathroom mirror, she places her hand over her tattoo. Applying lotion over the flying birds, she smiles. Her mother wouldn’t have approved, but she got the tattoo for herself, not for anyone else.
Rick has everything laid out for a 9:00 a.m. breakfast on Saturday morning, and Eileen is late. He goes to his back porch and waters the numerous potted plants Brenda left there. He’s not even sure he wants a relationship. It’s like being shipwrecked three times and deciding to set sail again. He’s not planning anything long-term with Eileen – just today. Being with her is like eating warm soup, which is comforting sometimes and bland at other times. Yeah, like that.
When Eileen shows up at 9:50, she kisses him lightly on the lips. He heats up the waffle iron, pours the orange juice, and takes the turkey sausages out of the oven.
“Can I grab the coffee?” Eileen says. “Thank you for breakfast.”
He fills their cups, warms the maple syrup, and places a perfectly browned waffle on Eileen’s plate. She waits for him to fill his plate and sit, then takes a knife and chops her waffle into tiny pieces before pouring syrup on top. He’s forgotten she does that, slaughters the waffle instead of savoring it one slice at a time.
“What’s the Tyler report?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “He’s clean for now, but I don’t know if it will last.”
Rick nods. “But he’s been addressing the relapses, and that’s positive.”
“Thanks.”
Bon Jovi jumps up on the table.
“Ahh!” Eileen says, “Introduce us.”
Rick reaches under the cat’s belly to lift him. “This is Bon Jovi.” The cat slaps Rick’s arm with his paw.
“Feisty,” Eileen laughs. She slides her fingers across the length of Bon Jovi’s back and says, “Would you like to see a movie and have dinner at Amaro’s?”
“Sure, I haven’t eaten pasta in a long time.”
“What about popcorn?’
He grins. “No popcorn.”
That night, when they lie in bed, Rick sees the extent of Eileen’s tattoo. A dark circle on her right shoulder from which a flock of birds seems to burst out as if escaping a tornado. They scatter in all directions before converging to fly across the right side of her chest. The imbalance, the asymmetry, and the darkness blemishes her skin.
Rick says, “It’s a chaos of birds.”
“It’s whatever I want it to be,” Eileen says. She points to one of the larger birds. “These ravens are the people I’ve lost. See my mom’s initials here on the wing.” She points to another raven. “And my brother here.”
Rick hadn’t seen that. He sees it now. Her family, her attachment to them, and now a memorial to them imprinted on her flesh will be with him every time they are in bed.
She points to a smaller bird. “These little doves are my hopes and dreams.” She places her left hand on her right shoulder and slides it across the tattoo. “They’re migrating from darkness to my heart.” Her voice breaks, making her pain and hope palpable.
Rick shifts position, kissing her inkless shoulder, and softly brings the sheet up across her right shoulder and breast, covering the tattoo. He places his hand on the pouch of her belly and kisses her – a long, warm kiss.
Sunday afternoon, after packing up, Eileen sits on the couch, petting Bon Jovi. Rick sits in the recliner across from them.
“I really had a good time,” Eileen says.
“Me too. It’s like we know each other.”
She chuckles. “That’s why this might work.”
“I just got divorced.”
“Honestly, I don’t want to get married again. How do you even tell people you’ve been married four times?”
“Sounds like you’ve thought about it more than I have.” He turns his head and looks out the front window. Oak trees line the street. A group of sparrows leave the trees and fly into the late morning sky.
“Eventually,” Rick clicks his tongue. “I’m going to want to date other women.”
“Why should we let what might happen in the future stop us from doing what works now?”
Rick nods. “I keep thinking why we broke up.”
“And?”
“It’s a long list.”
God, of all the things he could bring up, that long list of his. She starts gathering her belongings. “Think about it and text me.”
“Did I upset you?”
“You think about why we broke up, and I think about why we were together in the first place.”
“Um, let’s get together in two weeks,” Rick blurts out. “Want me to come to you?”
“I’ll come here.”
“Can we meet at 10 instead of 9?” If he asks her to arrive by 9, she’ll be late.
“Sure,” she says, walking out the door.
When Eileen gets in her car to leave, loneliness coils around Rick, immobilizing him in the driveway. Is it him? Is it them together? Is it watching her drive away? He married her as a remedy for their mutual loneliness, and for a while, it worked – until her family pulled her back into their dark orbit, or maybe she couldn’t separate herself from them. Them, and her troubled son.
Rick wonders what he’s doing. Is seeing Eileen the right thing, or is he directionless? He searches why divorced couples get back together: Miss each other, love each other, remembering the good times, want to resolve the conflicts that separated them, finding that there’s no one better out there.
“All of the above,” he says.
Rick suggests they stick to the boardwalk, Eileen agrees but asks if they can also take a stroll on the beach. She wears shorts and ties a sweatshirt around her waist. The tattoo is visible through her t-shirt. It’s still difficult for him to accept what drove her to ink her flesh with all that darkness.
They walk together on the caramel-colored sand, the aqua ocean casting waves onto the shore, creating a rhythm as constant as breath but making it difficult for Rick to hear what Eileen’s saying, so she turns to face him and walks backward. To the outside world, she might seem frumpy and middle-aged, but laughing with her hair whipping around, Rick sees her as youthful and pretty.
After their weekend together, Rick joins a dating site. Freshly divorced and uncertain about his readiness for a new relationship, especially with his ex-wife, he begins exploring. However, he quickly feels overwhelmed by the influx of information. His brain struggles to process the glimmer of endless possibilities. Closing his laptop, he reassures himself that he just wants to know he can stay in the game, with alternatives only a few clicks away.
On Tuesday, Eileen finishes work and considers stopping to pick up a small watermelon for the barbeque she and Rick planned when her phone rings. It’s her upstairs neighbor calling.
“Eileen, tell your son to lower the music.”
“What?”
“The music!” The neighbor stops talking, allowing Eileen to hear Kendrick Lamar’s rap blaring from the apartment above. Eileen hits the brake. The driver behind her blows his horn and swerves. Eileen blinks and catches her breath. “Tyler’s home?
“Eileen!”
“I’m almost there. I’ll take care of it.”
The vibrations from the sound system send synchronized tremors through the walls of Eileen’s apartment. She rushes to the speakers and pulls the plugs from the outlets.
“Mom!”
Tyler sits at her table with a six-pack of beer. Three cans are already empty. Her mother sat there for years, often joined by her brother. She almost sees their shadows.
“What are you doing here, Tyler?”
“I came home.”
“It hasn’t even been two months!”
“It doesn’t work.”
“Did you try?”
“Try! Try! I’ve tried enough, and this doesn’t work. Maybe I’m broken, Ma.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“You gonna throw me out ’cause I’m broken, Ma?”
“It’s my home Tyler.”
“Can I sleep on the couch?”
“You’re not clean,” she says.
Eileen sits on a kitchen chair and puts her head in her hands. There’s got to be more for her than this.
“I can’t have drugs in my house.”
She hears the metal snap of the pull tab and hiss as Tyler opens another beer can.
“I’ll be homeless.”
“You can’t live here.” Her mouth goes dry. She’s not sure who she is or what life she is choosing. It is all wrong and right at the same. The pressure of this decision pulls her world apart.
“That’s cold, Ma.”
“You’re twenty-five. You’re a man. Call your sponsor and your friends, and find a place to live.”
He stands and roars. “No way!”
She stands, a substantial woman against an unsubstantial man with thin, scarred arms, wavering even in his rage.
“You can’t stay here,” she says.
He grabs what’s left of the beer, curses at her, and stomps out.
She trembles as she finds her phone and struggles to search for a locksmith and someone to install a door or ring alarm. Dropping the phone onto the table, she sits and sobs into her hands. Hope feels like an obscenity.
In between giving out candy to trick-or-treaters, Eileen munches on a mini Snickers bar. No one shows up at her apartment building for Halloween. She kneels on the couch beside Rick, wraps her arms around his arm, and presses her body against his. He leans in and kisses her.
Eileen’s phone buzzes.
“Is that Tyler again?” Rick says.
“Yeah.”
“Wanna turn it off?”
Eileen stares into the phone’s screen like one might stare into a divination mirror, waiting to see the answer there.
“It’s Halloween,” Rick says. “Come on.”
“You’re right.” She places the phone in her jean’s pocket.
Rick cuddles up to her and turns Tremors on.
When the doorbell rings, she pauses the movie, drags Rick with her to open the door, and finds Deadpool, and Anna from Frozen. After dispensing the candy, they return to their positions on the couch, their arms around each other – and Bon Jovi glaring at them from the recliner.
“Can you answer that?” she asks.
Rick gets up and goes to the door.
Eileen pulls the phone from her pocket.
“Mom, I need $200,” Tyler says. “Can you send it to me?”
“Hi,” she says. Eileen’s voice is monotone, as if part of her stands outside herself, observing and controlling what she will say and do.
“Mom, I need this money. I’m in trouble. I’m going to get hurt. Just Cash App it to me.”
“I can’t. I can’t give you any money.”
Rick returns from distributing candy and stands in front of her, listening.
She says again to another plea, “No.”
Rick reaches out and takes the phone from her grasp. “Hi, Tyler,” he says. “It’s Rick. Your mom and I are here together. Yeah, I understand. She can’t give you the money. It’s not good for her, and it’s not good for you.”
He hands the phone back to Eileen. She tells Tyler, “I can’t do it. It doesn’t help.”
Eileen turns off her phone and sits down beside Rick. Her body heats with the effort not to call Tyler back, not to ask where he is, not to beg the world to keep him safe. She refocuses on the movie just as Kevin Bacon announces his plan to defeat the monster.
“I love this part,” Rick says.
Beside him, Eileen regains her breath. She brings her hand to her chest, placing it over her tattoo. She rubs the tattoo in the same circular motion as the birds fly, recalling how much she has given to others, and her promise to care for herself.
She places her hand on Rick’s shoulder and slides it down the length of his arm, gently squeezing his hand. “Touch my tattoo,” she says.
“What?” He turns his attention from the movie to her.
Eileen faces Rick, unbuttons her blouse, slips it off, and presents her tattoo to him.
“All these months,” she said. “You can’t even look at it. It has meaning for me. It represents how I’ve changed and how I want to change. This is who I am. Please look at me.”
Rick gazes at the dark swarm flying from her right shoulder across her chest. “Okay.” He fumbles for the remote and shuts off the television. They can hear each other breathe.
Eileen says, “This chaos – like you call it – is part of me. I want you to behave as if you love me.”
“You mean like this?” Rick traces his fingers over the dark ink. He stops at a dove. “You said these are your hopes.”
He kisses one dove, then several more until she feels them – beacons of hope coming alive on her flesh.
