Waiting

Waiting.  It isn’t easy.  It’s harder when what you are waiting on is hope.  Your life raft. Your families life raft. Your new born sons life raft.  Your only chance at potentially saving you, your wife and kids.  Waiting is hard, when the minutes become hours and hours become days. Trying to waste time without being cognizant of it but being fully aware of it is next to impossible. If Dante had a stage in hell for a watchmaker one can only imagine what it would be like.

The drive home was awkward.  He was putting on a good face while in the back of his head there was this feeling has been there before.   “I think I nailed it honey” he said, while in the back of his head the con job was just beginning.  He was trying to psyche myself up.  He was damn confident He could do this job.  In fact, He is 100% sure He could do a better job then what the manager is doing if given 3 months to learn the data and more about the health care industry.

“I really think I got this.  I just had this feeling at some point that I had the job.”  He told said to her into his cell phone that he has debated shutting off at least 2 dozen times over the past 30 days. He knows if he doesn’t get this job, harder choices are going to have to come. The cable is already off and the librarians know him on a first name basis now. The grocery shopping has been moderated to not include as much meat as usual and has been leaning more and more to pasta type dishes. These thoughts pour through his mind at 200mph all the while still holding the phone and listening to his spouse attempt to buttress his anxiety with her own slighted confidence. He did qualify the confidence.  “I don’t want to be too confident though.  I have had this feeling before.  I used to think the same thing about taking a test and then the grade would come back and I failed miserably.”

As he turns out of the parking lot, he is staring off at nothing, hand to his ear and he thinks back to when he was in the 5th grade. He remembers turning in a Social Studies test to Ms. Williams. He was cock-sure he nailed this test. Hell, he had even studied for it. The next day he got the test back and had bombed it miserably. Crushing his psyche and confidence. There were other times it had happened to him. Being 100% certain the outcome was going to be a positive one and he was wrong. In fact more wrong than he though possible even when the expected positive outcome was ratcheted down to his normal level of outcome. He was used to it. Sadly.

As he referenced the “test” experience he had back in 5th grade. He didn’t have a good feeling and spent the next several days trying to convince himself otherwise as well as trying to forget he even thought what he thought. About the test. This time was different. He could tell. You are just being nervous and paranoid. There is more on the line this time than being called an idiot, retard, stupid, forgetful 12 year old. Don’t worry about it man, you got this. He told some other passenger in the car that he thought he could fool into believing something he knew he didn’t even entirely believe himself.

“I love you too” He set the phone down by the stick shift and adjusted the windshield wipers. He was grateful he had a half hour drive home. It was something to do. Something else to occupy his brain. He knew the next three days or so were going to be brutal. Sleep wasn’t going to happen and there was going to be nothing even remotely close to a complete thought that wasn’t ambushed by the anxiety of not getting this job. This was his only fish and if he doesn’t catch this fish there is nothing. Nothing. Nothing else on the line to catch a fish with. It is back to port, empty handed and empty hearted. Dejected and alone and becoming his worst fear as a father and a spouse.

Somewhere between Chester and Claymont he begins to replay the interview in his head or what he remembers of it. His brain is already dumping it as fast as it can. Trying to forget the entire event just in case. Just in case he gets the answer he dreads. There is no point in reliving failure, there will be enough of that later. He is trying to see the body language again. He was in a zone and being concise.  he was being professional and positive about his skills and how they relate to what they are doing. There is no way he doesn’t get this job. He had it, he conveyed it. No way. Stop doing this to yourself. He’d say over and over and over.

He looks down at his phone, picks it up, looks at it and checks to make sure the ringer is on. This he will do at least 200 times over the next 3 days. Luckily there was going to be something to break up the waiting. He had arranged it so he would head down to the in-laws a few days ahead of his wife. He had avoided them the last time his wife went down.  The sheer shame of being out of work and the father to their only grand son was and still is unbearable.  Disappointment is a horrible feeling. But this time was different, he had an interview. He pretty much had the job locked up.  He headed down that Wednesday the phone cemented to his hand during the two hour drive. His son sound asleep in the back for a majority of the ride.

Alone with his silent phone for the next hours. Lazily heading south for what remained of the winter. Spring on it’s way. Normally a time when he would be clamoring to get out of the office and home to have a beer and maybe sneak a cigar on his deck. Perhaps get out of the office for lunch time and grab an extra half hour watching the sun peak through the trees of his back yard. The turning of the seasons. Another spring and summer season spent trying to get in shape, work on the yard and now walking and playing with his son. His first son, his son’s first spring and summer.

2 hours later when he pulled into the driveway. His son starting to fuss, he had just realized he forgot the formula and bottles.  His mind is completely unable to concentrate he forgot the two most important things of the entire trip, besides himself and his son. Normally, no big deal, head up to the store and slap a $20 on the counter. Laugh it off, “Honey, I’m such an idiot you’ll never guess what I did” in a jocular way that his wife knows his dumbass forgot something. This time, he doesn’t call her. The self flagellation is bad enough, why put himself through the ringer again and berate himself out loud in order to hear a sigh and huff.

“I need this job” he says as he reaches into the back seat and unlocks the child’s car seat from it’s holster. With a sweeping motion he arcs out of the back seat and slowly and fluidly brings his son, the diaper bag and his cell phone with him. Up the three steps to the in-laws. It’s 3pm so no one is home. Which is just fine with him. He doesn’t need to tell another person he is an idiot and forgot his sons stuff. Plopping everything down, the bags, the pillows, he grabs the keys and does a 180 back out the door. He slaps his right thigh, feels the phone, reaches into his pocket, pulls out the phone, clicks the ok button. Sees he didn’t miss a phone call in the brief 3 minutes he was moving around and could have missed the vibration and loud obnoxious ring he knows he should change but doesn’t feel like doing.

Back to the car and out the driveway his little self inflicted retreat to his in-laws is starting off just wonderfully. He is spending money he doesn’t have.

5pm rolls in and here comes Mom-mom, “Heyyyy, heard your interview went well?!” She has already spoken to his wife. She is doing the same thing he is doing, though minus the painful anxiety that penetrates every fiber of his body at least 20 seconds of every minute that he is awake and most likely every second he is asleep. His wife is pulling extra hours and trying to keep ahead of the bills. The time she should be spending with her only child is now wasted at work. Her deadbeat husband is now playing daddy day care and not a very good one at that. She is now forced to communicate to her friends and family that no, my husband isn’t a shitbag, he’s just unfortunate. That criticism can only be deflected for so long as the days turn into weeks and months turn into seasons.

“Yep, I think I got the job.” He says to her as she smiles lovingly at her grandson whom she is already heading towards after she drops her keys and purse on the kitchen table. Reaching her arms out for her grandson like a baby reaches out for his mother. The baby smiles, his eyes light up the room and her heart. She hasn’t seen him in a while so the normal statements are ticked off her grandmotherly list of things to say to your grandchild you haven’t seen for a while.

“Oh my, you are getting sooooo big”
“What have you been eating? Huh?”
“I haven’t seen you in so long” Not a dagger at his absence but felt as one to the father sitting now alone on the couch with his phone. All the while his soul is being water boarded with gallons of shame. He looks over at his phone on the end table by his cup of water. Nothing. He checks the ringer and toggles the volume down to vibrate.

She hands the baby back to him as she says she needs “to get supper ready, Norm isn’t gonna be home to till 6 today.” She reels off the next 2 days meals to her son in law. Which as always are said with confidence and the gusto that Emiril has. Pow, Bam. She is a whiz in the kitchen and dinner is ready and waiting in 20 minutes.

The third day, Friday they want to take him out to dinner. “Where do you want to eat?” they ask him. “Why don’t you just fucking shoot me” he thinks to himself. The last thing a bum wants to do is go picking where he wants to eat his charity meal. Just feed me man. Drag me around by my fucking leash and get it over. “Uncle Danny and Aunt Lenore are going with us” They both say in concert to him while they eat the penne pasta with shrimp. “Oh great, they get to see the baby” He says. “And I get 2 more people to tell I’m out of work and lie to about this wonderful interview that isn’t a job but everyone is soooo happy I had” he thinks to himself.

The next 2 days go like this. However, Poppop comes home before mom-mom. Wednesday wasn’t typical. He get’s in the door about 4pm. Hangs up his jacket in the closet. Unpacks the lunch pail and repacks it for “tomorah”.

“heeeeeyyyyy, buddy! watcha doin?” He says just as bright eyed as his grandson. A mirror that reflects time backwards and forwards. The grandson and the grandfather share the same eyes and ears and furrowed brow when happy or sad. This time, they are both happy. Pop-pop makes a face and the baby smiles and shows his toothless gums. Drool pulls in his bottom lip and slowly drops down out of his smiling mouth. “Ooopps. You droolin? Are you drooolinnnnn?” Baby, smiling and droolin on Pop-pop. He looks over at his phone again and wants to heave it down the street.

The break up of the day comes when someone else enters the home. The prior 8 hours are spent agonizingly trying to occupy his thoughts on something else other than the phone and “the call”. He doesn’t have all the accustriments he would normally have to occupy his son. Minus the exarsaucer and the swing his son clings to him and demands even more attention then normal. His snoring became worse over the course of the nights and he was unable to sleep more than 90 minutes at a time. But, more importantly was that his son slept through the night. The snoring only means that the little guy will need some sort of surgery down the road. Which would be paid for with the health care he will get with the job. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” he mumbles to himself. He remembers the first time he heard that. It was in the Navy and the FT Chief was mumbling it at 3am while he was sipping on his 3rd cup of coffee.

His wife came down Friday evening which was another welcomed break to the adventure he was on. This self inflicted torture session where he was putting on a good face to the in-laws. It doesn’t matter he tried to tell himself. As they took him out to dinner and wouldn’t let him pay. Knowing damn well the mechanization’s he was going threw were complete bullshit. He couldn’t even make eye contact with them half the weekend. The shame pouring on him was suffocating him. The sleep deprivation was slowly driving him insane. At least the wife being here now with his daughters would take the focus off and allow the parents to confer with another adult.

As he helps her unload the car their eyes meet and he gives her the look. A hound dog look and her eyes show that same worry and angst. They both don’t sleep these days and the few days away did as much harm as they did good. She tells him she slept on his side of the bed while he was down here. “It was so weird not having you around.” He wishes he could crawl under a rock and hide until he finds a job.

Bringing the bags of stuff in, the bottles he forgot, the can of formula, the dog bowls he left behind, he stomps up the stairs and drops off the stuff in the corresponding bedrooms. He pats his thigh, no phone. Heads back down, towards the table, presses the button on the phone. Nothing, again. As he heads up stairs with the rest of his stuff, he tells his wife he had called the place around noon today. He left a message asking (pleading) them to give him at least an idea of what was going on. It was now 7pm and he hadn’t heard a thing. He phone hadn’t even rung for the other several positions he has applied for.

“No news is good news” He recited to her which was his chant for the past 24 hours. It did nothing to quell the thirst for an answer his anxiety had created.

Saturday came and went and more of the same.

Sunday they said there goodbyes and he was off back to the guillotine that is also known as his home. His phone is by the stick shift again and it is silent. Both cars pull into the driveway two hours later. He unpacks, his wife gets the mail, the dogs “go potty”.

After moping around the house for a little bit he goes upstairs to take a shower and sees the answering machine blinking. A ray of hope burst into his thoughts. But, I know I didn’t give them my home phone number. At least I don’t think I did. His heart quickens, his pulse starts to pound between his skull. He rounds the bed and makes the 5 steps to the answering machine pulsing “01” on and off. “You have one new message, Friday 2:30” Holy shit, Friday? His brain is going, watching the light listening, what the hell did I miss, Friday? Why the hell didn’t they call my cell phone?!!!

“hey, it’s me are you picking me up from school or am I taking the bus?” My daughter says into the phone. He can’t hit delete fast enough. He lumbers back down the steps and to the kitchen. The lights are off and the clouds make the room feel like it is 8pm. He sees the pile of mail on the counter and decides to open some of it. Then he sees it, the letter from the company he interviewed with. He knows it isn’t good. His heart drops, his eyes swell and his hands become bricks as they try to pry open the letter.

“We’re sorry but after ” He drops the letter on the table, looks out the kitchen window at the leafless trees swaying in the wind. The clouds can be seen right through the limbs. Grey. His adam’s apple has grown to the size of a grapefruit. His mouth is dry. He is fucked. They have tapped into their savings and this means at least 6 more weeks of winter. His wife had sauntered into the kitchen and saw him opening the mail. Unconsciously he must have turned to her and his face showed the death sentence he had just been summonsed with. He tried to catch her heart before it hit the ground. “I’m sorry” she said.

“You have no idea” he thought to himself as he turned. Away. From her. “I’m sorry” he says to himself as he walks out of the room. The letter torn in quarters and already deposited into the trash can. It can’t get any worse than this. What else can go wrong. His worst fears are really coming true. He has been looking for a job for 4 months and nothing has come his way. He is doubling down on his life now. His 401k is 20 percent of what is was 18 months ago. His house is worthless. He has 2 kids 1 and 2 years away from college. He has a newborn son. He has this, he has that.

The depression has found lifeblood to suck on and is metastasizing right behind his eyes. The pain is producing immense pressure that wants to release tears that will numb the pain. His 15 year old daughters sits on the couch perpendicular to the love seat he is sitting on. Laptop on his lap and starting up. The men are building up a wall to hold back the onslaught of tears crashing against the levy. His soul is a church bell that hasn’t been rung in decades. His heart has become a chamber that holds stale air and is made of lead.

A knock at the door. On a Sunday. His wife looks at him, his daughter looks at him. They look out the window. “I don’t know who it is” as she let’s go of the blinds. He sees the silver 4 door car in the driveway. Sits up and places the computer on the coffee table.

“Are you” He asks as he points to the name on the summons

“Yes” He replies as he rolls his eyes and says “It’s my fucking ex wife”

“Sorry” the man delivering the summons says as he steps back towards his car

He turns back towards his house, reading the summons his ex-wife has sent him. For Child support.