Welcome to Hell: Rediscovering First Love

“What?” She asked with the same surprised reaction that I had. Kat was now sitting up in bed rubbing her eyes.

“Gem got married to Troy over the weekend.”

“Nana was being a big ole pain in the ass,” Kat declared.

“You got it. The bus will be here in forty minutes. Can I fix you a bowl of cereal?”

“Sunrise?” She asked for her favorite cereal.

“I think we have some,” I replied leaving my daughter to get showered and dressed.

#

The driver had to honk for Kat but she made the bus, which made my life easier. I didn’t have to drive the four miles to her high school and back. Now, I roamed about the kitchen cleaning up while inside my head an imaginary conversation took place with my mother. I was telling her about Gem’s wedding over the weekend to Troy. In my mind she was coherent, accepting and even downright happy for her youngest daughter. In real life she was going to be absolutely pissed as hell and seeing red.

As I had suspected James spent the night at the office after dinner with his client. He answered the phone at eight sounding groggy. James kept a change of clothes at his office for these instances and there was a shower stall in the basement of his building where he could clean up. At times like this, I wondered why he married me. He definitely didn’t mind not being with me.

“Thanks for your consideration in calling me to tell me that you would not be coming home at all last night.”

“It was too late to call you when I arrived here so I thought I would call this morning when I awoke,” he replied with a snappy tone to his voice.

“Did you not stop to think that I might be worried about you this morning when I woke?” I asked angrily.

“Actually no

. Gabrielle, all you had to do was call me if you woke during the night to see that I am here. You would be rich if I did die so stop complaining.” He sounded grumpy. “I’m sure you were so very concerned.”

Then die I thought angrily. Frustrated with my husband, angry and hurt I slammed the phone down in the cradle. He was an insensitive, rude ass. The worst part of hearing those words come from him was that before I called him I had imagined finding out that he wasn’t in the office and had been killed in a car accident.

In my mind’s eye I saw the policeman standing at my door telling me my husband was dead and this tremendous feeling of relief washed over me because I was free now. James’s constraints on me would no longer be imprisoning me. Then a wave of tremendous guilt washed through me. How could I wish that he were dead? Because leaving James seemed to be an impossibility that I contemplated every day was the answer. With a groan I picked up the telephone again. I had to call my mother.

Yancy,” I said aloud to the empty kitchen while dialing her number, “Gem got married this weekend. Isn’t that great?” Michaela had started the trend by calling our mother Yancy as a toddler and no one had corrected her or so the story goes. My sisters and I have always called her Yancy never mom.

One ring. “I have some good news to share with you.” Two rings. I waited for her to pick up her telephone while the conversation continued aloud in my empty kitchen. Three rings. Nervously I drummed my fingers on the kitchen counter.

My father answered the telephone on the fourth ring. Unusual for the Dawson household. His deep baritone voice sounded good to my ears. “Hi Pop,” I said.

“Gabby,” he said with overwhelming love pouring through the telephone wires. God I missed him so much. “How’s my girl?” I could hear his smile across the miles that separated us making my voice choke in my throat and tears well in my eyes.

I was the only Dawson girl with Jack Dawson’s nearly black hair and curls. My eyes were round, almond shaped like his and nearly black they were so dark brown. My smile was wide and toothy like his. I had his olive-like complexion with a few freckles sprinkled across my nose. I was my daddy’s girl. From pictures I had seen when she was younger we looked like his mother Rosa who was part Italian, part Hispanic something or other. Nobody seemed to know for sure her heritage including her. I don’t know what the big secret was but there seemed to be one.

“I’m fine Pop. Is Yancy there? I need to speak to her.”

“Which sister is in trouble now?” He asked with a chuckle.

He knew my sister’s well.

“Gemma,” I replied. “Get ready for a firestorm from Hell.”

“I think I will run into town Pumpkin. Thanks for the warning.”

I heard my father holler for Yancy to come to the phone then explain about his non-existent errand that he had to suddenly run into town to do. I heard him kiss Yancy’s cheek. A soft peck. A gentle kiss from years of being man and wife. God how he loved my mother. A love only he and God understood.

“Gabrielle, what are you doing today?” She asked distractedly.

Was it my imagination or did she sound funny? “Are you all right?” I asked her concern in my voice.

“Fine. Why did you call?”