The Convenient Wife

“I’m excited, can’t wait to meet the new Mrs. Bolt Sheckler.”

I spend the afternoon, pacing my room, wondering how to get her back and trying to get ready for this stupid reunion. Fixing my suit, I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the phone. I want to talk to her, the desire and need is itching my fingers, and I can’t take my eyes off the phone.

Fuck it. I have to try.

Lifting the receiver, I plug the room number in and listen to it ring. I don’t have a clue what I’m going to say, I just really want to hear her voice.

It rings over and over, and I’m starting to lose hope that she’s going to answer. I’m about to hang up, when her voice comes out of the speaker.

“Hello?” she asks, her tone full of sadness and pain.

She sounds broken. It’s all my fault.

I’m such a fucking asshole.

“Hey,” I say.

Scoffing, Starla barks into the phone. “I told you I was done, and I meant it. Goodbye, Bolt.”

“Wait, don’t hang up.” I push the phone harder against my ear. “I really want to talk to you, give me five minutes to explain myself, please, that’s all I ask.”

“You had the past two months to explain yourself, and you said nothing. I don’t even care if your family thinks I’m a humiliation. I feel stupid for not knowing everything from the start and not seeing it. Time’s up, Bolt, you lost.”

Click

The phone goes dead and I’m left with a million words inside my head, and no one to listen. I can’t blame her for being mad, but it hurts that she won’t give me a chance to lay it all out on the table. I want her to know the position I was in at the start, and what drove me to make the choices I did.

I want to tell her that in the beginning it was all about the money and getting back at my father, but that isn’t the case anymore. Things changed, I changed, and I want the chance to make things right.

Hanging up the phone, I reluctantly rise to my feet and straighten my back. Closing the door to my room, I let out a defeated breath and head down to the reunion.

The music is loud, people are talking and dancing, smiling and laughing. Everyone is all dolled up in their Sunday best. My family isn’t small. My father has five other siblings, my mother has four, and all of them have kids who are starting families of their own.

Small children are running between adults’ legs around the dance floor, giggling and jumping like grasshoppers.

Stepping over a little boy, he reaches out and snatches my ankle, gripping it tightly. Looking down, the little boy has big blue eyes and blond hair. He’s wearing a green button up with khaki pants and tiny little dress shoes. He’s got the Sheckler nose, and the small dimple in his chin that two of my aunts have.

“What are you doing?” I ask him as he grins up at me.

Letting out a crazed laugh only children can get away with, he tips his head back and cackles. “Walk!” he yells, digging his tiny nails into my skin.

“Walk? But you’re holding my leg.”

“Walk!” he yells again, rolling onto his stomach, and clutching my ankle like it’s a baseball bat.

Pursing my lips, I shrug. “All right, but you’re just going to fall off. I walk really, really fast, and your tiny little hands aren’t strong enough.” Taking an exaggerated step, I pick up my pace as he hangs on to my surprise.

Dragging the boy across the dance floor, his eyes are twinkling under the lights, and the laughter in his voice causes my chest to constrict.

“Faster!” he calls out, squeezing my ankle even harder. “Faster!”

Before I know it, another child is on my other leg, then a third and a fourth. All of them are laughing hysterically, their mouths open wide as I trudge around the dance floor like I’m wearing cement shoes.

But I’m not annoyed with these kids, not like I would have been before. I’m happy for the moment, enjoying their playful spirit.

“All right, all right,” my father’s voice chimes in my ear as he waves his hands at the cluster of children. “Let the man go.”

The children all pop up from the floor, scattering in different directions like ants. I watch them for a second, as the first boy runs into his mother’s arms giggling. She kisses the top of his head and looks up at me with a smile.

Nodding my head, I smile with closed lips. Something ignited inside my core while I was playing around with those kids. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t have the urge to push it away.

“That’s your cousin, Faith. She’s my brother Tony’s oldest daughter. You never really got to meet her because they moved to Washington when you were one.”