(Disclaimer: Some names have been changed to protect their privacy. Some information may be disturbing for some readers. Read at your discretion. 18+)
For the first quarter of the nine or so hours drive I was reminiscing about all the experiences I had with Jean and Alyssa. I thought about how they often confided in me. I thought about being yet another person in their life who rejected them, or let them down. I thought about how confused they would likely have been with not knowing the truth. I thought about questions that must have been running through their minds at night when they were laying alone in their beds. I thought about a lot of things. So much so, that I started to give myself a headache.
Heavy thoughts, combined with light sobbing here and there, made for exhausting energy to be in. I had to close my eyes. I turned to face the interior of the car, grabbed my coat to use as a pillow, then rested my head on the console between Bill and I. I may be five feet, nine inches tall. I knew how to make myself small when I had to. My feet were touching the car door. Whilst the top of my head slightly touched Bill’s arm.
As I was slowly drifting off to sleep, listening to some Nora Jones Bill was playing on the car speakers, Bill felt it was a good time to stroke my hair. I felt an instant flutter in my stomach the moment he touched my head. It triggered three horrific memories. One memory was when my mother had explained to me that Bill would find reasons to touch her hand, or the small of her back, anytime they were alone together in my house. I wasn’t sure if I could believe her back then. When Bill decided to take advantage of my vulnerability in his car on the drive, I knew my mother was speaking the truth.
The second thought took me back to 1999. My mother and Bill were having a secret affair behind my father’s back when I met Bill at my mother’s and his place of employment. I have no idea how long the affair had been going on. I wasn’t interested in any of the details when my mother was acting like a school girl on the phone, explaining her girl crush on Bill to me.
I didn’t make the connection when it came to my father’s toxic love towards my mother. I didn’t have the maturity, nor knowledgeable counsel to do anything about my parents’ choices. All I said at the end of the conversation was “well mum, if you’re not happy with dad, leave him. Do what’s best for you. I can respect your choice.”
I’m still not interested in knowing the details of my mother’s and Bill’s affair. That’s between them. I also have no idea how my parents healed from that experience, except to agree to use me as a projection of hate to help keep them bonded together. That’s their story to tell, not mine.
During their affair, and a few months after moving to St. Stephen to work for my mother, Bill decided to kiss me late one night, after the Dooley’s bar closed. We were both drunk and standing on a dock by the little town’s lighthouse. My children were being babysat by a local teen in the house my parents provided for me at the time. I knew about the affair when Bill kissed me. My mother had already confided in me about it at least one month before. It was for that reason, I told my mother the next day.
Have you noticed an attraction pattern in my life when it comes to attracting men with infidelity issues?
“What do you mean he kissed you? Did you kiss him back?” My mother lost her lid. She was shocked, and instantly furious all at the exact same time. I was no longer her friendly confidant. I was the “It” girl all over again. I knew that was going to be her reaction. I was prepared for it.
“I didn’t exactly kiss him back. I didn’t exactly stop him either, I guess. I am so sorry mum.”, was my timid response to her intense glare. My mother may be only five feet, three inches tall. She can also be quite the firecracker. Good things come in small packages. So does dynamite.
I did my best to explain that it was an unexpected experience on my part. I had no plans of even talking with Bill. Let alone finding myself on yet another dock, stretched out into the water, with a man I knew nothing about. I was still dealing with the loss of my first marriage. Albert had cheated on me so I left him. I’ll touch on both my marriages soon enough.
After that dreadful day in the kitchen of my parents’second home, my parents owned two at that time, I became very sick. I ended up in the hospital with severe pneumonia and issues with one of my kidneys. During my seven day stay in the hospital, which was about two weeks after the kissing incident, my parents didn’t visit me. Bill and my babies were the only ones who did. I didn’t even go on a date with Bill, nor kiss him again when my mother decided to close her recruitment business.
I was working on a big contract deal in Saint John for her when I fell ill. My parents kicked me and my girls out of their house. Neither of them would speak to me. I had nowhere to go. Bill offered to take us in. Fourteen years later, we divorced. Six years after that, he’s driving me home after being with yet another cheater.
Bill could be very manipulative when he wanted to be. He could also be an opportunist when called upon. It seems I surrounded myself with manipulative, absent minded people. Thank goodness for the love of my children. They were, and still very much are, my people. I couldn’t wait to get back home to Liv.
The final thought I was thinking in those few moments, caused me to revert back to sitting up. As I stared absent mindedly out the window, my thoughts drifted to what was supposed to be a fun camping trip with my friend and her father, back in 1986. Sydney’s father had other plans for me that weekend. Men and their wayward penises for me, became more of an internal death sentence, than a Mack truck would have been had it hit me back when I was fifteen.
And the journey continues…
LivWithClairity 
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