Rebuilding (Working Title)

1 Phire

I think if one of my co-workers hadn’t pointed out the tattoo in the photo on my desk, my marriage might still be the intact farce that it had been for years.

It was innocent enough. I made partner at Kohl and MacGereggor, the uptown law firm I’d been working as one of their top divorce attorney’s for years. Making partner was actually well due. Twenty years of fighting to help people divide their lives up when their marriages went south and bringing in top bucks for doing so, so yeah, making partner in the matrimony dissolution sector was my due. Janis Rawley, who contrary to the girly name is one of the beefiest men you might ever meet, suggested that with my new office, I might put up a few family pictures. Make it look like I had a softer side.

Do not get me wrong. I had a softer side back then; I just kept it separate from work. Not that I didn’t have plenty of family pictures to hang up on the polished wood walls. I have nine sisters. All of them save one were married and all of them save me, had children. If you want to talk about pictures, I had scores of them. Christmases, births, birthday parties, family reunions, formal family portraits, snap shots, yearbook photos, I had them all. We are a very photogenic family and we know it. But it wasn’t the scores of photos that caused me to open my eyes and see that my marriage was all one big joke.

It was one vacation photo. One single solitary photo taken on the beach in Hawaii.

It all started with an innocent conversation that started the single worst day of my life. Jan knocked on my door.

“Hey Jan.” I said. I’d just had my third cup of coffee so the rain outside wasn’t getting me down. I was on a caffeine high.

“Hey chickadee! What’s on your docket today?”

“The Samuelson divorce. We have mediation this morning. As a matter fact they will be here in an hour.” I replied.

“Why are they even bothering? She only married Dorsett to make her father happy. They sounded the death knell on that one when the old man kicked the bucket.” Jan said coming in and sitting on the corner of my desk.

“Old Man Samuelson wasn’t even cold in his bed before she filed. But they chose to at least try mediation first.”

Jan picked up the framed picture of my husband Travis and I on the beach last summer. It was a cute picture. He had his arm around my waist and I was leaning up to kiss him while holding onto my hat. It was a nice picture. Cute, like I said.

“Hey what tat artist did you go to?” Jan asked.

“One down in Murfreesboro.” I replied. “When I was fifteen.”

Little back story. My younger sister and I are identical down to our noses. The only real difference is our eyes. Hers are hazel to the point of just light brown. Mine are a light blue. Growing up we used to play pranks on everyone and got away with it, because we had contact lenses. We saved up one summer to get our prescriptions in colors. She got blue, I got hazel. When we were fifteen, our daddy got fed up with the switching and took us to a tattoo parlor in our hometown of Murfreesboro, North Carolina and got each of us a small tattoo in the inside of our right wrists. I got a heart, my sister got a star. It was, for a long time, the only way to tell us apart. During the summer months, it put a stop to our switching identities game. In the winter when we wore sweaters, it was on… but I digress.

“So when did you have your star changed to a heart? Sometime this year?”

“What are you talking about? I’ve had my heart since I was fifteen.” I asked.

Now Jan is a big white guy. At his silence, I looked up at him and found this big, beefy, white man devoid of the little coloring he did have and looking guilty like he had just uncovered a big bad secret. When he made eye contact with me he immediately looked sorry he had said anything.

“Sweetness, take a look at this photo.” He whispered handing me the photo.

“I don’t know what you… are talking… about…”

And then the rain outside began to roar and howl right there in my office. All of the air in the room left and the temperature dropped a million degrees as I looked at myself in the photo and saw that right there, on the inside of the wrist attached to the hand holding my hat on my head, was a star. A very definable star. My hat, my bathing suit, my sunglasses, my figure, and my husband, but my sister’s tattoo.

My sister and my husband.

My sister. My husband.

My identical twin sister and my husband of twenty one years.

I think Jan may have said something to me. I’m not sure. All I could honestly hear was a badly tuned electric guitar playing an unending chord. He said something else. I think I nodded. He left and closed my door. I just stared at the picture. I remember getting up to look at the other pictures scattered around my office. The two of us together at the Legal Eagles Gala three years ago. I know that one was me; I didn’t need to see my tattoo. I passed by the ones of my nieces and nephews and family gatherings. The one of Trav and I on our wedding day. There it was as plain as day, my little heart. I’d taken one of the shiny gel pens and traced it in silver for the day. Our fifth anniversary. There was the heart again. One of us at the King and Queens Ball. I couldn’t see my wrist. But it had to be me, right? I had gone with Travis every year but four of them. Two because I had just had miscarriages and two because I was really sick. Why hadn’t I raised my hand in this picture so I could see my little heart?

I scanned every single picture in my office and kept coming up with my heart. I raced back to my desk and picked up the beach photo hoping that it was just a mistake but no, there was the star. My suit, my hat, my glasses, my figure, my husband, and my sisters’ star.

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. My sister wasn’t on that vacation. I talked to her almost every night. She claimed she was getting extra hours at work with her kids spending the month at our parents’ farm. I even told her that she should have come with us and had a vacation herself. She distinctly told me that the beach wasn’t her scene. Every sign pointed to she was lying. Every sign pointed to my sister sleeping with my husband. But that was wrong. They barely talk to each other when they’re in the same room.

No. No. No. No!

Somehow I made it through the Samuelson mitigation. Or part way through. They were arguing over the lake house when I looked up and asked Fred Dorsett would ever sleep with Beverly Samuelson’s sister. I just asked it. Out of the blue. No provocation on their part or Dorsetts’ lawyers’ part. It was the look that everyone in the room gave me that made me realize that my mind was not on anyone else’s crumbling marriage but mine.

“I- I- I- I don’t think so.” Mr. Dorsett stumbled.

“I don’t have a sister.” Beverly said.

“That’s not the point Beverly!” A part of me couldn’t believe I was yelling at a woman who was paying half of a million dollars for me to help get what she wanted out of a marriage she didn’t. I turned to Fred. “Would you?”

“Honestly? No. Not while we were married. After we were divorced. Maybe.” Fred said softly. “We may not get along, but I did promise before God to be faithful.”

Promises before God flashed before my eyes. A church full of flowers, yards of white satin, football fields of blue satin… Nine sisters and a smiling groom. Promises before God.

“Ah, I think that we should postpone the mediation for a few days.” Jan said.

When did he come in? Had he been sitting there the entire time? Was he monitoring me? Did I care?

“I can’t do this. Beverly, call the office. Tell them you want Jan to be your lawyer. I can’t do this. Not right now.”

And I walked away. Just like that. Knowing I might just be taking my job into my hands and throwing it out of the window, I walked out of the conference room. I went to my office and started packing my things to leave. I don’t think I was there maybe ten minutes when there was a knock and Beverly walked in.

“What is going on? I’m paying you to fight for me and make sure I get what I want. Not Janis, you.” She said without preamble.

I stared at her for a whole minute and picked up the cursed picture. I thrust it out and made her look at it.

“Look.” I said. “Look at that.”

“What am I looking at?”

“Look at my wrist. The one holding the hat. What do you see?”

“A tattoo. A star. What does that have to do with anything?” Beverly asked.

I pulled us the sleeve of my blouse. “What do you see here?”

“A heart. What does this have to do with you handling my divorce?”

“It has everything to do with it!” I said. “That picture is of my husband. And my twin sister.”

Can’t say that Beverly isn’t smart, but it only took a few seconds for what I was telling her to dawn on her. She dropped the picture on my desk like it burned her fingers.

“I can’t fight for you, right now. Right now, I have to fight for myself.”

“I can give you a month.” She said.

“Ask for Jan. He can be just as ruthless as I can. I don’t know where I’ll be in a month.”

“I’ll give you a month.” Beverly said. She leveled me with a glare, walked away, and shut the door softly.

She’s a Wall Street hard ass. I suppose that glare was meant to tell me that she expected to see me in this office in a month handling her divorce but how was I suppose to handle her divorce when I had a feeling that in a month, I’d be in the middle of my own? Whatever. I needed to get out of here.

Two hours later found me sitting in my living room with a nearly empty bottle of wine surrounded by every photo album I could find. I hadn’t found one picture showing my sister’s tattoo where I should have been seeing mine. Every single picture where there was supposed to be a heart, there was. In my half drunk state, I was almost ready to just forget it all. Chalk that picture up to everyone seeing something that wasn’t there when I spotted one more album; the biggest one actually. I leaned over and grabbed it. I flung that thing open like I was on a crusade.

Maybe I should have left it on the shelf. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked. Maybe I couldn’t stop myself.

There they were. Picture after picture that I know I didn’t take. Picture after picture of places I had never been but there I was. Newspaper clipping of events I wasn’t able to accompany Travis to. But right there in the pictures, there I was. Smiling and happy. His firm’s holiday gala two years ago. I had to be at my firm’s party. We decided to each go alone. But there I was in a big 5x7 photo. Wearing a red dress. The King and Queen’s ball of 2007. The second time I had a miscarriage. I was laid up in bed. I had to beg him to go to the ball. I felt bad because he’d be alone. But there I was. In a gown that matched his costume perfectly. Smiling bright, too.

Picture after picture and the one that took my breath away like the first picture only worse. On a white background sat my husband with his arm around my sister and in front of them sat my niece, Tiana, and my nephew, Corey. Dear God in heaven help me. For years I had been seeing it but never put two and two together. For all of Corey’s twelve years and all of Tiana’s nine years I had felt that their faces were so familiar to me, I thought they looked like a relative from the family. Their faces were just that familiar.

Their faces were familiar because I had been married to that face since I was seventeen years old. I had curled up in bed with that face. I had stared into that face almost every day for more than half of my life. My niece and nephew were my step children. According to the law, since my sister and I had identical DNA, they could legally be my children.

“What are you doing sitting on the floor?”

I hadn’t heard him come in. I glanced at the bottle of wine. Empty. I flipped to another page in the album; an innocuous one of us at dinner. But it wasn’t me.

“Are you okay?”

I stared up at him. He’d taken off is suit jacket. I must have looked a sight. I saw that much reflected in his eyes.

“Sapphy?” I hate that nickname. He never called me Victoria unless we were in mixed company. My family calls me Phire. My husband calls me Sapphy.

“Exactly how long has our marriage been a joke to you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Holiday party at your firm two years ago.” I said flipping to the picture. “I had to go to my firms’ party. I wore a black dress. Here, I’m wearing red.”

“That’s not two years ago.” He said.

“It says 2011, Travis.” I said flipping to another picture. “The King and Queens Ball in 2007. I had a miscarriage that year, remember? I was on bed rest.”

“She came at the last minute.”

“I had the miscarriage one week before the ball. She had time to get a dress made. That is not the dress I had intended to wear.” I flipped to another picture. “This dinner at Morton’s with Demi and Orlando. I’ve never been to Morton’s. Not with you. Yet surprise! Here I am!”

“Sapphy…”

“For years I’ve been staring at her kids thinking they looked like a family member I’ve known all my life. My niece and my nephew had to be a throwback to another generation. I just knew they looked like someone. They look like the face I’ve been married to for twenty one years.” I was surprised I wasn’t yelling.

“Sapphy…”

“How long?” I asked. “How long of the twenty one years have you been sleeping with my sister?”

“You’ve been drinking. We should talk after you’ve slept it off…”

I grabbed the empty bottle and flung it at his head. It crashed on the wall behind him.

“HOW LONG?!?”

“Since nineteen ninety one.”

“We were married in ninety two. You’ve been sleeping with her since before we were married? You married me when you were sleeping with her?”

Again, I wasn’t conscious of my movements. At some point had stood and was facing Travis.

“She wouldn’t marry me. She didn’t want to be tied down.”

“So you married her exact twin?”

“You two only look alike.” He said almost coldly.

“I grew up with the bitch, who are you telling we only look alike?” I said. “Why not just wait for her? Why marry me and spend our entire marriage cheating on me? What did I ever do to make you hate me that much?”

“Sapphy.”

“Call me that one more again.” The inner Southerner that I had taken great pains to stuff deep down over the years was clawing her way up. “See if I don’t string you up like the rat you are.”

“You aren’t thinking straight.”

“Really? Let’s see if I have the story right. We got married when I was seventeen but you’ve been sleeping with my identical twin sister since we were sixteen. For twenty one years, I have done everything you ever wanted me to do. I took elocution lessons because you said my Southern accent wouldn’t get me far here in the city. I barely ate and when I did, I ran to the gym so that I stayed nice and trim. In the bedroom, I did every sick and perverted thing you wanted.” I said. “I wanted to have children. Not now, we’ve got our careers on the right track. A baby would ruin it for you now. I’m just not ready to be a father, yet.” I bent down and got the album, opening it to the cozy family picture. “You look like you’re perfectly fine being a father here.”

“What do you want me to say? I have loved Amelia since we were kids. I asked her to marry me. She told me no. Stupid me thought that you were just like her. But you aren’t. I still love her. Yes they are my kids and you know what? Amelia’s pregnant again. I want to be with her. I’ve been tired of pretending with you for years. What do you say we just call it what is and end it?”

He said it so calmly and rationally, like he was asking if we should have Chinese or Italian for dinner. He never blinked, his face never changed, and he stood there looking at me like we were going to sit down and have a calm and rational conversation about this. Something inside of me snapped. And while I wanted to grab the big ugly brown urn on the shelf and beat the ever loving tar out of Travis, my lawyer side stepped up to the plate and cleared her throat.

“I want this apartment, I want the house in the Outer Banks, I want every single penny I have earned since March 16th, 1992, and the boat.”

“That leaves me with the farm upstate, and owing you almost a million dollars.” He said.

“I was the one that worked and paid the bills through law school. Every months’ rent and utilities came out of my paychecks. All of the food. Your first car. I paid for all of it, because you had too many bills. My paycheck pays for this place. My paycheck furnished the beach house.” I said.

“Forget it.” He said. “I’m not paying you a cent.”

“I wonder what Trevelyan and Associates would say if they found out that one of their top associates has been sleeping with his wife’s sister for twenty two years and has two children by her with another on the way…”

“That’s blackmail.”

“That’s divorce based on adultery, irreconcilable difference, conditions that boarder on extreme torture, and severely long term spousal abuse.” I said. “Maybe I want the farm too.”

“Where will we live?”

“I’m pretty sure that my sister, the sales manager slash actress slash writer, slash jewelry designer slash baker can fit you into her brownstone. I’m pretty sure that she already has.” I replied.

“You’re being ruthless right now out of hurt.”

“I’m being ruthless right now because this is what I’m paid to do all day long. Whoever the client is, I fight so that they get everything they want, fair or not. Right now, I’m my own client.”

“You aren’t being fair.”

“And you’ve been fair to me for the last twenty two years?”

He had the grace to be silent.

“You have ten minutes to get a bag packed. I will have movers come in and pack the rest of your things and have them shipped to Brooklyn. Starting now.”

He wasted three minutes staring at me and sputtering but he wasn’t stupid enough to think I was bluffing. It took him five to pack a large suitcase. As he wheeled it to the door, he stopped and looked at me.

“I really do love you in a different way. Just… I just…” he trailed off.

“I really do love you too. And it might take me a long time to get over that. Now get out.” I said. “I’ll draw up the papers tomorrow. Would you like me to serve you at work or at her house?”

“At the house.” He said. “How am I supposed to provide for my children? I’m just an associate. You’re the partner.”

“You should have thought of that a long time ago.”

“Just think it over before you file the papers.”

“I can promise I probably won’t stop thinking about this for awhile.”

I think it was the deadpan in my voice that caused him to give up. He walked out of the apartment and I closed the door. With the absolute last of my strength, I locked the door, sunk to the floor and cried. I cried until there were no more tears in my body and then I slept.

The next morning when the sun came up through the windows in our penthouse condo, I was sore, stiff, and in a worse mood if at all possible. Sleeping on the floor had done me no good, but then does sleeping on the floor ever do anyone any good?

Sitting up against the door, I caught sight of the photo albums strewn about the floor and a fresh wave of tears washed over me. So many questions raced around my mind. Had Travis really thought that marrying me would be like marrying my sister? He’d been around us since we were eight years old. If there was anyone that knew how different Amelia and I were, it would be him. The only things she and I shared were DNA and looks. Except our eyes.

For twenty two years he’d been sleeping with my sister.

And then it hit me… For twenty two years, my sister had been sleeping with my husband. They were equal to blame for the current situation but as my sister, her part had a more sinister ring to it.

Slowly, I scrambled from the floor and zombie walked my way to the shower. As I turned the water on to hot, I had a flash of Travis and I ‘christening’ the shower when we’d moved in. I shook the image away and wondered had he ever bought her here.

That’s who she was now. She wasn’t my sister… she was the preverbal her that women always refer to when talking about the woman that stole their husband.

The shower cleared my head enough to put on a pair of fresh pajamas and crawl into bed. I didn’t turn on the television, I didn’t read a book, I just curled up in a fetal position and lay there. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up, it was getting dark. Was I about to be one of those women that slept through all the pain in her life? I hoped not, I’d never get anything done if I did. I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen. I was hungry but I couldn’t put my finger on what I wanted. A knock at my door momentarily stopped the decision cycle going on in my head.

I half expected to see Amelia at the door when I checked the monitor but instead I saw Janis. He was facing the camera just outside my door and, bless his heart; he was holding what looked to be Chinese! I flung the door open. Whether it was joy to see Janis or the food, I don’t know, but the look on his face reminded me why I was still in my pajamas at… I looked back at the clock on the wall… six thirty at night.

“Hey chickadee. How are you?”

“Better if that bag is from Moo Shu House.” I said.

“Well then, get ready to be ecstatic.” That got a slight smile.

I stepped away from the door and Jan came in. He shut the door and I went to get plates from the kitchen

“So how much do you know?” I asked. I never knew his sources but I’d been around long enough to know that when Jan wanted to know something he found out with a speed that would make rag papers jealous.

“That he took a bag to Brooklyn last night. He called out of work this morning. Trevelyan was supposedly livid. Travis was due in court this morning.” Jan replied as he took the fork from me and began to pull food out of containers. “From the shattered what looks to be wine bottle on the floor over there, I’m assuming yesterday didn’t go well.”

“Assuming my ass.” I said sitting down. “They’ve been sleeping together for twenty two years.”

“You’ve been married for twenty one years.” Janis said.

“I know. The only explanation he would offer is that he asked her first, she said no, so he thought we’d be alike and he’d marry me. Out of anyone in Murfreesboro, he’d know how different we are.”

“That’s torture, Tori.” Janis said. “Twenty one years of torture. You can sue him on gross spousal abuse alone.”

Ever the lawyer, Janis was. I smiled.

“That’s not even the worst part.”

“Tiana and Corey are his children.” Janis said. He didn’t ask it, he didn’t sound surprised, but yet I don’t think he’d known for very long.

“And she’s pregnant again.” I said. I pushed my Lo Mein around on my plate. “For twenty years I tried to have a baby, and she gave him three. I helped raise those kids. Every time she needed a break, they came here. I bought clothes, I took them to doctors appointments, went to school when she had to work. The whole time they were my very own step children.”

“You and your sister are identical, Tori.” Janis said.

“I know that. So what?”

“In the eyes of the law, they are your children. You are legally married to their father and as Amelia’s identical twin sister; they are of your DNA. Half of the courts in this country would grant you custody.”

“I can’t take her kids away from her.”

“She took your husband.”

“Even I’m not that vicious. And how would I explain it to Tiana and Corey? I’m sorry kids, but your daddy was my husband and since your mom and I are two halves of a whole, you are my kids now? They’d be as confused as I am.” I said. “I can’t do that to them. They didn’t ask for the shitstorm that’s about to hit their world.”

“You need to start spinning that storm as soon as possible.”

“Will you be my lawyer, Jan? Only a fool represents himself in court.”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Janis smiled.

“Because I didn’t show up for work this morning and while you wanted to go to Brooklyn and rip my husband a new hole, you decided against jail time to bring me the food you knew I hadn’t eaten all day.” I said pointing at him with my fork.

“Honey, if I set foot in Brooklyn to hurt that asshole, I wouldn’t go to jail. I know people. Besides, I prefer to do my castration in a courtroom.” Jan said. “Now let’s talk about what you want.”

“I’ve already stated my demands to him. I want the house in the Outer Banks, this condo, and reimbursement for every penny I earned but he spent since our wedding day.” I said.

“Not bad for a start. Why are you giving him the farm upstate?” Jan asked while forking a piece of broccoli.

“I don’t want it. I come from a farm. I don’t need another one to vacation on.” I speared a shrimp. “Besides, if I did take it, I’d only sell it. Probably all of it except the house in the Outer Banks.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“I’m trying not to be cruel.” I said.

Jan gave me a funny look. I realized that I was sitting here trying to be humane concerning the man that had lied to me, cheated on me, and basically abused me for twenty one years. I was trying to be kind to the woman that had grown up with me, played with me, slept with my husband, and had given birth to two children by him. Any other woman would castrate him and wrap him in his own innards. But I was trying to be nice.

“I don’t want my niece and nephew.” I said.

Jan leveled me with a look that said he’d push the issue later. I looked away toward the city moving and glowing outside the window. Thirteen floors below me, New York City was going on with its life because they had no idea that one of their residents was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“Tori?” Jan said softly.

“Twenty one years.” I said. “Do you know what I could have done with my life in that time? I could have found someone that actually loved me. I could have started my own law firm.” I looked over at Jan. He was staring at me with one of the loving looks that he always had for me. “Think about it. I could be happily married with a few kids probably getting ready for college by now but instead, I’m old and dried up with nothing to show for it but a job I love and a healthy bank account.”

“You aren’t old and dried up. You are one of the most beautiful women going on forty that I know.” Jan said softly.

I turned to look at him. For the first time in ten years, I couldn’t read what was on his face.