Amy had never been
culturally sensitive
. In fact, she was always making snide remarks about Black people, Latinos and whoever else happened to be on her bad side. So, the fact that she was calling Japan to talk to a Black man floored him. How could a woman who was so opposed to everyone who wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat and flying a confederate flag suddenly confiding in a Black man? And how had he not noticed?
Nothing fit anymore.
Questions assailed him like bullets in a firefight. Wasn’t
he
supposed to get some credit for providing her a lifestyle that never included work or worry while he, conversely, worked himself to the bone?
What had this guy ever done for her? Had
Jermaine
paid their bills? Had
Jermaine
sat up at night after working all day with their son when he was teething, sick or scared? Had
Jermaine
spent his off days cleaning their gutters, cutting their yard, trying to save their marriage? Now suddenly, he was the bad guy?
Unbelievable!
Overwhelmed, Brett screamed out suddenly and hit the wall, knocking the magnetic clipboard to the floor. His fist left a
hole
in the drywall. Pulling his hand out, sore and red from the impact, he leaned against the door and shook his head.
Why do I even try anymore?
he asked himself
.
Cameron, his
three-year-old son
, walked into the kitchen and tugged on his leg, all but ignoring his father’s fit. Brett looked down at the little guy and tried to smile. It was comical but he tried.
Running a hand through his son’s tousled brown locks, he picked him up and kissed his rosy cheeks. “Where have you been?” Brett asked, holding him in his arms as he walked over to the refrigerator to find something to eat. Kids didn’t like ruckus. He knew that, even if he didn’t know anything else anymore. It was best
that
he control his anger for his son’s sake.
That was another thing.
Was it too much to ask to get a hot meal in his own home?
Hell, he’d settle for takeout. He just wanted a little effort. He wanted more than his wife spending half her day on Facebook or curled up surfing the Internet on her laptop, ignoring him when he was at home and giving him dirty looks every time that he said a word to her about it.
“Are you and Mommy fighting again?” Cameron asked in a raspy voice, pulling Brett out of his thoughts.
“No,” Brett lied, pulling out a seasoned steak wrapped in plastic. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes. I want cereal,” the boy said, running his small hand over his father’s five o’clock shadow.
“It’s too late for cereal. Do you want me to fix you a steak?” Brett asked, setting him on the floor.
“I don’t want steak, Daddy. I want cereal,” Cameron protested.
Brett didn’t really feel like arguing with his son, too. Amy had taken the cake for the day. Although, his mom would have had a heart attack if she were not already dead over him fixing breakfast food so late in the evening.
Going to the cupboard, he pulled out a small blue bowl and went into the pantry to grab Cameron’s favorite frosted flakes. “How are you ever going to get big like daddy, if you don’t eat any protein?” Brett asked, pouring the cereal reluctantly.
“What’s
protein
?” Cameron asked, pulling his plastic solider toys from his pocket. The boy was never without a toy.
“Never mind. I’ll explain it to you later,” Brett said, putting Cameron’s bowl on the table. “Eat up, little guy.”
Grabbing a beer from the refrigerator, he walked upstairs past the toys lining the steps and tried to open his bedroom door. “Open up, Amy,” he ordered, leaning his head against the wall. His hand lingered on the knob.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed out. “Sleep on the fucking couch!”
He could hear her shuffling around in the room. Twisting the knob again, he protested. “We need to talk. This isn’t just going to go away.” His voice cracked. All the fight was nearly gone in him, but he still wanted to try to come to some type of understanding.
“There is nothing to talk about,” she said with a sniffle in her quivering, little voice.
Brett felt hopeless and exhausted. If he persisted, she would simply shut him out more. They would probably spend the entire rest of the night arguing if she did open the door, and he didn’t want that either. Plus, he was starting to get a headache. He felt it every time he turned his head, pounding in his temples like hot pokers.
Letting go of the door, he took a big gulp of his beer, looked at the door one last time and headed back down the stairs quietly. He’d discuss this with her tomorrow. For now, he just needed to eat and get some rest.
The sun beamed into the den through the white, faux-wooden plantation blinds right into Brett’s eyes while he slept. Turning his face from the window, he pulled the thin sheet over himself and tried to ignore the coming day. Having slept all night on the sofa, he felt his body kinked up and begging to stretch out, but he tried to ignore that too and get a few more minutes of shut eye.
God knew that he needed it.
He had stayed up for hours the night before mulling over his situation, and no matter how he approached it, it still looked bleak.
It would have been better for him to have just slept on the floor last night, but after a week on the ground while out in the field, he wanted to lay horizontal on something elevated - anything would do. Hell, he would have slept on the kitchen table last night if he had to.
With his arm thrown up over his face, he felt himself start to ease back into a light sleep when the television turned on suddenly. SpongeBob blasted through the surround sound jolting him out of any comfort that he had found.
“Cameron,” he growled, sitting up. Blinking heavy-lidded eyes, he pushed his body to the back of the leather sofa. “Can’t you go and watch TV somewhere else, man? Daddy
really
wants to try to sleep for a little while longer.” His voice lightened when he made eye contact with his son. None of this was his fault. Yet, he was the one being ignored.
Still in his pajamas, Cameron walked over to his daddy with the remote in hand and sat in his lap. “Mommy’s gone,” the boy said flatly.
Brett wiped his eyes again. “She probably went to the store or to the gym,” he assured Cameron.
Reaching over to the end table, he picked up his watch and looked at the time. 7:15 a.m. Deciding that trying to sleep any later was completely futile, he moved his son beside him and amped himself up. It was time to face the day, time to go and get in Amy’s ass. Now that he had gotten a little sleep, he would be quicker with his responses, more apt to dig into this
Jermaine
thing without giving in.
“Mommy’s gone
away
,” Cameron said, more solemn. He dropped the remote and looked up at his daddy.
With his elbows planted on his knees, Brett heaved a tired sigh into his hands and smelled his own breath. Horrid. “I’m sure that she’ll be back.”
“She took all of her clothes,” Cameron explained.
Brett paused and went stiff as a board. Looking straight ahead at the television, he swallowed hard. His deep baritone lowered. “Where did she take her clothes?” He turned to his son and waited for an answer.
“She put them in her car,” Cameron answered, dangling his feet off the side of the couch. “Is she coming back, daddy? Did she move?”
In only his black boxer shorts, Brett jumped up and headed out the room. His dog tags jingled on his chiseled, tan chest as he moved. Stopping as he got to the door, he looked back at his son. “Stay right here and watch TV, okay.” He tried to take the worry out of his voice, but he had that eerie feeling in his gut again.
Cameron nodded obediently and then turned towards the television.
Closing the door behind him, Brett ran as quietly as he could through the hall, up the backstairs to their bedroom. Pushing the door open with his index finger, he looked inside.
“Amy?” he called out, walking into the room slowly. There was no answer. “Amy, are you in here?” he called again. His bare feet stuck to something on the hardwood floor. He raised his foot to see that it was gum.
With the wind blowing through the open windows cloaked in white linen curtains, the tranquility of the large bedroom was strangely deceiving. The airy space appeared to be undisturbed except for pictures of Cameron on the nightstand that were now gone. She had left their wedding photos on the bed but had taken the expensive frames that his mother had given them. He gazed down at the photos and shook his head in disbelief. She had always been a tacky bitch.
Going to their white wooden dresser, he pulled open the top drawer and discovered that all of her things were missing. He stared at the empty drawer blankly. In disbelief, he opened the small jewelry box on top of the dresser where they kept a small roll of cash and saw that it too was gone, along with all of her jewelry.
Now, he was getting pissed.
Dashing to the closet, he pulled open the door and saw that all of her dresses, pants, skirts, belts and shoes were gone. The same for her backpack that housed her laptop, I-pod and camera – the essentials of her small-minded life. Everything that belonged to Amy Black was gone and so was she.
Sitting on the bed, he ran his shaking hand over his face and closed his eyes. His heart raced so loud until it pounded into his ears. He could feel his hands clamming with nervousness. The room seemed to be closing in on him one thought at a time. Shuddering apart inside, he tried to get his baring. He just couldn’t believe his eyes. She was gone. Just like that. No warning. No signs. Or like everything else, maybe he simply hadn’t noticed.
Taking a deep breath, he reached over to the night stand and grabbed the house phone. He dialed her cell phone number hoping that she’d answer. A computer message answered instead. It had been disconnected. Slowly putting down the phone, he let out a defeated sigh. What was he going to do now?
Cameron stuck his head into the door with a curious smile. Like everyone else in the house, he hadn’t listened to Brett. “Is Mommy coming back, Daddy?” he asked, standing in the door with his teddy bear in his small, pudgy hand. His worried eyes met his father’s, hoping for comfort, sensing that something was wrong.
Brett knew that this was a defining moment in a father’s life.
“Come here,” Brett said, reaching out his hands.
Cameron walked over to him and put his arms out. Brett picked him up and nuzzled his nose into his son’s hair as he replayed the night before in his mind. Amy wouldn’t have been stupid enough to charge all those calls on her phone unless she had a plan. This had not been a spur-of-the-moment decision. She had planned to leave them alone.
Thinking back, he did recall the month before when she was frantically searching for her passport. At the time, it didn’t make any sense to him, but now he understood the urgency. There was no way to get to Japan without it. Only, he didn’t understand what she was going to do when she got there. Marines couldn’t live off base because of safety issues and there was no way that the Corps was going to let her stay with him. Maybe Jermaine was just one stop of her quest to get as far away from him as possible.
Looking at his son, he held back his anger and tried to give the young boy a smile. He didn’t see the purpose of telling such a small child that his mother had just abandoned him. What he did need to do, however, was find out what legal steps he needed to take to protect himself and Cameron. The gloves were officially off. He would have to stomp her into the ground, figuratively speaking. However, if she had been a man, he would have already kicked her back-stabbing ass all over the Pacific Rim.
Picking his son up, he turned off the light and closed the door to the room without looking back. There was nothing but bad memories in there. Just like any other problem in the Marine Corps, the only thing that he could do was prepare a counterstrike, since he had already been attacked. Amy Black had all but tried to sever his balls.
Taking his son to his bathroom, he turned on the water to the tub and dropped in the yellow rubber ducky and boat on the shelf. “Let’s get you cleaned up so that we can head into town,” Brett said, grabbing the SpongeBob bubble bath. For the moment, things still were quite surreal. He moved around mindlessly.
“Where are we going, Daddy?” Cameron asked, pulling off his dingy Spiderman pajamas.
“To the library,” Brett answered, trying to push Amy out of his mind for the moment.
“Why are we going there?” Cameron asked as he stuck his little fingers in the tub to wade in the water.
Brett sighed and grabbed a large towel from the shelf. “Daddy needs to get a few books,” he said, omitting that he needed to find out how to file for divorce in the state of North Carolina. With the JAG office closed until Monday, he would have to use the resources available to him until he could get back on base and find out what his rights were.
***
After a quick stop at Burger King for a kids’ meal for Cameron, it occurred to Brett that in all of the hysteria, he had not checked his banking account. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he felt another pang in his gut, but he was too afraid to call the 800 number and find out if his suspicions were correct. A man couldn’t take that kind of news behind the wheel.
Speeding out onto the highway, he zipped past the library and headed straight to Jacksonville.
When he got to his bank on the outskirts of town, he barely missed them closing up for the day. With Cameron in-hand, he yanked off his shades as he entered the building and sat down with the first customer service representative who would see him.
“How can I help you today, Mr. Black?” a slender Asian man asked, offering a seat across from his desk.
“I need to take my wife off of my account and find out how much money I have in the bank,” Brett said, sitting Cameron in the chair beside him.
After giving his access number and showing the man his bank card and ID, the customer service rep typed in something to his computer and paused. Looking hesitantly over at Brett then Cameron, he pulled his monitor where Brett could see.
“There was a transfer this morning to another account by Mrs. Black in the amount of $40,000. You currently have a balance of $10,000 in your savings account and $3,500 in you checking,” he said, lowering his voice. “And I’m sorry, but since this is a joint account, you can’t take her name off the account without her permission. She’ll have to come in with you.” The man braced for the explosion. Having worked near a military base for over five years, he had seen all manner of broken relationships and clearly identified this as one of them.
The color left Brett’s face. “What!?” he exclaimed, nearly jumping out of his seat. “That’s half of our life savings. What the fuck? How can she do that?” he asked, exasperated. He leaned over on the desk and put his hands on his head. He had never hyperventilated before, but he could tell that he was close. Bombs and bullet he could handle. Having half of his money snatched from under him was a completely different ball game.
Other customers looked over at him as he experienced a total melt down. They whispered and watched in amusement.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Black. The best thing that I can suggest is to open another account and transfer what is left of your money to that account in your name
only
.” He paused to make sure that Brett was getting all of this.
Brett looked over at his son and gritted his teeth. “I just signed up for another four years with the fucking Corps. She took
half
of my bonus, left me with my kid and you’re telling me that there is nothing that I can do?”
“I’m sorry, sir. By law, there is nothing that
we
can do,” the Asian man said sympathetically. “You may want to see if there is some way you can go through your chain of command to seek additional assistance.”
Brett sat back in the chair and laughed. His large hand ran over his mouth, holding back a string of curse words. Looking around at the attention that he had drawn to himself, he swallowed down the news and threw up his hands. “Just… get me a new account for now, before my son and I are in a homeless shelter,” he said, breathing out a frustrated sigh through his flaring nostrils.
“Right away, sir. Can I offer you something to drink?”
“You got some whiskey back there?” Brett asked, rolling his eyes.
***
The Swansboro Library was bustling with people. On a Saturday in a small town, however, there wasn’t much else to do but go to the beach, go shopping or dining or go the library. Parking towards the back of the yellow-bricked building, Brett unbuckled Cameron from his baby seat and made his way inside. He walked in a daze, numb from the day’s events. He had felt less anxiety in Iraq during a full-on firefight than right now. Yet, he had to keep it together for his son, who so far had remained calm throughout their debacle.
The relentless hot sunrays beat down on the pair as they walked. Cameron fidgeted, tugging at his pull-up and begging his father to pick him up, while Brett pulled him along and wiped at his sweaty brow. The perspiration at his collar left a wet ring around his blue polo and made his clothes stick to his skin. It was all the makings for a complete melt down, yet he tried with all his might to hold on.
As they entered the air-conditioned building, the cool air calmed their senses. A few women in the corner, who were reading to their children, locked their eyes on Brett and Cameron, admiring the attractive doting father and his charming son who on the outside seemed to be part of a picture perfect family.
If they only knew,
he thought to himself.
Brett skimmed the small space, looking for the reference room and a possible answer to his ramping problems. Normally, he would have gone on the Internet at home and found the information he needed, but Amy had taken their only computer with her.
He spotted the reference section and headed directly to it. Picking Cameron up to move faster, he strode through the happy families to the quiet empty room and stepped inside. The small space was stacked with books, too many to decipher which one he needed. Rusty on his dewy decimal skills, he stood in the middle of the room like a lost child.
“Why can’t I just catch a break,” he said, immediately berating himself for showing even a glimpse of self-pity.
“You look a little loss,” a soft voice said from behind Brett.