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The Real American Dream

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As a child, I would read or watch the most amazing stories. To be able to clap your hands and create anything as long as you knew and possessed their chemical compositions, to travel across the land fighting off the dead, to be the world’s first female knight.

All of these stories inspired me, and they told me that as long as I held my ground and worked hard, I could achieve anything. In real life, they tell you the same thing. The American dream, anyone can work their way to the top. They just neglect to say what it will cost you.

Erik was asleep when I got home in the early morning. All I wanted to do was collapse, but I hadn’t had the chance to eat anything all night. I rummaged through the fridge, trying to find something quick to eat, maybe some Mac and cheese? No, that would take too long. The kids would be up in less than an hour.

I sighed and resigned myself to getting as much sleep as I could before the kids woke up.

I climbed over the baby gate, tripping over the edge for the second time that day, and climbed into bed, not even bothering to undress.

Erik was snoring peacefully, and though I knew I shouldn’t, I snuggled into him. Burying my face deep into his chest. He was warm, so wonderfly warm. I hadn’t gotten to spend time with him in weeks, so those times were precious.

I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of Irish springs body wash and closed my eyes, trying to go to sleep. Now that I had finally stopped moving, my feet began to announce their complaints at the days abuse, sending painful throbs up my calves. I closed my eyes tighter, trying to ignore it, but the ache only intensified.

I checked the time on my phone, thirty minutes until my alarm went off. “Please,” I whispered to no one in particular, “I just need a little sleep. Just a bit.”

As soon as my conscious started to fade, Erik’s alarm went off, and the cooing of playfull babies filtered in. “Erik, is there anyway you can go in just a few hours late? I got back late from work again and haven’t slept at all. I just need an hour or two.”

“I’m sorry love, it’s Thursday. I have labs on Thursdays, and I can’t miss it.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot it’s Thursday.”

He got dressed and leaned over to give me a kiss goodbye. “I love you,” he said apologetically. 

“I love you too,” I replied, holding back tears. I knew it wasn’t his fault, we were doing what we needed to in order to survive and provide for the twins. But it didn’t make it any easier knowing that.

Hearing the twins babbling become louder, I slapped my cheeks and crawled out of bed. Opening the door to their room, I walked into a nightmare. They had figured out how to get their pajamas off and had discarded their diapers. Kaylee was on tip toes in her crib, Evan with his hands in a fresh diaper. Tiny, brown stained hands marking the walls, bed, and carpet.

“Oh, no, no, no!” I yelled, scooping up the twins. They were completely covered head to toe.

After cleaning them off in the bath, I grabbed all the cleaning supplies I could find and started scrubbing down their room. I wasn’t even half way done before Kaylee started screaming for Nom noms.

“Okay, okay. Let’s see if there is anything easy to make.” I would have killed for some simple cereal or oatmeal, but we were out. Even eggs seemed like too much an effort, but they would have to do.

I gave the twins their eggs and sat down on the couch across from them to eat mine. An hour later, I woke up. The twins were nowhere to be seen, and our eggs were scattered all across the floor. I had passed out.

I flung myself off the couch in a panicked flurry. The baby gate had been knocked down, I rushed past and down the hallway into our bathroom, calling their names.

I found the twins in a desert of kitty litter. An entire bag had been emptied onto the bathroom floor and into the toilet, the twins sopping wet and covered in a kitty litter mud from head to toe.

I didn’t care about any of it, I was just so glad they were okay. I scooped them both into my arms and held them tightly, sobbing loudly.

Evan took his tiny hand and swept away my tears, “No cry, Mommy.”

I let out a half laugh, half sob, and put my hand to his, forcing a smile. Right, I could do it for them. “Let’s get you guys cleaned up, Mommy’s bathroom isn’t a beach, you know!”

I gave the twins their second bath of the day, cleaned up the mess of eggs, finished cleaning the twins’ room, fed the twins lunch, and finally cleaned up the kids’ homemade beach.

By the time I was done, Erik was getting home, and it was already time to go to work. Time for it to start all over again.

I gave Erik a big hug hi, and bye, and left. Just ten more hours, I would finally get at least two hours of sleep, I thought. And just nine more years, and it’s all over.

This is the story of the American dream that nearly killed me.

A child’s guilt.

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Guilt is a funny thing. When you are a child, something as small as stealing a no.2 pencil at school can send your young mind spiraling.

I thought about it all day. How could I do such a thing? I would hate it if someone had stolen my pencil. I was so sad when someone had stolen my special red crayon. That pencil’s eraser was just so much better than mine. It wasn’t fresh, so it didn’t smear my drawings, but it wasn’t overly used either, so the metal edges housing the eraser wouldn’t have scraped the paper. Someone probably thought something just like that when they had stolen my special red crayon.

It was on my mind even when I went next door to see my babysitter, a sixteen year old boy named Jeff. Jeff had the best room. It had lots of cool pictures of people holding katanas on his wall, his own t.v., a couch, and even his own Nintendo 64. That was the best part.

Dad had his own Nintendo 64 at his house, too. We would play Donkey Kong for hours at a time. I couldn’t play on Dad’s game anymore. He was into the really hard levels. But I had thought of a for sure victory plan, I was going to train at Jeff’s house every day after school until I was even better than Dad.

That day, Jeff had an idea. He invited me to lay down with him on the couch. Even with my small six year old body, there wasn’t enough room for us to lay side by side, so he had me lay with my head on his chest. Dad and I had snuggled like that all the time. It always made me so sleepy.

“If you’re going to be using my N64 so much, then it’s only fair if you do something for me, okay,” he asked, stroking my hair.

I looked up at him, “and then I can train to beat Dad?”

He nodded and took my hand, slowly moving it down into his pants. “What do you feel?” He asked.

I was confused. Why did he need my hand in there of all places? “I feel…something smooth…and maybe long?”

“Good,” he said, “if you pet that for a little while, I’ll play Donkey Kong with you. You can even be Diddy Kong.”

I thought it was such a weird thing to ask for, but if it meant I could train to be better than Dad, then it was easy enough. Something about it made me feel uneasy. Why did I feel like I was doing something wrong? Was I making a mistake? Ten minutes hadn’t even passed when I asked if we could play Donkey Kong yet.

As promised, we played, but a lump started forming in my throat. I had just done something horrible, I could feel it. My chest felt tight thinking about it.

Later that night, as Mom was tucking me in, I couldn’t hold it any longer. “Mom, I stole a No.2 pencil at school, and I put my hand in Jeff’s pants so I could play the Nintendo. I’m really sorry, will you forgive me?” I felt like I was about to cry, waiting for her to yell at me.

At first, she looked shocked. Horrified even. But then it was like she realized the look on her face and course corrected. “It’s okay, you don’t have to worry. You can give the pencil back and say you’re sorry.”

I hadn’t even thought of that, “Oh yeah, I’ll do that tomorrow!” She gave me a kiss on the forehead, a hug, and closed the door behind her.

Later that night, I woke to strange voices coming from the living room. One was Mom’s, and she sounded like she was crying. The other voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t tell who it was.

I snuck out of my room and peeked around the corner into the living room. Mom was there, crying into her open palms. Next to her, rubbing her back, was Jeff’s dad, Gary.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

Her eyes shot up to meet mine, her face marked with lines from her eyes down around her jawline. She got up and forced a small smile, “I’m sorry I woke you sweetie, there’s nothing wrong. I was just a little sad about something.”

“Oh, okay. Can you tell me what you were so sad about?”

“Don’t worry about that. Let’s just get you to bed.” She ushered me back to my room, tucking me into bed, and all the while, she looked so terribly sad.

Jeff’s dad. Did it have something to do with what I told Mom? I must have really done something horrible to make Mom cry like that. Something even worse than stealing a No.2 pencil.

A child’s guilt is a funny thing.

In the hours after

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The slam of the door left a dull sound echoing as Erik stormed out. Kaylee’s cries seeming to carry it through the apartment. I held her, my poor little girl who could not possibly understand what was happening. Or why. I barely understood myself.

“Why would you make daddy leave,” Kaylee cried, “that is such a mean thing to do!”

“I know you don’t understand sweetheart. You might someday. For now…just know that Daddy did something to hurt Mommy. And Mommy just needs some time.”

“What did Daddy do to hurt you, Mommy?” Evan asked, crawling into my lap with Kaylee.

Erik hadn’t had the nerve to tell them what he had done. He had no conscience when it came to having an affair…but when it came to looking our children in the eye and telling them what he had done, he had not been able to stomach it and told them simply that he would tell them someday. But then again, I didn’t have the nerve to tell them either.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” I told them both. I probably never would. Destroying how one looks up to their parents was a concept I was all too familiar with. I didn’t want to be apart of that process for them.

We cuddled there for a while in a silent numbness. Eventually the kids, being resilient as children often are, got up and started to play. I laid there, huddled under my blanket. Trying to block everything with sleep, unsuccessfully. Instead, I watched them play. Silently crying, wondering if our family was about to break.

It wasn’t long before I needed to get up. Needed to move. So I cleaned everything in sight. I scrubbed the walls, cleaned the dishes, mopped the floors, picked up the kids room, until there was nothing else to clean. The only thing left to do was to unbox my new computer for the dream job I had been longing for since the kids were born. A job working from home, where I could be with my children and my husband. A job that was supposed to fix everything. But nothing was that simple. How could I start a new job in the morning with everything going on? How was I supposed to put on a smile and pretend to be a cheerful woman excited for a new adventure? I huffed at the boxes and decided to ignore them. Unboxing them would mean moving forward despite everything. I wasn’t ready for that.

I plopped back down onto the couch, but it wasn’t long before my thoughts started to over take me again. I needed to talk to someone. Anyone. But it was still early in the morning, which meant it was even earlier across the country where my family and friends were. I messaged my Mom and my friends anyways. Hoping someone was awake. I stared at the screen, my foot tapping impatiently. Nothing.

I fell back on the couch exasperated. Suddenly realizing just how alone I was here. It had been hard, moving here for Erik’s school. But before, at least I had him. Now, I had no one to turn to. No one to occupy my time with. No one to talk to. Erik, at least had his sister. I scorned him for bringing me here. For doing this to me when I had no where to escape to. When I had sacrificed everything; my home, my dreams, my family. Just for him to cast me aside when it had all finally become too much for me to endure. I wondered what excuse he possibly had to give. If any excuse he had could possibly be enough. I doubted it.

I slammed my fist into the pillow next to me. As if that could make me feel the least bit better. I couldn’t wait any longer. I stalked into my room and closed the door so the children couldn’t hear me before dialing my little brother Austin’s phone.

“Hello?” He answered, sounding as if he had stayed up all night playing video games again.

“Hey Austin, I am so sorry to wake you up this early…can you grab Mom? It’s important.”

“Yeah, one sec,” he mumbled, sounding somewhat annoyed.

After a few minutes of shuffling noises and static Mom answered. “Hey, what’s going on?” She asked.

“Hey, Mom,” violent sobs started to take over me the moment I heard her voice. I suddenly remembered all the times Mom had told me she thought Erik was just using me. Taking advantage of me. And now, despite always telling her she was wrong, I was about to prove she had been right all along. I hated that almost as much as what Erik had done. “Erik’s been having an affair,” I choked.

“What?!” she yelled. She sounded genuinely surprised. I had half expected an ‘I told you so.’

“How do you know?” she asked.

I told her everything, how I had seen the Just for Us page up on his phone. How I had recognized it was discord, then found the channel on his lap top. How they spoke of loving each other, how Erik had consoled her and told her they would get through this. I was blubbering through snot and tears by this point. I felt like a child running to their mother after getting a scraped knee. No amount of kissing boo boo’s and band aids would help this though.

When I was finished recanting the mornings events, Mom went quite for a moment before stating “you’re coming home.”

For some reason, it wasn’t until that moment that I truly realized the implications of exactly what was happening. Was my marriage really ending? Was I going to have to move back home in shame? Was I going to have to raise my children by myself, without them ever truly understanding why we had run far away from their father? Would they resent me? Were these past six years of toture for nothing? How would this affect them…?

“I can’t Mom, he’s their Dad” was all I could say. I felt as the figurative key turned, locking me into the cage that was now my life, and again I cried.