Felix Beaulieu woke Sunday morning with the worst crick in his neck that he’d ever experienced. He’d not intended to sleep in one of his dentists’ chairs. It was just where he sat while avoiding sleeping on the couch in his office on Saturday night. But now he realized that sleeping on his couch wasn’t the most uncomfortable place. Definitely, the dentists’ chair was by far the most uncomfortable place to sleep.
With a groan that made him sound far closer to 80 than he actually was, he left the room for the bathroom across the hall. There he peed, brushed his teeth and hair, washed his face, and only then did he take a good look at himself in the mirror. At least, he thought, he only looked 70 or so. His sleep had been crappy for days now, and it looked to get worse before it got better.
But he’d gone on as if all were right with the world because his children expected it, his patients expected it, and the world, in general, expected it. Now he went back into his office and went in the suitcase he’d brought to work with him on Friday night and stripped down to his underwear. Being Sunday, he could dress casually, so he got out his most comfortable pair of jeans and a black tshirt with white lettering. It sais “Life of a dentist” above all with a dissenting tree that read “Birth”, followed by “”I hate going to the dentist!”” and ending with “Death”. He slipped on his runners and left the building for his breakfast with Greyson Page. he and Greyson had lunch almost every day now, but Sunday Brunch was different. No suits, no ties, no slacks, and as little professionalism as they could manage. And both being breakfast food fanatics, the Breakfast Nook was the natural choice.
He walked in at 9am, had a seat, ordered coffee, folded his arms and went back to sleep.
Greyson was bright-eyed on this Sunday morning. He wore a billowy light blue linen shirt over a plain white t-shirt and a pair of darker blue light cotton casual pants. On his feet, he wore some casual slip-on soft shoes in dark blue denim fabric. He wore his usual wire framed and black stripe at the tops of each lens vintage-style glasses and his grey hair was neatly groomed and as usual parted and brushed to one side. He wandered into the Breakfast Nook searching for Felix. Then he spotted him sleeping in a booth and went over and sat down across “Felix? Felix are you ill? Do you need to go home? We can do this another day….” He gently tapped his friend on the side of his arm.
Felix started awake and blinked. “Greyson. No .. I’m fine. I just fell asleep.” he rotates his head on his neck and winces in pain. The waitress had brought his coffee and he added creamer and sugar and then drank half of it. “I … fell asleep in one of my dental chairs last night. Gave me a crook in my neck.” he clears his throat and reaches for the menu. “Breakfast. I’m starving.” he was trying to play normal, as he had all week.
Greyson watches Felix with a quiet growing concern. When the waitress dropped off a coffee he politely held up a finger “One of those for me too please Miss...black.” He leans into Felix “What the hell are you doing sleeping in your dentist chair? What’s going on with you?”
Felix had hidden his face behind the new paper menu. The new normal. He is developing bags under his eyes. “Amelie doesn’t want me in the house right now. '' he explains. “We got into a very polite fight about the kids and what they tell me, but keep from her. She just gets too … upset sometimes. Especially when it comes to our kids having sex. And then … and then I let slip about my brother. She didn’t even know I had one. Only Sasha knew.” he shakes his head. “I slept on the couch until Friday night. Then she asked me where Gen was. I told her the truth; that she was with Dante. And then she told me … I should sleep someplace else for a while.” he picks up his coffee and sips it, nervously. Of course, he appeared to be getting along perfectly well with his wife in public. In the office.
Greyson tips down the menu to look at Felix “My friend you look like shit. This isn’t right. You two need to work this out. I know the kids are stressing her out but we’re talking over...what is it 20 years of marriage...and 4 kids. Felix, you can’t live in your dental practice.” The waitress comes back before they can go one and Greyson quickly orders something along the lines of an English Breakfast and then looks back at Felix with worry in his eyes.
Felix blew out a breath. Greyson was blunt and arguably rude and Felix loved it about him. He always knew where he stood. He orders the two of everything breakfast with pancakes and when the waitress leaves them alone, he speaks. “Well, some of it IS my fault.” he defends his wife. “You see, my brother was disowned by my family. He was gay, you see. Afterwards, he fell into drugs and dangerous sex. Contracted HIV and committed suicide. My parents don’t talk about him .. it’s like he was never born.” his jaw visibly tenses. “When I fell in love with another … devout … Catholic … I was afraid to tell her .. for the same reasons Sasha and Gen don’t want her to know some things. So I didn’t. Now all the kids know, but Rene and Cath .. well … “ he sighs and rubs at his temple. “I’ve torn my family apart, Grey.” he shoulders all of the blame.
Greyson sips his coffee thoughtfully and listens “That’s beyond awful. What happened to your brother...I’m so sorry Felix. You haven’t Felix. It takes two. But you two have to figure this out. I mean you still love her right? If you can heal it then the kids can heal too. I had horribly religious parents. God help them...I’m serious I wish he would.” He laughs.
Felix sighs again. “Thank you, Grey. I really wish my kids could have known him before things got bad.” he nods. “I love her like crazy. But she is so .. uptight. Especially about sex.” he can’t help himself and half chuckles. “I didn’t know you were Catholic Grey. Or I should say a Recovering Catholic.”
Greyson frowns a bit “I wish that for you all too. I was an only child and my parents were Methodist. It’s like Catholic but without the bingo and no dancing. Dancing could lead to sex standing up after all..” He jokes. Then he frons again “Is she uptight at the idea of the kids getting in over their heads...or is she “ He drops his voice “Uptight with you….in your relationship? Because that would be a sad thing for both of you.”
Felix snorts. “Religion.” he nearly growls. He blows out a breath and lowers his own voice. “Both.” he clears his throat. “Part of it is being Catholic … and part of it … she was raped... Before we got married. She got pregnant and I told her parents the baby was mine. I wanted to marry her anyway. But she lost the baby and … it was … years before we made love again. It got us Sasha. Now we’ve had sex more than four times … but not many more it feels like. No, I think she is mostly over … what that man did to her … and I think what it left is good old-fashioned Catholic guilt.”
Greyson winces “Oh god Felix. That explains a lot...that’s some serious trauma for a woman… I mean for anyone but it is more women than us. Have you guys...or has she ever had counselling? Poor Amelie...and you of course. And all the stuff you’ve carried about your brother. No wonder your intimate life is strained. You need to clear the way back to it. Because when you do it’s the most beautiful thing to share….god if I could have one more night with Audrey...I’d give anything to share that again with her. Save your marriage, Felix. Life is short.”
Felix snorts. “Counseling? No. Amelie said we could get through it with God’s help. The few times I’ve brought it up … she reminds me that we have four children, so there is nothing wrong with our sex life.” he sighs. “I went to therapy after Auguste dies, but it was only for a year. I suppose that is why I still have contact with my parents at all. Although … I don’t know if our sex life can even be saved. And … she may not want to go … I’m sure she won’t want to go. She’ll be afraid of being judged. It’s no one’s business but us and God and I don’t want that … I don’t want God in bed with me and Amelie.”
Greyson looks both sympathetic and concerned “You know this island has mental health services? Two therapists. A grief group that I may join. I still take antidepressants...although I’m trying to go lower and lower on my dosage and eventually stop needing them. When I had a check-up here with Dr. McKinney she told me about the counsellors and the grief group they run. Might help me sort it without the drugs. Maybe with Amelie being in a new place, she will feel more anonymous about talking to someone professionally? I did for a long time in Victoria. I mean I had to come back to how to parent because I felt like I was putting way too much on Paige. I still feel it. I want her to have her own life. Iris too. They’re wonderful and they dote on me. But I’m the parent.” He nods about the God in the bedroom comment “Yes the only place for god in the bedroom is how much you can make her say oh god.” He teases “But I understand you.”
Felix nods and shrugs. “I have seen Dr. McKinney and I’ll be seeing Dr. Singh starting Monday. They’re things I need to work through … but Amelie … I can only hope she’ll go. I’m in no position to ask her to right now. And you’re right. I’m the parent … at least to two of mine.” he chuckles a bit. “Grey … I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve made Amelie take the lords name in vain in bed.” he closes his eyes. “I guess … between God and the rapist ...or maybe it was just me.” he shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
Greyson looks truly sympathetic to his friend “You both need some healing. If you have love then once you heal, your marriage bed can be a magical place. Maybe even treat it like a renewal, like a new relationship. Breathe life into that love. Counselling first...for sure. But then have fun with it. Go on dates. Try something different? I have to confess Audrey and I … well we liked variety….you have to work at it. You know what always worked for us when things felt...dull...I mean life after kids isn’t always as sexy as when you can just drop on the kitchen floor anytime. But something that got us back on track...we’d hire a babysitter and book a hotel room. Pretend we were just meeting in the hotel bar. We even made up names. It was like falling in love over and over and it made the lovemaking mind-blowing too. There’s that Parthenon. Classy looking place for a night of renewal.” He stops talking as the food comes but gives Felix a little eyebrow wiggle over his next sip of coffee.
Felix looks amazed at Greys… suggestion? “Ell, our marriage bed was like a Victorian novel. Darkness. Covers. No real passion … I just … “ he swallows hard. “Climbed on. But before … it was so different. I think I scared her … that’s why we took a little break and then …” he clears his throat. “Yes … the Parthenon … but … it may be better if I rented a small place. I’ve heard there are micro-apartments near the ferry. But maybe after a while … renewal.” he snorts. “I almost wish we didn’t work together. How can a man and wife be TOO close?”
Greyson snorted “Clearly you two have been reading the wrong Victorian novels. Mind you the one I just happened to steal and read recently was from Iris’s dresser. I do hope Seamus knows what he’s in for. Too much of her mother I think in her.” He sighs “You really want to move out of your house?” He takes a bite of his food and chews and swallows “Audrey was the receptionist at our clinic in Victoria … , when she was well. So I understand the working with your wife thing. It can add a layer of well what do we talk about at supper when we know each other’s day already? So then you both need to have interests, hobbies, friends…” He gestures between the two of them across the table. “You need to be a whole person outside of just being her husband and the father to your children and she needs that too. Don’t move out Felix. I think it would be far too easy to stay out and let it drift and end. I’m not getting the sense that you want that.”
Felix chuckles a bit at Iris’s reading material. “I snuck and read and watched all kinds of stuff as a much younger man. I … curbed myself for .. love?” his plate sits before him and he almost snaps. “Of course I don’t want to move out.” he drops his head and begins to cut his pancakes. “I’m sorry Grey. No … I want to stay home, but I also need sleep. It’s bad enough I have all this on my mind … without sleeping on a fucking couch as well.” he sighs and stabs at the pancakes. “Fine … I’ll buy a wider couch, then. I was thinking about getting Sasha his own room … this is as good an excuse as any to start building on a guest room … or a dog house I guess. Lucky Taffy.”
Greyson nods along while eating his own breakfast and then replies “I’d offer you my couch but it’s a glorified loveseat and you might get attacked by a pirate at random. Thea wakes up at the crack of dawn.” He can’t help but laugh about the doghouse “So you’re in the literal doghouse then? Better make it a big one. A guest room would be a good thing. Or space for Sasha.” He looks thoughtful “I should probably give you a heads up that Paige and Iris are thinking about renting the apartment above our practices.” He chuckles “You may see less of your son when they suddenly have way more privacy. But I know our kids are smart about things and will be. Paige was born 7 months after our wedding night...but my parents knew and condemned all of that. Getting married to Audrey was a band-aid solution until I just cut them off from my life. Extreme I know. But I couldn’t allow their vitriol in my family.”
Felix waves off the offer of the loveseat. “No … you’re right, Grey. If I move out … it will be that much harder to get back in. Amelie would never divorce me … too … sinful. But .. it wouldn’t be a very nice ‘till death do us part’, that’s for sure.” He nods about the new room he already has half planned in his head. “I may as well make it nice.” he grins at the news that Grey’s daughters are considering moving. “As long as he is happy, and he is.” he listens about Grey’s parents. “Yea … that’s the shit I got to deal with when Ame got pregnant and I stepped up as the father. For all they knew, that child had been conceived of love … “ he eats a bit to buy time to think. “As long as the kids are happy, and can communicate with me. That’s what’s important. I don’t … I can’t be my parents. I may not be the best, but I’m not like my own.”
Grey grimaces “Sounds like we had the same parents, only mine didn’t speak any French. All we can do is do better for our kids. Audrey’s mother ended up being the only grandparent in my kid’s lives. They had been estranged...her childhood was complicated. Her mother…..well there’s no polite way to tell the story. Charlotte...my mother in law had basically raised Audrey half on the streets of an area called the Devil’s Kitchen. Not a nice place. Charlotte got roped into the sex trades to basically feed and house them and as is often the case, Audrey was groomed to that life. Charlotte didn’t want that for her but she was blocking it all out with booze and drugs. When she finally got clean, Audrey and I had met and her daughter was moving away with me.” He looks sheepish.”I met Audrey as a client….rebelling against my parents. We fell in love.” He exhales “I hope you don't think differently of me…” He goes on “After having Paige and then Iris...close together, Audrey had an understanding of how much her mom loved her, at least at one point. We went back to find her. Audrey forgave her. Eventually, she moved to Victoria….but Charlotte’s lifestyle caught up with her and she became ill and died. That might have been part of Audrey’s path to illness too but it took longer. Also, thyroid and complicated pregnancies didn’t help. But the older girls knew their mother, Aislin a bit, The older two got a few years of having Charlotte dote on them. Charlotte sewed and I think that’s what got Paige inspired to. She’s really good now, really good!” He looked a little self-conscious “That was a bit of a ramble..” He smiles apologetically and then sips the last of his coffee.
Felix uses the time that Grey speaks to quietly eat, and so Grey can finish the whole thing. Then he smiles and wipes his lips. “This is what friends are for, Grey.” he reminds him, and then he touches on the points. “My parents … only know where I am because of Amelie. I don’t complain, because of course she never understood that ocean of divide between my parents and I.” he sips his coffee. “As far as how you met .. and your rebellion … what makes you think I didn’t have my own rebellious teenage years?” he licks his lips and drinks of his orange juice. “I was only fifteen when Auguste died. For a couple of years, I was on … autopilot … and then after graduation and before dental school and meeting Amelie. I learned lessons … “ he sighs deeply, then shakes his head as if trying to dispel those lessons.
Now Grey looks a little intrigued “Well you know all my secrets….tell me about your rebellion.” He laughs and then thinks “Maybe in some tiny way you’re Amelie’s rebellion if her parents were also very strict? And god I’ve given my kids nothing to rebel against….how will they sew their wild oats?” His tone is completely sarcastic “They’ll have to just rely on their naturally precocious personalities.”
Felix laughs at his sarcasm. “Amelie seems so surprised that our children want to explore .. but they come by it honestly enough.” he looks at his friend. “I may well have been.” he agrees. “In college, I met a girl. Another French girl, but … she was as rebellious against the Church as I was at the time. Her name was Solange.” he suddenly laughs. “She told me that if I was going to stick my tongue out at God and the Catholic Church I should learn the best ways to do that. She said she would teach me to worship the God of Fuck.” he clears his throat. “And she did. Of all things, I’ve wanted to bring to the bedroom … Solange taught me.”
Greyson nods along and looks encouraging “most women love that...it’s like a guarantee….and in truth, I love it too...not to overshare. Just the reactions…” He looks distracted for a moment and has to clear his throat “Yes I miss Audrey...every day in every way.” He sighs and then listens about Solange with a smirk “I like her already. God of fuck indeed. I know him well.” He laughs heartily. “Felix you and Amelie will find your way back...I just know it.”
Felix nods. “Exactly. The reactions … before … Before the rape … Amelie would let me please her. Her reactions to me .. it was so beautiful.” his jaw tightens. And then … afterwards … she’d push me away … literally. I .. felt like a baby-making machine. And … after the babies ... she would do her wifely duty.” he closes his eyes. “Prison was too good for him.” he growls and recovers himself, trying to smile softly as his friend remembers his wife. “I hope so, Grey. I really do. Someday. Soon. She’s … “ he looks at him. “I think you know how I feel about my wife because I can see it in you.” He draws in a shuddering breath. “I am not a widow … and yet … I am.”
Grey’s heart goes out to his friend “I’m so sorry. I can hear your pain and loneliness. Amelie needs to heal those old wounds. From what you’re saying about the joy you shared before.” His nostrils narrow “I don’t understand how any man can do that to a woman…..they’re to be loved and cherished….not violated. With 4 daughters it gives me panic…..that there are so many men who hurt women. They don’t know the long term effects of what they’re taking from them. Stay strong Felix. She still needs you.”
Felix nods. He has two daughters and knows Amelie’s worries ... or some of them. “You know what is ironic, my friend?” he asks. “Gen’s boyfriend .. is a boy with tattoos …” he motions to his hands. “Fuck Life tattooed on his knuckles. One of those boys you see and you think ‘Mon Dieu, where is his parole officer?’ and cross the street. Yet I have seen him with my Genevieve and I feel she is safer with him than any man Amelie and I could have handpicked.” he nods to himself and then drops his head. “He was our professor….” he damn near whispers.
Grey nods “I get that about Gen’s boyfriend. I feel twice that about your Sasha and Seamus, Iris’s boyfriend. Our kids are ok, more than ok, and I’m so glad.” Then his eyes widened “The man who raped her was one of your professors? My god…..” He rubs his hand across his face and shakes his head.
Felix nods, slowly. “She came to me right afterwards and I took her to the hospital. Held her hand while the police questioned her ... and of course, me. And hen she got pregnant … of course I claimed it … I loved her.” he sighs. “She told me when we fought that while I hid Auguste from her, she shared with me the ugliest truths. At that moment, I did not understand, but since … thinking about it … I understand.” he looks at his friend. “I don’t even know how to fix us? Therapy yes … but how can I get her to go?” he snorts. “Threaten divorce?”
Greyson looks anguished for what Amelie went through, what they both went through, and his friend’s love for his wife though it all. Then he blinks “I do think she needs help...but is she THAT resistant? That’s a terrifying thing to put on the table, Felix. For both of you.”
Felix sighs, deeply. The sound is from his very soul. “Yes … she is.” he believes. “But I also know she loves me … it’s … my ace in the hole … and I’ll probably have to use it.” he blows out a breath. “If I’m wrong … I lose everything.”
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