Page 19 of Broken By It
She smiles, “I have some energy today. I wanted to try to work for a bit.”
One thing about both of my parents, they are always wanting to work. Even with this diagnosis, the toll on her body, she still tries to come in when she feels up to it. There was no way from beginning to now that my mother was going to let cancer hold her down for long.
Dillon looks to my dad, then my mom, and to me as Hollis leaves my mom’s embrace running to me. “Come slide, Zizi,” Hollis invites yet again.
Just call me an enabler, I have the hardest time telling this little boy no. It’s why I don’t reply. I want to go, but I have to be responsible, and my job is important, not just for me, but for my family.
My dad is the one to pipe up, “go hija. I’ll stay with Vida and help today.”
Before I can decline the sweetest invitation, I’ve had ever, Dillon adds to the conversation. “Come on Zizi, work is covered. You wouldn’t want me to forget the sunscreen, would you?” He jokes.
“Go on, hija, have a good time,” my mom encourages, “life is short, you have to make all the memories.”
Her words cut deep. Fighting back tears, I can only nod. Within moments, I’m grabbing the beach bag I keep for me and Hollis and taking off to the water park with Dillon and Hollis.
We make a quick stop for me to change into my bathing suit and a few snacks. The waterpark isn’t busy, I’m thinking because it’s a weekday and it’s early in the season. The tourists haven’t come flocking in yet as some places still have kids in school. I’ll take the privacy.
“Let’s take a bathroom break before we start, Hollis,” Dillon says as his son jumps up and down giddy with excitement staring at the rushing water in the pool at the end of the slides. I watch them walk away with Hollis holding his arm up in order to reach his dad’s hand as they go hand in hand to the bathroom.
It reminds me of my dad. There wasn’t a moment he wasn’t around. There wasn’t a single event he ever missed for me or my siblings. I’m glad Hollis has that in Dillon. I can only hope Anna will come around.
With it heavy on my heart, I take out my phone and dial her number. She answers on the second ring, “is Hollis okay?” is her immediate response which is how I know she loves him in her own way.
“We’re at the water park and I didn’t know if maybe you wanted to come by and take some slides with Hollis?”
She lets out a little laugh. “The last place I need to be is with Hollis and his dad. Thank you, Maritza. You are always so good to my boys.”
Before I can say anything else, she ends the call. Well, I tried. I get our stuff unpacked at the chairs and umbrella table we chose just in time as Hollis and Dillon return.
Quickly, I lather the sunscreen on Hollis making sure his ears and neck are covered with the good stuff and it’s rubbed in. Dillon takes off his shirt exposing his muscular body.
I swear the man has a damn eight pack. I have to stop myself from staring at every flex of his muscles as he moves. Needing to get cooled off in the water, I take out my sunscreen so I can apply and get down one of those slides.
Before I can think anything through, react, or even take in the moment, the bottle of lotion is out of my hands. “Dillon,” I begin to explain that I called Anna, but he stops me raising his hand with a finger up.
“Lift your hair,” he instructs, and I swear I want to melt into a puddle. “Gotta keep your skin protected too.”
I’ve never denied Dillon Jacoby is an attractive man. With every passing day, though, I get to experience the man behind the cut. The man who will do anything for his son, including sleeping in a damn truck so he can be present.
Why he doesn’t sleep in another room or on a couch? I don’t know. I don’t ask questions. I listen as Anna shares from time to time and I observe.
Dillon is a hard man at work. I wouldn’t want to cross him, that’s for sure. But when he’s with Anna, I can see him struggle to maintain patience for her, but he does it. I’m sure watching someone you love slip away isn’t easy. Anna doesn’t deny being different since having Hollis.
His hands come down on my back and shoulders. He begins to massage the sunscreen into my skin. I relax into his touch.
The roughness of his working hands against the soft flesh of my shoulders is heaven. I fight back a moan. He is very thorough, and I even let him lather the lotion across my chest. I didn’t wear a two piece today and I’m thankful for it. Attraction or not, we are in two different places in life, both of them unavailable.
EIGHT
DILLON
I never imaginedmyself even thinking about life without Anna, not in the beginning. Until we left Freedom Falls, Iowa I had this picture in my mind of how it would be. Reality is nothing like I imagined.
Sure, I’ve been around beautiful women. I can appreciate visual appeal, but nothing I can ever call real attraction. Whether Anna realizes it or not, until Hollis, there wasn’t a single person I loved and found myself more loyal to than her. Now, I find myself holding onto faded memories trying to keep my vows as I navigate our separation and divorce. Regardless of the fact that it is indeed over with Anna and I, cheating isn’t something I want to do. With every passing day, it becomes harder. Not because there is someone else, but because I genuinely struggle to be around my wife. That isn’t healthy for either of us. Clearly, she doesn’t want to be around me or isn’t happy around me because all she does is scream and bitch with the occasional time she throws shit at me. I don’t want to continue this life of misery with her. I want her to find what makes her smile again, laugh again. I want her to feel something other than the resentment that eats her up. For me, I want peace. It’s very simple. I want easy days with my son. No yelling, nobitching. I want to spend time with someone who embraces me and my son. Anna treats Hollis like a burden and I think that is the biggest turn off of all for me.
Hollis is everything good I’ve ever done, held, or dared to love. He is my greatest gift in life. To watch her cast him away, it cuts deep every single time. I have given her everything she ever asked, even if we really couldn’t afford it at the time (like the house). We have the security of my job and money in the bank. She lives comfortably without having to work. I absolutely want Hollis in preschool, so he is prepared for elementary school. Only that isn’t enough time for her away from him, she tries to say. That is her excuse for leaving him with Maritza so often is she needs ‘me time’. I don’t know what the fuck that is because I want every free moment, I have to be with him. There is no me without Hollis anymore and I like it that way.
Maritza, that’s a whole other thing. She loves every second she has with my son. His first day of preschool, she cried, not his mother. She cherishes picking him up from school to hear about his day. She loves watching every new trick or task he learns. I have never seen someone truly adore a child that isn’t their own. Maritza and Hollis, though, they have a bond like no other.
