Gail Galloway's life came to a complete halt at seven thirty that evening when her mother suddenly began to cry and fled from the room sobbing, "This isn't working. This just isn't working!" Gail had been too shocked, too frightened and just too damn tired to say anything as she watched her mother rush up the stairs to her bedroom. Her mother was too old and too ill to cope with the chaos Gail brought with her when she returned home.
The chaos was a composite of Gail's own turbulent emotional state, Brent's unpredictable and increasingly bizarre behaviour and the terrifying outrage of the children. Sarah and Nigel missed their father and blamed Gail for the separation. Without Brent there to back her up, sensing their mother's exhaustion and their grandmother's exasperation, the children had become increasingly moody and destructive. The sibling rivalry that had always existed between them, erupted in unpredictable patterns of violence. Tonight Sarah had suddenly torn Nigel's homework to pieces and Nigel reached back with a hay maker that left Sarah screaming with a bloody nose. In the ensuing tussle, Gail's mother's Royal Dalton figurine, that had been a wedding present from a favorite aunt, had smashed against the wall. With his grandmother and Sarah in tears, Nigel had been so worked up he had refused to be sent to his room until Gail had spanked him hard enough to make him cry.
On top of everything, Gail's boss had chosen last week to appoint her team leader on a high profile project, an opportunity she had wanted for years. She planned to spend most of the night working on an assignment plan for the team, but now the papers sat empty before her. They required more effort than she had energy. Gail had run out of ideas and had just come to a complete stop.
Nigel was still wailing in despair ten minutes later when the phone rang. Gail felt emotionally numb as if her feelings were lost in a black pit and no amount of searching would find them. She was in no condition to talk to anyone. But the phone refused to stop ringing. For one frightening moment Gail suspected Brent had already, somehow, learned of the spanking and that the call was her husband announcing the child welfare people were on the way over to pick up the kids. And for another moment, listening to Nigel's screams and imagining the effect on her mother, she wished it were true.
You're loosing it, Gail told herself, her arm literally aching as she reached for the phone.
"Is that you Gail?" began a vaguely familiar voice. "It's Garnet Chandler, we met at the company dinner last year? I've been trying to get hold of Brent all evening."
Chandler had picked the wrong night to phone. Rage suddenly ripped itself free from the dark pit of her emotions and Gail prepared to ram the phone's receiver back onto the cradle. "Well he sure as hell's not here," She yelled!
"Gail, there has been a new development in that Layton Project matter..."
"This has nothing to do with me anymore, Garnet!"
"I believe this has a great deal to do with you Gail." The deep and honeyed voice went on, "We may have done Brent a grave injustice. We believe now that someone else was entirely to blame and we believe we know just who bares that responsibility. If your actions were in any way a consequence of the position we took toward Brent, I must urge you to rethink your decision. And I must get in touch with your husband right away."
Gail's anger was starting to feel good. "My actions had nothing to do with this problem of yours Garnet! They have everything to do with his loving work more than his family! They have everything to do with your using that love to suck every morsel of life and energy from Brent until he had nothing left for us!"
"The Law is a hard mistress Gail. It has taken a toll on many families" The patient voice went on. "I won't apologize for that, it is endemic in the nature of the business, especially for young lawyers. But I believe we were wrong about the Layton matter. Far too anxious to please a client and far too willing to sacrifice a young man who had given us only his best."
"Well I'm sure Brent will be pleased to hear you grovel, Garnet." Gail said sarcasticly. "But I have no idea where he is or what he's doing. Probably drinking himself to death, from what I hear. Nothing he does any more makes any sense to me."
"Brent has starting drinking?"
Before Gail could answer, darker emotions began crawling out of the pit and Gail couldn't stop the tears. She sobbed until her eyes stung and her throat hurt, and all the while the phone receiver made funny little squawking sounds. When she finally put the receiver back to her ear, Garnet Chandler's voice had mellowed.
"My apologies for bothering you Gail and I hope what you fear about Brent is untrue. Although loosing one's career and one's family at the same time must be a potent mix."
Gail's grip tightened on the receiver. "Garnet, I can't fight anymore. I'm all fought out. None of this has worked out the way I wanted. I've made a mess of everything. My kids hate me. They fight all the time. My mother's nearly having a nervous breakdown. I've got more stress at work than I've ever had and I don't know what's going on with Brent. Nothing he's done since I left has made any sense. Everything is all screwed up. My whole frigging life's broke and I don't know how to put it back together again."
"Gail, I wouldn't normally intrude but I feel I do bear some of the responsibility. I don't understand what happened between you two. Was it only the hours he was putting in here at work? Was his indulgence in alcohol a factor back then? Was he unfaithful to you? When the crisis with the Layton Foundation came up was there no way you could have stood behind him?"
She didn't know Chandler well and what she did know provided no reason for trust, but the words just kept flooding out. "I don't know anymore. I can't even second guess. I know he wasn't drinking or fooling around. I do know I wanted more of his time. The kids needed more of him. It's not like I didn't give him a chance. I warned him and I warned him. He had a choice and he chose work. He chose you and then he lost even that."
"I'm sorry Gail. You won't like to hear this, but he was one of the best. One of the most promising. Everyone liked Brent and we treated him shabbily. Perhaps we both did."
"When I left I never thought he'd miss me. Or the kids. I thought he'd throw himself into his work and we'd never see him again. Then when he lost his job with you, I got hopeful. I thought maybe now he'll see he needs me. Needs us. But he chose a bottle instead. I guess we were never in the running."
Garnet's voice was softer now, "Gail, I must hang up now. When I find Brent, would you like me to let you know how he's doing?"
"I don't think so, Garnet. I don't have the strength left for any more bad news."
As Gail hung up the phone she caught a glimpse of her daughter sitting quietly on the bottom of the stairs. Oh God, Gail thought, how much of this did she hear?
"Sarah," She asked. "Why aren't you in bed?"
"Mommy, daddy's here."
Gail shivered. "W-what?"
"He's sitting in his car on the road at the front of the house."
Gail went to the window. "Are you sure it's daddy?"
She pulled back the curtain and looked across the lawn to where a white stretch limousine waited in the growing shadows, a small plume of smoke rising from it's exhaust. The rear windows of the car were blanked out but Brent's side window was down ad she could see him clearly in the driver's seat. What was he doing behind the wheel of a limousine? As she watched, he turned and their eyes met. His gaze seemed to plead with her for a moment, before he returned his attention to the road and the car slowly pulled away from the curb.
Click here for "Hitting The Wall" part 3
(C) B.E. Fraser, 1997 No copying of this material without the expressed permission of the author is permitted.
