Page 63 of The Vow

“I’m managing.”

“Yeah. Right. Did you eat today?”

‘Why the fuck do you care?”

“Because Alex isn’t the only one who loves you, you dumb fuck!” Nick found his place back on the couch. Again, he sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Do you know that if you confess a crime to a Catholic priest, he can’t rat you out?”

“Fun fact of the day?”

“Yeah. It gets better.” He leaned back and crossed his arms so that Jesus met Elvis. There was a message in there somewhere. “I stole a car. Took it to a chop shop. The parts are harder to trace that way.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Brenda was pregnant with Trixie. The bar was failing. The bank wouldn’t help me. I was desperate. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”

My life was unraveling; life’s frayed rope. Everything I thought to be true turned out to be a fairytale of the Brothers Grimm variety. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”

Nick smirked to tell me without words that I can be a dullard. “You think I’m proud of it? My wife doesn’t even know. I pray that my kids never find out. We do what we have to do for the people we love.”

Stony. That’s how I felt after hearing Nick’s story, because in my eyes, no crime is worse than that of the heart. “She fucked other men.”

“And suffered for it.”

“I’m sure.”

“I am sure! Look at all she’s been through. Her husband dying, the baby she lost... then you... Besides, how is it any different than some college kid who has a one-night stand every weekend?”

“You mean like you.”

“Like me, yeah.”

Nick used to tell me about his questionable adventures in dating. Unlike me, he did go to college and lived in student housing. I used to lose track of all his girls’ names: Mindy, Clarisse, Rebecca, Nancy. There was one girl who he fell hard for, but like most young romances, theirs was short-lived. “Fuck love,” he had said at the time. “It’s not worth the trouble.” By the time he graduated, there were so many notches in his bedpost, it looked like an intricately carved Totem Pole.

“The difference,” I said, pounding on my legs, “is money!”

“Thanks for reminding me.” Standing, Nick pulled an envelope from his back pocket and tossed it onto the coffee table. It was so full of cash, it was impossible to close. “That’s the last of it. She told me she quit. For good. She’s waitressing for me now, and staying with us until she can get back on her feet.”

As he walked away, back towards his cozy little life, I coveted the last of my dignity. “I don’t want it.”

“Don’t be a Goddamn fool and get the fuck off your moral high horse. You know what’s funny?”

“I can’t imagine.”

He spoke with his hands when he said, “You were the best man at our wedding. Not because of some bullshit reason like I’ve known you forever, or because our mothers were best friends. I made you my best man because you were always the best man. I looked up to you, Pippo. You were the best man I’ve ever known. And now,” he said, getting emotional. “I’m ashamed to call you my friend.”

“Go to hell.”

“I’m already there, brother.”

The carnage Nick left behind was more than just about the fact that I trashed my own place. Whatever was in reach, I smashed to smithereens to match what was happening inside of me. I was entertaining thoughts that were so wicked, not even a priest could forgive me.

Wheeling myself into the bathroom, I closed the door, and by the amber glow of a night-light, I chastised the wretch in the mirror:

“See that? That’s your shadow, you lily-livered piece of shit. Embrace it. No one cares about you. You can expire today, and they’ll dance on your Goddamn grave.”

I fell asleep that way, sitting next to a toilet, and in my dreams, I visited with pop. There was no white light of revelation. Pop didn’t offer me any words of wisdom. He was simply there. When I woke up, I felt abnormally calm. The feeling didn’t bring me solace. I imagined that it’s what a psychopath feels before he embarks on a killing spree. Pop’s face before my eyes told me otherwise. He built a life for us, me and ma, before he lost his own. I was throwing my life away. I was throwing our life away, mine and Alex’s.

Eventually, I found the phone book underneath an overturned chair. There’s one thing I didn’t tell Nick. When I was pounding on my legs in rage, I could feel the blows.