That night when she told me she was brave enough, I internally renewed my vow to hold Jade tight and never let go.
Two months later…
For nearly four years, I’d let my guard down…for her. My heart was like a broken cement sidewalk, her love the equivalent of a stubborn dandelion. It persistently grew through the fissure where it shouldn’t have and was never intended. Summoning everything it had to exist and not giving a damn about what anyone else thought about its decision to bloom.
And it was perfect.
Until it wasn’t.
And it was real, and raw, and genuine.
Until it wasn’t.
And I was certain no one else had ever experienced a love of that magnitude.
Until she proved otherwise.
I leaned back into the chair with a beer bottle clutched in my hand, certain it’d shatter if I wasn’t careful. Rage and betrayal strangled my throat, depriving me from forming coherent thoughts. The amount of anger sparking through my veins had my mind stuck years in the past. I knew better than to speak before fully processing what I’d found, so two hours had been spent in complete silence. But nothing changed during that time. The truth remained. Black and white.
A few minutes later, Jade waddled through the front door of our thirty-year bravery commitment. “Hey,” she said with that same warmth I adored. That day, it didn’t hit my heart like it should’ve.
I nodded and took a long drink.
“How are you?” she asked. “Looks like you got some unpacking done on your day off.”
Another draw from the bottle paired with a subsequent nod. I couldn’t handle speaking. Not yet.
“I’m so glad to be home. You won’t believe what happened.” She wound her hair up into a mess, just how I’d liked, but I couldn’t find the love in my chest to gift her with a smile of appreciation.
She dove headfirst into a story, but I couldn’t focus. Some drama with one of her clients, an anecdote about Roxy, a work meeting that caused her to reschedule her OB appointment along with her coffee date with Sienna, and Gwen’s most recent screw-up. All of it went lost on me.
“And I have a raging headache, not to mention all of this water retention.” She let her purse fall to the dining room table, her keys making a clanging sound when they connected with the wood. Next, she kicked off her shoes. “These are so tight right now. I must need more water. I’ve hardly had to pee today. Speaking of pee, you’ll never guess the latest in town…” Her eyes connected with mine. “What’s going on?” Jade sat down on the couch across from me. Fear spanned her face, every last inch of it warranted.
My leg impatiently tapped, knee bouncing.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “You only do that when something big is bothering you.”
My verbal explanation wasn’t needed. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that’d been folded into quarters. It slapped the table with a flick of my wrist.
“What’s that?” My wife tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she reached for it.
“You tell me,” I said evenly.
As she scanned it, her face turned whiter than the page. “I…”
The echo of my own breathing remained the only sound in the room.
Her eyes brimmed with immediate tears. “How did…the fire…”
“Found it in an unopened envelope of medical records when I was unpacking. There was a second copy, attached to my health history.”
“This…I never meant for you to…”
“For me to what? To find out the results were positive?” I stood up and paced in front of the fireplace. It took everything I had to not throw that beer bottle at the wall or flip an end table.
“This,” I gestured around the room of the home we’d moved into two weeks ago. Our home. Memories filled the space already, each one stinging more than the last. The pictures on the walls. Where I’d whisked her and her pregnant belly over the threshold. The back door that stuck to the jamb she needed help with opening. Where we’d had sex on the couch. The chipped wall, a result of when I’d carried in the coffee table from the moving truck. But the last visual hurt the most of all as I looked down at the wedding ring on my hand, “was built on a lie.”
“No, the—”
“Bullshit!” I yelled at her for the first time since we got locked in her office. The loudness and intensity within my voice scared me. “You lied to my face!”
She shrank back into the couch cushions. The amount of panic she displayed was palpable, her voice timid, “Because there’s no treatment and no cure. You deserve every moment of happiness, and I wanted to be the one who gave it all to you.”
“What I deserved was the truth. You had no right to keep me in the dark.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I shielded you from having to carry that burden. I didn’t just want the pieces of you that you were willing to expose. I wanted your flaws. I wanted your chaos. I wanted your imperfections and your scars. Because whether it was for an hour, a day, a week, a month, or one hundred years, it was more unbearable to never have you at all. You wouldn’t have given yourself to me if I told you what that letter said.”
“No one asked for your charity. Marriage is built on a solid foundation. Not lies.” I took the last drink from the bottle.
“All I’ve wanted is to give you everything.”
“And by giving me everything, what do you get in return? Being a widow? A single parent? Loneliness? Sounds like less than nothing to me.”
“You already give me everything because you’re all I want!”
“I’ll say it again. At what expense? Your future happiness or your current daily fear I’ll fall over dead?”
Tears dripped down her cheeks. “I’ve been brave for both of us.”
“Don’t.” I balled my right hand into a fist and clenched my jaw. “We were supposed to be brave. Together. That’s our thing.” I stood up and grabbed my keys from the counter. “You’d have been better off with…”
“Don’t you dare say it!”
“Bo,” I overenunciated and intended for that single syllable to set fire to her soul.
“Listen to me. Don’t you understand I have no regrets about taking that risk? Zero.”
I looked at her and couldn’t remove the sadness from my face. “You’re not a risk taker, Doc. You never were.”
She fought to stand up quickly, the roundness of her stomach slowing her down. “Where are you going?”
I looked at the shadow box on the wall, the most sentimental gift I’d ever given her— as she’d put it. The K72.90 cocktail napkin had been pressed flat inside. I stared at its history.
Crumpled.
Bold letters spelling an apology.
A coffee ring.
Water stains.
The small two that’d been crossed out with a tiny three replacing it.
An equation.
Maybe our love story was just that— nothing more than what could be contained on a cheap bar napkin. Impulsively, I pulled it from the wall, flipped the frame over, and pried the back off with my house key.
“What are you doing?” she sobbed.
I pulled the napkin from the glass it rested against, the weight heavy in my heart. At that moment, I did what would cause the most pain. “All of this?” I stared directly into her eyes with my chest heaving and ripped our long-lived memory from K72.90 in half. “It means nothing.”
I let the two pieces fall to the floor and headed for the back door.
“Where are you going?” she asked again, reaching for the back of a chair to support her shaking frame with one hand, the other pushing against her ribs.
I yanked on the doorknob. Even it didn’t want to let me go and adhered much harder to the frame than usual that ni
ght. With another jerk that required unreasonable strength, I won and rested my palm against the trim. With the door hanging wide open, I let my head fall forward. “I…I don’t know.”
“Seth!” She shouted after me. “Please?” Cries broke up her following syllables into something I could barely piece together. Not understanding them would’ve hurt less. “Tell me. Are you brave enough?”
I may have set her soul ablaze, but mine was destroyed. Jade had sailed back to her own isolation island years ago without my knowledge. It was my turn to do the same. My response sounded by the door slamming behind me. For the first time, I’d said “no” and turned down my wife when it came to that crucial question. I got in my truck, revved the engine, and drove. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you the roads I traveled, but my path ended at K72.90 an hour later. I needed a release.
The main parking lot was full, but I found a spot up against the fence around back. People poured in and out of the entryway when I walked around the corner out front. “Fucking Taco Tuesday,” I mumbled. Inside, indie music blared. Every table was full. People played pool. A cloud of smoke hung in the air. I sat down on one of two empty barstools.
“What’ll it be?” a male bartender asked roughly.
“Whiskey,” I replied, not bothering to look at him.
Not long after, he set a shot glass in front of me. “Do you wanna open a tab?”
“No.” I slid two bills across the counter, still not focusing on him or any of my other surroundings. Every word Jade and I lashed at each other played out in my head. The look on her face. The emotion in her voice. The image of that letter. The way I’d talked to her. So much commotion swam through my head, I didn’t notice when someone sat down next to me.
I just want to be by myself.
A female voice asked, “I’d say penny for your thoughts, but you look troubled times ten— how about a dime?”
I turned my head to the right and saw Paige Parker occupying the empty barstool next to me.
I shook my head. “Leave me alone, Paige.”
“You look sad.” She made sure I saw her eyes skimming the bar. “No wife tonight?” Paige dramatically gasped when I didn’t reply. “Don’t tell me there’s trouble in paradise?”
I didn’t acknowledge either question, remaining huddled around my drink.
My phone buzzed. The word “Wife” illuminated the screen, six additional ignored calls and a handful of unopened texts listed beneath. My finger hovered over the button to engage conversation. At the last second, I toggled the ringer to silent instead and let her go to voicemail. Again.
“Wow. Not taking her calls either? Must’ve been a doozy of a blowout.” She rubbed my bicep and gave it a squeeze.
I kept my walls up, shrugged away, and tuned her out.
“You really are upset.” Paige leaned over to my ear and placed her hand on my thigh. “Do you want to get out of here? I can make the sadness go away.”
I slowly looked over at her. Up close, her ice-blue eyes blinked with eager anticipation, and she bit her lip while touching her collarbone. Next, I glanced down at the ring on my left hand, rubbing it with my thumb. Considerable time passed, but my decision had already cemented from the first question she said to me when she sat down. Nothing could sway it. “Yeah. I think I do.”
“Good,” she purred. “Follow me.”
I downed the shot, grabbed my phone, and trailed after her to the doorway leading to the parking lot. Each step sent me in the direction I wanted to go, the direction I needed to go.
I needed to fill the void in my chest.
I needed companionship.
I needed to drown the pain with adrenaline.
I needed an experience.
I needed to feel like I mattered.
I needed acceptance.
I needed to know someone cared.
I pulled the door open and gestured for her to walk through first. When her feet crossed the rubber welcome mat, she turned left. When I stepped through the doorway, I immediately turned right without hesitation.
“Seth?” she asked when she noticed I didn’t follow.
From fifteen feet away, I turned toward her and shook my head while I walked backward. “It never was going to happen and it never will happen, Paige. I have a wife at home.”
The look on her face told me I’d pay for turning her down, but I didn’t care.
Everything I needed came from Jade. No one else. Only she could make the sadness go away, and I never should’ve left her alone on isolation island, hers or mine.
On the way to the truck, I looked down at the pristine K72.90 napkin I’d grabbed on my way out the door, ready to write “SORRY” on it and start our journey again. But I needed to make one pitstop first. After I got in my truck, I drove across town to Brady’s.
The entryway was vacant, and it was late.
“Hey, Seth.” Mary walked around the corner from the kitchen. “The usual?”
“Yeah. Two pieces of cheesecake to go,” I said.
She looked at the glass case; there was only one slice left. “It’ll be five or ten minutes for a second piece from the back. Is that cool?”
“Sure,” I replied.
* * *
I turned down the long driveway thirty minutes later. Jade’s Jeep sat in its usual spot. Through the window, I saw the single recessed light illuminating the sink from overhead. The rest of the kitchen was shadowed in dim hues of muddy browns and a muted gray. In the next window over, a flicker lit up the living room wall in random bursts, cast by the television. Last, I looked over at the meaningful driftwood bench we’d taken from the old house.
During the drive before I wound up at K-7, my stomach tied in cold knots, dreading the impending conversation that would injure us further or bandage our first major argument. As I sat in my truck at home, perspective shifted. I couldn’t wait to go inside to her— because I was brave enough. As selfish as it felt to admit after reading that letter, I needed her.
I needed her to fill the void in my chest.
I needed her companionship.
I needed her to drown the pain with adrenaline.
I needed her experience.
I needed her to make me feel like I mattered.
I needed her acceptance.
I needed to know she cared.
After I pulled my keys from the ignition, I grabbed a black marker from the console and touched the new napkin. Perfect. Flawless. Foreign. But I needed it to be imperfect, flawed, and familiar. Like us. Until then, I didn’t appreciate just how much our old napkin endured— it spoke to how much we’d endured. Carefully, I wrote SORRY on its middle and hoped she’d accept it…and me. “There.”
With my gifts in tow, I walked up to the backdoor and turned the knob. That time, it opened too easily and without a scrape. Unlocked.
I gave it a push. “Doc?”
No answer.
“Jade?” I set the cheesecake box and napkin on the counter.
Still, there was nothingness except the sound of Sarah McLachlan’s I Will Remember You.
The energy in the house didn’t feel right, the warmth she’d always radiated oddly missing. My footsteps were cautious but hastened. “Jade?” I rounded the corner to the living room. The splinter of a second it took to focus felt like eternity, and I immediately dove to the floor in a complete state of panic while adrenaline pumped through my body. Fear I’d always welcomed in order to feel over past years went unwanted. Every drop of terror and anguish possible trickled down my spine and drowned me without asking my consent. Those cold knots from earlier, they manifested and gnawed in my stomach again but for a much different reason.
“Jade!” I grabbed for my wife’s face and looked at the vacant stare behind her beautiful, brown eyes. Her bluish lips t
witched while her muscles jerked in a rhythmic pattern, convulsing. “Jade!”
She didn’t reply.
I fumbled for my phone and dialed 9-1-1, feeling helpless as her back and neck arched violently.
Maybe I could’ve prevented what happened if I’d bailed from Brady’s sooner. Maybe it could’ve been me there helping, and the outcome would’ve been different. So different.
Suddenly, that second slice of cheesecake seemed trivial.
In the waiting room, I couldn’t focus. My mind unwillingly slipped near the perilous edge of reality, thoughts sliding out from under me in every direction. I needed control. Each breath took reminding, afraid I’d otherwise forget to do it. I stood up. I sat down. I paced. I cradled my head in my hands while gripping my hair with a firm pull as if pain would stop the clock long enough for me to gain a marginal amount of clarity. None of it helped. Every time a door opened, I froze. Heart stuttering. Eyes fixated. Yet, every one of those times I was left to forecast more disappointment. No update.
Over an hour passed.
I’d started my eleventh round of sitting with my knee bouncing when a door opened. A doctor with a blonde ponytail walked through and headed my direction, authority in her step.
Once again, the steps happened. I froze with that same stuttering heart and my fixated eyes.
The instant her stare connected with mine, I rose to my feet and briskly closed in on the distance between us. I envied her. She knew the answers I urgently needed. If I could’ve somehow read inside her head to find out sooner, I would’ve.
“Mr. McCullough, I’m Dr. Bundgaard,” she said with a Danish accent.
I courageously trusted my lungs to work without prompting and spoke, “How is she?”
The concern didn’t falter from her face. “We’ve stabilized the seizures, and she’s on magnesium sulfate. It’s an anticonvulsive to help those with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. We gave her a catheter and IV anti-hypertensive drugs, too. She’s lucky you found her when you did. If not treated, Jade could’ve had a stroke.” She placed her stethoscope around her neck. “To be honest, at the rate she went downhill, you could’ve easily lost them both.”
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