Phantom Heartstrings

by Felicia Lynn

  In that moment, I feel sad realizing that in my efforts to live up to the hype about my perfect family, I’ve been living one lie after another every single day. As much as I want to pretend that my relationships with my best friends are solid, even that is probably on shaky ground with the walls of this glass house starting to crack. I know it’s only a matter of time before everyone sees my flaws.

  What I wouldn’t give to have my husband complain about the lack of private “us” time due to the overwhelming schedules of our little ones. Or to have my biggest complaint be his crazy long work hours and time spent away from the family. I just don’t know how to get back to that life anymore.

  Of all the things that I may have pretended to love, support, ignore or whatever else, I never had to be fake or pretend with Drake. He’s always known the difference between my fake and real smile. We have our own little codes with secret meanings and speak a language no one would ever know we’re speaking. Drake, up until recently, was my safe haven.

  Chapter 4

  Drake

  Even though I never heard back from her after my last text message, I intend to come through on my words. For weeks, I’ve given my wife space. Space is what I thought she needed. Space, in my opinion is a dirty fucking word. I’ve tried the space shit. I’m done with that. I’m a man on a damn mission to help his wife feel better. To do whatever I need to do to help her remember, to let me try to help her recover.

  When I hear the garage door motor hum, my heart starts racing. I always prided myself in knowing my wife better than she knew herself. I know how she responds when things make her really happy¸ or when things make her sad. I know the difference between her worried face and angry face. I know the spots on her body to tickle and make her laugh so hard she almost pees her pants. I know the look in her eyes when she stares at my children so endearingly and is realizing how quickly they are growing up. But my favorite look is the one when it was just ‘us’ the times when we’re together. The look of love. My love for her and hers for me. The look of unconditional acceptance. I miss that look.

  For fourteen years I’ve never questioned her love for me. I’ve never questioned her commitment and I’ve never given her reason to question mine. Until this day. Until now. Until the emotions were high and I wanted to so badly just talk to her, to make things right, to hold her. Until she pulled away, turned from me, refusing to look me in the eye. Until I pretended not to notice the tears in her eye. Until I let her walk away confused, for the first time ever, not knowing if she was mad or sad. I’m losing my hold. She’s slipping right through my fingers. I’m losing my girl and I’m not sure she even wants to be caught.

  When she walks through the door and rounds the corner, I’m standing beside the couch waiting for her. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know what to do. All I know is I can’t sit and do nothing. I can’t not fight for what we had.

  “Hi,” She says softly. She’s nervous as well, I think. Silently pissed off at myself for being unsure.

  I try to smile and reply to her but I can’t. I don’t know how to start the conversation but I do know, as I’m making strides across the room to get to her, that I need her in my arms. It’s been too long. I need to feel her softness. I need to kiss her lips. I need to try to remind her of who we are together.

  When I’m standing in front of her small frame, I look down at her, words still escaping me but find myself lowering my head to meet the magnetic force of our lips. I kiss her. It’s not a sexual tension filled, must take her to bed, full of desire kiss. It’s so much more. It’s filled with sadness of what we’ve lost. It’s filled with fear that we’ve lost more than what we already know. It’s filled with hope that the vows we spoke to each other on our wedding day still hold the same meaning to us.

  When we break from the kiss I wasn’t sure she’d accept and luckily she did. I rub my thumb across her cheek looking at her with every ounce of love I’ve ever had for her, praying to myself that she remembers and still wants us, as I bend down to kiss her other cheek whispering in her ear, “I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful husband in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.”

  As I am speaking the vows that we recited on our wedding day all those years ago, she begins to cry softly at first and by the end she’s sobbing as she starts to push me away.

  “Drake, stop. Just stop now!” She’s begging through her tears, while pushing me away but I can’t let her escape again. I can’t let this distance between us grow anymore. I’ve let it go on for too long now.

  “Cams, please? Please let me hold you. Please let me show you what we are together,” I say as she steps back again and again attempting to escape our bond, and I follow her step for step toward her escape that ends when she meets the door to the pantry and can go no further.

  “No…I can’t do this anymore,” She says through tears in a voice laced with pain that I don’t even recognize. “I can’t live in these shadows of perfection. I can’t fake that things are perfect when so much is just wrong. I can’t even tell anymore what’s real and what’s pretend!” she finishes, as her legs give out and she begins to sink to the floor.

  Catching her under her arms and feeling all the weight of the words she just confessed, I find myself sinking with her, refusing to let her fall alone. “Cams, I don’t want you to fake, babe. I just want you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I know you’re hurting. I know you’re sad but how…why… what would make you question me? What would make you question…us? We’re everything!” I say, not knowing that my voice is raised until I finish the statement and hear the echo of the last syllable bounce back to me.

  “Just stop Drake. It’s too late,” She says as she rises from our sitting position and runs away toward the upstairs of our home. She’s escaping. She’s falling through my fingertips but I think the worse part is I’m letting her because I don’t know what else to do.

  I gave her space, when that failed, I tried to get her to talk, when that failed, I tried to help her remember, now that’s failed. I just don’t know what to do. I’m starting to resent her. As she’s leaving, I call out to her, “Cami, I lost him too that day. He may have been in your body but babe… he was in my heart already. From the minute I knew he existed, I loved him just as much as any of our other babies.” A tear falls down my cheek, she stops in her tracks and turns to look at me before I finish. “I’m sad too.” I turn to get up and let her continue to run away but she doesn’t. I hear her footsteps getting closer and I won’t turn around and let her see my tears. I can’t. Not now. I need a second to get myself together.

  “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t see the resentment in your eyes for not being able to protect our baby?” She’s yelling now too. She’s angry. I turn to face her after wiping my face on my shirt. “Do you think for one minute I don’t hate myself as much as you do for not being able to keep my body from murdering the baby? I see it all in your face every day. For sixty three days, that’s the reflection I’ve seen!” I reach for her, trying to calm her down. “No… You’ll let me finish! I know that for fourteen years I’ve never questioned us. I’ve been willing to ‘pretend’ a lot of things and been willing ‘suck up’ things I hate doing to benefit this family, and to protect this sanctity of perfection that you seem proud to have built! Well, guess what! Bad shit happens to people and it happened to us! And this… it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, I can’t just let it go and move on with the perfect life. I can’t forget that he lived inside me. I can’t forget the look in your eyes and I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t pretend THIS! So just stop with the vows, with the fake concern and with the pretending that when you look at me you see anything other than the woman who couldn’t carry your last child.” She finishes calmly befo
re turning and walking away, leaving me here to deal with her words that felt like a million bee stings.

  Every letter of every word she accused, ripping away at me. Every word an assumption of how she thinks I feel. That person she described is not a good man. That man is heartless. That man cares about appearances more than the true heartfelt condition of his family. That man blames his wife for something that nature brought upon them. That man she described, is who she thinks I am? Has she always felt this way about me? I always thought Cami was the only person that really saw me for who I am, clearly I was mistaken.

  I let her go. I don’t follow her. The man she thinks I am doesn’t deserve to be next to her and at this point, I’m not sure if I’m the man she thinks of me as or the one I’ve worked my ass off striving to be.

  I walk to liquor cabinet, grabbing the bottle of scotch and take a seat at the stool at the counter pouring the first of hopefully many tonight.

  Chapter 5

  Cami

  #2 (Journal ENTRY)

  My biggest fear is something happening to my children, my husband or my marriage. The moment that my worst fear became my current reality is overwhelming.

  I was wrong. I handled it badly. I don’t know what happened. I lost control of my mouth. I said things I shouldn’t have and worst of all didn’t mean. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to stop hiding behind the Life goes on attitude. I wanted him to be angry, and sad and just feel a fraction of what I’ve felt in this loss. I was selfish. I wanted someone to blame and yell at and now I think I’ve broken him. I think it’s done. He’s done. The fear of losing my husband, I never imagined it would be because I emotionally drove him away.

  ***

  I close the journal. I can barely see the words on the pages through the tears pouring from my eyes. I’ve cried more tears in the last few weeks than I think I’ve cried in my life. When I think it’s not possible to cry anymore, more come in spite of it.

  The scene plays over and over in my head. Even in sleep I can’t escape the argument. When my eyes close it’s worse. It’s like a bad show on repeat. I cringe seeing the look on his face when I told him how I was feeling. I was just being honest. It was time, long overdue time, actually. But I didn’t tell him. I yelled it to the moons. I’m not even sure at this point that I believe some of the things I said, yet I said them. Does that make it the truth?

  I’m cuddled up in the chair in the library afraid to go to our bedroom. Afraid that when he finally comes to bed that I won’t be able to keep myself from going to him, from comforting him. The biggest issue I see with this is that I’m unsure of how it’s come us being on different teams? We’ve consistently been unified on all major issues. Why is this different?

  I sit staring at the white shelves full of my favorite books. Books that at one point, I loved to escape into. However over the years finding time to be ‘me’ has been a challenge. I’ve morphed into a mom, a wife and friend that has left nothing left for me. I’ve forgotten myself. I don’t even know who I am right now.

  Drake was my constant. When the pressures of everyday overwhelmed me, I could escape into him. I used his strength. I found solace with him through our connection. That held me together. I’ve made my husband, my best friend in the world, my enemy.

  Sixty-three days ago, I lost that. Our connection that created five little miracles, now scares me. It’s too powerful. It hurts too much. His touch makes my skin feel electrified. It makes me forget the bad the hard times, the stresses. I can’t forget. Forgetting is losing my miracle all over again.

  Chapter 6

  Drake

  I wake in my clothes from the previous day in the bonus room above the garage that houses all the kid’s toys. It’s the opposite end of the house from where I’m sure my beautiful wife slept, but I’m positive she didn’t miss me after last night.

  We’ve made it fourteen years without a fight like that. Fourteen years of being able to make up from disagreements by meeting in the bedroom and talking through things. By making love and remembering that at the end of the day, we are all we need. I’ve never, not been able to touch her, or hold her. Her pushing me away for the past few weeks I thought I understood, until last night, when I realized that it’s me. It’s not just the baby. I’m the problem.

  I check my watch realizing that the house is going to be empty. She’s taken the children to school and by the time she returns, she’ll expect me to be gone to work. Because at this point I can’t bear to let her down anymore, I make my way to the master bedroom to get ready for work but when I walk in, I realize that the bed is perfectly made as it was yesterday. There’s no way she’s made the bed already before taking the kids to school. She’s routine hungry. She’d never have time to get the kids dressed, herself dressed, breakfast and lunches made and make the bed too. She always does the chores in the morning while the kids are away. She didn’t sleep in the bed.

  I leave the room walking down the hall looking into all the kid’s rooms, finding them just as I expect. I look into the guest bedroom and it too is normal. Where did she sleep? When I reach the library, I find my answer when I see her favorite blanket messily tossed on the chair, with the ottoman pulled all the way up where she clearly made her make-shift bed. I sit in the chair reaching for her blanket pulling it to my nose, inhaling the scent of her. As I pull it closer to my body wanting to hold it and feel the connection to her, a book tumbles from the covers. I recognize it instantly. It’s her journal.

  My wife is traditional. She’s kept a journal for as long as I’ve known her. Sometimes she writes poetry, sometimes she just writes her thoughts. She’s read me some of the passages from her journal before. She called them my bedtime stories. I flip through taking in her handwriting and cute little doodles, not reading but just being comforted by seeing the random words as I flip the pages until I see the dozen entries, the tear stained pages with smeared ink are unmistakable. I can’t stop myself from reading. I can’t stop myself from trying to understand where things went bad. As wrong as it probably is to invade her privacy in this way, it’s all I have.

  I read, and read, and read until I finish the entry from last night the entry that makes things feel like I still have a chance. I can’t give up yet. Last night, I was defeated, hell I may be defeated again and again but I promised before God, before our family and all our friends that I’d be by her side no matter what, and to this day I still mean those words.

  Reminding me of when Cami asked me about renewing our vows on our ten year wedding anniversary, the memory of that morning’s conversation still fresh in my mind.

  I woke to her sweet eyes watching me, lying next to me, running her gentle hands across my chest. “Good Morning, my love,” She said so sweetly before I pulled her body tightly into my side as she rested her head on my chest like always.

  “Good morning, beautiful. You look as radiant today as the day you told me you’d be mine forever, ten amazing years ago,” I whisper into her hair inhaling the scent of coconuts and lilies. She continued to silently draw imaginary doodles onto my chest, running her fingers through the sparse patches of fine chest hair, deep in thought. I patiently waited for her to start the conversation knowing there was something on her mind, but took advantage of her thinking time to hold her tightly while the house was still quiet and the kids were still sleeping.

  “Babe, do you want to renew our vows? It’s been ten years. It might be kinda fun to renew our vows and have a party,” She asked with quiet excitement in her voice at the idea of recreating our special day.

  “No, thanks,” I said casually, kissing her head again and running my hands down her side, feeling my body coming alive with her touch.

  She looked up at me hurt at my rejection of her idea. “Why?” she asked as her eyes began to fill with tears of confusion.

  I rolled her over on to her back and lay next to her caressing her body while looking directly into her eyes as I explained with all the honesty and adoration I could muster. “
Cami, I’ve loved you from the second I met you. I loved you before I knew I was even capable of love. The day I asked you to marry me, I knew what my responsibility would be to you, if you accepted. I knew that no one would ever love me like you did. I wanted nothing else in the entire world as much as I wanted you,” I told her as I slipped my baggy t-shirt over her head. Confusion from my rejection still hiding behind her eyes but fully engaged in what I was saying to her while letting me take control of what she knew I was going to do to her body.

  “Baby, the day you walked down that aisle to me, the day that you stood in front of everyone we know and let me slip that band on your finger, I knew the meaning of those words and they are as true to me today as they were on that day,” I say as I leaned down kissing the spot on the chest housing her heart muscle. She watched me speak then kiss her heart. She watched every single movement with tears filling her eyes but a smile on her face, as I continued. “See, I believe people renew their vows when they’ve forgotten them. Renewing vows is for people that have made a mistake or people that didn’t mean the words the first go round.” I reach my hands under the covers slipping off her panties. “I don’t need to renew my vows, Cami. I haven’t forgotten and unless you have,” I slide my fingers into her folds feeling her wetness and readiness for what is coming while I finish my statement watching her body react to my touch and hearing her soft moans, “Which I seriously doubt. So if you want to have a party to celebrate, have at it, plan the biggest extravaganza you like, but I’m not renewing my vows.” I finish right before I slipped off my underwear and connected with my wife in the way that only I’ve ever known with her.