After All I've Done

by Mina Hardy

  My broken bones grind together. Someone pulls me out of the car. Into water. Cold mud. I scream when he tries to get me to my feet.

  “Did we hit someone? Did we hit someone?”

  There is a hole in the ground and trees are all around, and I stagger to my feet, and there is a thump and a scream.

  It’s my own voice. My own scream. I am screaming.

  * * *

  My breath whistles out of me in a hiss, and I have time to be grateful I didn’t scream out loud before the rest of the nightmare slams into my head, and I fall back onto the pillows. My head presses the headboard. I didn’t mean to fall asleep with my book in my hand and my neck at this weird, cramped angle. My stomach lurches as I sit upright—too fast. The world spins, so I close my eyes and breathe through it.

  When I open them, the wineglass on my nightstand accuses me with its emptiness.

  Everything feels topsy-turvy, fuzzy, and for a horrible moment, I can’t be sure I’m actually awake. I close my eyes and open them again to make sure. I am awake. I am. I have to be.

  With a shaky sigh of relief, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and put my feet on the floor. The hardwood is chilly. A slash of rain spatters the window, and I turn to stare at it just as a flash of lightning turns the sky outside an eye-searing white.

  Thunder might have been what woke me, but I check my phone anyway because I have the faintest memory of the sound of a text notification. Jonathan has not answered me, but there is a red notification from someone else. My heart leaps, but it’s not Cole. I curse myself for hoping.

  Ran 2 store 4 a few things. Txt if u need something.

  Harriett must’ve been out of smokes. I rub at my eyes. They feel gritty. My mouth, dry. Everything is still tipping and turning, and for a moment I’m convinced I’m going to have to run to the bathroom to vomit.

  A few deep breaths help push back the nausea. I thumb my phone to look at the message I sent my husband five hours ago. Delivered, opened, read, but not answered. I want to think this isn’t like him, but I know it is. I know why he’s not answering. I know where he is and what he’s doing, and with who.

  In another time, another life, I’d be the distraught wife in her cold bed alone, weeping for the loss of her husband to another woman. The truth is, I stopped caring about Jonathan’s affair a long time ago, but I need him here, now, in a way I didn’t before, not for a long time.

  I need him, and I hate myself for that.

  “Fuck you, Jonathan.”

  The words hang in the air, and when a thump of thunder fills the room, I’m glad that noise covers up the sound of my voice. I’m still shaking away the nightmare, but it’s clinging to me, claws sunk deep. I’m being hag-ridden by it. It’s so bad I hold out my hands to make sure they’re not covered in filth and blood.

  I clench my fingers into fists but stop myself from punching my pillows. Will I ever get over what my mother did? Can I ever just … stop … feeling it?

  I never should have adopted you.

  The same words, said decades apart, with very different intentions and yet the exact same result. The answer, I think, is no. I will never get over what my mother said and did. I can get beyond it, maybe, but over it seems impossible.

  I go downstairs in search of some cold water. I don’t scream when the lights go out. I mean, what’s a little darkness during a storm when I can’t stop imagining myself burying a body in the back yard? The body of someone I murdered? Because even though the dream never shows me that, I know that’s what I’ve done.

  Another flash of lighting. Another crash of thunder. Rain pounds the roof and the deck outside. The emergency flashlights that are supposed to come on automatically when the power goes off are still dark, and when I shine my phone to find them, all I see are empty outlets where they should be plugged in.

  I mutter a few curses meant for dear, sweet, helpful Harriett and her relentless need to unplug things she fears might be wasting electricity. Explaining to her that the entire point of those automatic flashlights is that they’re always plugged in wouldn’t have done any good, but I wish Jonathan had been man enough to tell his mother to stop unplugging everything.

  Now I’m in the dark, and since out here in the wild woods we lose power the second a squirrel sneezes, I can’t be sure it’s going to come back on. My phone has about twenty percent charge left on it. I think about texting Jonathan again, but then I don’t.

  I might have forgotten an entire swath of my life, but I do remember how to set up and turn on the generator. Usually, I’d wait out the storm and see if the power’s been restored, but the temperature in the house was already chilly when I woke, and it’s only going to drop further. This time, not because of a problem with the thermostat program. Also, if Harriett makes it home and finds the power out, she won’t be able to use the automatic garage door opener. She’ll have to park in the driveway and run through the icy rain. Worse, if the power stays off, I won’t be able to get my car out of the garage, and even if I can barely drive myself and have no plans to go anywhere, the idea that I might be trapped here, stuck, is enough to get me moving toward the back door.

  I swipe my phone screen, but of course with the power out, the internet is also down, and the cell service in the house is bad enough without a storm making it worse. One bar. I swipe the screen, typing in a command to search for an outage, but all I get is a site that reassures me yes, indeed, I can report that the power is out.

  I need the lights back on. At the back door, I grab a sweatshirt and pull it over my head. For a moment, everything is even darker. The scent of my husband’s cologne sweeps over me, and I press the cloth against my face for a moment as a sob breaks out of me.

  I fall onto my knees there on the hard tiles, blindfolded by that fabric. Muzzled by it. I cry out, the sound muted, and yank it all the way over my head. My injured collarbones thrum. The sweatshirt catches my messy bun so that my hair falls wildly about my face.

  I did love him, once.

  Breathe.

  Count to ten.

  I make it to five and start again, but the next time I get to ten and manage to push myself to my feet. Jonathan’s oversized sweatshirt hangs nearly to my knees and drags past my fingertips until I take the time to roll it up. It has a single front pocket running across the front, and I tuck my phone inside it.

  Weeping won’t make a difference. I’ve known that for a long time. I didn’t cry when I found out about Jonathan sleeping with my best friend, so to do it now would be even more ridiculous. The time to mourn the demise of my marriage has already ticked its way around the clock a few times. So why, now, do my eyes fill with burning tears?

  Why can’t I just get myself under control?

  Getting the lights back on will help. I swipe my phone screen to bring up the flashlight. I open the back door.

  Frigid air blasts me, and within seconds of stepping through the glass door, I’m lashed with icy needles of rain that feel like they’re stripping the skin off my face. My teeth are chattering. Gooseflesh ripples along my arms, and I rub them. Again, I didn’t drink enough wine to feel this unsteady. Another edge of panic is trying to force its way up and over me, but I push it back.

  I can’t remember the last time I ventured inside the shed, and that has nothing to do with the amnesia. The shed has always been Jonathan’s domain. It was supposed to be a small hut, just big enough for a lawnmower and some garden tools, but as with most things my husband desires, it had to be the biggest and the best, not necessarily the most useful or appropriate. This shed ended up being the size of a one-car garage. We have a full workshop in the basement and a three-car attached garage, not to mention the additional three-bay garage his mother lives above, but clearly he still needs a place to stash the equipment for sports he no longer plays and gardening tools for the yard he pays someone else to maintain. He needs this shed for all the broken things he refuses to throw away.

  I know that’s where he keeps the generator, and
although I don’t want to run outside through the frigid sleet and darkness, it’s the only way I’ll get some light. In the dark and cold and rain, all I can think about is the nightmare.

  All I can think about is that I have done something so wrong, so bad, that my mind has blanked it out. It’s not the surgery and anesthesia. It’s guilt and fear.

  “I am awake,” I say aloud. I repeat it, louder.

  The neighbors on the hill behind us have a generator that kicks on automatically if the power is out for more than five minutes, so their lights are on. That won’t do much for me except emphasize the darkness I have to get through to reach the shed. I’ll have to drag the generator out, hook it into the outside outlet. I’ve never done it, but I think I remember how.

  I’m soaked through by the time I get to the shed. Shuddering so hard my bones hurt. Wet strands of hair slap me in the eyes as I yank at the garage door. It won’t go up. I stumble around the side to the main door and pull on that. The knob slips under my wet hands, but I finally wrench it open and force myself inside and out of the rain. I have to push some bins and boxes out of the way because they’ve been shoved up against the door, but I make it.

  Panting, shivering, sick to my stomach, and hating myself for being unable to stop pursuing this compulsion, I lean against the door and close my eyes. My breathing is almost loud enough to drown out the sound of the rain battering the shed’s roof. It’s so dark in here it would be easy convince myself that my eyes are closed when they’re open, and I have another few moments of panic while I press my fingertips to my eyelids hard enough to make bright spots appear.

  I am awake, but the dream slides into my mind. Here in the pitch-black shed, it’s too easy to let myself believe my eyes are closed and I am in bed, suffering the nightmare.

  None of the mental exercises Dr. Levitt gave me are working. Something is wrong with me, and I can’t shake it.

  The plink of a cold raindrop hits the top of my head. My hair is already chilled and soaked, so it’s not the temperature that startles me, but the force of the drop. Blinking rapidly, I look up but can see nothing. Another drop hits me in the eye, then the mouth, and I sputter a low curse.

  It’s good, though, because it forces me to straighten and start to get myself together. The woozy feeling in my head is still there, but the nausea is abating. I dig for my phone in the sweatshirt pocket and pull it out, hoping that even though the fabric is wet, the phone itself has managed to stay at least minimally dry.

  I swipe the screen. Pull up the flashlight. I’m looking for the generator, but what I see instead forces out a harsh, rasping, guttural cry that shreds my throat.

  It’s my car.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Valerie

  I’d told him not to come, but he did. How many chances are you supposed to give someone who constantly lets you down? As many as it takes, I guess, because when Jonathan showed up at my door tonight, I didn’t turn him away. I let him in. I let him convince me that this time it would all be different.

  This time.

  Someday, I might not love this man enough to ignore his snoring, but for right now the sound of his grumbly breathing curls me toward him so I can bury my face in the warm, smooth curve of his bare shoulder. With my hand on his chest, I can feel his heart thumping away beneath his skin and behind the cage of his ribs. For a second, my fingernails dig into his skin, but I ease my grip before he can feel any pain and wake. I want him to stay here as long as possible. I want to wake up with him in the morning, every day, for the rest of our lives.

  His phone buzzes against the nightstand, and I tense, waiting to see if he’ll wake up, but Jonathan doesn’t stir. I lean across him carefully to glance at the phone. I’m expecting another message from Diana. If my husband was “working late” on Valentine’s Day of all days, you’d better believe I’d be texting his ass all night long, but this time it’s his mother’s name on the screen. Well, that bitch can wait too.

  Lightning flashes, with thunder following a minute or so after. Jonathan’s phone lights and buzzes with another message, but it’s the thunder that wakes him. His eyes open and sits up halfway.

  “Hey,” I say to keep his attention on me.

  No matter what fears I have about our future, the way he kisses me before he does anything else tells me this man loves me as much as I love him. We’re just in a bad place, that’s all. We have some tough things to get through, but in the end, it’s all going to work out.

  “Kiss me,” I say against his mouth.

  His hand slips behind my head to cradle it, his strong fingers digging through my hair. “What time is it? How long was I asleep?”

  “Not long.” It’s not exactly a lie is it? Not when the concept of time is irrelevant. It didn’t seem long to me, anyway.

  He pulls away before I’m finished kissing him and grabs for his phone. “Shit. Shit!”

  I already know what it is, but I ask anyway. “What’s wrong?”

  “Something at home. Mom says the power’s out. Damn it, I didn’t hear the phone. You should have woken me.”

  “I didn’t hear it either.” I don’t tell him that I turned off the ringer hours ago. “You were out like a light.”

  Jonathan mutters a couple of curses and puts the phone on the nightstand. “I have to go. Jesus, Val, it’s after eleven.”

  “You told her you were working late.” I bite out the words one at a time, trying to keep my voice steady and doing a bad job of it.

  Jonathan gives me a look just this side of condescending. “She won’t believe it would be this late.”

  “What do you care what she believes?” I demand and get out of bed. I know he’s watching me walk, naked, to the window, and I also know how good I look. I turn in the light from outside to make sure he sees everything at all the best angles. “She knows the truth. I don’t know why you keep trying to pretend—”

  “Don’t start,” Jonathan interrupts.

  Another crash of thunder makes me jump. I grab my robe and pull it on. My hair catches on the collar, and I struggle with it a bit before Jonathan leaves the bed and crosses to me so he can help. His gentle fingers pull the weight of it free and let it fall down my back. Jonathan bought me this robe, one of his first gifts to me, back when what we were doing felt illicit and terrible and exciting and, most of all, impermanent.

  He puts his hands on my shoulders. I don’t turn around. I want to put myself into his arms and let him kiss me, but I can’t move. As soon as he kisses me, he’s going to leave, and I will spend the rest of this long night alone.

  “Why don’t you just go.” My voice is hard and sharp as a fork of lightning.

  “Don’t be like that.”

  I shrug out of his grip. When I’m far enough away that he can’t touch me, I turn. “What will it take for you to finally end it?”

  “I’m just trying to give her time to get back on her feet—”

  “Not her,” I interrupt. “Me. This. Us. What will it take for you to finally just stop breaking my heart over and over again?”

  He hesitates without responding, then grabs his briefs from the chair near the bathroom door. I try not to admire his lean form as he bends to get dressed, but I’m greedy in this moment. For all I know, it could be the last time I ever get to see him like this.

  When he again doesn’t answer me, my voice softens. “Why do you keep coming back to me?”

  I want him to say it’s because he loves me, but he does not. Maybe that’s the real truth here. Maybe the question is not what will it take for him to stop breaking my heart, but when will I stop letting him?

  “What are you asking me?” Jonathan won’t look at me. He puts on his trousers and slides his long arms into the sleeves of his button-down. He sits on the chair to put on his socks, but he only holds them in his hands as his shoulders slump and his head hangs. “Val, please. I thought we were done with this.”

  “Why? Because we kissed and made up? Because you came over here with
dinner and flowers and candy, and you fucked me? You think that’s enough? I should never have let you come back,” I cry, my voice shaking. “I should have told you to fuck right off!”

  “But you didn’t,” Jonathan says quietly without looking at me. “You didn’t.”

  And I know I never will.

  I could go to him right now. Get on my knees in front of him. I could make him look at me. Kiss me. Hell, I could unzip his pants and take him in my mouth the way I’ve done hundreds of times before.

  But I don’t move toward him. I stay in one place, not frozen, not incapable of motion.

  Choosing to remain still.

  “She knows, Jonathan. You can keep pretending she doesn’t. Both of you can. But she knows about me. About us.”

  He shakes his head. “No. She can’t possibly. She might suspect, but she doesn’t know for sure.”

  “Yes, she does,” I say sharply, so he looks up. “She absolutely knows, Jonathan, because I told her.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Diana

  “Oh my god.”

  My ears are still full of that buzzing hum that reminds me of the vibrating pain in my clavicle, but even if I heard only silence, I don’t think I’d have recognized the sound of my own voice. It’s gone so tiny, so small, it’s only the shadow of a voice. Until I repeat myself, loud and fierce.

  “Oh my fucking god.”

  In the phone’s beam of light, my Camaro’s cherry exterior gleams against the gray and black shadows. I’m three steps away from it, maybe five at the most, but the path is blocked with boxes and bins of junk that I have to kick and shove out of the way. By the time I clear a way through, I’m breathing hard again. I stumble on something I didn’t see in front of me and come up hard against the car with one hand on the hood. It’s the hand holding the phone, and I cringe at the loud crack.

  The screen is lined with crackles, but the light hasn’t gone out. I shine it over my car, my precious hunk of glass and metal and rubber that was never just a vehicle for me, but a symbol. A talisman.