A Missing Heart

by Shari J. Ryan

  “How long is the trip?” she asks. It’s something I should have considered asking too.

  “Eight days. We’ll be back a week from Sunday.”

  Cammy sits down on the seat we’re standing beside and places her hands over her eyes. “Crap. Crap. Crap.”

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her.

  “I’m supposed to meet with the dean next Friday to discuss a possible job placement for the summer. It’s a pretty big deal.”

  “The ticket is refundable for the next thirty minutes. My pops knows people at the airline we’re flying with. No harm, no foul if you can’t go,” Brink says.

  Cammy grinds her jaw back and forth for a long minute. “You folks ready to go?” the driver asks.

  “I hate this whole ‘becoming an adult’ thing,” Cammy says, standing from her seat. “If I miss the interview, it will be next to one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.”

  I nod, “I agree. I’ll stay here with you, and you can leave when you need to.”

  “No,” she says sternly. “Brink, make sure he has a good time, and stay out of trouble, both of you.”

  “Cam,” I say.

  “AJ, don’t argue,” she says, with an accompanying smile. “This is what’s best. I promise.” She leans over and kisses my cheek. “Oh, and thank you for the sweet gesture, Brink. No one has ever done something so ridiculous for me.”

  Brink laughs. “I am here to shock and awe.” He places his hands behind his head and lifts his feet up to sit sideways on the seat.

  Cammy opens her bag and retrieves a white box. “Here. I brought this for us.”

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Open it,” she tells me. I sit down in one of the seats and pull her down with me, creating a little privacy from Brink. I open the box, finding a cupcake with a “Happy Birthday” candy piece in the center. My heart feels as though it’s splitting back open from the wound that has hardly healed and I look up at her, finding the same pain swimming through her eyes. Cammy takes my hand within hers and squeezes tightly. “I hope she’s happy,” Cammy says.

  “She is. She has to be. That’s why we’re going through pain, so she can be happy. It’s what good parents do, right?” I tell her, saying what I’ve done my best to convince myself of over the past year.

  Cammy shakes her head and wraps a strand of hair behind her ear. “Send me a postcard,” she says while placing a kiss on my cheek. “And have fun, okay?”

  I’m hardly able to agree before she makes her way off of the shuttle.

  The thought that this could be another long or permanent goodbye makes my stomach hurt. I hate feeling like this because I think this might be it for me. This pain. It’s too much to continue living through.

  She’s letting me go so I can live.

  I have to let her go, so she can live too.

  I stand up and glance over at Brink. “Bud, can you hold this shuttle for like five minutes? I just—”

  Brink glances at his watch. “Yeah, we’re early. You have a few. You okay?”

  “No.”

  I step off the shuttle, running after her. “Cam!”

  Her golden-brown waves spiral around her head as she stops and turns. “No way, AJ. You need to go and enjoy yourself,” she scolds me.

  “Cammy,” I say, breathlessly, as I reach her.

  “Yeah,” she asks with a small smile.

  “I think we need to break things off now before it gets to be too much. It’s already too hard to handle. I need to be with you and I can’t be. This hurts too much. Missing our daughter, and you—it’s all too much.” What am I doing? Is this considered self-defense? God, I’m such an asshole. She just drove all the way up here with a goddamn cupcake for our daughter’s birthday, and now she probably thinks I’m saying this because she’s taking an interview over going to Cancun with me. “But it’s not because you can’t come to Cancun with me—”

  “AJ,” she says, placing her hand up, gesturing me to stop. “I understand. Even though we had kind of taken a break, I was still thinking about you every minute of every day. It was one of the reasons why I came up here to see you—it had to be face to face and not over the phone.”

  “You came up here to make our breakup official and you were going to leave without saying anything?”

  She shrugs. “I didn’t want to ruin your trip. I figured it could wait until you got back.”

  “So this is it, then,” I tell her.

  “We kind of broke up before I left for D.C., then again three months later. Both times, we said goodbye, but it never felt like a goodbye. I still love you. I think I always will, and it’s making it hard for me to move on, so I’ve stayed still, thinking this could actually work in some alternate world. I know it can’t, though.” Her words sound like every thought I’ve had over the past six months. I’ve had drunken moments where I’ve forced myself to pretend like this girl didn’t leave her imprint on my life, but she’s a part of it forever, no matter what. Though, we aren’t in a place or at a time where we can be together.

  “I’ve felt the same way,” I tell her. “This hurts, though, Cam. Does this mean we’re not going to talk anymore?” We shouldn't. It’ll make it worse.

  “I—”

  “Don’t answer me. I know what the answer should be,” I tell her.

  She leaps toward me and squeezes me tightly, like a child holding a teddy bear during a thunderstorm. “I really, really do love you with all of my heart, AJ, but I think this is what we’re supposed to do right now.”

  I hold her with the same amount of strength that she’s showing me. “I love you, Cam. I always will. No matter what life brings either of us, you will always be a part of my thoughts—my life, even if you aren’t beside me. Plus, goodbye doesn’t have to mean forever.”

  Her back shudders beneath my grip and I know she’s crying. “I’m sorry for everything,” she says.

  “I’m sorry for…everything too,” I tell her.

  We say this often because we call our daughter… everything.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT WAS FOUR hours before we were allowed in to see Tori. As we enter her room, the first thing I see are her glazed eyes and her flushed cheeks. She’s awake but staring into the wall across the room. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, I allow her parents to approach her first. They’ve got more experience with dealing with her like this. They say very little, though, and I’m guessing that’s what she needs at the moment.

  “Mr. Cole,” an older doctor addresses me, placing his hand on my shoulder. “A word, please.” I follow the doctor out into the hallway, and Tori’s dad follows us. I may be responsible for her now, but I can’t blame her parents for their concern. Tori and I have only been together for a year and a half and they’ve been dealing with this half of her life, evidently.

  The doctor brings us to a small, quiet waiting area a couple of doors down and closes the three of us inside. He takes a seat on one of the chairs, then pauses for a moment, nodding at the other chairs, suggesting we sit down. Tori’s dad takes a seat first and I follow suit. Maybe this is the doctor’s attempt to create the appearance of a calm environment, but in reality, I’m freaking out inside and there isn’t much a quiet room and soft voices are going to do to help this. “I know this is difficult,” he begins. “We had a psychiatrist come in to speak with Tori for a bit to find out the cause for her panic attack and breakdown.”

  “Were you able to find anything out?” I ask hastily.

  A tight-lipped, somewhat annoyed grimace stretches across the doctor’s mouth as he inhales sharply through his nose. “We were able to peel a single layer away, but as I’m sure you can understand; we have a patient confidentiality agreement preventing us from divulging details.”

  Frustration fills me and instantly morphs into a type of anger I’ve been doing my best to keep at bay. Looking at the redness in Tori’s father’s face, I can assume I’m not the only one feeling
this way.

  “Had Tori threatened to harm herself before this incident?” the doctor asks.

  “Just today, she mentioned it. Never before. She’s been mildly depressed since our son was born four months ago, and I’ve been encouraging her to see a doctor or a therapist. She has argued with me about it, and while she is supposedly seeing a therapist, I don’t know whether or not she’s suffering with postpartum depression since she has denied that was the case any time I’ve brought it up. She hasn’t even told me who her therapist is, or what she is seeing him or her for.”

  The doctor relaxes into his chair and crosses one leg over the other, radiating calm. He’s good. He can shut it all out, go home and pretend like today didn’t happen. Me, though, my life is in ruins and I feel like my body is being shocked with thousands of tiny electrodes. “I might go out on a limb in agreeing with her on the postpartum depression part of the equation because some of her symptoms point to a much different diagnosis, one that has been present for much longer than four months.” I know the amount of information I’m receiving right now is probably as much as I’m going to hear, but I’m sorting every fact out in my head like a puzzle, staring at the clues and not knowing which piece to start with first.

  “Tori has suffered breakdowns many times throughout her life, but she has been okay for several years now, and we thought it all might have been a thing of the past. Sadly, it seems we were wrong,” her dad volunteers.

  “It seems as though there may have been a trigger to reignite this issue,” the doctor says. “However, that piece of information is not one we were able to extract.”

  “Never have been,” her dad concedes.

  “Has Tori ever been enrolled in an inpatient rehabilitation program before?”

  “What kind of rehab?” I ask the doctor. “She’s not taking drugs or drinking excessively.”

  “It’s a different kind of rehab, Mr. Cole. When we have patients who have made an attempt at suicide, we like to take preventive measures in getting the patient better before releasing him or her back into their normal lifestyle.” Oh my God. We have a newborn at home, and my wife is about to be admitted to a psych ward? Is that what he’s suggesting in nice words?

  “How long is a typical stay?” I ask.

  “It depends on the patient. Everyone is different.”

  Selfishly, I want to know what this will do to us. This is so out of the blue for me and nothing I’ve ever considered happening. My biggest worry was that my wife had fallen out of love with me or realized she never loved me in the first place. I didn’t consider that a serious issue might be the underlying cause of her behavior and mood swings.

  “We will support whatever you feel is best, Doctor,” Tori’s dad says.

  “I agree,” I add in, feeling like I’m at a loss for a happy ending to this situation, and even though I can’t imagine how hard this will be, I know it’s what has to happen. “Whatever it takes to get her better.” Can I be hopeful enough to think this could work or do I prepare myself for more disappointment? I have a history of believing everything is going to work out for the best and finding it not to be the case.

  “There will be some paperwork coming your way, and we’re going to be following up with Tori in regards to the next steps.” The doctor stands from his seat and offers both Tori’s dad and myself a handshake.

  He leaves the two of us in the small waiting room, both of us in silence. I may be the only one in complete disbelief, though. Her dad places an arm around my shoulder and claps his hand over my arm a few times. “Let’s get our girl some help,” he says.

  The weight I’ve been carrying on my shoulders for months just got a hell of a lot heavier and I may be in some kind of shock.

  When we re-enter Tori’s room, her mother is sitting on the edge of the bed, running her fingers through Tori’s matted strands of hair. “I’m sorry,” Tori tells her.

  “Tori, I know you have no control over these situations. There’s no need to apologize,” her mother says in a loving way.

  I make my way over to the bed and kneel down beside her, curious as to how she’ll react to me after her incredible flip-flopping behavior today. Without a word, I take her hand and bring it up to my lips. “I’ve been so worried about you,” I tell her.

  “I owe you an apology too, AJ. I’ve been a horrible wife and mother for the past few months.” I shake my head to disagree with her. It’s the last thing I want her to be worrying about right this second. “You don’t have to pretend like it’s not true.”

  “We’re going to get you the help you need, and things are going to be okay,” I reassure her. Though, I can’t help but wonder if what I’m saying is a lie. How could I know?

  A weak smile struggles over her lips, and she reaches her hand up to my cheek. This is the Tori I know—not the small smile, but the gesture and the wide-eyed look. “I don’t know if that’s possible,” she says.

  “Of course it is, T,” I assure her. I get that she may be feeling pessimistic if she’s been seeking help for years, regardless of hearing this for the first time today, but if rehab is new to her, maybe this will finally help. That’s what rehab is for, right?

  “I’m going to this rehab place for a while,” she says, taking a second to look at each of us. “AJ, will you be able to handle Gavin on your own?” I could say so much in response to this question, but it isn’t necessary.

  “We’ll be okay. What’s important is that you get well so we can continue our lives peacefully,” I tell her, trying to convince myself that this will be the outcome.

  The forced smile disappears from Tori’s mouth, and she swallows against what sounds like a dry throat.

  With no response from Tori, her mom chimes in with, “AJ has quite the support system. You know you can always count on us too, AJ.”

  After a day from hell, I head home, alone, without my wife, to an empty house. Hunter has taken Gavin home with him and I am sitting at my kitchen table in front of a chocolate cupcake resting on a small dessert plate. Despite everything horrible that occurred today, I need a brief timeout for my little girl.

  I carefully place a candle in the center of the cupcake, light it, and make a wish. “Happy Birthday, kiddo. Your dad loves you—I hope you know that. I wish you were here. I wish I could hug you. I wish I could see what is probably the most beautiful smile in the world. I wish I could see how much you must look like your mom.” I blow the candle out and lean back into my chair, feeling the heaviness in my heart weigh me down just a little more.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A YEAR LATER

  Thirteen. I have a teenage daughter and it sounds almost impossible, seeing as your mom and I were teenagers when you were born. How have so many years passed since the day I held you in my arms—the first and last day I held you in my arms—the day I handed you over to two strangers that I hope have given you the life you deserve. 4,745, little girl—that’s how many days it has been. I miss you more today than I have the last 4,745 days because every day that passes feels like I’ve walked another mile away from you.

  WAKING UP TO the one-year anniversary of one of the worst days in my life is preventing me from opening my eyes. Is she thinking about it too—the night she tried to end her life? Whenever we mention anything about last year, I’m afraid of setting her off and triggering another breakdown. I don’t think I was responsible for what happened that day, but I never did get more information out of her…nothing other than some old memories popping in and out of her head, causing her turmoil. We live with secrets—she with hers and me with mine. Though, my secret seems small compared to the Pandora’s box she keeps hidden within the confines of her mind.

  “Good morning,” she says with a hoarseness to her voice. “Can I make you something for breakfast before you leave for the day?”

  “Mmm, I think I might love some French toast if you’re up to it,” I tell her as I open my eyes slowly. A sense of relief fills me to see h
er calm and “normal” demeanor upon waking up today.

  “You got it. Gavin seems to love French toast too.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” I tell her, trying to act as normal, as normal can be here. “What are your plans today?” The words coming from my mouth feel like the same words I uttered last year on this day. Everything started so normal, then it erupted into an earth-shattering event.

  “I’m meeting my mom for lunch, and I have a few errands to run. I was going to clean out a couple of the closets if I have time, but we’ll see.” I’ve noticed that she constantly plans to keep busy. She rarely sits down to turn on the TV or the computer. She has been this way since she was released from rehab. There’s nothing wrong with it, but sometimes it stresses me out at night when she can’t sit down and relax. Although I’d rather endure life like that rather than the alternative, I suppose. “Why do you look so nervous?”

  I pinch my lips and shake my head. “I’m not,” I lie.

  “I know what today is, AJ. Let’s just not focus on it, okay?”

  “Okay,” I agree, placing my hands up in defense.

  Moving through the motions of eating breakfast and getting ready for work, I say very little. I typically say very little. I’m scared to say too much. It’s as if I’m stuck in this spinning wheel of emotions, and every day things feel a little more claustrophobic. The person I was two years ago seems like a distant memory of an acquaintance I once knew. It’s making me question what I’ve done to myself, while trying my hardest to be a dam in front of a waterfall—one that’s continuously flowing over the unbreakable barrier. The constant thoughts make me feel scared of drowning in the middle of my surroundings.

  I take my lunch from the fridge, grab my coat, kiss Gavin goodbye, and leave without another word. This is our routine. We never expected our pasts to be such an integral part of our present and futures, or we would have known that someday we’d eventually have to stop talking.