by Emily Nealis
But that is not me.
As we waited for the bartender to ring up our checks, Sam could tell that I was visibly uncomfortable. He asked if I was OK, to the point of asking if someone had tried to call me about an emergency.
I looked that shaken.
I didn’t immediately tell him what was going on. More than anything, I just wanted to leave and get to the car. I had no idea where Adam was or whether his threats were real. I calmed down slightly once we were on the road, but I was still upset. I was running from a man who I nearly sacrificed my future for. After Sam dropped me off at my vehicle and I was on my way home, I sent Adam one more text before my phone died, rebuking his accusations and distrust, not caring if he thought I was enjoying the company of another man. Who would bat an eye at a single woman out with another single man instead of her married boyfriend?
Before my phone finally powered down, Adam told me he wasn’t going to talk about it anymore tonight and that he may or may not see me in the morning, as if it was some sort of threat. I threw my phone into the back seat in fury. One of the most horrifying feelings was finally realizing that he was manipulating me. Realizing that Adam was exploiting my emotions for his own benefit—and everyone else could see it but me. As our relationship drug on, I became paranoid, I felt irrational—like I was a nag. I felt like a horrible, selfish person. That’s not me. This is not who I am.
Indeed, it wasn’t who I was. So, I decided to so something else instead. I coasted around the outer belt, vowing to do one last thing for Adam Hunt.
I was going to light him up.
The next morning, I did not drink coffee with Adam. There would not be any cooling down, there would not be any more meaningless talks to smooth over the déjà vu taking place between us. I drove to meet him with a purpose and had only one outcome in mind. Something changed. This did not feel the same as when I confronted him with anger and sadness over the anniversary. This felt like I was undeniably ejecting something negative out of my life, purging a cancer from my body, and I couldn’t get it out soon enough. Adrenaline was still coursing through my veins, as if I were preparing for a fight I knew I would win. I guess that’s exactly what it was; I was meeting him that morning to take care of business and move on.
I arrived at the Starbucks well before Adam. While I waited, I sat in my driver’s seat breathing deeply and already anticipating leaving. I was already getting excited about going back home, walking away from Adam and never looking back. I didn’t have to wait very long, though, as his truck pulled into the space next to the passenger side of my vehicle. I didn’t move from my seat, but just sat waiting, leaning against my elbow propped up on my open window. When he realized I wasn’t going to meet him in his truck, he got out and leaned into my passenger window.
“You not having coffee today?”
“No. I just need to talk to you.”
He asked me where I wanted to talk, in his vehicle or mine. I said I didn’t care, then offered mine. I decided everything was going to happen on my terms from now on. I watched him reach into his truck to get his keys and the two mugs. I was surprised he brought any coffee for me after how nasty he’d been the previous night. Perhaps it was poisoned.
After he shut the door, I let him sit in silence for a few moments. I just looked at him, expressionless, studying his face, deciphering what might be going on inside his head. I recognized his expression, though. It was one I’d seen many times before, but this time I knew exactly what was behind it. He was angry, but his face was a front. He expected me to think he was hurt, because he cared about me. He expected me to apologize and want to make things better. But this time, I felt nothing but contempt for him. I was disgusted by the sight of his face. After identifying which persona he decided to bring to this meeting, I finally spoke.
“Do you want to tell me why you treated me the way you did last night?”
“If I put you in the same situation, you would’ve done the same thing.”
“What situation? Speaking to you like an adult—a human being? No, I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
Adam paused and looked away. After almost a minute, he turned back to me, but looked at my gear shift. He couldn’t even look me in the eye.
“I’m not going to sit here and talk about this.” Adam extended the mug of coffee toward me passively, averting his eyes as if he was speaking to a petulant child. When I didn’t immediately take it from him, he looked back at me, irritated. After a moment, I took the mug from him.
Adam watched as I unscrewed the cap. I grasped it in my left hand and extended my arm out of my open window. Staring him in the eye, I rotated my wrist and began, slowly and steadily, to pour the coffee out onto the pavement. I didn’t blink, but held his gaze; taking in a look from him that would have normally scared me and caused me to claw and grasp at him, trying to hold tighter to him and convince him not to leave me. But, now, I pulled that look from him hungrily and consumed it like a wave of water quenching my thirst. I couldn’t get enough of it, offering him only stoicism in return. After the last drop of coffee fell from the mug, I reeled my arm back and thrust it as hard as I could out of my window. It bounced across the pavement into oblivion with an echoing clatter. I glared at Adam, my teeth clenched and nostrils flared.
“THEN DON’T.” I said with such conviction and disgust, my jaw ached from the heavy enunciation. Endorphins rushed through my veins as I glared at him, feeling like fire would shoot from my eyes.
Adam opened the door and got out. As soon as he shut the door, I locked it and started the ignition. I pulled out of the parking space and drove out of the lot, not looking back.
I was on top of the world. Pushing back gave me a high and, as I drove back home, I knew I was back on the right path. I breathed slowly and deeply as I cruised back home, my mouth stretching into an unquenchable smile. I laughed in victory, as if I’d just slain a dragon. The air flowing in from the open windows was cooler, cleaner—completely cleansing. I was surprised the encounter lasted less than five minutes.
I already felt free.
When I got home, I made coffee for myself before work. I knew the fight wasn’t over yet, but the inevitable outcome had raised my spirits beyond anything that Adam could touch. I still don’t think God ever spoke to me. Instead, I think He just gave me thunder and lightning.
Haley
In the days following Adam’s return, I began living in a state of suspended animation. I functioned in an irreconcilable dichotomy. Although I felt my life was collapsing in on itself, I felt an eerie sense of relief. I’d entered my own personal brand of hell, but I no longer felt like I lived in a house of secrets with a man I’d started to view with perpetual suspicion. Adam didn’t know any of this, of course. Maybe that’s why I was relieved—because I wasn’t the only one in the dark anymore.
I sequestered myself in the garden, finding solace in the arduous task of ripping weeds from the earth and clawing at the soil, digging my way to distraction. I found a strange comfort in the dirt wedged beneath my fingernails, feeling it press against my nail bed in some macabre form of exhilaration. I let the razor-sharp spines on the squash plants slash across my flesh, oblivious to the sting which normally would have caused me to curse in frustration. I didn’t bother with the gardening gloves anymore. I felt myself descending into a hurricane of wrath dulled by the love I still felt for my husband. I couldn’t see my life without him, and I couldn’t see him living without me. If he wanted to leave, he could have—he would have—done it a long time ago, right?
As I clawed at the earth, June and Vivian’s soft voices floated across the lawn into my ears. I let them stay up later than I would have otherwise, keeping me company, enveloped in nature, as I tried to escape the stifling tension of our house that only I was aware of. I preoccupied myself with anything I could, trying to push the terrible thoughts, the terrible pictures to the back of my mind. This was impossible, of course. No one can un-see things or forget shocking revelations.<
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Jabbing my fingers into the dry, cracked dirt, I tore at the weeds in frustration. We needed rain. I couldn’t stand still long enough to water the garden with the hose, lingering at each of the infinite rows of plants, restless and uncomfortable. I needed to keep moving, keep my heart rate up, keep my blood flowing so I knew I was still alive. I’d given this family my entire life, promised to honor and obey my husband, expecting the same in return. I grasped at weeds, the smooth fibers slipping through my grasp. I raked at the soil furiously with my fingers, attacking the legions of horticultural menaces that threatened to choke out the plants I worked so hard to grow. Once the garden was properly weeded, clear of detritus, I stood to survey my work. I raised my hand, examining my fingertips. Ribbons of blood decorated my hands, some fresh, others dried and cracked. I was operating on a cocktail of denial and self-preservation.
That evening, I sat in a meditative state, sipping a scalding mug of tea. I stared off into the distance, at the ceiling of the hallway. I traced the outline of the attic door with my eyes, my mind miles away. In that attic was a bag. It was a bag from a lifetime ago, hidden away in a green plastic tote with relics of mine and Adam’s past. Hidden among the holiday decorations, between the boxes of childhood memories and children’s clothes, there was a collection of miscellaneous items tucked one on top of another. At the bottom of the green tote was a paper grocery bag, worn with time, the top folded and creased, unopened for over a decade. Inside was an article of clothing; a shirt, smattered with the remnants of one night—a snapshot of a moment in our life. I hadn’t thought about that shirt or its whereabouts in years, maybe since the day I folded it, placed it in the bag, and hid it away to be forgotten. But had I wanted it to be forgotten? I kept it, obviously, for reasons I didn’t necessarily know at the time. I might have been losing my mind in secrecy, but I did have enough wherewithal to be realistic. I admit that I lose my temper every so often, but this was no time for impulsivity. Instead, I opted for organization.
On Tuesdays, I did the laundry. On Wednesdays, I did the grocery shopping. I never go on the weekends, when the store is in the process of restocking and bound to be out of something. Every other Thursday, I change the sheets on every bed in the house. It doesn’t take very long, especially since I have it down to a science. Therefore, this Thursday was the most convenient day to add an extra one-time activity to my routine. After the sheets were tumbling away in the dryer, absorbing the lavender scent from fabric softener, I picked up a chair from the dining table and carried it to the hallways.
Standing on the chair, I reached up to the attic door and tugged at the toggle. I couldn’t remember the last time I set foot in the attic. I half expected some small woodland creature to fall from the ceiling, tangling itself in my hair, and throwing me to the floor in a pile of broken limbs. Instead, when I opened the door, there was nothing except dark, dead space. I slid the ladder from the door. It creaked obnoxiously as I crawled into the musty abyss. I tugged on the thin string hanging from the ceiling. The dull lightbulb illuminated the attic as much as a dying star could. I was impressed the light still worked, or at the very least, the bulb hadn’t burned out.
I crept across the rafters toward the corner of the attic where various boxes and totes sat stacked on one another. Dust floated through the air like gnats in the summer air. I reached three boxes stacked in the corner and unearthed the tote that held the paper grocery bag placed there all those years ago. I excavated the bag from beneath quilts and shoe boxes of memories I would probably never set eyes on again, forgotten with the passage of time. I held the bag in my hands, feeling the velvet fibers of the paper, deteriorating by the year. I didn’t need to open it. I already knew what was inside, what it looked like and what was so important about it. I shut the tote, replaced it in its proper spot, and clutched the bag to my chest as I made my way back across the attic. I carried the bag down the ladder, shut the attic, and picked up my purse on my way toward the kitchen side door. I carried the bag out of the house, expelling a cursed item from my home, purging the evil with the past.
That Thursday, I washed the sheets and made a phone call. I sat in the parking lot of the McDonald’s in town, across from the elementary school, and dialed a number I’d never used. I spoke to the man on the other end with a combination of familiarity and purpose. I’d known him since I was a child, but never had any reason to speak to him outside of Sunday church services or my parents’ barbecues. He listened to me, responding to my inquiry with nonchalant professionalism. The conversation was more matter of fact and straight forward than I’d anticipated.
After our conversation ended, I drove a half mile to the bank. After speaking to a personal banker, she produced the paperwork for a safe deposit box. I was past being coy at this point, there would be no beating around the bush. I stated that my husband should not, under any circumstances, be authorized to access the safe deposit box. Without blinking an eye, the banker confirmed that unless I provided a next of kin, no one would have access to the box except me. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. This wasn’t the 1950s, after all. After I finished my transaction, I sat in my vehicle for another hour and sent a flurry of emails to the man I’d spoken to on the phone.
If I didn’t feel so numb, I probably would have felt guilty. That’s how it usually was whenever I felt like I was doing something I shouldn’t be. But what does “shouldn’t be” mean, anyway? Before, it meant doing something that could potentially bother Adam. But what did I ever really do that was so insidious? Not left enough pizza in the box for him on a night he had to work late? Not finished putting away the laundry by the time we went to bed? Now, it seemed absurd. Everything I’d ever done that I ever thought of as questionable now seemed trivial. I played over each of these memories in my mind while I waited in front of the school for the girls to emerge.
In front of me and behind me, the pavement was full of parents I never envied, but I always felt superior to. The mother of Hannah, June’s best friend, who couldn’t sleep over on the second Friday of each month because she went to her dad’s house an hour away in Richmond. The parents of Vivian’s friend, Jimmy, who we sat with at every spring program and end-of-school-year picnic. These people were not shy about speaking flippantly about their personal lives. Like any good friend would, I listened as they described their discontent with her ex-husband, their financial stress, and their routine arguments about their in-laws. I listened intently, offering support, but always thinking to myself that it was better them than me. But I didn’t think that now.
Now, I thought to myself, did they have problems, or were they the normal disagreements and marital discord that I’d suppressed for years on end? I shouldn’t have been so pious; I was no different than any of them. Beneath my beautiful home, my hardworking and devoted husband, and my well-adjusted children, was a devastating secret. And if there was one, how many more secrets lurked within the walls of our home, within our meticulously ordered life? It was only by chance that I bothered to uncover this one and peel back the layers of our marriage to reveal the horror hidden beneath. I jumped, startled out of my deep thoughts, as the passenger and back doors swung open. June and Vivian piled into the SUV, still in mid-conversation from their walk from the school. It was just as well, I needed a moment to remember they had no idea what was happening in their parents’ life.
That evening, I let my calls go to voicemail. I glided around the kitchen in a trance, preparing dinner with an eerie sense of calm. Perhaps it was a coping mechanism to deal with the tasks I’d completed that day that were so out of character and outside of my normal routine. I baked tater tots and fried homemade chicken tenders in the skillet with a cheerfulness that seemed incredibly out of place. Then again, the girls were behaving, tucked away in June’s room playing with her collection of horse figurines until finally communing for dinner.
The three of us sat together at the dining table, Adam absent due to a late meeting, and the girls recounted the events of the
day. In a way, the three of us eating together was nostalgic, reminiscent of a time before school, when June and Vivian were younger and this was commonplace two to three meals out of the day. It’s possible the universe was aligning in such a way that it kept all of us from imploding. I was grateful for Adam’s absence right then, after a day that felt more like one out of The Twilight Zone than my own life. The three of us moved about the house and interacted in a symbiotic dance that kept a peace I wished would never end.
The irony was that I received more phone calls that evening than I usually did on any given day. My mom called. I didn’t answer. Carolyn called. I didn’t answer. My mom called again. I didn’t answer. Whatever was so important could be conveyed in a voicemail. Finally, my mom texted me. My parents wanted to go to dinner with Travis, Carolyn, Adam, me, and the girls the following evening.
“Where do you want to go?”
“What time are we meeting?”
“What about Southside?”
“They don’t have a lot of food options.”
“Steeplechase does. It’s in the middle of town.”