by Rio Youers
“We’re in a loveless, empty relationship, and I don’t want it anymore. I will not settle for anything less than happiness, and you haven’t made me happy for a long time.”
His riddled corpse slouched off the seat and settled, bleeding and useless, on the floor beneath the table. Tears tracked soulfully from his eyes. The kitchen window was a burning orange rectangle.
And still she didn’t look at him.
———
She went to bed early. “Sleep on the couch,” she said. “I don’t want you near me.” Her feet thundered up the stairs and across the floorboards. He heard the shower sprinkle into life and the pipes sang behind the walls. Matthew imagined her soaping her small breasts beneath the hot spray, her mouth open, her long hair clumped over one shoulder. The suds would be running down to the thick nest of hair between her legs. Auburn pubic hair, turned dark by the water. He imagined her fingering herself, thinking about one of her lovers, venting frustration through orgasm. He imagined snagging the shower curtain to one side and beating her with a hammer, over and over, until her skull cracked and little pieces of her brain clogged the plughole.
The shower stopped. Her feet thumped across the floorboards. The bedsprings made a bouncy, laughter-like sound as she slumped onto the mattress. Matthew turned on the TV and watched ESPN until his eyes ached, then flipped over to the Sci-Fi channel. Alien was on, but it was near the end. Sigourney Weaver was running around the Nostromo in her underwear. He masturbated, then flicked off the TV and went to sleep.
———
“Okay,” Matthew said.
“Okay?”
“I concede that it’s not working.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fucking Sherlock Holmes,” she said, and he winced. Of all the bullets she had fired at him, this hurt the most. The other stuff, as hard as it was to hear—how she didn’t feel anything for him anymore, how she couldn’t stand the sight of him—was brutal honesty, and he couldn’t hold it against her. But rolling her eyes and saying, “Fucking Sherlock Holmes” was just plain spiteful.
“Do you have to be so nasty?” he asked.
She looked at him for the first time in . . . how long? Matthew frowned; he couldn’t remember the last time she had looked at him. He’d hoped to see a warmer emotion in her eyes, something approachable and encouraging, but there was only ice. When she looked away, after only a second, he felt a fat bird of relief take wing from his shoulder.
They were in the kitchen. Again. It was their favourite venue for altercations, although they liked to spread them around the house. They had made love in two rooms: the bedroom, and the living room. They had argued in every one, including the downstairs powder room. Rule of thumb, Matthew thought. If you argue in more rooms than you fuck in, you should take it as a sign that something is wrong.
Kirsty slurped coffee from a huge mug she had stolen from Starbucks. She’d crammed it into her purse after she finished drinking and strolled out, leaving Matthew to follow guiltily behind. He hated that mug. He hated the way it made her hands look small, and the way she’d fill it to the brim and slurp.
“Did you want to say something?” she asked. The window blinds divided her into concertinaed strips, like a portrait on a Chinese fan.
“Well, I . . .”
“Spit it out, for Christ’s sake.”
“I think we should separate,” Matthew said.
She nodded. She slurped.
“A trial separation,” he continued.
“A trial?” Her eyes flicked his way with a sound like katanas being drawn from their scabbards.
“Yes,” he said, and his voice sounded surprisingly firm. “It’s for the best. A few weeks away from each other—”
“I’m not moving out. You can move out.” Her face disappeared behind the full moon of the mug’s base. Sluuuuurrrpp.
“That’s fine, I’ll . . .” He sighed at the thought of having to move into his parents’ home in Brooklyn. Thirty-six years old and back with Mom and Dad. He didn’t want to do it, but it was either that or a flea-pit room in the Bronx. “I’ll sort something out.”
“You’ll move in with your parents, you mean.”
“Probably, yes.”
“You won’t be able to bring girlfriends home.” She grinned wickedly.
“I have no intention of bringing girlfriends home.” Matthew showed her his ring finger. “I’m married. To you. This is a trial separation, not the end. We’ll get together in a few weeks, maybe a month, and see where we stand. I’m doing this because I love you. Because I want to save our marriage.”
“Jesus Christ couldn’t save our marriage.”
“But we have to try.”
“I don’t love you anymore.”
“I know.” He bled before her, downcast, his head hanging. “But maybe the time apart will help you find what you’re looking for.”
She finished her coffee with a terrific, rattling sound, and left the mug on the countertop. Matthew would normally clean up after her—put her cereal bowl and giant mug in the dishwasher, wipe the counters, clean the coffeemaker—but not this morning. He would be gone by the time she got back from work, and she could clean up her own shit.
“We’re just putting off the inevitable.” She walked from the kitchen, into the hallway, pulled her jacket from the hook and slipped it on. “It’s a fate thing, baby.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. This was her favourite saying, picked up from one of her favourite crappy reality TV shows. He imagined screaming it into her face—It’s a FATE thing, baby—while he used a pizza cutter to divide her heart into eight equal pieces.
“Will you be here when I get home?” she asked.
He stepped into the hallway behind her. His bare feet left ghostly prints on the laminate flooring. Fake wood. Just like everything else.
“No,” he said.
She picked up her purse, glanced at him again, and unlocked the front door. He stepped toward her and held out his arms, throwing himself onto the firing line.
“Hug?” He gave her half a smile. He thought she would bang rounds into him again, or sneer at him and leave, but she surprised him. It wasn’t a hug, exactly; she merely leaned into him and pressed one hand between his shoulder blades. The sort of hug you might give an annoying relative. But Matthew made up for that. He curled his arms around her body and pulled her close, wanting her to feel his savage heartbeat.
“Matthew,” she wheezed. “You’re hurting me.”
Good, he thought. Now you know how I feel.
She pulled away from him, lowered her eyes, opened the door.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
She nodded, then left. He staggered—pierced with bullets holes, shrapnel, mortar rounds—into the kitchen and dropped lifelessly into a seat at the table. He started to cry. A thousand well-earned tears. They made an impressive puddle on the table’s surface, as if he had knocked over a small glass of water.
He looked at her huge mug on the kitchen countertop. Brilliant rage swept through him and he lunged, grabbed it, cocked his arm to throw it at the wall. But he couldn’t do it. She loved it in a way she didn’t love him, and he couldn’t hurt her like that. Matthew’s arm trembled. More tears ran down his face. He placed the mug on the countertop and bled all over the floor.
Chapter Three
Dr. Meeker’s office was on Lexington at 33rd. Matthew took the R train to Union Square, then hopped on the 6—a much busier train—where he was pushed into a corner between the doors and a heavyset man with a face-tattoo like Mike Tyson’s. Minding his own business, not wishing to talk to anyone, Matthew folded his newspaper into the smallest possible rectangle and started to read.
“Three hours,” the heavyset man said to him.
“I’m sorry?” Matthew looked at him and frowned.
“Three hours,” the man said agai
n, and pointed at Matthew’s newspaper. He had folded it to the story on Ethan Mitchell and Courtney Bryce—two children, from the neighbouring states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, who had gone missing within the last week. Their smiles were painfully bright, even in black and white.
“I don’t understand what you—”
“Missing children that are killed . . . usually dead within the first three hours,” the man explained. He shrugged. His dark eyes were red-rimmed, as if he hadn’t slept. “How long have they been missing?”
Matthew read the caption beneath the photographs. “The girl . . . four days. The boy . . . seven. A week today.”
“They’re dead.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. The train jerked and shuddered and he used his core muscles to keep from pressing against the man. “Maybe, but they haven’t found the bodies yet, so there’s still hope.”
The man grunted and started to read over Matthew’s shoulder, mumbling, lips moving. Matthew ignored him and focused on the story. New Jersey and Pennsylvania police had started to explore the possibility of a connection in the disappearance of the two children. They had very little to work with, however. No witnesses. No physical evidence. The files were paper-thin and growing colder every day. Even the media coverage had cooled down, but had been rekindled when Ethan’s father was arrested for physically assaulting one of the investigating officers, claiming the police were not doing enough to find his son. This rash action called his character into question, and added another leaf to the file.
“I would have done the same thing,” the man with the Mike Tyson tattoo said.
The train approached 33rd, squealing like a broken toy. Matthew waited for the doors to open, then slapped the newspaper into the heavyset man’s hand and stepped onto the platform. He was barged and bumped and swept toward the exit, and for half a second he wished he was back in the town he had grown up in—Point Hollow—where crowds didn’t exist, and where space and time were beyond measure.
———
Silence again, but not of the Mexican variety. This was an abstract silence; Dr. Meeker’s method, always, was to let the patient talk first. Never a “hello” or a “how are you?” He maintained that the opening words were the most important, and set the tone for the session. He would sit and wait for however long it took. Matthew tested him once—sat in silence for forty-five minutes before thinking, If I wanted the silent treatment I could have stayed at home with Kirsty. Then he opened his mouth and told Dr. Meeker exactly this, and Dr. Meeker had nodded, half-smiled, and asked Matthew if he had used the forty-five minutes of silence in a productive and meditative fashion.
Dr. Meeker had an unorthodox, yet effective, way of encouraging conversation.
“Remind me to give you my new home telephone number,” Matthew said as he took a seat opposite the doctor. He slumped into his favourite position. He knew the seat—had sat in it once a week for the last five years. It was a second armchair to him.
“Oh?” Dr. Meeker said. He didn’t even raise his eyebrows.
He knows, Matthew thought. I’ve been telling him about my marital problems for the last two years. You don’t need to be a goddamn shrink to realize why I have a new telephone number.
“I don’t need to tell you why,” Matthew said. “You already know.”
“I suppose I do,” Dr. Meeker said. “But I want you to tell me anyway.”
Matthew took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m currently residing with my parents in Bay Ridge; Kirsty and I have separated.” That word—separated—was too jarring, too irrevocable. He amended, but with noted uncertainty, “A trial separation.”
“I see. A mutual understanding?”
“I suppose, although tactical is a more fitting word.”
Dr. Meeker nodded. He was a handsome man approaching retirement age, although you would think him ten years younger, with dark mottled skin and hands so precise and still they appeared to be carved of wood. The wrinkles around his eyes made them look brighter, somehow, shooting outward, the way a child will draw the sun’s rays. He rarely moved during their sessions—sat with his legs crossed and his careful hands linked. He spoke only when he needed to, and his words had the effect of pulling the loose end of a ribbon, then leaving it for you to fully unwrap.
His office, like ninety percent of real estate in Manhattan, was compact yet efficient. It supported his counsel of orderliness and utilization. There were no distractions, only essentials: two comfortable chairs, the obligatory couch, a coat stand, and a desk upon which few items resided. He was not a man of simple means, but rather one who emphasized the fundamentals.
“Only generals and chess players speak in terms of tactical manoeuvres,” he said. His bright eyes were as comfortable and familiar as the chair. “Care to elaborate?”
“I took the initiative,” Matthew said. “I suggested a trial separation because I wanted Kirsty to see that I am both strong and open to compromise—two qualities that she forever tells me I lack. This way, when we reconcile, I’ll have a firmer platform from which to move forward.”
Dr. Meeker didn’t move, didn’t speak. He sat in his chair with his legs crossed and his fingers linked, like the subject of a painting in a scholar’s den. They were on the twenty-fourth floor. This high up, the sounds of the city were muted, like something trapped in a bottle.
“If I may,” he said finally, and actually moved, unlinking his fingers, opening his hands. “You suggested a trial separation not to benefit your marriage, but to underscore your character?”
“Both,” Matthew said. “I hope.”
“Okay, but a compromise would suggest that she is giving something, too.”
“I guess,” Matthew said.
“You guess.” Dr. Meeker tugged the ribbon.
Matthew considered this for a moment, stroking his beard, as Dr. Meeker resumed his static pose. Kirsty wanted the separation. She didn’t ask for it, but she wanted it. She had the house, the car—everything. But what was she giving him? In what way was she showing a compromise, a willingness to make it work?
Simple answer: she wasn’t.
Matthew unwrapped: “I actually undermined my character, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know the parameters of your agreement.”
“I gave her what she wanted. I thought she’d see strength in my understanding, but all she’ll see is weakness in my surrender.”
“That depends on Kirsty’s character,” Dr. Meeker said.
“I can’t do anything right.”
“And that depends on your character.”
They were silent for a moment. Matthew could hear the doctor’s watch ticking. He closed his eyes and flew away, working his wings with every emphatic second.
“Let’s not question your motive for suggesting the separation,” Dr. Meeker continued. “You need to think about how you’re going to use this time away from Kirsty. There’s no benefit in simply separating—relying on the adage ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’—only to reconcile with the same broken pieces. You need to repair the weaknesses. If you’re truly strong, then Kirsty will see it. And if she doesn’t, you’ll be strong enough to deal with it. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Matthew?”
Matthew opened his eyes. “I think so.”
“What I’m saying,” Dr. Meeker said, “is that for the next three, four weeks—the duration of this trial separation, however long—you need to accept that Kirsty is not a priority. You need to nuke this perception of the man she wants you to be, and discover the man you want to be.”
“Sounds great,” Matthew said, one eyebrow cocked. “Where do I begin?”
“By dropping the pessimism and the sarcasm.”
He lowered his eyebrow.
“You’re an intelligent man, Matthew,” Dr. Meeker said. “Vulnerability is not an excuse for obtuseness. You don’t
need me to tell you what to do.”
“I know,” Matthew whispered.
“Yes.” With one word, he tugged the ribbon.
Matthew remembered being barged and pushed on the train platform, and how the open green of Point Hollow had called to him, if only for one second.
He unwrapped.
His childhood memories were haphazard, at best, like a comic book with most of the panels blacked out—an aversion to recall no doubt drawn from the time he had been lost in the woods. They’d left Point Hollow shortly afterward, in the fall of 1984. His father landed a job at an accounting firm in Midtown, and they loaded up and never looked back. The relief was like a kite catching the wind. Matthew’s father, originally from Utica, had never taken to Point Hollow. He once described it as a beautiful reflection in a broken mirror.
Some things were clear in his mind: how the trees behind his old house looked like they were ablaze when the sun went down; how the Stars and Stripes flying outside his school would snap rhythmically, angrily, when the wind eddied within Point Hollow’s bowl; and how the whole town had looked small and fractured, like something dropped from a great height, the day they left.
This tortoise is bound for the Big Apple, he remembered his father saying, strapping cases to the roof of their station wagon. His little sister had laughed and clapped her hands, and his mother started singing “New York, New York.” A small group of friends had gathered on the corner of Maple Road to wave them off. His father gave the horn a couple of happy toots, and Matthew had looked past his sister and seen a few of his buddies: Yo-yo Jones (bouncing his Yo-yo), Tim Lutz (Lutz the Klutz), and Bobby Alexander—his best friend—with his Mets cap turned backward and his round belly sagging over the front of his jeans. Matthew had waved until they had turned the corner and were out of sight.
The station wagon rumbled down Main Street with its rear axle sagging, past the town hall and the Scratch and Buzzcut Billy’s. It all looks so small, Matthew had thought. So dark. But when they crossed the town line, it was like a light had been flicked on and he could suddenly see—as though he had been gripped in the world’s tightest bear-hug, and could suddenly breathe.