The Unbreakables

by Lisa Barr

  “Go make us coffee.” I glare. I never drink coffee past dinner, and by the surprised look on his face, we’re both thinking the same thing. “I will be down in a few minutes.”

  “Sophie,” he says again, repeating my name as if that’s his only option. His voice is cracking and if I weren’t me right now and we weren’t a broken version of us, I would wrap my arms around him and comfort him—the way I had years ago when his dog since childhood died, or when a young patient with a serious heart condition with whom he’d bonded and who he’d operated on four times died, or when we knew we couldn’t have any more children after Ava—that it was him, not me. It didn’t matter, I told him over and over again, we have Ava, the most beautiful girl in the world. But this, I think, eyeing the now two-piece blue birthday dress at his feet, this matters. This, not his low sperm count that he blames on a football injury, has turned our tower of love into rubble.

  “Just do it! Make the fucking coffee!” I shout as my eyes begin to water. I can’t comfort you now. You broke us.

  I SIT ACROSS FROM HIM, HANDS CUPPED AROUND MY FAVORITE MUG, WHICH, ironically, reads But First, Coffee, at our new kitchen table from Restoration Hardware. It is country chic, a weathered blond natural wood. I loved it in the catalogue, circled it, had to have it. It seats twelve comfortably with the table leaves. I bought it with our family and our friends’ families in mind. Samantha and Lauren each have two kids. I stare at the prized table now and think, who cares? I would settle for Formica, for cardboard even—not to be sitting here right now.

  Gabe stares back at me, mute like an Egyptian eunuch, a subservient awaiting his fate. I hate him for putting me in this position. All I can do without falling apart is to focus on the Starbucks Dark Roast at his lips. At another time, I would have asked if he liked the new beans I got from that barista whose nose ring looks like a cowbell, that it’s stronger than his usual roast, but now I couldn’t care less which type of bean he favors.

  I summon my voice. “What I don’t understand is why? They say a man never leaves a warm bed for a cold one. Wasn’t our bed still warm after all these years? If you weren’t happy, why the hell didn’t you let me know?” My head drops into my hands. “How could you do this to us? Why . . .”

  Gabe snaps out of his catatonic state of guilt and reaches for my hand, and I yank it away. Don’t even. He clears his throat, stares at the hand with the already chipped nails, a hand that he is now forbidden to touch. “I was happy. Was, I suppose. Maybe I wasn’t. I think we’ve been together so long that I just wanted something different, something else. You were the only woman I’d ever slept with. Every experience we’ve had has been together . . . Something was driving me, Soph, and I couldn’t stop it. And this urge became bigger than me, out of control. I wanted something short-term, meaningless.” He shakes his head, looks away as if in a private conversation with himself. “I had to have it.” His voice lowers to a painful whisper. “I just didn’t want to break us or leave you, and the Ashley Madison option seemed, I don’t know, stupidly safe. Like I could have other experiences and—”

  “Like you could have forty-three other experiences and still come home.” I finish the sentence because I know Gabe better than he knows himself. I search his red-rimmed eyes and realize how pompous I am. Clearly, I don’t know him at all. Or, rather, I stopped knowing Gabe because I thought I knew everything about him.

  “It was enough for me,” I whisper, not even aware that the words had escaped my mouth. But was it? Was there something inherently wrong I failed to recognize? Did we stop seeing each other as man and woman and more like good, comfy furniture? Were our spurts of passion really Just press play simulations that we could count on to do the trick? I look at Gabe perspiring across the table. The fear, the getting caught, is clearly much worse than he’d ever imagined. I can tell he wishes he could take it all back. But perhaps I’m wrong again. Maybe, just maybe, this is what he wanted subconsciously. To be free.

  “How long would you have kept this going?” I ask because I have to. “If you weren’t caught. Did you have a plan to stop?”

  Please lie to me. I need a big fat juicy lie right now, even though I’m demanding truth. Lie, motherfucker, lie.

  “I don’t know, Soph. I think—I think I would have just kept it going.”

  I slam the But First, Coffee mug down, the liquid spills and is immediately sucked into the table’s grainy distressed wood, but I don’t care. “Damn you, how could you have done this to me and Ava and live with yourself?” I shout, standing and starting to pace around the oversized table.

  “It’s unforgivable. I know . . .” Gabe’s eyes well up again. “It was so damn easy. Exciting. It was—”

  I cup my hands over my ears like a small child screaming blah blah blah when her parent reprimands her, and then my hands drop limply. “Look at me. Goddamnit, look at me, Gabe. I’ve kept in shape. I’m a nice person, caring, a good friend, a great mom, a professional, our sex seemed good—”

  “Sophie . . . you’re perfect. It’s not you.”

  “Stop!” My voice escalates to a shriek and I can’t stand the sound of it. “If you give me the ‘It’s not you it’s me’ speech, I will lose it!” For a split second, I really do contemplate taking out the newly sharpened Cutco from the knife drawer and stabbing him.

  Gabe nods, stopping what he’d been clearly rehearsing in his head and instead goes off teleprompter. “Here’s the thing. We got married so young. We had Ava so young. We never had our twenties. We never lived in the city alone in our own apartments and dated. I never went wild in Vegas with my guy friends and did stupid shit. I did everything that I was supposed to do. I lived up to everyone’s expectations—my coaches, my parents, my patients, yours. But inside, I felt this deep restlessness that I tried—believe me, I fucking tried—to control but couldn’t. I needed passion not comfort, not the familiar. I wanted something that went off the expected course of my life. I needed to be with women who didn’t know my every move before I did . . .”

  “Not a TLFer,” I cut in.

  “What?” He raises a brow, not getting it.

  “Our tree, Gabe, our goddamn tree. I’m not inhuman. I get that we fell in love too young and there’s definitely a danger in that. But there’s also something special and pure. Don’t you think I ever wondered what it would be like to be with someone else? Or that men haven’t hit on me over the years—they have—but then I would look at you and I knew deep down that whoever else I chose, he could never be you. That I would meet other people and still search for you.” Tears roll down both of our faces now. Truth is truth, no matter how you twist it.

  “See, and the difference is . . .” Gabe says under his breath, “I wanted anyone who wasn’t you. Every one of those women are physically opposite of you. Blonde, blue-eyed—I stayed away from anyone who looked remotely like you.”

  “Thank you for that,” I say sarcastically, feeling the heat rise to my face. “I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel.”

  He wipes the sweat off his forehead. “What I meant is that this didn’t happen because I stopped loving you. You’re my family. You . . .”

  And this, right there, is the slasher of marital moments. “You,” I say painfully, meaning me, “feel like a sister—not a lover.”

  “Yes.” Gabe lowers his head, softly acknowledges his truth.

  The silence between us fills the room until it smolders and smothers. Truth doesn’t set you free—who the hell said that? No, truth is suffocating. And then my cell phone rings, bringing me back to the present. Like everyone else, even in my darkest pain, I’m Pavlov’s dog when it comes to the phone. My life just exploded, but ping and I glance over to see who’s calling.

  “It’s Ava,” I announce.

  “Please,” he begs. “Don’t tell her.”

  “Ava, hi,” I answer, ignoring him.

  “Mom.” Ava is crying and it’s hard to hear her over the international call static. “Mommy.”


  When she reverts to “Mommy,” I know my very independent nineteen-year-old is in really bad shape. “What’s wrong? What happened? What—when?”

  “Is she okay?” Gabe shouts. “Was there a terrorist attack?”

  That would have been my top question too.

  I hold up my hand, signaling that it’s not a terrorist attack. “Jake—what? I can’t hear you. The connection is not great. Say it again. Jake did what?”

  I glance at Gabe and repeat each one of Ava’s words slowly for his guilty benefit. “Jake. Cheated. On. You.”

  Gabe’s eyes are wide. Karma just bit him in the ass. His wife and now his beloved daughter. The two women who supposedly mean everything to him. One he fucked over, the other someone else did. The family crescendo of pain is now at a super max, the soprano of betrayal hitting high C.

  I stare at the phone in my hand with disbelief. My daughter and I are so connected. But not this, I think, and not now.

  “Mommy,” she continues through tears. “I didn’t want to ruin your birthday. But I’ve been crying all day—you don’t understand . . . Jake was with Monica.”

  “Your Monica?” I repeat, sitting back down, understanding the magnitude of this but needing confirmation. Monica has been Ava’s closest friend since middle school. Monica is her Samantha.

  “Yes, you know they both studied together in London last semester. Same program. Well, they’ve been traveling with a group of friends. They went to Amsterdam, Portugal, and from there, they’re all heading to Spain. I’m supposed to meet up with them in Barcelona as soon as I finish my project. Anyway, I saw Jake and Monica making out on a Snapchat story in the background of another friend’s post—I mean, who does that? Everyone saw. Every one. My boyfriend with my best friend. Can you even imagine how I feel? We’ve been together two years. And with Monica? Monica, Mommy?!”

  “Oh honey.”

  “Monica . . . fucking Monica. I need you. I know it’s asking a lot—but please, can you—”

  “I’m coming.” I finish my daughter’s sentence. My home is a House of Sentences I can finish with my eyes closed. Gabe stares at me stone silent as though he’s a granite carving on Mount Rushmore. Pre–Ashley Madison, we would have both stopped our lives and gotten on a plane together to comfort our daughter.

  “The first plane I can take, I will be there. Hang in there, okay. You’re not alone. I am coming.” I keep emphasizing the “I”—not “we”—for Gabe’s benefit.

  “What about your work?” she asks, still crying.

  “That’s why I have great people working for me. Don’t worry about me. It’s about you. But I get how you feel, more than you know.”

  I hang up the phone. Sick to my stomach. Mother Nature is clearly messing with me. I look up. Gabe is standing over me.

  “Don’t tell her, Sophie, please.”

  I cross my arms, my eyes grow hard, my voice is sharp. “Did you think of our daughter when you were out gallivanting with Moms on the Make? Did you think about their kids? Their spouses? Ava will hear, Gabe. This is a small town and you are the top cheater on North Grove’s public list. Congrats—a couple more you could have gotten first in State once again.”

  “It will break her,” he whispers, head sunk low, defeated. “Break me . . .”

  “You broke us first.”

  “It was only all about Ava,” he says under his breath.

  I stop moving. “What?”

  “Forget it, really.” He turns away.

  “No. For some reason I think this is the good part.”

  “All I’m saying is you were always so focused on Ava that you forgot about me.” Gabe eyes me closely. “I get that we were only able to have one child, but after Ava was born, I didn’t feel important to you. I was an afterthought. And then the postpartum depression. And then . . . after a while, I just needed more.”

  I stare at him unblinking. More? Ava was my everything, but so was Gabe. I gave them both every damn thing I had—leaving nothing for myself. How did he not see that? But was he right? Did I make him feel unimportant? I squeeze my eyes tightly. I can’t feel my pulse, my anything.

  “Couldn’t you have talked to me?” I ask. “Couldn’t you have expressed your feelings? We could have worked through this. Did you really need forty-three other women to give you attention?” My insides are burning. “Were you really that deprived?”

  “The truth—you want to know the goddamn truth?” Gabe shouts. He never yells. His calm demeanor in the midst of a fight has always made me crazy. “You didn’t need me—it didn’t matter if I was here or not. You had Samantha and Lauren—I just filled in the blanks. You were married to them. You laughed the hardest with them, not me. You shared your deepest thoughts with them, not me. Yes, I slept with all those women. But you need to ask yourself why didn’t you fucking notice?”

  The heavy silence between us feels funereal—a melancholic din of black and grim. I can’t be here any longer with this man. I stand quietly and rinse out the coffee mug in the sink and gently place it into the dishwasher. I return to the table, wipe away the spilled coffee stain as best as I can and toss the sponge into the sink. Gabe watches my rotary movements with a mix of curiosity and not knowing what to do next. I walk past him, through the kitchen alcove and then turn slowly, facing him.

  For some reason I focus on that scar near his eyebrow and wonder who will ever know that he fell off his bike while running away from the neighborhood bully? He is dead wrong. I did love him, know him, take care of him, desire him, think of his needs constantly.

  We grew up together, Gabe, and no matter what you think, no matter what you did to us, I don’t know how to do life without you.

  The anger and betrayal dissipate briefly, thawed by an intermission of nostalgia. Our gazes meet in the same way they had when we held Ava for the very first time, when Gabe’s eyes traced the planes of my face, knowing the sheer magnitude of what we’d just created. But now our gazes cling to what we’ve just destroyed. Tears begin to roll and I don’t try to stop them, nor does he. Turning around slowly, I head upstairs to pack, knowing the damage is too far gone for any kind of repair.

  Chapter Five

  AS I ENTER MY BEDROOM ONCE AGAIN, A WAVE OF SADNESS OVERTAKES ME, dark and bottomless. I stare at our king-sized bed. The colorful pillows—a pyramid of interrelated shabby chic designs—drove Gabe crazy. They’re ridiculous. How many different types of the same damn pillow do we need? But it was once a bed that served as a playground for late-night Netflix binges, cuddling, fucking, playing with Pablo, watching old movies with Ava sandwiched between us, reading, heart-to-heart discussions, as well as disagreements and make-up sessions. It wasn’t just a bed, but our Oval Office—filled with highly classified information and sheltering the very best and worst of us. His side, my side, and always, finding our way toward each other in the middle. But now . . . I lean against the back wall and brace myself. There is no now. And there was no then. Clearly, who we were together in that bed was all in my head.

  Taking a deep breath, I walk to my side of the bed, plug my phone into the charger, call Air France, and book a one-way plane ticket to Paris.

  “One way,” I say aloud just to confirm that it is real. One way, because I feel directionless. I pay nearly four thousand dollars for a same-day reservation, direct flight, first class. I don’t even bother using my miles and having to deal with yet another operator for another twenty minutes. I’ve got to get the hell out of this house, this bedroom as soon as I can. Screw the miles and screw you, GMB18@gmail.com.

  My eyes rest briefly on the large sculpture in the far corner of the room that I made for Gabe on his twenty-fifth birthday. It is a six-foot-high bronze and metal sculpture of us—a man and a woman intertwined like a totem pole; legs, arms, torsos wrapped around each other, mouths pressed together—never letting go. I walk over to it, run my hand slowly along the male’s smooth bronzed thigh. My hand drops to my side and I fall to the floor. Tears fill my eyes, and I wipe them away
. Enough with the tears. Get up and go pack, I order myself. Pretend you can do this. Pretend you’re anyone but you right now.

  Turning away from the sculpture, I slowly enter my closet—the third time tonight. I see the two-piece blue birthday dress, still on the floor, and kick it out of the way. I force myself to turn a blind eye to Gabe’s side of the closet, as if it doesn’t exist. I don’t want to see anything that belongs to him. All those shirts and ties that I bought him over the years. I don’t want to think of all the women who touched, unbuttoned, ripped open, fondled, or pressed their perfumed bodies against those annual Father’s Day shirts. Don’t think at all, I warn myself again.

  I gather a bunch of random clothes, praying it will all fit inside the carry-on—the only suitcase in our closet. There’s no way I’m going downstairs in the basement for a bigger one. As I quickly roll my clothes into tight croissant-like coils, I hear Gabe’s footsteps coming up the stairs, a pounding trudge like in one of those Lifetime domestic abuse specials. I stop in midroll, hold my breath, anticipating what comes next. He’s going to apologize, beg forgiveness, plead for therapy, say he’ll do whatever it takes to get me back. But once again, I call it wrong. In lieu of an apology, there’s a total abrupt silence, like someone pulled the plug on Alexa midsong. The footsteps halt, three stairs from the top. Seconds later, they rev up again, only backward, descending, changing their mind.

  AS I DRAG MY SUITCASE ACROSS THE HARDWOOD FLOOR PAST THE FAMILY ROOM, I spot Gabe out on the patio deck, draped over a chaise longue. Pablo is curled up at his feet. I stop and stare out the window. He may have slept with all those women, blown up our lives, but I will be damned if he is going to have the last word.

  I leave my suitcase, step out onto the patio, which is lit up, and see that he’s busy polishing off the new steroid-sized bottle of bourbon I bought from Costco last week. No glass, I note. Swigging straight from the bottle. Good, I think, standing over him with crossed arms. Sufficiently buzzed with truth serum.