The Last Exhale

by Julia Blues

  All of a sudden, my brother’s warning of cops having eyes everywhere comes to mind.

  This world just got a little smaller.

  25

  SYDNEY

  I haven’t been happy with Eric for years. The first time in my life I do something about it, the whole world finds out.

  Michael and a few other officers from Eric’s unit went running at Riverpoint Park the same morning I decided to start training Brandon. Said he saw everything. Saw him pass out and watched us sitting in the grass having an intimate conversation. Saw his hand slide in mine. Saw me practically run back to my car. I thought I was being smart about not meeting with Brandon close to home. Driving thirty minutes outside of town for a running lesson seemed like a good idea. Had no idea I’d run into Eric’s badge-buddies, and one who’s my close friend’s husband at that.

  The only reason Michael didn’t tell Eric is because it was right after one of the new recruits got killed in the line of duty and things were tense. He forgot. Seeing Brandon in my car brought it all back to memory. Before I could even get to the hospital, he’d called his wife and told her everything. Rachel turned around and called Katrina. My phone’s been blowing up ever since. No calls from Eric, though.

  The doctor in the ER put a few stitches in Brandon’s hand, bandaged him up, gave him a few painkillers and sent us on our way. I drove him back to his car in silence.

  No one’s home when I finally make it in. Kennedy’s in school, EJ’s at daycare. I’m sure Eric’s at work getting an earful from Michael.

  My legs move up the stairs slower than a snail sliding across the moon. Once I make it to the bathroom, I fill the tub with water so hot steam rises. Sitting in a cold hospital in wet clothes wasn’t a good idea. Being sick is the last thing I need.

  I don’t soak long. Got two showings before noon and I’m already behind. I hop out the tub with a little more pep in my step. What will be will be.

  On my way out the room I almost trip, have to hold onto the wall to keep from falling over. Inhale. Exhale. Do that three times. Calm my nerves. Life has taken an unexpected turn, nothing to lose my composure over. It’s not like I’m sleeping with the man.

  I look down to see I wasn’t tripping over this morning’s events, but a pair of shoes I haven’t seen or worn in years. I pick them and just as I’m about to toss them in the closet, my attention is pulled to something lying on the bed. The shoes fall out my hand and I pick the envelope up. It’s addressed to Eric scribbled in my handwriting.

  It’s the letter I wrote him the night before our wedding.

  • • •

  Work was torture.

  Every second was spent thinking about what was going through Eric’s head. From the moment I laced my sneakers and put one foot in front of the other, things have been like hell. I should’ve known today would be crazy after getting caught in the rain. Usually I find running in the rain to be liberating. But something about the calm drizzle should’ve been a sign that today would be unexpected.

  Never did I imagine what life would be like if Eric found out the truth about my feelings for him. It’s funny how you want something so bad and when it finally happens, you want to take off like a dog trying to chase down a fly.

  I was watching an episode of Army Wives a few weeks back. One of the wives on the show said something that comes to mind. “More tears are shed over answered prayers.” That statement resonated so deeply, and at this moment, it’s so close to the truth it’s unsettling. For years now I’ve wanted a way out of my marriage, a way to go back to a life of just me. Now that that opportunity may have come, I’m finding myself not so sure.

  I’ve been avoiding going home since I left earlier this morning. Lollygagged in the grocery store after picking the kids up. They were antsy and so was I. Trying to create a last-minute meal was futile. I’d take them out to eat instead. Figured the longer we stayed out, the more time Eric would have to simmer down. My phone rang not once from him. No text message, email, nothing. There’s no telling what Michael’s beefed his head up with, and the letter… Oh, that darn letter. Why have I still been hanging on to it?

  One can never avoid the inevitable.

  I’ll just have to deal with that after dinner.

  • • •

  I watch as a mother looks at her child with vacant eyes. She looks at her as if she doesn’t exist. Her son is normal. Her daughter is not.

  She watches her four-year-old child terrorize their section in Olive Garden with such a numbing emotion I feel for the child more than the mother. The kid kicks at her chair, screams as four crayons fall to the floor. No one at the table moves to pick up the crayons, no one even moves to calm her from her tantrum.

  A mom and her unwanted child. The father digs into his ravioli and sausage like this is an everyday occurrence. The mother’s food is untouched. She continues looking at her child as she runs circles around the table with her napkin folded around her head. For a second, our eyes connect. When I look deep into her blue eyes, I see she desperately has regrets. Wishes that night she had just told her husband she had a headache. Deciding not to forgo her hormones and oblige her lover, she ended up pregnant. Had she known she’d end up with a child whose energy was never-ending, she would’ve ran to the kitchen and stuck a turkey baster inside her womb and sucked out every abnormal sperm before it contaminated her normal egg.

  “Mommy.” EJ pats at my leg.

  I’m so caught up in this woman and her life that I forget I have my own kids and life to worry about. “Yes, EJ?”

  “I gotta pee.”

  Grateful for the break from Terror at Olive Garden, I take my son’s hand and lead him to the restroom. My reflection in the mirror catches me off-guard as EJ does his thing in the stall. A look of regret stains my irises. Other than a few minor issues with the kids, they haven’t been a burden on me. So why am I regretting their existence? Why do I feel as hopeless as that woman in the dining room looked?

  The toilet flushes, brings me back to reality. “Did you shake?”

  He nods as he comes out of the stall pulling on his shirt instead of stuffing it back in his jeans.

  “Stop wiping your hands on your shirt and wash your hands,” I tell him and hand him a paper towel to cut the faucet off with, then dry his hands on another one.

  Back at the table, I’m relieved to see the family is gone. From the faces of the surrounding patrons, they’re glad to be able to enjoy their unlimited salad and breadsticks in peace and quiet. Kennedy tells me she’s ready to go home. For once we’re on the same page. I flag the waiter to bring a to-go box for my barely-touched lasagna.

  Apparently, the kids caught a little of the rambunctious child’s spirit, because as soon as we get in the car, they start bickering over mint-flavored chocolate.

  At the red light, I turn around, tell the two, “Knock it off.” The car behind me lays on his horn. By the time I turn my attention back to the traffic, the light is yellow. Mr. Anxious skids around me while still laying on his horn and gives me a look that says I made him miss the last call for alcohol. “Get a life,” I mumble in his direction. All of my energy for foolishness has been zapped.

  My mind drifts back to the regretful mother at the restaurant. The way her husband just sat there void of words reminded me of Eric. No, he wouldn’t have let the kids cut up like that little girl, but when it comes to dinnertime or any time conversation is expected, he usually just sits there and has a one-on-one conversation with his food. It’s those moments when I wish I had cut things short after our first date, and definitely wish I had given him the letter when it was fresh in my hand. Wish I had listened to my instinct to keep it moving where he was concerned.

  Not listening to my gut has me here.

  26

  SYDNEY

  I dropped the kids off at my mom’s house before heading home. It’s been at least eight hours since I’ve heard from or laid eyes on my husband. This would not be a battle the kids need to be a part of.
It’s a battle I’m sure I don’t want to be a part of.

  “But all is changed with time, the future none can see. The road you leave behind, ahead lies mystery.”

  The words of Stevie Wonder slap me in the face when I walk through the door to my home. Volume is on one hundred. There’s no denying I’m being sent a message.

  It’s dark in the house. My sight’s diminished, other senses heightened. I smell a madman on the loose. A movie scene pops in my head and all I can see is Wesley Snipes taking a hammer to anything within reach in Sanaa Lathan’s brownstone in Disappearing Acts. I knew I wasn’t ready for war, but this takes it to a different level.

  No fear, Sydney. No. Fear.

  A flicker of light leads me to the living room. I can see a bundle of fur nestled by the unlit fireplace. Forrester. Can always depend on him to be where he’s supposed to be. That makes me smile in the midst of all of the above.

  A large shadow moves on the wall. I look over by the speaker, see Eric standing by the stereo. The lit candle on the mantle helps me see everything clearly.

  I walk over, cut the music down. “Can we talk?”

  “Should’ve done that years ago.” He cuts the music back up.

  I hit the power button. “Let’s be adult about this, Eric.”

  “Be adult about this?” My husband turns around, his face contorted like I’ve disrespected him in the worst way. “Let me get this straight. You wrote me a damn letter to call off our wedding less than twelve hours away because you couldn’t face me like a woman and you want to be adult about this now?”

  Instead of defending my actions, I turn around and bolt out of the living room and up the stairs.

  • • •

  Eric is standing in the room against the dresser when I walk out of the bathroom. I ran up here to take a shower. Needed the water to help soothe my thoughts. Needed to give him time to cool down from his.

  I toss my robe on the bed, grab a T-shirt from my dresser and put it on without a bra. Can feel my husband’s eyes pouring over my body with every move I make. I pull up a pair of boxer shorts before this conversation goes in another direction.

  “Why did you marry me?”

  “I don’t know,” I say too fast.

  Eric tosses a seven-year-old letter in my direction.

  I pick it up, flip it, remove the papers from the envelope with anxiousness as if I don’t know what it says.

  “You knew a lot when you wrote that,” he says, pain etched in his voice.

  I stuff the letter back in the envelope, wishing I could stuff the words back into Neverland just as easily. “It felt like the right thing to do at the time.”

  “The right thing to do?” My husband glares at me, yet his voice holds more intensity than his eyes. “For who? ’Cause the way I see it right now, you’ve messed up life for four people.”

  I think about EJ and Kennedy and how their lives will never be the same.

  “You had a lot to say in that letter, but you’re not saying much of nothing now.”

  It’s obvious to me that the time I took in the shower did nothing to calm his anger. He’s just as mad now as he was when Stevie Wonder was instigating our situation. “What do you want me to say, Eric?”

  “Something. Anything. But don’t sit there and act like a mute.”

  The letter’s still in my hand. I rip it in half without giving it any thought. Get off the bed and toss my feelings in the trash. Should’ve done that years ago. “I’m sorry,” falls from my lips.

  “Sorry won’t give me back the ten years you wasted.”

  “Wasted? Wow.”

  “What else would you call it?”

  “Well, if you hadn’t spent so much time ‘getting to know’ me, it wouldn’t be ten years I wasted.”

  “Obviously, I didn’t get to know you at all.”

  “I’m not going to do this, Eric.”

  He’s leaning on the dresser with his arms folded across his chest. A scowl on his face that would cause the Bloods and Crips to call truce. “You know, I would’ve been able to take being rejected on our first date, but this is beyond comprehension. I would’ve rather you cheated.”

  “Be careful what you wish for.”

  He unfolds his arms, pushes off the dresser. Comes closer to me. “What was that?”

  I step back, go around him. Walk out of our bedroom.

  Adamant footsteps follow me down the hall and down the stairs. “Why. Did. You. Marry. Me?”

  I stop at the bottom of the stairs, turn around and look into his eyes the same way I did as I repeated my vows on our wedding day. “Tell me something. How could you not know I wasn’t happy?”

  He brushes past me, leaves me hanging like a person at the end of a bungee cord.

  I dangle in this emptiness for a moment, not long enough for it to take over, though, and join him in the living room. Fall victim to the sofa’s cushion right along with him.

  Eric moves over to the fireplace, stands in front of a picture we took on our first wedding anniversary. Kennedy was only a month old. “You’ve wasted almost ten years of my life.”

  This time it doesn’t sting as much as it did the first time he said it. “I’m sorry,” is all I can say.

  “That’s not something you can apologize for.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do, Eric? I can’t give you those years back.” Lord knows if I could, I would, because I’ve wasted the same amount of time.

  “I’m not asking you to.” He turns to face me with such fury I feel like I’m in the room with Bruce Lee. “Every day, I put my life on the line for this family. I risk not coming home and leaving my kids without a father, and you without a husband. I put that uniform on knowing I’m making a major sacrifice to keep this family afloat. All this time, I thought it was a mutual effort. Now I see things so differently.”

  We’re here, at this place of no return. I’ve held my tongue long enough, spared everyone’s feelings but my own. “Eric, do you think going to work is enough to keep a home together?”

  “Obviously not. According to your words I’m boring, lack drive, and let’s not forget bad in bed.”

  I open my mouth too quickly, feel my jaw pop. “I didn’t say it like that.”

  “Doesn’t matter how you said it. You said it.”

  He’s right. The truth is the truth, no matter how it’s said. “It’s not like I hadn’t told you those things before, Eric.”

  “Maybe you did, Sydney, but things are a lot different when they’re staring you in the face.” He scratches his hairless face as if visualizing my words makes him itch. “What were you thinking when you wrote the letter?”

  As I rewind time in my head, I sit down on the sofa. Feel like I’ve been on my feet all day. My legs thank me immediately. “You really want to know?”

  “I asked.”

  Now’s my chance to finally tell him how I’ve felt all these years. For some reason, it doesn’t feel right. I twist my wedding ring around my finger several times before my lips move. “I was thinking about how much I wanted out. My feelings were never stable in our relationship. One minute, you’d have me smiling from here to Kansas, the next, I wondered if you even knew me or wanted to be with me. I questioned if I even knew me or knew what I wanted. You made me feel invalid, made me feel confused. Felt like I didn’t have a mind of my own.”

  “Invalid? Wow.” He sits down slowly in the chair by the computer desk like he’s having a bad episode with hemorrhoids. “You never said anything.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve told you that. You never listen, Eric. It’s about how you feel and if you feel like everything’s okay in your world, everything’s okay in the rest of the world. But you’re not in this world alone.”

  “That’s not true. I don’t know how you can say that.”

  “You asked me how I felt. There you have it.”

  Confusion intoxicated with anger stains his face like a cup of cherry Ko
ol-Aid spilled on a white carpet. “I don’t get you.”

  “Bingo.” I clap my hands. “That’s the problem. You stopped getting me after you felt you knew me, but I’ve grown since we first started dating. Hell, I’ve grown since we’ve been married.”

  “I’m not going to let you sit up here and say I don’t listen. I’ve lost count of how many times I set the DVR for your favorite shows, or how I spend time with the kids because I can hear the tiredness in your voice. And let’s not forget the times I rub your feet after you’ve had a long day just by the way you toss your keys on the counter. I do listen, Sydney. Even when you haven’t said anything.”

  He’s right. Damn it, he’s right.

  “I just don’t know what you want from me.”

  I get up from the sofa and stand next to the chair he’s sitting in. I wrap my fingers around his jaw, raise his face up toward mine. Need him to face me, need to see if his irises and tongue speak the same language when I ask the question he diverted earlier. “Did you really think I was happy?”

  He stares at me so long I swear he was born without the need to blink. “No.”

  My hand falls from his face. I lick my lips, then cough. Struggle with what to say. “Does that mean you’ve been unhappy as well?”

  “Yes.”

  I walk back over to the sofa and drop. His one word replies have me feeling like I’ve jumped out of an airplane with no parachute.

  27

  SYDNEY

  We’re staring at the final moments of our marriage.

  We can’t go back to before this moment. Can’t go back to the end of our first date and rewrite our relationship. All we can do from here is face the truth and make changes accordingly.

  I’m not happy.

  He’s not happy.

  Never did I think a confession would boil down to this. Never did I think my husband could possibly feel just as suffocated in this marriage as I have been. All these years, he’s been putting on the same fake smile as me. Neither one of us acknowledging the other’s misery. What kind of man is he? What kind of woman am I?