Stages of Grace

by Carey Heywood

  I watch the clock more than normal, I used to lament going home but, now I cannot wait. In my mind I think of everything I have not said over the past year. When it’s time to go, I practically fly to my car. Crossing the river, I ask my parents to give me strength. I focus all of my attention on just how angry I am, not wanting to lose any momentum. After parking I race up the stairs. They’re slick as usual so after almost tumbling down them. I take a moment to relax and continue up them with more care.

  After turning the lock, I fling open the door, making Jon jump as he sits in his armchair.

  "What the hell?" he sputters.

  "Yes! What the hell!"

  Jon looks at me like I have grown two heads and doesn’t say anything.

  I slam the door shut and drop my things next to it. I'm pleased that he's still sitting, and I'm standing. It makes me feel bigger than him. I also feel like I need to move around.

  "What happened to the sixty dollars that was in my wallet, Jon?"

  "That's what all of this is about?"

  "Oh, I haven’t even started. Do you admit it? Did you take money out of my wallet?"

  Jon doesn’t say anything, but his whole body is tense, and his fingers are flexing open and shut on the arms of the chair.

  "Since you have nothing to say, I can only assume that, yes, you did take it."

  Jon stands up now. "So you're throwing it in my face that you have money, and I don’t?

  Is that what this is?"

  I was not having it. "Don’t even go there. This is about you taking money without asking.

  That's a big difference, because face it, we have bills to pay that I have to budget for."

  "So I'm like a child getting an allowance. You want to control me."

  "You have got to be freaking kidding me. I'm asking for two adults to have a conversation."

  "Whatever." Jon makes to go pick up the car keys, but I grab them first and hold them behind my back. "Not going to happen. Let me be crystal clear about this. From this moment on, the only time you will be driving my car is when I say so."

  "Is that so?"

  "I'm done."

  "You're done? What the fuck does that mean?"

  "I can't do this anymore."

  "Can't do what? Us? That's real fucking nice after everything we've been through."

  "You don’t even act like you like me. Do you even want to be here?"

  "Can you even understand the amount of stress I'm under?"

  "The stress you're under? The stress you're under? What do you do all day? When was the last time you applied anywhere? I got my head bit off because I sent your resume someplace."

  "I was only mad because you didn’t tell me about it."

  "And how much sense does that make? To get mad at someone for trying to help you?"

  "I don’t have to listen to this." Jon grabs his coat and keys then walks out the door.

  I stand there panting, my chest rising and falling as I breathe out my nose. Finally, speaking up for myself feels so liberating. So why do I feel like crying? The whole exchange had just been so overwhelmingly emotional. For a moment I pity him, out there in the cold. That feeling lasts only long enough for me to remind myself that I have to sit out there in the cold every morning while my car warms up. There is no way I will ever do that again. In fact, I have every intention of being as loud as humanly possible the next morning.

  What if he doesn’t come back? I sit at our small table and wonder how I'll feel if that happens. As angry as I am, I do still love him. It’s clear that I have been denying that there was anything wrong with his behavior for a long time. What scares me about the whole situation is it’s out of my hands to a certain extent. It's Jon who needs to change, not me. Not that I'm innocent. I had knowingly enabled Jon. I thought it would help, but it's clear that it hasn't.

  On the off chance Jon will try and take my wallet or keys, I hide them in a kitchen cabinet where I store my mother's old Kitchenaid mixer. My stomach is too messed up to eat anything. I go back and forth between relief in blowing up to being nervous that I may have gone too far. The adrenaline wears off, and I go to sleep. At some point overnight, I hear Jon come home and climb into bed. When my alarm clock goes off the next morning, I get ready for work. I’m not being loud on purpose, but I’m also not trying to be very quiet either. Part of me stays coiled like a cobra, waiting to strike, willing Jon to say something. He doesn’t.

  It almost feels like a missed opportunity to release more of my pent up aggression on him. There is so much that remains unsaid. Most importantly, him saying he's sorry. Retrieving my keys and wallet from the cabinet, I hurry down the stairs to warm up my car. I loudly come back into the apartment. Jon is either still asleep or pretending to be. If he keeps taking off, we will never fix what’s wrong, and our conversation from last night is not over.

  I’m irritable on my drive in. It's like every person on the road is driving like an idiot. I'm tired of it, tired of everything. I am tired of the cars that pull out even though they see me coming. How do they know I will slow down? What if I don't slow down? I hate the cars that drive five miles under the speed limit until you try to pass them. I hate the cars that don’t use their turn signals. What am I? Psychic?

  I have always been easygoing and mild-mannered, but it’s as though a switch of some sort has been flipped. I have no patience for anyone around me, starting with Jon and now including my co-workers and the patients. I count to ten to control myself more that day than I ever have in my life. By the end of the day, it’s no longer working, and I snap at Nikita for something. The injured look on her face makes me feel awful so I immediately apologize. I have to get a hold of myself. Instead of counting to ten, I start counting backwards from one hundred.

  I feel the pressure of not having to deal with anyone evaporate the second I am in my car. Just like that morning, it seems like the other commuters are purposely trying to aggravate me. I consider road raging on the Lexus that isn’t paying attention and honk my horn to let him know the light has changed to green. Counting from one hundred isn’t working either. By the time I pull into my parking spot, my body is humming with energy. Great time to finish my conversation with Jon. I am actually looking forward to laying into him. Jon is in the kitchen making dinner when I walk in, not in his beloved armchair.

  "Hello, Jon."

  "How was your day?"

  "Just great," I huff sarcastically.

  "Ahhh…"

  "We need to talk."

  "I know."

  He knows? I breathe in and out of my nose, short bursts of air that almost feel heated. It’s nice that he knows and just took off while we were mid conversation yesterday. Is he just going to do the same thing today?

  Jon watches, he hesitates "Grace?"

  Not able to hold myself together, I scream. "I am so mad right now!"

  "Why? Did something happen?"

  Wrong question, mister. "I've been holding everything in for so long about what you have been doing and how you have been making me feel and how ashamed I am at myself that I never said anything. I just let you. I let you put me down, and I felt bad when I annoyed you, and I made myself feel like it was me, like I was the problem. Like if I did something you would be nice again. I did everything I could think of just for you to be nice to me. How sad is that? How pathetic am I? And what did you do? You take my car and go God knows where with God knows who and you dent it. You dented my car! How did that happen? Were you ever going to say anything to me?"

  Jon stares at me open mouthed, his wooden spoon frozen midair since he had been about to stir something on the stovetop. I put my hand on the back of one of the chairs of our small table to hold myself up. I feel short of breath, as though I had spoken that entire stream of words without stopping to breathe. I drop my head to look at the ground while my heart stops thumping. After a couple moments, I look back up at Jon who still looks dumbstruck.

  And there is that feeling again, anger. "Say something!"
/>
  "I…I…I…"

  "You what?"

  "God, Grace. Calm down—"

  I cut him off, bringing up the hand that had been clenching the back of the chair to point at him. "Don’t tell me to calm down. I am so fucking sick of your shit."

  I was never much of a cusser. In fact, that’s part of the reason it really bothers me when Jon cusses at me. Jon looks dazed as he raises both hands, palms out. I lower my hand and pace randomly around our front room. I want to hit something. I come close to punching the wall but do not want to hurt my hand or have to explain any damage to the landlord. Jon takes whatever he is cooking off the stove and follows me into the front room. I look out the window to the courtyard below. Jon is standing a few feet to my side.

  Keeping my body facing the window, I look at him out of the corner of my eyes. "You talk."

  Jon sits in his armchair. He drops his head into his hands and runs his fingers through his hair, shaking his head and nervously tapping one foot. He looks over at me a couple of times, trying to meet my gaze, but I keep my eyes on a small bird sitting on the back of a bench. While I wait for Jon to speak, I wonder how the little bird is faring out in the cold. Part of me wants to rush outside to save it. Instead, I watch as it flies somewhere out of sight. Jon still hasn’t said anything so I clear my throat as I wait for him to get to it.

  He sighs before straightening back up. "I'll admit I've made some mistakes."

  I mouth the word “some.”

  "I just am under so much stress, and yes, I may not have handled it well."

  I mouth the word “may.”

  "I just don’t know how to deal with this and…"

  He seems to have lost his train of thought at that point so I turn, crossing my arms over my chest. "You may have made some mistakes? Do you really feel that way? Please, by all means, tell me what you have been doing otherwise, and I'd still really love to hear what happened to my car."

  Jon stands, moving closer to me and tells me that the night the dent happened he had been over at someone’s house. I don’t recognize the name. Another person there that night had backed into my car as they were leaving. Since the damage had been minimal, he had told the girl not to worry about it. Girl, I thought. Interesting.

  "It was really thoughtful of you to not be worried about the dent in my car that I'm going to have to pay money for at some point to get fixed."

  "If it's that big of a deal I'll pay to have it fixed—" he begins.

  I have to stop him, incredulous. "With what money, Jon?"

  He shrugs. Thought so. As he stands there, I look at him as if it’s for the first time. He seems almost smaller, with his shoulders pulled inward. I am repulsed. I sink down onto the sofa and turn away from him. Jon stays where he is, as if waiting for me to tell him what to do next. All I can think is: do I still love him? This is unexpected. Needing space from Jon, I tell him I'm not hungry and just need to lie down. I avoid touching him as I squeeze past him and go to our room.

  I place my car keys and purse in an empty shoebox on the floor of the closet, still not trusting Jon. Then I change into pajamas and stretch out on our bed. I don’t mean to fall asleep but am so drained from the day that I have little choice. An hour before my alarm normally goes off, I wake up starving. I feel guilty for a moment when I see the leftovers from the meal Jon had made the night before in the fridge. Then I remember the cinnamon rolls I had made, and the mess I had to clean up. Yep, no longer feeling guilty.

  I make myself scrambled eggs and toast, washing them down with milk. Then I go back into our room to turn off my alarm before getting ready for work like normal. This morning, I put on make-up. Not much, just concealer under my eyes and mascara. I also braid my hair instead of pulling it back into my usual tight bun. I want to feel good about myself again. It amazes me how now, even though I am no longer taking extreme care to be quiet, that Jon has not said one word. All of those times he had railed at me in the past seem to be a lie now.

  On my drive into work, I spend more time thinking about Jon's behavior over the last year. It’s almost clear to me that he was trying to make me feel bad about myself. Did it have something to do with control? I just cannot understand the thought process behind doing that to someone you loved. For so long I had absolved Jon of any responsibility in my unhappiness. Now I wonder if he is the main cause of it.

  At work, I do my best to remain calm with everyone I work with. It‘s easier than the day before even though there are some close moments where I think about snapping. Once is at lunch. I’m reading a book as I sit in the break room. Two of the nurses who work in my office hover in the doorway and gossip. Can’t they see I am on break? And reading? How inconsiderate. The counting backwards by ones is not working so I start counting backwards, this time by sevens. One hundred, ninety-three, eighty-six, seventy-eight, no, nine, seventy-two…

  This way, I avoid having any reasons to talk to human resources. I need this job and am not going to let my bad mood affect it. I have never been this angry for this long, and I’m not certain how to make the feeling go away. I assumed laying into Jon would have worked, but if anything, now that I’ve unleashed on him a couple times, it’s made it harder not to do that every time I’m around him. There is no way I want to emulate the way he has treated me so I do my best to keep most of my possible outbursts to myself.

  I’m not successful all of the time. One weekend morning, after Jon finishes his breakfast, he puts the plate and silverware in the sink without washing them. I am sitting on the sofa watching TV when I see him do this and explode. I ask if he assumed that I am his maid and that he had another thing coming if he actually thinks I will clean up after him ever again. In fact, I go on that he should be cleaning up after me as a way to pull his own weight. Once he is done with his dishes, he can go ahead and take care of the laundry. Downstairs, of course. I still do not trust Jon with my car keys.

  Even though there is an improvement in our relationship, it seems false. When I get home from work, Jon tells me about all of the places he applied. I never check, but I always wonder if he is lying, or at the least exaggerating. A few times, Jon attempts to initiate intimacy between us. I kiss him but nothing more. I cannot get that image of him in our front room with his shoulders shrugged inward out of my mind. It repulsed me then and still does now. Jon does not press me, though, which I am grateful for and concerned about all at the same time.

  I'm still angry. I have counted backwards by sevens so many times I now have the numbers memorized and need to start using a different number: eleven. I become hyper aware of wherever Jon is in relation to me in our apartment. If we are both in the front room watching TV, I can feel myself becoming annoyed at the way he is breathing. Why does he have to breathe so loudly? Is he congested? God, that noise! Why doesn’t he just blow his nose? And the way he walks around the apartment. Does he have to walk on his heels? Yet, if he walks quietly, I get equally annoyed, wondering if he’s doing it on purpose to sneak up on me.

  While Jon is no longer snapping at me, I feel no renewed affection for him. I no longer feel like my head will be bitten off out of nowhere but we do not feel like a couple either. We still sleep in the same bed, but we go to sleep at different times, so we aren’t ever both in bed and awake at the same time. Even around the apartment we seem to gravitate away from each other. I wonder if the only reason Jon is even still there is because he has nowhere else to go. That’s not true, though. He could always move back home or since Jon has always been everyone's best friend he probably has plenty of people that would let him stay with them. What is keeping him here? Is it me?

  I am not sure if I love him anymore. I am also sure that we will never go back to what we were. Too much has happened since then. Depending on my mood, I consider asking him to leave, but the idea of being all alone scares me. We have been together for over three years, and most of that had been good. I drive back and forth from work trying to decide what to do over and over again. I imagine the free
dom of no longer supporting Jon, of being single again. What stops me is basically how unconfrontational I am. Those blow-ups with Jon had been nurtured within me for a year.

  I had finally admitted I was angry and wasn’t going to allow Jon to kick me around anymore. Considering how long it finally took me to stand up for myself, how long will it take me to build up the courage to ask him to leave? We basically ignore the holidays this year. No decorations, no parties, no gifts. I am thrilled when it’s all over. It’s pointless to pretend to be happy. But if I’m not going to leave Jon, this will be my new life. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days like this but am hesitant about changing anything. I keep most of what I am feeling inside. Some days I feel really nostalgic, reminiscing over happier days. This feeling usually goes one of two ways; sadness over what we have lost and anger that we allowed it to happen in the first place.

  It’s so strange to look at Jon when I think about the days I was so madly in love with him. I still remember so vividly how just the sight of him could make my heart beat wildly in my chest. It is so different now when I look at him. Jon is softer around the waist. Sitting around the apartment did that to him. He never smiles anymore, and his eyes, which had once been so captivating, are dull now. Sometimes I try to imagine the last year from his perspective. I can just never understand why if he had been hurting emotionally instead of coming to me for help he had chosen to instead intimidate me.

  It’s difficult for me to feel sympathetic towards him when his cruel actions and indifference are still so fresh in my mind. I cannot imagine him touching me romantically again. One day we are both in the kitchen at the same time, and his hand accidentally almost brushes against mine. I jerk my hand back and clutch it to my chest as though the contact had burned me. I do not feel sorrow when I see his wounded reaction. He made me this way. Jon keeps a careful distance after that.