by Nicky Webber
While they watched television, Maddy flipped open her cell phone and checked her emails. This time, without hesitation, she took the risk and read it while Fred consumed some sports channel.
My Dearest Mitch,
How can you say that? Being connected to you is better than sex! Well, almost, unless it involves drinking single malt!
You know I’ve always loved you? I loved you from the first time I saw you all those years ago. I know you had to put up with the awkward fumbling of a teenager back then, but I’ve always loved you.
Sending good decorating forces. Tell Fred to lift his game!
Logyxx
CHAPTER 16
Pull Yourself Together
Maddy drew in a deep breath and held it, her heart pounding. Is this an anxiety attack? Trying to slow her breathing, she counts backwards from one hundred, attempting to calm herself down. Where are her wonderful memories? She forces her imagination to resurrect a happier time, a distraction when they were laughing over a glass of wine. Sifting through holidays and shared times together were illusive. Her present state acts like a magnet, drawing her back, disturbing her fragmented thoughts. Is losing her grip on her own thinking and self-control her new norm?
NO. Maddy repeats the word over and over. Silence. Mental blackness. Thick, bold letters. She can see them and breathes in NO and out to NO. Gradually, the word YES dominates her thoughts. She allows her mind to run through a series of lovely YES experiences. Yes, to Mila, yes to Fred, yes to Logan. Logan. There are things she has not told him and much more she has not told her own husband. Withholding details makes her a liar.
She pictures enjoying a drink with Logan and laughing at one another’s stories. She sees herself telling him how much she loves him too, how much she has always liked him. Maybe there is some way, some less disruptive way where she could enjoy both men? She loves Fred too and accepts his emotional limitations. Living with him for over twenty years confirms her suspicions about him. She flips the idea over and back again. How could they all live in love with one another without crushing hope and destroying the trust they already share? She hates herself for her deception, but the alternative is to break the entire friendship and marriage. Withholding details is her survival plan for the emotional good of them all. It seems unfair, but then life is often unfair. She knew if any of this got out, both families would face horrendous consequences.
Dearest Mitch,
It singularly impressed me that you beat two elderly people in the adjacent swim lanes. Well done you! Beating a man of 85 doing laps is no mean feat, and I remain as always impressed. It will be the Olympics next!
A pity our love can never eventuate, much like our disparate lives together.
I think of you often, but bittersweet memories are not much to count on for a lifetime. What is to become of us? Whatever happens, know that I Love you always.
As you already know, dear heart, sent with love.
Logyxxxxxxx
The following Saturday, Fred suggests a forest walk. Maddy relishes the thought of walking together, imagining a romantic stroll amongst the beautiful trees as they chat and laugh together. She grew up in a small timber town outside Oregon and spent her childhood hiking with her father and grandfather through the giant Redwood forests nearby. The local timber mill was the center of everyone’s lives, and she easily connected with a sense of calmness when walking amongst trees.
The forest imparts security and peace into Maddy’s spirit. For Maddy, the walk will be an emotional cleansing where she can pull her body and mind back into a happy balance. She delights in the planned morning walk amongst the tall, graceful Pines and can already smell the scent of the forest long before they leave home.
After finishing breakfast, they pile into the car. The kids, now teenagers, have their own arrangements with friends over weekends, and the house is almost perpetually silent now. Their laughter and constant chatter, loud music and occasional bickering have vanished. Instead of constant noise, only silence fills the gaps between Fred and Maddy.
They set off early to get ahead of other sightseers, heading for the Western gate of the Deukmejian Wilderness Park, north of LA. The terrain is drier than Maddy’s hometown, with vast open spaces of yellowing grassland and low shrubs. The trail often meanders between rocky outcrops and open scrubland with the hard, gritty path being easy to navigate. Fred likes the area with its stone buildings and expansive scenery, reminding him of Italy, where he had beaten Logan on some of their favorite online cycling tracks.
After hiking for an hour in silence, they are now deep in the sparse forest. They trudge on wordlessly, Maddy walking a few feet behind her husband, trying to keep up with his longer stride and determined gait, wanting to be the winner in the race of life. It’s no surprise Fred, being always competitive, is still trying to be the winner during a Sunday recreational walk.
‘How are you?’ Fred suddenly swings around to face her.
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, why?’ he says, frowning.
‘In all these years, you have never asked me how I am. Why start now?’
‘I’ve been a bit cunty lately,’ he says, his eyes looking down at the dry ground.
‘I didn’t even notice,’ she lies, smiling inwardly and gazing at the surroundings. She knows there is nothing gained in discussing innate traits. Elements of their distinct personalities will never change.
Maddy traverses Fred’s terms of engagement, to keep the peace and calm rhythm of their shared life. She has already committed to acceptance. For her, life is an uneasy tolerance, contained within moments of gratification and happiness that flashes like shutters opening to the light, reminding her that Fred still loves her and therefore she loves him. A secure, comforting, dependable love, always reliable in all ways. He would never run off with another woman, didn’t need constant ego stroking or attention. It was easy somehow to be some hybrid cross between a wife, brother, and house-mate. It took less emotional energy than, say, Jess’s situation. She felt grateful for his predictable stability.
They trudge west, deeper and deeper, into the darkening woods. There is no one else around, no parked vehicles, no hikers, just the two of them. The fully grown pines sway gently in the dawn light as the sun rises above the hills beyond. Maddy is returning home, a refuge of comfort imparted by the mature trees. She gazes up to the sky, small fragments of gray cloud with splashes of blue, the treetops gently dancing with the Pine smell invading her senses. She is home. This is not the case for Fred. He strides ahead, hands jammed in his pockets, a black beanie pulled down, almost obscuring his eyes, stalks ahead at quite a pace.
Maddy spots a group of large bright orange toadstools and calls out to him. ‘Look at these.’
He stops, turning his head to see.
‘Aren’t they a gorgeous bright color?’ she asks, not expecting an answer.
‘Don’t say I never take you anywhere,’ he jokes and turns, striding off with determination on his inconsequential mission. If she didn’t know him, she would swear he disliked her and was completely uninterested in her, in every way. But this was Fred, always anxiously rushing off to the next fork in the road of life.
She holds her cell phone up and takes several photos, only realizing when finished that Fred has marched off out of sight. She clambers over a fallen tree trunk and walks back onto the dirt track, delighted with the ethereal-looking photos she had taken. Tall, sturdy trees rise from the undergrowth, fragments of pale early morning mist rise from the river and shafts of the sunlight pierce the magnificent forest undergrowth. She smells the damp earthy richness of the ground, as the faint scent of leaves and living forest makes her smile. The contrast between soft and firm and light creates a beautiful image, reinforcing her sense of being alive. She looks ahead and sees Fred’s silhouette barreling along a ridge in the distance.
So much for a romantic walk in the forest. As per usual, he hasn’t even bothered to hold her hand. Why is she surprised by th
is? This is his default setting, his factory calibration, every time they walk together. She has tried to re-program him and went through a phase of reaching for his hand when they crossed a busy road together. Once on the other side, he would turn to her and grimace, his eyes signaling the hand grip was an embarrassment. Or did he just feel awkward somehow? She felt like his domestic servant, his house-mate or even the brother. They discuss science, cars, his work and mowing the lawn and endlessly about cycling tours and sprockets. Both Mila and Maddy have taken to rolling their eyes and groaning over shared meals when the four of them are together, attempting to penetrate hard statistics with gentle humor. ‘NO not sprockets AGAIN!’ The giggling women plead in unison.
None of these things interest her, but she listens and makes the right noises, to feel closer to him. She always hopes when they walk together, when no one else is around, he will reach out for her hand, but he never does. He really doesn’t need her at all. He carries on regardless, his life little changed without her in it. She is a necessary burden. Once he joked about getting a new one, a replacement. ‘Throw her back and get another one!’
She stops to take a few more photos of the gently swaying Pines with shafts of sunlight slicing through the rigid lines of their tall, dark trunks. After about thirty minutes, she has lost Fred altogether but remains unconcerned until she arrives at a fork in the track. Which way has he gone? She shouts, calling his name twice. Nothing. It’s damn irritating. Now more palaver on top of the way, he annoyed her on the drive over by turning the air conditioning on in the car when he knew she hated it.
She distracts her uneasiness at being alone in the dense bush, by thinking about reality in the forest. ‘If you pee in the woods and no one hears you or even sees you, does it mean you didn’t pee at all?’ She chuckles as she squats down between a wide old tree trunk and a clump of dense shrubs. Not even God could see her here. Once relieved, she will focus on figuring out where to go. After all the photos she has taken, her cell phone’s battery is dead, so there is no way to text him.
Maddy guesses it’s about forty minutes since Fred had disappeared and estimates he could be about two or three miles away. She walks another mile. Her feet and head are aching. Standing still for a few moments, Maddy listens to the air. Could she detect his familiar footfall? Maybe she should just stay where she is? That’s what all the outdoor survival experts say. Stop moving and just stay in one place. Surely at some point he will turn around and realize she isn’t behind him? She often jokes with Mila that if she vanished from the face of the earth, it would take Fred at least seven days to notice she was missing. The accumulation of dishes in the kitchen sink and dirty clothes spilling out of the laundry basket would alert him to the fact that she was MIA.
She scans the forest. It is a massive park reserve, acres, and acres of tall trees hugging the wild, rugged terrain. Dark thoughts of being lost creep into her mind. Suddenly a flicker of fear turns into deep unease. Tourists get lost in the woods and mountains and airlifted out, or worse, zipped up in a body bag, if they find them.
There were locals who recently separated on a hike, and one of them raised the alarm when the other didn’t return to the car park. Lost hikers often emerge with a rescue team, looking sheepish. Does a forest know if it loses a hiker? Can the trees determine from the lost hikers level of embarrassment during television interviews, if they are morons? Hell yeah. They’ll never live it down. That’s the last thing Maddy wants to face, acute humiliation by social media. She glances around again, and the forest still looks the same. Maddy is certain she has already been here before. Had she hiked in a complete circle? Rising fear dominates her immediate thoughts.
She must get herself together and figure out the best way out. How the hell would she know? She glances in the direction she has come from, but already knows it’s too far to walk back. It’s been two hours of walking now, and while she still has plenty of daylight, she needs to work out the right direction. Exhausted, Maddy worries she’s further away from the point of entry, along the forestry dirt road, than she first thought.
To save time and effort, she takes a narrow track slicing through the forest towards the south-east where the roadway meanders over the distant wooded hills. Trees can be deceptive. She runs through her logic again, knowing the risk of scrambling her sense of direction and messing with her anxious mind. The last thing she needs right now is to circle back to the same spot.
She arrives at the end of the smaller track, which she hopes will connect back onto the main dirt trail heading towards the entryway. As she looks up in the distance, she sees Fred walking towards her. She nearly bursts into tears. He just didn’t care about her. That much was obvious.
‘What the hell have you been doing?’ are the first words out of his mouth.
‘Taking photos,’ she says in a small compliant voice, and they both remain quiet.
There is more silence between them in the car on the way home. She is too pale and drained to speak. Sick and relieved, Maddy knows it’s pointless to say anything to him. He would scoff at her fear and roll his eyes at her anxiety. After about twenty minutes, he expresses a little remorse and asks if she wants him to pick up some cake for afternoon tea, on the drive home.
‘No thanks,’ she replies.
‘What’s up?’ he asks.
‘Nothing, I’m just tired.’
‘Is this a molehill parading like a mountain?’ he asks.
Maddy doesn’t have the energy or the will for any kind of confrontation. Her anger is red hot, but the effort of expressing it is too much. She will climb into the quiet comfort of her bed and sleep it off after lunch. She knows this will also pass and everything will fall back into the quiet, normal flat-earth, flat-life they share.
CHAPTER 17
Life for the Living
Mila is halfway through sipping a glass of homemade Limoncello. She believes the pale golden liquid is the divine nectar of the gods. She privately celebrates surviving five months of rigorous chemotherapy. Weak and broken, but in her heart and soul, Mila knows she will survive. Her head has stopped pounding, the sharp knife-blade sensation stabbing her left eye has dissipated. Mila understands clearly now that her hair follicles have stopped painfully prickling her scalp. Every follicle was painful to touch. So much so, she had given up combing her hair. Most of it had fallen out anyway, but the weight of the short-haired wig was too much to bear as it constantly irritated her reddened scalp.
Sometimes even a colorful silk scarf is too much to take against her skin, so she stays indoors in bed and uses painkillers, escaping into the drugged abyss of a narcotic sleep. Skin irritations and rashes drove her body wild and her mind into a molar-grinding descent into hell. But today her breathing is calm and even, not tight and painful anymore. Her eyes no longer burn, and she doesn’t have a desperate desire to climb into bed and stay there for a week. Yes, she is alive and grateful. Very lucky. ‘Yes, I’m thankful and blessed,’ she repeats, looking forward to a renewed contract with life.
She didn’t want to dwell on the months of stress, pain, vomiting, trauma, and sleeplessness. Remission from cancer convinces Mila it is over, except for a few pills she has to take for three more months. She glances down at the golden limoncello in her shot-glass. Maybe it’s too strong to consume with the medications? She tips it into one of Logan’s whiskey glasses and loads it with ice cubes. The clinking sound makes her smile, evoking summer evenings and laughter from many memories the two families happily shared over the years.
She adds a slosh of ice water and swirls the drink around with her index finger, sucking the excess before taking another sip. It still holds its yellow glow with the palatable promise of good things. Reassured that the watered-down concoction won’t interfere with the dregs of Mila’s chemotherapy and estrogen suppressants mingling inside her weakened body. With that, she takes another delicate mouthful, carefully rolling it around her sore gums.
Maybe she shouldn’t celebrate at all, preferring
to wait another six weeks and be sure after the last blood tests. Determined to show death the back door, Mila remains vigorous in her nose-snubbing disregard for her statistical chances. Life and fun will resume even if Logan arrives home now, catching her red-handed and angrily accusing her of insurrection and lunacy in the face of the medical facts. She looks up at the kitchen clock hanging on the wall near the dining table. He will be home in an hour. Mila connects her cell phone to her UE Boom. One touch on her phone and the room expands with the easy, musical rhythms she loves.
Reheated leftovers for dinner tonight. But she doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She’s alive and feeling free. Mila takes another sip and places the glass on a small wooden side table, before stretching herself out along the three-seater floral sofa in the open plan living room. She closes her eyes, smiling and peaceful. Within moments, she is in submerged in a comforting sleep.
Mila awakes with a start, but can’t determine the reason for the sudden jolt. After a few alert seconds, she slumps back onto the soft sofa cushions with her feet up over the opposite armrest. She glazes at the half shot-glass of Limoncello on the small table and knows she’s had enough. Her mouth and the rest of her wayward body can’t take any more. It’s late afternoon, and she wearily sits up, checking her cell phone. It’s nearly six and Logan isn’t home. She checks her messages, but there’s nothing. Where is he?
Within weeks of returning home to California, Mila felt as if she had never lived overseas in New Zealand. Someone else’s life had taken over, and now she had slotted back into the same groove she had escaped from five long years ago. She had cut that chapter out and picked up where her original life left off and simply carried on.
One day in the supermarket an acquaintance waved at her, pushing her shopping cart towards Mila.