Quiet Lies

by R. L. Griffin

  “Oh, I thought I would take a break and hang with the kid. I have to head back to work though.” His eyes focus on someone over my shoulder. “Hey Neil, good to see you.”

  “Can you bring Bash home before you head back or do I need to stay?” I ask quietly.

  “You need to stay.” He drops a kiss on my cheek and then turns and jogs back to Bash. “Don’t wait up babe.”

  I won’t, asshole. I smile and wave at his back.

  “He works a lot doesn’t he?” Neil, a dad of one of Bash’s friends, asks as I move back to the bleacher where my bag remains.

  “He does.”

  “I bet Bash loves that he comes to his practice.”

  “He does,” I repeat, already tired of this conversation. I close my eyes and turn my face up to the sun. The wind whips my hair around my face and I pull the scarf up around my chin to ward against the early spring chill. I let my mind dream of the day when I would feel the sun on my face and I’d be free. When my life would be a limitless reality where I could wear what I want, eat what I want and live without a constant pit in my stomach.

  Do you know what it does to a person to walk on eggshells for over a decade?

  It makes you insane, but not in a quantifiable way, but in the way that you focus so much on the minutia you forget the last time you smiled and meant it. You cannot remember the last time you did something because enjoyed it. You fear everything, but you still do it. You check your husband’s email through your phone while he showers. You find yourself following him hoping not to find what you already know. You find out things about yourself that appall you to your very core.

  You’re nervous at any outings at what the other person may say. It only takes one person to realize you live with a chameleon that sells every individual he meets the personality he thinks they want. It degrades your own character when people figure out the tales he spins are lies—what does that make his spouse? Clearly, a liar too.

  But, the charisma, the potential, the fairytale romance—it keeps you trying to hold on to the cracks in your foundation. It keeps you second guessing yourself then you distort your life to accept it.

  I created a fiction where I can live and make sure my son is okay. I welcomed the blinders I developed for myself because the truth was so hideous that when I allowed myself to glimpse into my own soul my hair began to fall out. Literally.

  Tears stain my face and I’m slumped against the wall at the foot of the stairs, an empty bottle of wine next to me, my legs splayed out in front of me. My body is not my own. My mind belongs to someone else. I don’t know how to get them both back.

  My view is the dining room table and the painting that shows a vineyard in Oregon. The greens mix with the brown and taunt me with different shapes. I’m drunk, but not a fun drunk. I’m a sad-my-life-is-ending-so-I’m-going-to-try-to-forget-for-a-few-minutes drunk. Just a few minutes for the alcohol to wipe away the memory of his arm around that girl’s shoulders. A few hours of delirium so that I can pretend that I am enough.

  I run my middle finger through the drop of red wine on the dark hardwood floors that Sebastian loves so much. I want to scratch them, mar them. I want to do anything to ruin what he does love. I’ll ruin her. That little girl who giggled as he touched her hair. I bet he uses the same lines on her he used on me. This is not the first time I’ve been in this position, slumped on the floor because of my husband.

  A chirp causes me to jump and sweep my eyes toward the windows. I watch as Sebastian’s Audi pulls slowly up the drive and the garage door opens.

  Panic overtakes me and my body begins to tremble. I try to calm myself, to remind myself he can’t hurt me anymore. He’s taken all he can from me. A bead of sweat falls down my spine and rolls until it seeps into the cashmere sweater I’m wearing. Then I look up the stairs and realize he hasn’t taken everything. I still have the only thing that matters to me and I vow to myself to claw and scratch and crawl on my hands and knees if I have to in order to get out. I must get out. I must get my five year old son out who looks at his father like he is a god.

  I wipe at my face, jump from the floor and run up the stairs.

  Frantically, I turn the shower knobs and strip my wine stained clothes off. As I step into the shower, so that my hair is thoroughly wet when he opens the door, I lose myself in the song I hum to myself. Ignoring him, I massage my scalp with shampoo. He closes the door. I exhale a breath and watch as all of my tears wash down the drain.

  I’d gone by his office today because the company had changed insurance companies and I was confused by the new requirements. In the neighborhood, I thought maybe I’d pop in with Bash before his nap. The receptionist told me that Sebastian wasn’t there anymore. I was mortified. It was a startup company and Sebastian was supposedly the big dog getting the company off the ground for the owners.

  When I’d asked how long, she told me two weeks. I nodded, trying not to cry. I hold Bash’s hand as we walk out to my new Volkswagen SUV that Sebastian surprised me with last week. He did that when he fucked up, bought me things he thought would make everything better, they never did.

  I saw them in the coffee shop right across from his old office, he was holding her hand. I stayed in my shiny new vehicle and watched them touch each other. I imagined what they were saying to each other. Madness crept into my brain and planted a seed.

  I dry off and wipe the mirror so I can make sure my emotions are carefully buried.

  “I could get used to this,” Sebastian said with a gleam in his eyes as they touched my entire body.

  “Don’t even fucking think about touching me.” My voice was steel.

  It was like a light switch turns off and he steps back.

  “When were you going to tell me you were fired?”

  “What?” His eyebrows raised. “Why would you think I was fired? I took a new position for more money.” This lie is so smooth if it were a few years ago, I would believe him.

  “Why would you not tell me?”

  “Why would I?”He fires back.

  My shoulders slump in anguish. “Because I’m your wife and I should know when you switch jobs Sebastian. I went to your office today and was mortified.”

  “Why would you go to my office?”He misses the entire point of my statement.

  “Your phone was off and I needed some information on the new insurance, I was in the neighborhood.”

  He glares at me, like I did something wrong.

  “Why are you turning this on me like I can’t go see my husband at work? Is it because you were fucking someone at work, like last time?”

  “No.” He shakes his head furiously.

  “Who is she?”

  “No one.”

  “She’s no one with a big rack and brown hair that you hold onto like your life depended on it today at the coffee shop.”

  Blink.

  “Yeah, I fucking saw you. I’m done. We’re done.”

  I push past him and go into the closet.

  “Oh we’re done?” he asks in the voice that makes my blood turn to ice.

  I pull on a set of pajamas.

  “And what will you do Rebecca?”

  “I’m leaving. That’s what,” I answer.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Oh my God, stop it. Stop what you’re doing. I’ve had enough.”

  We stare at each other.

  “You’ve had enough when I tell you its enough. Your car isn’t even in your name. Its mine. I’ll report it stolen.”

  “I’ll take a cab to the airport.”

  “With my child?” His hands fly out in mock emotion. “We’ve gone over that one.”

  I wish… “I’ll figure it out. Rent a car. Drive to my mother’s.”

  “Oh your mother’s? That’s rich. Where will you get the money for that Rebecca?”

  I don’t know. I haven’t thought my plan through all the way.

  “Know this Rebecca, you leave with my son and you will never see him again.”His voice is
pointed and it pierces me in the heart, I’m pushed against the wall and hung there where I can’t move, even if I want to, my feet don’t touch the floor.

  Be careful. I don’t go to church, but I read on the Internet the devil started as an angel. Be careful for men that appear to be too good to be true. Be careful thinking you can be loved.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Promises are the Sweetest Lies

  I used to love dawn. It comes everyday like a new opportunity to make things better. My mom’s third husband, my father, moved us to a small island south of Charleston when I was very young. He would take me out to the water before dawn every weekend he could. He’d bundle me up, pack my bag for the day and we’d drop into the calm of the marsh before the sun made its appearance. I loved him for that. I thought he loved me too.

  Sometimes when the sun emerged from where it’d been buried over night I felt like I was seeing a miracle, the burning sun slumbered under water. I was very young and believed in love and magic and miracles. When the glow touched the Spanish moss that hung on the trees it was like the entire island was ablaze with promise. I used to pretend it was magic that made the sun rise, clawing its way above the water, the rays kissing every part of the earth. I felt invigorated with love, for my dad for taking me to see the magic. He’d ruffle my hair and we’d drink hot chocolate out of mugs.

  Then he left me without a thought to what it’d do to me.

  He’d left without a second glance back at the little girl he helped to create.

  My love wasn’t enough.

  I wasn’t enough.

  I’m never enough.

  Even after my dad left us, I would go to the edge of my world and sit on the broken shells, letting them puncture my skin reminding me that I was alive and wait for the promise. The one we made together. He told me he wouldn’t leave me, but he did. My mother said all men leave. This, I’m afraid, it not entirely accurate, but not quite a lie either. All men left her. I wish a man would leave me. I pray for the day that my man left me.

  I’m cleaning today, it’s Thursday and I clean every week on Thursday. I have a routine everyday, which no longer includes watching the sunrise. There’s no magic and no miracle for me.

  I sleep until the last second in order to get Bash to school on time. I wait out the man that I despise so that he’ll leave and I won’t have to start my morning with another story I create for my own sanity. I have to get all the cleaning done, be a good wife and mother. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but the only part I really care about is the mother part. I don’t want to repeat my mother’s mistakes. She’s now on marriage number six, I don’t see why she even bothers, but she seems to need someone to love her or at least pretend to. That isn’t my problem. Is that delusional? Maybe. I think I needed Sebastian to love me and sometimes I convince myself that he does, or did or something. I desired a love so deep that it would wash all of the black from my soul. It would color every image I see with a rose shade so that I would only see love. That didn’t happen.

  I brush my hair back from my face as I scrape the leftover spaghetti squash from the table where Bash sat last night, ignoring me. He had his iPad on and was online doing something instead of talking to me. This is bad parenting, I’m aware. I’ve spoken with him on this, but we always seem to end up arguing. I don’t want to argue with him. He’s the only person that really matters and he is dead set on not loving me. I want this to be some sort of stage he’s going through because if not, I’m not sure what I’m doing or why I’m doing it or if I can go on. I wipe a stray tear that has rolled down my cheek.

  My life is not what I wanted or it’s exactly what I wanted. I am married to a man that makes enough money so that I can stay home and raise our child. We have a nice home, nice things and from the outside it all looks very...nice, but what it takes to have this illusion is not worth it. The hallucination always ends. I pass my days, waiting for some sign.

  I think I need a new dawn, a promise, something to bring me back to life.

  Sitting at the bottom of my stairs, drunk with despair and red wine I come to several conclusions. Being a mother is harder than I thought it would be. I’d created all these images in my head that are ridiculous when the reality of my life sinks in. While I love the bundle of skin and poop I brought into this world nine months ago, it seems like my days are full of feeding, cleaning poop and trying to soothe a colicky baby. No one told me it’d be this hard, but then again, who would tell me? I have no friends. I’m sick of being here alone where I do everything.

  I blink as I see knees belonging to my husband. This is a dream or deja vu or something.

  “Sebastian.”

  He kneels so that he can look me in the eyes. “You’re drunk.”

  “You’re a cheater. A liar. A ruiner of my dreams.” My voice is dead. There is nothing left.

  He smirks. “What’s going on?”

  “I just…” I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I’ve said so much to him. We’ve had this conversation so many times. “I wish I was enough.” Bold. Honest. Stupid.

  He rubbed his hand over his hair. Then he arranged his face in what he believes to reflect regret, remorse. “Rebecca, you are enough. You’re all I want. I love you so much.”

  “Then why, Sebastian. Why can’t you be what I need you to be? I don’t need much. Fidelity, honesty.”

  “You’re everything to me. You and Bash. You’re everything.”

  In my haze I see a truth in his tears. He’s crying. He wouldn’t cry if he didn’t mean it, if he wasn’t really sorry.

  “I want to believe you,” I acknowledge. He already knows this because he knows I want him to be better, for me not to have invested so much in this relationship for nothing, I don’t want to have to start over.

  “I’m sorry.” He moves closer to me, his forehead on mine.

  “You’re not sorry.” I close my eyes.

  “I am.” His hand comes to my face, caressing it.

  “Stop fucking lying.” My voice raises a bit, but there’s no bite to it. I could have this conversation in my sleep. Maybe I am sleeping.

  “I…”

  “Look, we’ve got to come up with a way to end this. I need this ended.” Same conversation, different day, different week.

  “End this?” His eyebrows raise and he stands up from where he’d been crouching.

  “Sebastian. I just want to take my baby and leave. You don’t even care about him.”

  “Don’t care! He’s everything. He wants to be with me now, not just his mother,” he bellows, shaking me out of my wine induced stupor. “I do everything for you and him. I work my ass off so we can live here. So that we can pay for all the expensive things you buy and the plans you have for him. So that you can traipse around with your Cakebread wine and your $1000 outfits.”

  I let my head hit the wall behind where I sit.

  “You are so busy with Bash you don’t give me attention.”

  “I sucked your dick this morning,” I comment.

  “I need your love, Rebecca. All your love is going to Bash. You’ve forgotten me.”

  Lie. He lies so much I don’t even know if he knows he’s lying.

  He stands up and examines me, trying to figure out the best way to “handle me.” He has handled me so many ways since we’ve been married I don’t even know what to expect. A sigh escapes his lips and he pulls me up by my hands, then throws me over his shoulder and carries me up the stairs.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Rebellious Acts

  I wrap myself in a bath towel that is the color of my mood, my bathroom and my life, gray. Water falls in droplets from my hair and rolls down my shoulders until they are absorbed by the soft fabric that soothes me. I inhale deeply as I examine my features. My face looks the same as it did before, but my eyes are devoid of any life or light. My nose seems bigger than before, but I’m not sure if that is a reality or me distorting my view of myself. The light greenish-blue color looking back at me seem
s foreign. I wonder how long I’ve been vacant from my life. I reach to grab my compact to take a closer look, but my hands fumble and I drop it clumsily. Powder and shards of mirror fly all over the heated beige tiles of my bathroom. I blink.

  “Your eyes are beautiful Rebecca, like, they are excited by everything they see. You want to see my dick?” Sebastian jokes as he sits casually in my class with me.

  The blush across my skin appears so hard and fast there is no chance to hide my embarrassment. I look away from this strange guy that has taken a weird liking to me. I close my eyes as his fingers thread through my hair. Then I feel his breath, hot on my ear.

  “Are you pink like that everywhere?” A warm tongue traces the shell of my ear and I softly moan in response.

  Everything about this exchange is wrong, but hot. We’re in Art in Life class, which is a freshman class, and Sebastian is currently inching up the hem of my sundress. I slap his hand away. He’s a player. I’ve heard all about him and his conquests. He preys on younger girls and makes them fall in love with him. I won’t do that. I’m smarter than that. I’ve done that before and promised myself that I would never do that again, I’m not sure I’d ever be worthy of love. I want love in the worst way, but didn’t want to allow myself to think it was a possibility. Does that even make sense? No. Nothing makes sense anymore except getting a degree in business and creating jewelry. It lets my mind escape and I create beautiful things. I finger the cuff that wraps around my bicep. It’s a mixture of green beads and copper wire in the shape of a tree. That tree, the one that knows all my secrets.

  “Come on beautiful, I took this class two years ago, it’s always the same. You can borrow my notes. Let me take you somewhere. On a date.” His lips graze my cheek as he talks.

  I lean away from him. “No thank you,” I answer. “Can you be quiet? I’m taking notes.”

  I go back to typing on my laptop. The words don’t make sense and I’m surprised I’m not typing Sebastian’s name over and over again. His hand appears on my calf again, this time slowly massaging it. I finally look at him, only being able to make out the outline of his face from the glow of my computer.