by Carr, Suzie
“Your old self.”
“My old self?”
“The Jessica I fell in love with.”
She feathered my cheek with the backside of her hand. “I don’t think so, Butterfly. I don’t know if I’ll get back to that person again.”
I cupped her hand to my face. “Sure you will.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
I pressed her hand against my face even harder. “Don’t be silly. We’ll get back to where we used to be.”
She blinked heavily. “I’ve certainly missed this sweet side of you.” Her eyes sunk lower than usual. I still tried to adjust to her dark circles from the stress and wear and tear of prison life. Her cheeks also sat sullen on her face like two sore pockets that once housed life. She no longer shined like the Burlesque star she used to be. Now in its former shiny place, sat a woman who looked older and more serious.
She folded her hands in her lap and looked around. She stopped on our wedding picture hanging above the fireplace mantle. She studied it, squinting at times and stretching one corner of her mouth up in a half smile. “I was definitely a wild person back then.”
“Crazy wild.” I cradled her wrist, and she shivered. “Are you cold?”
She shivered again. “I’m okay.”
I plucked up the afghan behind us and curled it around her. “Better?”
“You’re mothering me.” She laid her head back against the suede and glanced at me with the lightest smile.
“I just want you to be comfortable.” I patted her shoulders. “So what were you thinking of when looking at our wedding picture?” I cuddled in closer, forcing her arm to brush against mine.
She hugged herself, staring up at the portrait of us under an archway, smiling, dreamy-eyed, love pouring out of us and reflecting back at the camera. “Back then we had the whole world in front of us,” she said.
“We still do.” I nudged her. “We still have that great big world out there in front of us.” A sinking truth of all I just gained and lost shrouded me. I fought past it, intent on staying true, on being a good wife again, on fixing her broken spirit. She needed me. “We can do anything with our life.”
“You are such a good person,” she said, admiring me. “I wish I could be the same for you again.”
I softened my gaze, cupped her face in my hands, and spoon-fed love into her sad eyes. “What happened was a mistake. We’re going to get past it. You are still a good person.” I bore my eyes into hers. “Do you understand me? You are still a good person.”
She gulped back tears and nodded.
I wiped them as they fell not taking my eyes off of her. In her eyes I saw fear. She needed me more than ever. I would heal her. I would help make her whole again.
Tears fell onto the afghan. “I’m not the same person.”
“It’s okay. We’ll get you there again.”
“I don’t want to be, Nadia.”
“Shh.” I pulled her into my arms. “You have every right to be scared.” We rocked back and forth amidst a weighty responsibility that shook my core.
She pulled away. “I’ve set up an appointment with the priest at the church around the corner for tomorrow. I’m going to start there and see if he can help me get rid of some of these bad feelings.”
I poured more love into her desperate eyes, hungry to erase this grime from our lives and get back to laughing, sex, and pure Jessica-style fun. “Do you really need a priest?”
She leaned into me, rested her head against my chest. “He’s already been to the prison to meet with me several times. I definitely know he can help me transition back to normal life.”
Suddenly, as if the ground slipped away, I tumbled into unknown territory. How did I let her slip so far from my reach? I should’ve visited her more. I should’ve smiled more. I should’ve told her I loved her more. I shouldn’t have been so selfish and scared. She needed me, and I turned away. And now she trusted a stranger of a priest more than her wife.
“Maybe I should be there with you.”
She shook her head. “No. I need to do this part on my own.”
The invisible cloak of reality tossed itself on top of us, dimming the light needed to sustain love, trust, and interdependence. I needed to stop thinking about Ruby, about The Rafters, about Rhode Island, and to start focusing back on this life that needed me, this life to which I had vowed my commitment.
* *
I insisted on going with her to see the priest. We sat before a tall, dark-haired man with a reserved smile and a softness to his cheeks that placed me in comfort.
He opened up the talk with a prayer. Jessica and he bowed their heads and surrendered to God. Meanwhile my cell buzzed, and I jumped to silence it. Ruby had texted me. “Just wanted to see how everything is going.”
A smile sneaked onto my face, the likes of which should never be present during a solemn moment. I turned off my phone and bowed my head, reciting The Lord’s Prayer along with them.
For the next thirty minutes, we sat there listening to Jessica confess her feelings. “I don’t feel like I deserve good things to enter my life anymore.”
“God has forgiven you already. You need to place your trust in Him, and do the same for yourself. If He has forgiven you, you can’t question that by refusing to forgive yourself.”
“I killed a woman. I robbed her of a lifetime. How do I forget that and pretend life is rosy?”
“Forgiving doesn’t mean you forget. You must learn by this experience and be guided by this experience. God doesn’t want you to live a life where you are inflicting resentment and guilt into the gift of each new day. He wants you to remember what happened and honor the experience by learning from it. He also wants you to pass these lessons onto others.”
Jessica wobbled her head side-to-side. “This was so much easier to grasp in prison.”
The priest nodded. “God is with you. He will get you through this.”
Later on, I cooked us dinner. “Can you pass me the soy sauce from the cupboard?”
She opened it and rummaged through. “We need to reorganize this stuff.” She picked up a jar of Thai red curry and squinted at the label. “This expired a year ago.” She laughed and continued to search for the soy sauce. “Butterfly?”
I turned to her. She held up a bottle of Nyquil cold medicine. “We can’t have this around anymore.” Fear danced on her face again.
I stopped stirring my veggies. “Why not?”
“This contains alcohol.”
“So? It’s cold medicine.”
“I’m an alcoholic.”
The room spun around me, swallowing me up. Her words strung out in front of me, slapping me with a cold hard fist. “Don’t say that.”
“I am though.”
It hurt to hear her admit defeat. My Jessica, the fun-loving, goofy woman who could turn a funeral into a party, needed to reclaim her strength. “You’re too strong of a woman to label yourself that way.”
She flung the expired bottle of curry sauce across the room. Red paste splattered across the cream granite. “Stop. Will you please just stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop trying to save me from myself. I feel this pressure from you. Like if I don’t snap back to the person I was before all of this, you’re not going to love me. I’m okay with being an alcoholic. I’m okay with seeking outside help. I’m okay with having to change myself to better suit the condition. But you’re not.”
I flung the wooden spatula across the room now, too. “But you do need saving. Look at you.” I waved my arms in the air. “You are walking around this place looking like you’ve got a death sentence hanging over your head. You haven’t smiled in days. You’ve shown no signs of gratitude for everything I’ve put up with over the past two years. You look like you’re about ready to burst into tears every other second. You need saving. And I’m at my wits end. I don’t know how else to make you feel good. Everything I say you balk at.”
Our chests heaved up and d
own. We panted like a couple of greyhound dogs at the end of a wild sprint.
“I’m weak right now. What can I say?” Her chin quivered. “I just need some time to find myself again, Nadia.”
The instinct to save her pulled at me again. “You’re not the weak one,” I whispered.
She walked over to the splattered curry and knelt down. “We’ve got quite a mess here.”
I joined her. I placed my hand on her thigh and stared at the mess. “Nothing we can’t clean up.”
* *
That night after I tucked Jessica into bed, I drew a hot bath. I sneaked in my bottle of white wine from the basement stash and turned on some classical music. I lay back against my bath pillow and thought of Ruby, of her long blonde hair, of her soft fingers on my skin, of her gentle smile. After drinking two glasses, I caved and called her.
“Hey, darling,” she said.
Her voice wrapped itself around my heart and instantly melted me. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Everything okay?” Ruby asked.
“It’s okay, yes. I just missed hearing your voice,” I said. “Are you doing okay?”
“I’m doing fantastic. How’s the wifey?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to hear her soothing voice instead. “She’s fine.” God, I missed her. I missed everything about her. I missed her smell, her hair, the feel of her fingers on my skin, the passion in her eye, the tease on her lips. Like an addict myself, I reached out for a fix. “Do you miss me as much as I miss you right now?”
“Darling?” Ruby’s tone carried the weight of many sandbags. “I really wish I could talk right now, but the truth is, I’m on a date, and we’re getting ready to take off for a nighttime flight up to Maine.”
My spirit burst, emptying the air from my lungs. “A date? Who is she?”
“She’s a client.” She lifted her voice in sing-song fashion. I could just picture her staring into the eyes of a beautiful woman, willing for me to hang up so she could get on with her exciting plans. “She flies a Cessna and wants to show me the nighttime sky. We’re going to eat lobster and fly back. Isn’t that so cool? Flying to Maine for lobster. Ha. Now that’s a first for me.”
My head buzzed. My heart ached. I gulped more wine. “Have a good time.”
“Thanks, darling. I’ll call you in a few days, and we’ll catch up. Until then, take care of yourself and enjoy the time with your wife.”
“Thanks. Will do.”
“Bye!” she said.
The click echoed a finality that splintered me.
* *
I obsessed over Ruby all night long, imagining her forgetting all about me. Maybe this new woman would be the one to finally settle her. Maybe she’d travel across the interstate to western Massachusetts with Shawna and Grampa, singing Billy Joel tunes, and admiring the view of maple trees and the smell of hot apple cider. Maybe she’d be the lucky one who got to lay in bed under the comforters, hugging Ruby and cradling her curves. Maybe she’d be the one who got to massage Ruby under a stream of hot, steamy water as Ruby orgasmed in her arms.
I couldn’t take it. I needed to see her. I needed to make sure she didn’t forget me. I didn’t want to blend into the background and fade away as that woman she once enjoyed time with and needed once upon a time.
The next morning, Jessica sneaked up behind me and nuzzled up to my neck. “You know what I could really go for right now?”
I sensed her need. “A latte from Starbucks?”
She moaned and rocked her hips against me. “What do you say?”
Jessica needed me. That should have been all that mattered. I needed Ruby out of my mind. So, I led her up the stairs to our bedroom and undressed her one button at a time. She peeled off my blouse. I dropped her pajama bottoms. She wrestled with my skirt. I wrangled with her hair, pushing it out of the way so I could kiss her neck.
I went through the motions, dragging my tongue along her skin, along her collar bone, down to her nipples. She swayed under my touch. I traveled down her belly to her vagina and nibbled on it the way she loved. She grabbed onto my shoulders and dug into them, groaning, urging me to suck on it. “Harder. Press harder.”
I did as told, feeding my wife something she hadn’t indulged in since the night before the accident. She moaned and bucked and screamed out in spastic grunts, digging into my shoulders and claiming me in her thrusts. “Oh Butterfly, you are incredible,” she yelled out. “You know just how to please me. I missed your tongue more than I could ever tell you.” She panted and tossed herself back on the bed. “No one can ever come close to what you just did.”
I rose and crawled up beside her. “So the women in jail couldn’t match me on this delivery?” I joked.
She reached down and fingered herself then placed her fingers in my mouth. “Not even close.”
I pulled her fingers away. “Wait? So, other women tried?”
Her eyes widened, recognition for her grave mistake splintered across her cheeks. She flung her arms out to the side. “I can’t even joke around correctly anymore.”
“You call that a joke?” I exhaled. “That is not a good joke.”
Her face wilted. “I’m sorry, I guess I just lost my timing a little.” She shrugged and looked down to the comforter. “I’m just full of disappointment.”
“What?” I lifted her chin. “Why would you say such a thing?”
Her eyes held defeat. Her confidence no longer there. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just…” She fidgeted with a string. “I just don’t feel like the same person anymore. I honestly don’t know how you are going to love this new me.”
I stared into her weakened eyes. I wanted my confident, sexy Jessica to appear. “Seduce me. Come on. Just forget everything else and seduce me.”
She inhaled, rolled me over onto my back and straddled me. Then, she began her descent down on me. Each movement methodical and planned, mentally scrutinized. She planted kisses robotically on my inner thighs, ducking in between my legs as if performing a serious procedure. I lay back against our bed, imprisoned by her reluctance, gutted in thoughts of a gynecologic exam rather than a hot and steamy sexual encounter. Her tongue had lost its will, its pressure, and its power since the last time she’d gone down on me. I pushed her head harder against me, willing for her to return to her sexual roots and bring me to ecstasy. After five tiresome minutes of unsatisfied tongue flicks, I resorted to buck and grind and scream out a false pleasure. I faked my orgasm for the first time with her, offering her reprieve from what seemed like such hard work for her.
Ten minutes later, after a serious attempt to find comfort in her arms, I lied to her. “I’ve got to go to Rhode Island today for a meeting with the sales team. I’ll probably be away for several days.” I needed to get away.
An hour later, I drove to Rhode Island and straight to Ruby’s condo. I rang her bell at eight forty-five in the morning. The sun rose up over the horizon beyond the Jamestown Bridge. Seagulls were flying around squawking and dive-bombing to pluck up delicacies along the seashore. Early morning joggers blew white puffs of cool air as they sped past me. I stood on Ruby’s doorstep taking this all in as I waited for her to answer.
Ruby never answered.
I peeked on the side of her condo for her car. Not there. She could be anywhere, and I had no right to know where. I called her cell. She didn’t answer.
I left her a message. “Please call me as soon as you get this. I need to talk.”
I sat on a swinging chair. It creaked. I wondered how many times she sat outside in this very spot and took in the view? Did I flood her mind, too? Every second of the day? Or had she already forgotten about me, her lover in between others.
Two hours later, I decided to walk on the beach. As I did, the water soothed me with peace. A strange swirling of tranquility mixed with the salt air and created a pocket of comfort. I’d only experienced this same level of comfort when I sat sandwiched between Ruby, Shawna and Grampa
at the pottery cafe as we listened to Grampa tell stories to us about bonfires, sticks for fishing rods, and his days playing hockey on ponds that used to freeze but now just glazed over with algae.
I would miss that man.
I stared out at the open sea. I watched seagulls sink into the water and surface with a treat. I admired the majestic boats in the distance. I smiled at the shiny ripples on the crests of small waves and watched as they ran to shore and pushed back to the sea, to where they belonged. They had no doubt where they belonged.
I envied them.
* *
I sat in a small café and sipped some tea. I browsed Rhode Island Monthly magazine. My eyes fell upon an ad for Lifespan, a medical group. A young nurse was smiling, her chin raised, her eyes glowing, wearing her name badge, Trish. She’d probably spent years readying for that picture, a picture that showed off her hard work and dedication to something she loved, to something she stayed true to.
She probably married her childhood sweetheart and stayed loyal to him and their two intelligent and witty children. No doubt they enjoyed evening walks on the shores of Galilee and attended Sunday mass together each week. They probably even wore matching sweatshirts and spent their Saturdays doing fun things together like kayaking, not ever worrying that one of them would take off mid-relationship to tend to her alcoholic spouse who just got out of prison for killing someone.
* *
For two days I busied myself at the Rhode Island office waiting on Ruby to arrive at her massage chair. I imagined the worst during those days. I imagined her flying the skies with this new girlfriend of hers, forgetting all about me and all about her great gig at the hotel.
I dove headfirst into a pile of paperwork I needed to get through, when finally, Ruby called.
I answered before the first ring could finish. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” she said. “Are you?”
“Yes. Of course.” I paused. “I’m in town. Any way I can see you?”
“You don’t sound like you’re okay.”
“I want to see you,” I said.
“I’m with Grampa. I’m sure he’d love to see you.”
“And what about you?”