by Scott Savino
I opened my mouth to tell her she shouldn’t have done that, but what came out instead was, “Can you kiss me again?”
Cassandra looked genuinely baffled by what I said, so I just leaned in and kissed her myself. She sobbed with relief as we parted, her arms wrapping around me tightly and drawing me close. As I hugged her back I realized I hadn’t felt love like that in years.
“What should we do about Frank,” I asked as we parted.
Cassandra bit her lip before glancing at the comb on her side table.
“Actually, there is something I can do. Something that’ll make sure he’s out of your life for good. Do you trust me?”
And I did.
It was little things at first, just making it seem like typical absentmindedness. Forgetting where he put the TV remote, losing his keys every five minutes. Just little things. Then the little things started to grow. Forgetting to go into work because he thought it was a Saturday, or making plans to meet friends for dinner and never showing up.
It was when he suddenly forgot how to drive that I helped take him to the doctor.
Early onset Alzheimer’s, they told me. It was like the memories were just leaking out of his head and not coming back. They suggested I arrange for some home care. I said I had a friend who would be great for that.
And Cassandra was a great caretaker, really. She helped shovel food into his mouth when he couldn’t remember how to lift a spoon, she helped clean him up whenever he had an accident, and every night she combed his hair to help him get to sleep.
One night I suppose he just forgot how to breathe.
Now Cassandra and I are moved across the state, starting over from scratch. Our wedding’s going to be in just a few months.
And every night when Cassandra combs my hair, I know the trust between us couldn’t be any clearer.
A Letter to My Husband, Jack
SCOTT SAVINO
DEAR JACK,
I hope one of your friends somehow finds this and gets it to you, because I’m gone and I’m not coming back. Please don’t try to find me.
I didn’t leave this note at the house for obvious reasons, but I had so many things I still wanted to say. To start with, I left because I’m afraid of you. I never thought I would say something like that, but you are the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. I couldn’t see it before, because I wasn’t looking, but recently I realized each day I stayed felt like I was tempting fate and last night was the final straw. I suppose before last night it was luck that kept me blind to the danger, but then you showed me danger only needs to be lucky once.
Do you remember the day we met? The sky had been clear, but a sudden drizzle came from nowhere and quickly turned into a summer shower of hard, pregnant drops. They came crashing down around us, filling the street with cool mist as they sizzled away to nothing in the summer sun. You wore those mirrored sunglasses, your face twisted in confusion with your head cocked and angled distastefully towards the sky.
“Excuse me,” you said as I sprinted past, taking shelter under an awning. I thought you must have needed directions or something so I told you to come and stand with me under the awning, out of the rain.
You took off your sunglasses and sniffed the air, correctly identifying my cologne. You told me it was one of your favorites. I thought you had pretty eyes and told you so. They were the strangest mix of green and gray.
We talked for a while, and I thought of all the people I might have come across that day, and how our meeting the way we did was so singular and serendipitous that in that moment I knew we had been meant to meet. You suggested we go for coffee and, being free that afternoon, I accepted. You asked your phone for directions to the nearest spot and we were off.
Six years, and the image of that day is as vivid to me now as if I’d just seen it in a movie.
It took another two years from that day to convince me to bite the bullet, to give up my rent controlled apartment and come live with you. We were married shortly after that and, still, after everything, the day I stood with you to share our vows was the happiest of my life.
“I promise to love you forever,” you said. “In sickness and health. In good times and bad. You led me from the darkness and now I’m here at your side. You are the light of my life, Stephen.”
The vows you wrote were beautiful. We were soul mates, and we had only managed to find each other thanks to an unexpected summer shower six years ago.
Things were good between us. They were more than good for a long, long time. This was supposed to be the rest of our lives. I never dreamed I’d meet someone like you, Jack. I’m not sure what happened.
I’m not sure what’s come over you.
I’m not sure when you began to change.
I noticed the sleepwalking last week, but I don’t think it was the first time you’d done it. I don’t know how long it went on before I caught you. And I couldn’t possibly have imagined things would escalate from finding you vacantly facing the open refrigerator in the middle of the night, to you trying to kill me in just a matter of days, but that’s what happened.
I don’t even know why I’m writing this. I should just follow through with what I’ve decided and never look back.
It isn’t an easy decision. The hardest of my life, actually, but I think I owe this letter to you. I know you told me you don’t remember, and I really don’t think you have any idea what you’ve been doing.
You deserve an explanation.
Maybe it’s the antidepressants? The doctor warned you there might be side effects. I was watching for them. He said you might not be able to get it up, but that didn’t happen. Instead, you felt dead on your feet during the day and couldn’t lie still at night. The doctor said it might be insomnia. You were restless. You woke me every time you stirred.
It started light. You’d toss and turn and groan a bit then go right back to sleep. But as the nights wore on, the restlessness grew.
Then you started sleepwalking.
That first night I dismissed it as a weird dream, but a week ago you left the bed and I found myself in that warm state halfway between sleeping and awake. The mattress lifted me as you stood. Though there wasn’t any light, I knew you were crossing the room. I could feel it happening. You were somehow completely and utterly soundless doing it, too. Even in the space just before the door where the floorboards creak there was nothing. The square of light from the hall revealed your silhouette as you opened the door, but as you closed it behind you the hinges didn’t squeak and the latch gave no signal as the room was once again bathed in darkness, and the brooding of a strange black silence.
The silence was so thick around me I might have sworn I wasn’t even in our bed anymore. It was only at feeling the warmth of your pillow after you’d gone and breathing the scent of your sweat that I knew I hadn’t disappeared into the abyss.
Then I heard something quiet, something cycling just on the edge of sound, like radio waves flickering between stations, ethereal and full of static. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a radio, much less listened to one with all our podcasts and streaming—I didn’t even think we owned one—but then, as the density and volume grew and I heard it shifting from left to right, I realized it was coming from inside me. From inside my skull, Jack. I was horrified and confused, and the sound just grew and grew into an endless drone, and then before I knew it I was waking up to the sound of my alarm.
I opened my eyes and could hear your voice as you translated something into French in your office. The sky outside our window was blushing in the dawn of what looked to be a chilly day and I brushed the whole thing off, getting up and ready for work as if the whole thing had been a strange dream. You were really involved in what you were doing. You didn’t even hear me come in over the recording that chittered from your headphones. I lightly touched your shoulder. You smiled and I felt reassured as you made your hands into the shape of a heart so I could see. I kissed you on your cheek and headed out.
/> As I got in my car I adjusted the seat forward. It was such an innocuous thing. I didn’t even catch it at the time. Today, though, when I did it again, I realized I’ve been readjusting my seat most mornings.
It’s been set too far back.
It feels so stupid to ask. The idea that you’ve been coming and going, and for how long? For this whole time? Have you been taking my car in the middle of the night?
That’s absolutely absurd. You couldn’t be.
The first time I noticed any of this I went through the day trying to convince myself I was being paranoid. I felt like some sort of jealous boyfriend making trouble out of nothing, so I told myself everything was fine.
That evening, I came home and you’d ordered pizza. It was there waiting for me. You were absently knitting something with the news going in the background and as I entered you called out to the smart speaker to pause. You asked me about my day. We went to bed and you kissed my forehead before I turned off the light. Nothing about the way we lived had changed.
I was sure I’d imagined it all.
Until I felt you leave the bed again. That droning sound filled the vacuum you left behind and replaced all of the natural noises of the house. It blotted out the ticking of the clock on the wall, the bones of the house creaking in the wind. That sound was the only thing then. It felt almost sentient—alive—and whatever it was had taken your place in the room. I don’t know what strange things you might have done that night. Before I could question things enough to react, it forced me back to sleep and, again, I awoke in the morning to nothing out of place.
It all seemed the same. And it happened the next night, and the next, and finally after a few days of this I decided I had to know what was going on for sure.
I had a cup of coffee just before we turned in. By the grace of caffeine and force of will I managed to stay awake. I managed to wait.
I found myself unable to sit up at first, but after you’d been gone a few minutes I managed it. My body worked against me as I struggled to stand and keeping my eyes open was a real fight, but I did that too.
I found you in the kitchen. The refrigerator door was open and you were sitting on the floor, bathed in its blue light, frost billowing out and gathering around the bare feet you’d stretched out toward it. The drone of the motor was barely audible over that awful electronic buzz still bouncing around inside my skull.
I’ll admit, before this moment, I questioned your fidelity. I wondered about you leaving—how, and why. But what I saw only raised more questions. I thought I was going crazy.
Slowly, I realized the buzz of the radio waves was subsiding and you were speaking. Were you translating something for work? No. That didn’t make any sense. You didn’t have your recorder, and in my haze it took a moment to realize there wasn’t any audio to translate inside the refrigerator.
Jack. It made no sense.
I couldn’t understand what you were saying and it was so bizarre to see you there, chanting quietly to yourself on the kitchen floor. You were in a trance, almost dreaming, muttering over and over in the dark. That first night I heard it, it was just gibberish, a string of foreign words I couldn’t understand.
I moved to pick you up by your shoulders, but you wouldn’t budge so I closed the refrigerator door and your chanting abruptly stopped. When I turned to make another attempt at lifting you, you were already up.
Jack, you slapped me right across the face. If I hadn’t believed you were having some sort of nightmare I would have left right then and there. We’ve had arguments—all couples do—but you’ve never even dreamed of laying your hands on me. I was shocked, but you seemed to come to your senses then, shaking the sting from your hand.
I just stared at you by the light of the kitchen window, not knowing what to say there in the dark.
“Honey,” you asked. “Did I just hit you?”
I said yes.
You apologized.
You wouldn’t stop apologizing, even after I told you I was fine. I think you must have been pretty broken up by it so I kept my strange auditory hallucinations to myself. Your sincerity was real and reassuring. I still believe you.
We both went back to bed thinking you must have been sleepwalking or having a weird dream. Dreaming was the only explanation that made any sense at all. I don’t think you have any idea or control over what you’d been doing any of those nights.
When I woke up the next day, you were already up. The house was chilly and heat swirled from your coffee. You kept apologizing between breaths as you blew to cool it. I forgave you. Over and over.
The following night when I woke up, you were gone from the bed again. Your spot was all but drained of its warmth. I thought you must have left the bed hours before, but there was no true way for me to tell. This time, the sounds that I knew couldn’t really be there were softer. The noise didn’t seem to have as much control over me as it had in previous nights, but I still felt its ominous pull trying to overpower me and lull me back to dreaming. Still, it was easier to get out of bed, and it began to fade entirely as I reached the bedroom door.
There was a glow coming from the gap at the base of the door. It flickered and shifted. The floorboards creaked underfoot and the hinges issued their usual squeak as I opened it and cautiously made my way down the hall.
The static returned as I headed toward the living room, the sound growing with each step, yet somehow different than before. This time it was real. It wasn’t coming from inside of me. It was coming from the TV.
We’ve had everything digital for so long I didn’t even know there were channels that still did that.
You sat on the coffee table facing the screen. You were a black shadow outlined in flecks of digital snow and, again, I heard you muttering, chanting the same words you had the night before.
Something about all of it was so unnerving and surreal, I pinched myself hoping it was a dream. It hurt, and a bruise formed where my fingers had been, so I knew I had to be awake. Despite this, time passed slowly as I stood frozen in place watching you for I don’t know how long. The sound of the static filled the room with confusion and I found it difficult to approach you.
Eventually, I worked up the nerve to speak, shoving the memory of your slap to the back of my mind.
“Jack,” I said. “Honey? Are you okay?”
But you didn’t reply. You didn’t even turn your head in my direction. I don’t think you even heard me until I walked over and turned off the TV.
I should have learned from the previous night.
This time you hit me. Really hit me. Once in my diaphragm and another to my face, connecting with my nose with a sickening crunch.
Pain blinded me as I screamed at you, blood pouring from my broken nose. I fell to the floor.
“Where am I?” you asked me.
“Puck you,” I said, tenderly pinching my nose. From my position at your feet I told you what happened. I told you I wasn’t going to try to help you next time. I’d let you pray to the fridge or the TV or both of the fucking bathroom toilets if it meant I didn’t get hit, or have to listen to you apologize for hitting me again.
You cried when I told you to sleep on the couch, that I didn’t want you near me.
I was frustrated and hurt because you’ve never hit me before, and the mystery of it was wearing on me. Worst of all, I didn’t understand the French. You’d been slurring the words of your chant out in your sleep well enough for me to repeat them back to you, but I didn’t understand them.
You promised to make an appointment in the morning to see someone about your nightmares and the somnambulant dream beatings.
That was two nights ago.
Last night, you tried to kill me.