No More Shall We Part

They’ve taken away my crayons and, as usual, all they’ve left me with is this photograph. It’s my wife and me on our wedding day, four years before she filed the papers and banished me from her life. When she still loved me, and I still deserved her love. Before this place.

She’s a vision of perfection in her white satin dress with the embroidered silver vine pattern, her golden hair fairly glowing. A glittering princess next to my ogre in a tuxedo form. Beauty and the Beast, I used to joke, and even though it wasn’t original or particularly funny, she would laugh. I would do anything to hear her laugh again.

This is the only picture I have of her in here, the only personal item they’ll let me keep. I guess they figure I can’t do myself or anyone else much harm with a cracked and yellowed photograph. I talk to it sometimes and imagine I’m talking to her, though she usually doesn’t answer.

The photograph is a poor substitute, but she doesn’t want to see me. I know that with the absolute certainty of the four walls that keep me here in this tiny, bare room. With the absolute knowledge of the sanity that I know won’t last. These brief moments of calm are far too infrequent these days, so I think hard. I remember hard. And I hope against hope that it will be enough. That the memories will be there to comfort me during the coming storm.
I know better.

***

I decided to take a walk today, a mistake I sometimes make. The leaves paint the trees in yellow, red, and orange. I remember that this is my favorite time of year. As I crunch through the fallen leaves a sudden rain claws at me. I am without my coat, something my wife would never have allowed.

She was tending her garden when I left. That was before the rain. Before the sun started to fall below the tree line. I’m standing on the rocks now, looking down at the waves crashing below. The Atlantic Ocean leers at me, dark with mystery and menace.

My teeth start to chatter as the sun disappears. The brief shower has left me soaked to the skin. The wind off the ocean whips my robe around me. I make no effort to stop it. I sink to my knees and offer my throat to the darkness.

Time leaves me as I kneel on that rocky cliff. I do not know how long it takes me to lose the feeling in my arms and legs. How long it takes me to topple over onto my side. I do not know how long it is until I stop shivering. How long until my eyes lose focus and close.

I see the flashing lights through my eye lids, red and blue, red and blue. I look and see that I am being lifted and loaded into the back seat of a police cruiser. A blanket is wrapped around me and someone rubs my arms vigorously until I can almost feel it. Someone tells me “You’re going to be OK.”

“For now,” I think. Winter comes soon enough. A good, old fashioned New England winter. I used to play in the deep snow. Used to marvel at its beauty.

When it comes this year, I can walk out that door and just let myself drown, under fifteen feet of pure white snow.

***

I write “love always” and sign my name in blue, and I’m done and I know that this will do it, how could it not? I add the letter to the pile of letters that I’ve written that are spilling over the side of the narrow cot onto the floor and I wish I had more paper and something other than crayons to write with. They only give me crayons though because they’re soft and nontoxic and they won’t hold a point or an edge so I can’t hurt myself or others with them, at least that’s what they tell me.

I bang on the door and I ask the bored man in white for some more paper and he says no but I keep asking and asking and asking and eventually he gives me a new stack of paper and tells me to shut the hell up. So I get my crayons again and I start writing, this time in green, and I tell her all the things I should have told her all along but was too afraid or too stupid to say, because I can be like that sometimes and she deserves better than me, but I can’t live without her.

I know that I hurt her, but she was always there for me and she still loves me, I know she does, I just have to remind her and that’s why I’m writing these letters one after another. If I write enough letters and I write them well enough she’ll remember her promise and she’ll come and get me and take me home and we’ll be together always. Then I won’t have to be here alone any more and missing her every moment of every day until I don’t think I can take it any more and they give me medication and strap me down so I don’t “do something crazy.”

I finish another letter, a plea, a petition, a kind of prayer; I hope it does as I have planned. I haven’t written enough letters yet so I grab another sheet and start again, this one in yellow crayon, and I concentrate so hard to do a good job that I feel like my head is going to burst. I write “love always” and I add it to the pile and I grab another sheet of paper and I start again, this time in red. I’m going out of my mind without her and I don’t think that I can survive but I have to so I can protect her and provide for her and make her happy every day in every way that I can.

I say to the pile: “go get her, love letters, go get her.”

***

She squeezes my hand so hard it hurts, but I don’t pull away. Not now. She’s crying, great tears leaping from her eyes. It’s all my fault. My face burns despite the air conditioning.

The doctor sits very quietly, his hands folded on his desk, and is careful not to look at us. His expression is appropriately grave. His tone, when he talks, is sympathetic and reassuring. I want to shove his honest face into that desk for what he’s just told us. But no, this isn’t his fault, he’s only the messenger.

After getting control of herself, my wife speaks. “Are you sure?” She asks, “Is there … Could there be any other answer?”

He has the grace to look pained as he says, “There is always that possibility, but I am fairly certain. Given your husband’s family history, and his own documented history – in particular the escalation in the last months – I am very confident.”

I want to scream, to shout him down and make it all not true, but I cannot. It is true, and I know it. I feel so powerless, so guilty. The lump in my throat will not let me even speak.

She wipes her eyes and straightens up. “All right,” she says, “this is something we can deal with. What can we do?”

“Well, there are no guarantees, but I am very hopeful,” the doctor begins, and I stop listening. Instead, I marvel at my wife as she listens intently, nodding and asking what I know are very good questions. I should have known she could handle this, she was always the strong one. My rock of Gibraltar. My one salvation.

I know everything is going to be OK now.

***

I open my eyes. For a long time I do not know where I am. The bed I lay on is hard and lumpy and my neck hurts. The sheets are cheap and scratchy. So are the pajamas I’m wearing.

I cannot remember the last time I wore pajamas. I cannot remember the last time I wet the bed either. The frame creaks as I swing my legs over the side. The tile floor is like ice on my bare feet. The air is cold too and I wrap the soiled sheets around me like a shroud.

I sit in my humiliation and stare into the dark. Grey light filters through the grated window. It is nearly dawn. I cannot look at the light. I try to will it away but of course it does not listen; it only looks back, judging me.

Where am I? Where is my wife? This is not our room. This is not our bed, this tiny cot. Thank God.

The room is small. It is barely long enough for the bed and no wider than that. The walls and ceiling are bare. The floor is checkered black and white, so typical. I see the outline of a door opposite the window.

I feel every lump from the bed in my body as I stand. The sheets follow me across the small space to the door. I try the handle, but it does not turn. I try again and again, but still it does not turn. I cannot leave this room.

I sink to the floor, slumped against the unyielding steel door. I hear a wailing and then realize that it is me. I scream into the tiny room that I want my wife. Where is my wife? Where am I?

A man in white pushes the door open. I am sent sprawling on the ice cold floor. The man sniffs the air and swears. I am cold but my face burns red from shame. "Please" I say to him, "where is my wife?"

He does not say a word. He hauls me to my feet and drags me down a narrow hallway. He throws me into a shower larger than the small room. The soiled pajamas are torn from my body and I am left naked. The water is freezing and hits me with enough pressure to hurt.

The whole time I scream for my wife, but they do not hear me.

***

I’m in the kitchen when my wife gets home and she stops when she steps inside and sees the neat pyramids of freshly baked muffins and her eyes get wide and she doesn’t say anything for a long time. She’s wearing her one piece bathing suit with a wrap around her waist and that big floppy sun hat she insists on wearing to the beach that always makes me laugh, but I’m too busy to laugh now, I have to keep baking.

So I keep baking, I can’t stop, I’m on a roll, and I think to myself that I’m making muffins not rolls, but still there’s no time to laugh, I have to make lots and lots more and then I realize that she’s talking to me and I have to stop and listen. She’s worth it though, my love, my angel, my one salvation.

"What are you doing?" she cries and I try to think how to explain it to her, about my brilliant idea that’s so obvious that I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.

"Muffins!" I say, "Lots of muffins, local at first, and the franchising fees, low cost distribution, word of mouth, pennies on the dollar, and I can’t be stopped!"

Then I go back to baking and I know she understands me because she always has, even when no one else believed in me, but she grabs my arm and pulls me away from the oven! I tell her I can’t stop, that there’s too much to do before the residuals become clear to the trustees and if I stop now it will never get done. I beg her to let me go and I see that she’s crying and I understand because I’m crying now too and I need to get back to baking before it’s too late.

She lets me go and I hear her dialing the telephone as I pull two batches of muffins out of the oven and slide another two in, and then I hear her talking and I think she’s talking to her mother on the phone. I can’t think about that now though as I fill another of my new muffin tins with batter and continue mixing up the next batch.
She’ll see, when I’m done, when I have time to explain it to her better it will all become clear just like it is for me. We’ll have it made and I can buy her the house she deserves and pay off all our debts and he’ll stop crying then, and talking on the phone and looking at me like that, and we can be together forever.

This is the start of something great and I’m doing it all for her, she’ll see.

***

I’ve been staring out the window most of the morning. The sky is a steely blue, the sun is bright, but clouds on the horizon threaten rain. I can smell the ocean and it’s a pleasant smell. A normal smell. I feel great.

My problems seemed to fade with the coming of autumn. Outside my wife quietly tends to her dying flowers, pulling the last of the weeds before the snow. She smiles and waves when she sees me looking out at her. It’s all because of her that I feel this good, she makes all things possible. I can’t imagine how hard this has been on her, but she’s always been there for me, without complaint.

She can make everything OK with her hot cocoa, and her medication. Hopefully now I can be the man she deserves again, and take care of her the way she should be taken care of. She thinks she’s hiding it, but I can see the strain, the tension in her smile. Her eyes at once loving and hard. I die a little inside every time I see her like that.

Oh lord, I hope it really is over. I don’t know how much more we could survive. She’s my one salvation, I couldn’t stand to lose her. Now that my problems are under control, I won’t have to. The relief has left me so elated, I feel like I could walk on water.

Maybe later today I’ll take a walk.

***

A sketchbook lay open on the tiny cot. Both visible pages covered with crayon scribbles. Crude figures, angels and demons. A tortured soul with a halo of red about his neck. The angels and demons, specters in black and blue, torment him.

Their faces, twisted and grotesque, stare out at me. Their eyes accuse me, judge me. What madman drew this? Was it me? I know that it was, but still I wonder.

I shove the sketchbook from the bed. It lands with a different page open. A vision in silver crayon with a burst of lemon yellow hair. Her eyes, at once loving and full of hatred, are impossibly large for her face. And yet, that is how I remember her.

I worry that I will forget what she looks like, but I will never forget those eyes.

***

It’s the second weekend in November, or maybe it’s the third, and I’m getting my monthly haircut. I come to the same place every time, to Bob, because I know the people here, and they know me and what I want and it’s familiar, and safe.

Bob is cutting my hair, the same style I’ve had for the last 20 years, and he’s mumbling something to himself. It sounds like he’s saying something about having just been in last week and there’s nothing to cut? I don’t know what he’s talking about though, I don’t remember coming in yet this month, and I’m pretty sure I would remember that, and my wife would have reminded me even if I had forgotten somehow. I’m about to ask him about it, but then I notice how hot it is in here despite the chill outside.

It’s not just hot in here, it’s stifling and I’m having trouble breathing. I run a finger under the neck of the protective gown they’ve got me wearing, the one that I’ve always thought of as a backwards cape, but it’s tied too tightly and I can’t loosen it.

I ask Bob why it’s so hot in here and he says he doesn’t know, but he thinks it’s a fine temperature, and would I please stop yelling? I say I’m not yelling, I just can’t breath in all this heat, and I’m tearing at the neck of the backwards cape now and my fingers find purchase and I start to get it off. I tear it away in strips until it’s gone and only the corded top remains, knotted around my neck and it’s so god damned hot! I’m gasping the air into my lungs and screaming it out and I drop to my hands and knees and I see people looking at me and I don’t know why they’re not hot like I am but I don’t care because I can’t breath and I need to breath. With a frantic final pull I wrench the cord free with a tear and I see there’s blood on it but I don’t have time to worry about that now because I still can’t breath.

I’m crawling on my hands and knees and it’s so fucking hot! And I’m trying to get to the door, but people are crowding around me now and some of them are trying to grab me and I don’t want them to grab me, I just need to get out of here. I’ll never make it to the door, not with all these people and this stifling heat and I can feel the sweat dripping from my skin and I feel like my skin is of fire.

I crawl under the reception desk and I grab my phone from my pocket and almost drop it because my hands are covered with blood for some reason and people are yelling and some are screaming around me and I wish they’d be quiet so I could make a call. I get the number wrong a couple times because I can’t remember it at first, but then I get the number right and I call my wife at home.

She picks up after three rings and I ask her to please come get me, that I can’t breath and the people are trying to grab me and she screams “leave me alone!” I say, “it’s only me,” but she screams again and says something about the police and hangs up and I don’t know what to do and I’m scared and all alone.

People are grabbing at my feet now and pulling me and I kick at them to get them off and I try to stay curled up under the desk where it’s hot and I can’t breath but at least they can’t get me here. I wonder how long I can hold out here, how long until my wife comes and rescues me and takes me home and makes me dinner and laughs at my stupid jokes, and watches TV with me, and lays down with me after the day is done and makes all the problems of the day not quite so bad after all.

Somehow, barely audible above the noise, I know better.

***

She drives, of course, as I sit sadly by her side. I won’t be driving again for some time, not now. Neither of us have said anything since leaving the doctor’s office. Since getting the diagnosis. I sit with my face pressed against the glass and I think about my mother.

"She had this too, you know," I say eventually.

Startled, my wife responds, "What? Who did?"

"My mother. I’ve told you she had emotional problems, right?" I wait for her to nod, which she does after a moment. "I don’t really like to talk about it, it was really bad at times. The things she would say and do. And now that’s me. I should have told you about her a long time ago, I’m sorry."

"No," she says with a ferocity that surprises me, "don’t start that. None of this is your fault, you couldn’t have known this would happen to you too." She sets her jaw, "It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, I love you, and I’ll love you no matter what. This doesn’t change that."

She reaches for me, not taking her eyes off the road. I take her hand in mine and she squeezes it hard. And things don’t seem quite so bad.

For a long time I sit and watch the world as it falls past, enjoying the feel of her hand in mine. After a while I say, "This is going to get bad."

She squeezes my hand again and says, "I know."

"No matter what happens, remember that I love you."

"I love you too,” she says, “always."

Tags: Fiction, Music, Prose