15. Dom
Chapter fifteen
Dom
A fter getting Luca down for his nap, I find Ellie in the living room, sitting in her favorite corner of the couch, leaned against a stack of pillows. Her legs are curled beneath her and her temple rests on her fist.
She’s wearing my old college hoodie again, several strands of her blonde hair falling out of the messy bun she’s thrown on top of her head. Our Christmas tree glows in the corner of the room, the only light she’s turned on. The giant festive bow decorations Luca loves to pull off the tree are scattered on the floor, victims of today’s playtime. Indie folk music is playing softly from Ellie’s phone, tossed aside on the cushion next to her.
She’s caught up in her e-book and hasn’t noticed me yet. I use the opportunity to take her in. A flash of her wedding ring catches my eye, the stone glinting in the flickering glow from the fireplace.
I remember the moment I first saw her in her wedding dress. The moment I put her wedding band on her hand and promised to give her everything, because she is my everything. I promised in public and in private to hold her close, guard her heart, and love her with my every breath.
I asked her to trust me with her life. I promised to fill it with joy. I promised to be understanding and patient, and she promised the same .
So many promises whispered across intertwined fingers, a bouquet, a suit, and a beautiful dress. But what does any of that matter if they’re just words? If I can’t make good on the promises I made, where does that leave us?
The encroaching fear that I’m too late—that we’re already headed over the cliff with no edge to grab hold of—shrouds my vision.
I asked Ellie several times over the last few months to try working with another mental health professional. I even invited her to my appointments with David, my therapist who I see once a month. She met with someone for a few weeks when she went back to work part time after her maternity leave ended. It all came to an abrupt end when it became clear it was a bad fit. A really bad fit. Since then, she hasn’t refused to find someone new, more like she’s made it her last priority.
I know it’ll only make things worse if I push her—she needs to take a step like that for herself, not for me—so instead, I’m doing what I do best. I’m solving a puzzle…and Ellie is going to help me do it.
Her eyes, while stunning as always, have that lost look today. When she woke up from her nightmare last night, her eyes only held terror. It was like she was looking straight through me. She wasn’t lost, she was gone , drowning in whatever horrible memories pulled her under.
She didn’t want to talk about it as I held her in my arms and softly stroked my hand along her back. She didn’t pull away, and I took long, slow breaths until her pace matched mine. Eventually, I felt her body soften in my arms and I knew that she had found sleep.
She didn’t want to talk about it this morning either. She sat beside Luca and me on the floor while we played and listened to his favorite song—this mind-numbing monstrosity about toothpaste tasting like mint chocolate chip ice cream—the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. She slid her palm along the floor until her fingers found mine, holding on like I was her lifeline. The moment had me reeling—when was the last time we simply held each other’s hand?
We’re always holding Luca, or grabbing the groceries, or cleaning the kitchen, or swiping something out of Luca’s reach, or doing something from our endless to-do list. All things that seem stupid to prioritize now…when I’m sitting in front of my wife realizing I don’t know what she’s thinking anymore.
I used to read her so easily. I used to feel her so easily. From the moment we met, we operated like two gears, interlocked and spinning together. When one of us stopped, the other did too. When someone shifted direction, the other followed in support. But now, we’re so disconnected I can’t feel her push or pull, and I know she can’t feel mine either. I can’t follow her lead, and instead, we’ve wound up so far apart that I can’t see where she’s going. We’re on opposite ends of the room, both spinning off without anything left to ground us, connect us, or slow us when the brakes give way.
I shift, leaning against the wall, causing the contents of the box I’m holding to shift. The rustle catches Ellie’s attention, and she smiles softly at me.
Fuck, this could be a disaster. But I have to do something. I have to try.
“Hey, handsome,” she says, putting her e-reader on the arm of the couch.
“Hey, momma,” I say. “How you feeling?”
She curls into her side, facing me and laying her cheek against the back couch cushion, tucking her chin in the neck of the sweatshirt. “I’m okay.”
I wait, giving her space to say more. Her smile fades a bit when she realizes I’m not going to accept her answer. That I’m begging her for more. That I’m starving for her to fill the space between us with honesty and to finally let me help her carry the burden on her shoulders.
“Really, Dom. I’m okay, now. Last night was…an outlier. Things have been better and that came out of nowhere.”
I join her on the couch, placing the box on the coffee table and keeping my eyes down so she can react to my words without the scrutiny of my stare. I want to be able to talk to her without her shutting down, getting defensive, or dismissing my idea altogether.
“Ellie, I love you. You know I want to help. Was there anything that happened yesterday that might have, I don’t know, thrown you a bit?”
She’s quiet, but her thoughts are loud.
“I guess there was this one thing…Carissa mentioned in passing that one of her coworkers recently had a baby. We only talked about it briefly, and I sh ouldn’t have asked any more about it, but I couldn’t help myself. I guess she had this beautiful birth story, and I…felt everything . I felt jealous because why did this stranger get to have the moment I’d been dreaming about for nine months—for my entire life—while we went through what we did. Then I felt equal parts guilty and relieved because I never want anyone to experience what happened to us. Then I felt suffocated by heart-stopping, gut-wrenching grief because I wanted that , and we’ll never have it. We’ll never get that moment back. We’ll always be the parents who started this chapter of our life like this . I began my journey into motherhood hurt and confused and scared, and I want to know why. Why did this happen to us?”
I take her hand and rub small circles across her thumb with my own. “I don’t know if there’s an answer, Ellie. We might never know.”
“Why does that break my heart?” she says, voice cracking and silent tears rolling down her rosy cheeks, wetting the strands of her hair that have fallen loose from the knot on top of her head.
“Honey, it’s normal to want answers, but maybe there aren’t any this time. Maybe we’re just normal people who went through something awful. It’s not fair, but there’s nothing we could have done to avoid it. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Her face falls and a small sob escapes. She covers her mouth with one hand while the other wipes at her tears. I’m immediately moving, pulling her to my chest. She leans against me and we stay like that for a few minutes.
God, this was so stupid. She needs more than what I can give her. More than some stupid fucking game. But she won’t agree to finding a professional right now, so here goes nothing.
“Do you still love me?” she asks through shuddered breaths.
That catches me off guard and I take her by the shoulders and lower my face to hers, waiting for her to lock eyes with me. “Ellie, I could never stop loving you.”
“But I’m a mess. I can’t let this go. Crippling fear is controlling my every thought all day long. It’s not fair for you to have to deal with things like last night. ”
“Last night wasn’t your fault either.” I keep my voice gentle, but hearing her break like this, because she’s worried about me , makes me want to scream. “Can’t you see that none of this is your fault? Let me try to help,” I say, picking up the solid brown box, void of any decoration.
She eyes the box, then me, skeptically. “What’s this?”
“I need you to keep an open mind while I show you. Can you do that for me, love?”
A small smile pulls at the corner of her lips. She’s so beautiful.
“That’s a dangerous question coming from a man like you, Dominic Moretti. Last time you asked me to keep an open mind, we were in contract on a house twenty-four hours later.”
She’s not wrong. I saw this house for sale and immediately pictured my wife in the front bay window reading her smutty books, on the porch watering her plants, and in the garage getting our bikes ready for the local trails.
You could say I’m impulsive, but I’m not. I’m decisive.
I saw this house and all I could see were my wife’s smiles. All I could feel were her arms around me as we danced in the kitchen. All I could hear was our laughter filling the space between the walls. When it feels like that, you buy the fucking house.
“And that was great, right? But this is a little different.” I lift the lid off the box.
“Seriously, another puzzle? Dom, there are five on our dining table as we speak. What is this?”
“This is your puzzle.”
“I love that this is your hobby, babe, but I don’t do puzzles.”
“Well, that’s not true. You help me with them all the time. Plus, you promised you’d keep an open mind, remember?” I say with a smirk.
Her fingers hover over the pieces as I begin to lay them on the coffee table upside down.
I’m surprised she doesn’t comment on them facing the wrong direction, but she’s focused on another issue. Her brow furrows in confusion. “There aren’t enough pieces here for this to make anything… ”
“That’s because you’ll only get a handful of pieces at a time,” I say.
“Ooookay?”
“You’re not convinced, that’s fair. Let me show you.” I begin to arrange the two dozen pieces or so on the table, looking for edges. “These pieces are all from the same section of a larger puzzle. You have what you need to finish a small section entirely. When you’re ready, I’ll give you another section to add to this one.”
“I love you, but you’ve lost me.”
“There are special pieces mixed in with the others,” I say excitedly. “I’m calling them Ellie pieces.”
“ Ellie pieces,” she says with a heavy dose of suspicion and disbelief.
Yup, she thinks I’m losing it. Shit, maybe I have.
“See? You got it. Ellie pieces. When you come across an Ellie piece—and this is where I’m going to need you to keep an open mind—you have to do what that piece says.”
“Dom.” She laughs incredulously, ready to shut me down.
“Please, I need you to trust me.” The shift in my tone from playful to serious has her sarcastic smile fading, and she quietly nods, giving me space to continue. “I’d never do anything that would hurt you. This is all for you…everything I do is for you and Luca. I know things have been… difficult lately. This whole year has been the best year of my life and maybe the hardest too. I can’t fully understand what you’re going through, but it’s killing me to watch you suffer. I don’t like failing you—”
“Dom, you’re not failing me.”
“I am, Ellie. Please let me do this. Try this with me. If worse comes to worse, it’s just a fun game you can tease me about later,” I beg.
She pauses, eyeing me. A small smile breaks her expression and I release my breath in relief. This is going to work.
“It’s worst comes to worst,” she says with a smirk.
“Huh?”
“It’s worst comes to worst, not worse comes to worse. ”
“Oh, honey,” I say, much more confidently than I’m feeling. “I’m so sorry to do this in the middle of something so serious, but we have to add that to the list.” I stand and jog to the kitchen, grabbing the notebook of fucked-up sayings and racing back to her as I say, “You are so very wrong.”
Her laughter lights up the room. I toss the notebook on the table. I’m going to finish my pitch, but then I will be getting my points…I think.
“I’m not wrong, but stop changing the subject for a second.” She swallows and wrings her hands in her lap before looking at me. “Dom, this is very thoughtful, but you are not failing me. You are my husband and my partner, but this is not your responsibility. This is mine. I need…I need more time to work through what happened, that’s all.”
“Honey, I love you,” I reassure her. “But it’s been over a year. I don’t want you to think I’m not proud of you for how far you’ve come. You went through something terrible, and you’re strong as hell for it. You’re an incredible mother and wife, but you’re not okay. You keep telling me time and time again, and I hear you. I want to help. Please let me help you.”
“You went through it too,” she says softly.
Fear, the ghost of terror that filled me that day, pulses in my temple at her reminder, but I shake my head, willing it away. This isn’t about me.
“It’s not the same, El. Please.”
“So… if I agree to this,” she says slowly. “What kind of activities are on these Ellie pieces?”
I smile like an idiot, knowing I’ve got her. My brave, wonderful wife is hiding in there somewhere, hidden by layers of self-doubt, anxiousness, and trauma. I’m going to dig her out with my bare hands if I have to.
“You’ll get the first one soon. I also asked our family and friends to all take a turn, contributing their own pieces to the puzzle,” I say with a smile. “You ready to play?” I ask, my heart pounding with pride as her shy smile lights up my chest with electricity.
She’s got this.
“One more question. Why do I have to do this upside down? How am I going to complete an entire puzzle when I can’t see the picture?”
“That’s life. One piece at a time, we don’t get the full picture until the end,” I assure her.
We’re going to do this together. We’re going to find our way back to each other. We’re going to find our way home.