chapter ten.
brix
The aroma of butter and cinnamon has infiltrated my house.
Immediately after I get dressed for the day, I follow the scent to the kitchen where I find Cyn removing pies from the oven while my mother watches and sips on steaming hot coffee.
Cyn has on a pair of blue jeans and a purple turtleneck.
She always puts her hair up when she’s cooking, but I still have the image of her with it down when she hovered over me last night, trying to convince me to get into bed.
Mother looks over to me and says, “Oh, hi there, son.”
I take my eyes away from Cyn and say, “Good morning.”
Cyn looks over at me, her eyes revealing regret about last night, but she still says, “Good morning, Brix. Would you like some coffee?”
“I would love some coffee, especially since I didn’t sleep well at all last night.”
A slight frown appears on Cyn’s face, but she quickly corrects it. However, I think my mother saw it because she immediately looked at me.
“I’m sorry to hear you didn’t sleep well. What happened?” Mother inquires.
I shrug. “Nothing. You know how sometimes you just can’t find the right position?”
“Oh, tell me about it. And it doesn’t help that your father snores. Sounds like a chainsaw on the fritz.”
Cyn laughs as she takes a cup out of the cupboard. And it’s not just any cup – it’s my favorite coffee mug.
“Cyn, Brix doesn’t snore, does he?”
“No, he doesn’t. Brix usually sleeps like those people on them mattress commercials—so undisturbed and unbothered, though he works so many hours, I’m surprised he doesn’t snore.”
Cyn puts one tablespoon of Stevia in my coffee, as well as a little heavy whipping cream. After adding a dash of cinnamon, she stirs it. It’s the way I always take my coffee. The way only she knows how to make it – well, her and the workers at The Roasted Bean.
I walk over to her, close my arms around her from behind just to see how she’ll react.
Actually, I know how she will react. She’s in pretend mode now.
I take advantage. I squeeze and caress her like it’s the first time I’ve done it.
Then I press my lips to her neck and say, “Thank you for making my coffee.”
“You’re welcome.”
I release her. She turns around and smiles. I cup her chin with my index finger and thumb, bend down and kiss her lips tenderly. I was expecting that she’d cut it short, but she goes with it, indulges me and deepens the kiss while caressing the nape of my neck.
My mother clears her throat.
I pull back, lock eyes with Cyn, trying to see something in them – trying to determine if the kiss was a part of the act, or if this was real. I can’t decipher it. I just know I enjoyed it, even if it wasn’t real.
I pick up the coffee, take a sip, and say, “Man, that’s good.”
“Of course it is! Cyn knows how you like it, ain’t that right, daughter-in-law?”
“Yes, ma’am. You’d think he’d know that by now, huh?”
Mom takes a sip and asks, “Cyn, are we going Black Friday shopping tomorrow?”
She says, “Yeah, I suppose. I don’t necessarily need anything—”
“That’s the beauty of Black Friday shopping, dear. You don’t have to need things. Things need you. They jump out at you and say, buy me.”
I grin at her logic. “Cyn doesn’t do that much shopping, Ma.”
“I know that,” she says.
Cyn says, “The last time I bought anything substantial was earlier this year when I was decorating my apart—”
I clear my throat, then start coughing to make her stop.
“You alright, son?”
Still coughing, I reach for a napkin and say, “Yes. Coffee went down the wrong pipe.”
Cyn walks over and pats me on the back, then says, “We can go to the mall or something, Faith. I’m cool with that.”
Mom gets up and says, “Good. I’ll be ready. Right now, let me go see if this man is up yet. Keep that coffee hot, Cyn. I know he’s going to want some.”
“It’ll be here,” Cyn says.
When mom leaves the kitchen, I say, “Did you really almost say you were buying stuff for your apartment, Cyn?”
“My bad. I wasn’t thinking.”
“My mother would’ve lost it.”
“Well, I didn’t say it, so no harm, no foul. We can continue pretending until they leave, which is a bunch of nonsense in itself. I still think you should’ve told them. I told my parents.”
“Yeah, and what did they say?”
She shrugs. “My mother thinks you’re a saint, so she was disappointed. My dad says he wants me to be happy.”
“Being without me makes you happy?” I ask.
She’s staring at me.
I’m staring back at her.
“Don’t go there, Brix.”
“Seriously. Answer the question. Does it?”
“I was happy when we got married–well for the first two and a half years of our marriage, to be exact. For the other half of year three and the entirety of year four, I was miserable, and it’s not like you didn’t know that. I told you that constantly. You weren’t hearing me.”
“So, you left so I can hear you?”
“I left because…” she sighs heavily. “If you’re okay with being absent when I was here, then you should be okay with me being absent. I’m not a placeholder, Brix. I’m a woman with feelings, needs, and desires that were being left unfulfilled.”
“Unfulfilled?”
“Yes. Emotionally. I didn’t feel loved. I felt like someone you were supposed to have because I fit the description of your life. The handsome doctor needed an armpiece.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. You know how I know that?”
My frown deepens.
She says, “Because even though we’re not together, you came to me and basically asked me to fill the role of your wife to appease your parents. You care how your life appears to them. To the world. You don’t genuinely care about me. You need me here for appearances—not for love.”
She places her coffee mug in the sink and leaves the kitchen.
I hang my head and say quietly, “That’s not true.”
I’m a doctor. I keep my cool no matter what.
However, I feel like I’m on the verge of having a meltdown – something I’ve been trying my hardest to avoid because I wouldn’t know how to recover from it.
But carrying the weight of the world – of my patients, of the issues with my wife, of my parents – it’s pushing me to my breaking point.