Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
Gabriel has been gone for a month. Gone . That’s what I’m calling it.
I, too, am gone . Not an ounce of energy for my old life lives in my body now. Every call from Sabrina goes to voicemail. She's pregnant with her first, and I want no part of it.
Is this selfish? Absolutely. Sabrina has been my closest friend for years. She was in my wedding party. But the last time we spoke, the day after Gabriel went to prison, was like taking the knife in my heart and twisting. Not that she meant to. I'd been silent on my end of the line, with nothing to say that wasn't sad. Sabrina filled the quiet with chatter about her pregnancy. I think she asked me to be in the delivery room, but I'm not certain. I'd been living outside my body that day.
I still am. Soon, Sabrina will stop calling. She's in the happiest time of her life, and I'm in the worst. For her sake, I'm letting her be. I refuse to be an Aunt Francesca to Sabrina.
And so, I sit in my dark living room on a Friday evening, my curtains drawn to keep out the sunset. I don’t want a shred of beauty around me.
“Avery?”
The closed front door muffles my sister’s voice. A normal person would take a closed front door and unanswered knock to mean nobody is home. Not Camryn. She knows I’m here, sad and pathetic and sitting in the dark.
I know what’s coming next.
Yep, there it is. The sound of a key in a lock. The metallic click, the bolt sliding. Door opening.
Camryn’s eyes zero in on mine. The glow from the phone gives away my location. I stay perfectly still, my finger poised above my screen.
Cam sits beside me. “Dad said he’s called you three times this week.” She tugs the blanket from my lap, draping it across her own until we’re sharing it.
I don’t respond. What’s there to say? Just like with Sabrina, I haven’t answered his calls because I don’t want to talk.
“Who’s that?” Cam asks, pointing at the smiling blonde woman on the screen, standing beside an equally blonde and grinning man.
“Someone from high school.” My upper lip curls at the seemingly happy photo posted three days ago.
“You’re into torture now? Is that it?” Cam snuggles deeper.
“My existence is torture.”
“Melodramatic.” She sighs the word.
“I know. I just… I can’t seem to stop.” I’m sad all the time. Even when I don’t appear sad, it’s because I’m pretending. “Look at this caption. It’s their anniversary. She writes ‘So lucky to be doing life with you.’” I make a face. “What is that? What is ‘doing life’?”
“Pretty sure you’ve used that exact caption,” my sister says, but I ignore her because I’m in no mood to be reminded that I used to be as enamored with my life.
I scroll further. “And this one. What about them?” A girl I knew in college is beaming, radiant on her wedding day. “She goes on and on about how perfect her new husband is.” I flick the screen with my middle finger. “No shit he’s perfect, it’s your wedding day. Just wait.” I glower at the glowing bride. “Just. You. Wait.”
God, I’m sad. For so many reasons, on so many levels.
“It’s normal.”
I turn to look at Cam. She takes the phone away and tosses it aside. It lands face down. “What you’re doing is normal. This grief.”
Grief . I pick up the word, try it on. It fits.
I poke at a button on my pajama top. “When I learned about grief in school, it was taught in stages. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But everything I’ve seen in my practice, and everything experienced in life, says otherwise. Grief isn’t linear. Grief doesn’t have a shape. For some, it’s a continuum.” I sniff. “Do I have a right to grieve? My husband didn’t die. He became an alcoholic who made a bad choice and now he’s living with the consequences of it.”
“So are you.”
“Am I even allowed to be upset? These feelings, shouldn’t they be reserved for people who’ve really lost something? A son to war, or a spouse to a tragic accident. I don’t deserve to be this upset.”
“Everybody’s personal tragedy is their own, and they have the right to be upset by it. Nobody gets to tell you what you grieve.”
I stare at my sister’s silhouette in the semi-dark. “What about you? What do you grieve?”
“Honestly?” She blows out a breath. “I grieve the most inconsequential stuff. The grocery store doesn’t have my cereal? Grief. I can’t find the hair on my shirt that’s terrorizing my underarm? Grief. Waiting in a long line at the bakery only to find they are out of my cinnamon bagel? Serious grief.”
She makes me laugh, because I know she’s only somewhat kidding.
“Listen, Baxter.” She takes my hand. “You need to go easier on yourself. Allow space to wade through all the feelings. And stop judging yourself.”
“When did you become a therapist?”
Camryn scoffs jokingly. “I’d never be a quack.”
I look at my fingernails. They are in need of care. “I don’t know where to go from here.”
“You take a step. And then another one. Eventually, you look back and see the distance you’ve traveled. And then you be damn proud of yourself, because you made it.”
I bend and flex my fingers, thinking about the concept of moving forward while Gabriel is suspended in time. Camryn gets up and disappears into my room. She returns carrying my box of nail polishes. She selects a color, doesn’t ask me if I like it, then grabs my hand.
I watch her paint a clear base coat. When she’s finished, I say, “I’m going to see him tomorrow.”
“I assumed so, considering tomorrow is Saturday and that’s when you go.” She swipes bright coral over my thumbnail. “Are the visits getting any better?”
I look into her eyes. “It’s once a week for two hours. There isn’t much opportunity for improvement.”
She paints my nails in silence after that.
I think back to my first visit. Gabriel walked into the visiting area, wearing a shade of orange that did not look good on him. It does not look good on anyone.
That visit took my mangled heart and broke it further, but a bystander would never guess. I worked double-time to remain upbeat. I plastered a hopeful smile on my face, and it never budged. It was as if I could, by virtue of sheer will, make the whole situation more palatable. Gabriel tried, but he never managed to get there. He could not force himself over that wall of pain.
I decided he didn’t need to, because I would do it. I would build the muscle we’d need to be strong. And I did. I have. I have fortified and stretched, and I can do it all. I can hold his suffering, and mine, too.
It hasn’t been easy. My other visits have grown progressively worse and worse. My husband looks sadder than ever before. Desolate. I want to hold him, shield him, soothe him. Sometimes I want to shake him, to scream at him for drinking again, for driving. When those feelings come up, I tuck them away.
He refuses to tell me any detail about what his life is like now, and I try not to put too much thought into why. In my head, I’ve placed him on an extended vacation. Gone . It breaks my heart to think otherwise.
“All done,” Cam announces, blowing on my fingers. “Hopefully they don’t chip between now and when you see Gabriel in the morning.”
I pick at a fleck of nail polish on my cuticle. “They’ll have to last longer than that. I’m going later in the day tomorrow. I told Dad I’d help him with taxes first.”
“Good. Dad’s been worried about you.”
“Little late in life for that.”
“I know,” Cam says in a low voice. She twists the cap on the nail polish, securing it. “Look at it this way. Gabriel has already been in one month. Thirty-five more to go, but he’ll probably get early release.”
I press lightly on one nail, to see if it’s dry. “Don’t hope, Cam. Hope has no business existing.”
Cam tosses the bottle back in the box. She doesn’t look at me when she says, “I think I’ll stay the night tonight.”