Fuck
Fuck
Fuck
Fuck
Fuck
Fuck
Fuck
I knew in that moment that all of my suspicions were true and real. The tits weren’t mine. The pussy wasn’t mine. He’d been outsourcing. As he scrambled for words, his hands out like he was trying to ward me off, I punched him in the face. He fell backwards in surprise, hit the dresser. My bottles of perfume scattered, rolled off, and crashed to the floor. I could smell the fug of flowers and musk as a bottle cracked and the liquid seeped into the wood. A photo of Mercy was knocked over too, the glass cracked. He held the spot on his face I’d hit, looking at me with something like fear. It was Mercy who sent me over the edge. Because when you fucked over your wife, you also fucked over your children.
“Who are they?” I asked. And then I screamed it, “Who the fuck are they?”
“No one,” he said. “They’re no ones!”
“How many?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
I attacked him, fists flailing, words flying.
Don’t wake up, Mercy, don’t wake up. I need to do this.
And then I just stopped. I was tired, not physically. I could have beat on him all night. I was tired of life. This was the sort of thing that happened to other people, not me. My husband didn’t have dozens of naked women saved in an album on his phone, next to pictures of my daughter. My husband wanted only me. He loved me enough to deny the fractured parts of himself that could destroy our love. Didn’t he? No. The coward. I looked at him in disgust.
“Why?” I asked.
“You did it,” he said. “With Ryan. I saw the picture you sent him last year. You’ve been emotionally cheating on me with him, don’t deny it!”
“Oh,” I said. “You cheated on me because of a picture I sent Ryan. In my bikini. That makes sense. I mean, why would you talk to me about what I did? That would be stupid. Instead you start fucking other women?”
He stared at me, that’s all. He just stared at me.
“You and I are really good when we’re good. But we’re awful just the same,” he said.
“What the ever living fuck are you talking about, you psycho? You cheated on me!”
“You say terrible things about my family. You are as much to blame for this as I am!”
The coffee mug was right there. I just launched it at his head. Goddamn my terrible aim. It smashed into pieces next to his head.
“You’re crazy,” he said. “You’re a sociopath.”
“Sure,” I said. “Get out of my house. You have ten minutes.”
I walked out, back straight, eyes running, heart aching.
I was good at grieving. Some people hid their pain, pretended they were fine. Those people deserved a medal. That ol’ brave face thing. Nah, not me. I didn’t have a brave face, but by God did I know how to sob. It came right from my belly and shook me down until I couldn’t breathe. I’d cry in the shower, or late at night so Mercy couldn’t hear me. When it became too much I called my mother to take Mercy. Cue the next stage: wall staring. How many days did I stare at a wall? Two? Three? I didn’t eat or drink anything, and I didn’t move. I watched the last three years of my life play out on that wall; the days of courtship, the text messages that said things like, I want to give you things you’ve never had. To experience things with you that you’ve never experienced. I want to make you feel what you make me feel. The hesitant first kiss, and the delicate vulnerability of the days after. The zeal of hope and future. I remembered the early days of diapers, and bottles—two very tired new parents having so much fun amidst the chaos. I remembered the tenderness, the way he’d look at me when I came home from a book signing, or trip—how his eyes lit up at baggage claim, and he’d hold me for long minutes. I remembered feeling safe and settled. Marveling at the good man I’d found. The wall played a reel of Thanksgivings, and Christmases, birthdays and vacations. Cooking—he loved my cooking, eating, drunken kisses by the fire pit, and the tender, reverent way he made love to me. One, two, three years a lie. How could I be so stupid? Was I that broken that I put on blinders to preserve something that wasn’t real?
That’s what happened when your heart broke. You remembered the good things first. The thing you’d miss. Then when the anger set in, a new reel started to play. Your thoughts turned from a romantic comedy to a psychological suspense. A genre switch. What a joke. Wedged in-between all of the good memories were dark slivers: fights, text messages, dissonance. You remembered how lonely you’d been feeling, and the dark slivers became more pronounced. They pushed apart the good memories until they stood on their own. All of a sudden, you were thinking, ohhh, that’s why he pulled away. There’s the day he couldn’t get it up, there’s the Thanksgiving when he was distracted. It all made sense in a roundabout way. It was a rough realization that the life you were living was not beautiful, but underhanded and secretive. And the person you loved the most was striking you with blows you couldn’t feel yet.