Anthology - A Thousand Doors

by Various

  The house is eerily quiet. It’s rare for me to be home at this hour. I can hear the ticking of the pipes, the whirring of the heater, everything so loud and unfamiliar, echoing through the empty space. The morning sun normally spills in the windows, warm and happy, but today is gray, cold and remorseless. The chill permeates my skin even though inside, I am churning. A bath. A book. Something, anything, to help me relax.

  Like that’s going to happen. Oh, I screwed up. I screwed up so badly. Why did I send the paper an anonymous text? I should pick up the phone. I should face this head-on. I should admit what I know, what he’s asked of me. I am a coward. I can’t do it.

  Back in the kitchen, I grab a glass, fill it with filtered water, drink it down. The phone rings, and I dive toward it, recognizing the number. It is my best friend, Olivia.

  “Mia, are you okay?”

  “Word’s out then?”

  “Word’s out about what?”

  “Oh, um, nothing.” No, I haven’t told Olivia what’s going on. She knows I moved out, obviously, but when she asked why I simply said, “We’re having problems. I’ll explain more when I can.”

  “Honey, are you okay? Roger called me, asked me to talk to you. What’s going on? He said you filed for divorce. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The accusatory tone in her voice makes me edgy. What can I even tell her without getting her involved?

  Roger is asking me to do something illegal, he’s a criminal who’s going to take us all down if I don’t stop him.

  I am miserable. Every decision I’ve ever made was the wrong one. I don’t want to be living this life.

  I want to blow up my world and dance on the ashes.

  “I just… I’m not happy. You know that. I need a change.”

  She sighs, and I can envision her riotous black curls bobbing. “I understand. I really do. I know you haven’t been happy. But you may have taken it too far. Filing for divorce…are you sure that’s wise? He isn’t the sort to take kindly to being defied. God, is there someone else? I don’t think he’d be happy…I mean, it could go badly.”

  Olivia has no idea about the text. None of them do. Not yet. She’s just babbling, and making excuses, maybe trying to protect me, I don’t know. There is something she knows that no one else is privy to.

  Roger is violent sometimes. Violent with me. Oh, he never leaves a mark, but he’s excellent at manhandling me, intimidating me, scaring me. Emotional abuse is his forte. It’s only a matter of time until he graduates to using those clenched fists he shakes in my face.

  Which is why, when I found out about his ridiculous scheme, I realized I finally have a chance. My only chance to get away from my perfect life.

  He let me move out. He gave me space. He let me make the appointment with the lawyer. All to ensure my silence.

  But now, I’ve talked. Even though no one knows it was me, Roger will.

  I shiver. “‘It could go badly’ is an understatement. But I have to do this. I have to get some perspective.”

  Olivia sighs, and I feel her confusion. I can tell she wants to drag the whole story out of me, inch by inch, but I’m not ready to talk. Good friend that she is, she doesn’t push me. Instead, she says, “Have some wine. Watch some TV. Tomorrow is a new day. You’ll feel better once you get a good night’s sleep. You haven’t been sleeping or eating right. You’re stressed. I can talk to Roger for you, tell him—”

  “No. Absolutely not. You stay far away from him, Olivia. Lives are at stake. My whole life is at stake. A good night’s sleep is not going to fix this. But you need to stay out of it, far, far away, okay?”

  “I just think if the three of us could talk—”

  The tears come hot and unconstrained. “You, of all people… You, who knows everything he’s done to me. You want to broker talks with that shithead? I…I have to go.”

  I do. I am being betrayed in all corners today.

  Olivia laughs, a strained squeak. “Seriously, Mia. Get some rest. Get some sleep. You may feel differently tomorrow. I could come over, bring you some soup or something? And we can talk about the best way to approach him.”

  I get the sense that she’s only offering because she should, which makes me wonder why, exactly, she’s so damn interested in reconciliation talks.

  Best she stays away. “No, thanks. I need to be alone.”

  “Call me if you change your mind.”

  She hangs up, and I’m left alone again, standing in my kitchen in the chilly air, fuming, staring out the window. The cat twines around the door, tail up, elegant and seductive, glancing over her shoulder like she’s draped in pearls and I’m a wealthy stranger to be conquered. I can practically see her wink.

  Today, I am a stranger to her. To me. To my whole life.

  When is the last time someone looked at me with adoration in their eyes? The last time I was thanked, celebrated, recognized? The last time I was asked to do something that made me proud?

  What is a life? What is enough?

  I ask this of myself often. Mia, what are you doing with your life? Are you following your dreams? Are you giving back to society? Are you living up to your potential? Are you happy? Are you proud of yourself?

  Today, the answer is easy. No. No, I am not happy. I am not content. I am not living my best life. I’m scraping along, forced to compromise myself to help someone else’s bottom line. To hide the truth. Right now, it sucks to be me.

  What is it they say: If you don’t pursue your own dreams, someone will pay you to pursue theirs?

  Yuck.

  That little voice pipes up, the nasty one who loves to remind me of my failures.

  You’re a soon-to-be-middle-aged woman with the start of a drinking problem and nothing meaningful to show for your life. You might even get to celebrate your big birthday in jail!

  Once, I had so many dreams. So many opportunities. I could have been a painter—I was a decent painter when I was young. I could have lived in France. I could have gone to Africa. I was always good at science, I could have spent time digging in the dirt, or teaching. I’m a decent teacher. Or acting, or singing…

  I could have had a baby…

  It’s not too late…

  “Oh, get over yourself. It’s not like you can choose another life now. You’re stuck with this one.”

  I tidy the kitchen from breakfast, putting away my teacup and toast plate, then pour a glass of wine and head upstairs to my bath. This house was recently renovated, marble, grays and whites. It is calming, soothing. I enjoy the gentle, embryonic warmth, lying there drinking my wine, thinking about all the ways my life has gone wrong, all the paths I could have taken but didn’t, until the water cools. I put my hair in a bun, get into a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeve T-shirt.

  If I’m playing hooky, I might as well try to enjoy myself.

  There is freedom in what I’ve done. I have choices now, choices I didn’t have before. Leaving Roger, leaving his situation, isn’t something I take lightly. It will have consequences, serious, long-lasting consequences. Especially since I’m bringing down the house with me.

  Downstairs, I refill my wineglass and see my phone has eight texts and three missed calls, all work related. A couple of reporter friends asking why I’ve taken leave, is everything okay? My editor, his voice sounding strange, asking me to come by the office as soon as I’m able.

  I know what that’s about. Nope. Not gonna do his job for him.

  I turn off the ringer and shove my phone into a kitchen drawer, make a bowl of popcorn, grab the bottle of wine. In front of the television, I pull up a movie. Pearl Harbor. Plenty of bombs and tears. Hours of enjoyment ahead. Perfect.

  The movie distracts me. Wine two leads to wine three, then four. Hours later, I am zoned out, a little drunk, and still furious and scared about what tomorrow holds. Drunk before dinner. Classy. The thou
ght makes me giggle.

  It is almost 8 p.m. when I hear the noise. Like a knock, only quieter. I hit Pause. Nothing. Silence winds around me.

  The cat, most likely, mugging around in the kitchen, playing with a fake mouse.

  I wipe my eyes once more time. Stretch my legs. Hear it again, louder now. The small crash makes my heart leap to my throat.

  That is not the cat.

  Adrenaline floods my system. It’s impossible to hear, see. I stand on unsteady legs, my heartbeat raging, the wine making me blurry.

  “Who’s there?” I call, but my voice is more like a whisper, weak with fear. I move toward the kitchen, even though my mind is screaming Run, run and hide! I am unarmed. I am buzzed. I am scared. Why didn’t I take that self-defense class they were offering at work? Why didn’t I take one of Roger’s guns with me when I left?

  My phone. Where is my phone?

  In the drawer in the kitchen, you idiot.

  I edge into the kitchen, seeing no one. The glass door to the deck is wedged open, shards on the floor by the eat-in cafe table.

  And at that table sits Roger.

  “What the hell are you doing? Did you break in?” Stupid question, Mia. Of course he broke in. You are in so much trouble.

  He smiles, feral, head tipped to one side, the odd look he was getting before I broke it off. I don’t know him anymore.

  “You shouldn’t have walked out on me. You made a scene. It was distasteful.”

  “You shouldn’t have asked me to break the law. Get out of here, Roger, or I’ll call the police.”

  “You won’t.” He drums his fingers on the table, and I am reminded of all the mornings he sat across from me, reading the paper, turning with his left hand, the right drumming, drumming, drumming, endlessly.

  I turn for my phone but he’s up in a flash, hand circling my biceps, thumb pressing hard into the flesh.

  “Let me explain how this is going to go. We are going to fix everything. And if it’s not working, we will find someone to blame. A board member, a secretary. But either way, Mia, we are going to walk away from this, hand in hand. Do you understand?”

  I try to wrench away, but he has a good hold on me. “And if I don’t agree? What if I don’t want to put myself on the line for you anymore? What if I don’t want to lie for you?”

  His smile is lazy, crooked. On another man it would be sexy as hell. Once, it might have felt like that to me. But now, it feels like a threat.

  I will not let him bully me anymore.

  “It’s too late.”

  The smile fades. “What do you mean, it’s too late?”

  I just stare at him. Realization dawns in his eyes, and his face rips into a sneer.

  The flash of the blade is so brief I don’t even have time to register more than a second’s fear before it sinks deep into my flesh, over and over, and I know I’m screaming, but I can’t hear anything.

  ————

  It is dark, deeply dark, black as velvet. The edges of my darkness curl back, leaving a thin white line between them. It takes forever to realize my eyes are open. I am wet. The pain in my stomach and chest is excruciating.

  The phone is ringing. It rings loudly, so loud I can feel it inside my skull.

  This might be my only chance. The phone is in the drawer. If I can just reach it…

  I drag myself a few feet across the floor. The pain makes me retch, the retching makes me cry, the crying makes the pain magnify until I can hardly breathe.

  I can’t reach the drawer pull. The pain is too severe.

  A voice in my head, not mine. You’re going to die if you don’t answer the phone, Mia.

  I reach higher, but it’s no use. I can feel the edges of my vision darkening.

  Mia, reach. Try harder. You can do it. You have to answer the phone.

  My shoulder feels like it’s going to crack apart from my body, but I get a hand on the drawer pull. Blood makes it slick, and it takes a few tries for me to get it open, then reach inside. The phone falls on the floor and skids toward the cat’s water bowl.

  I manage to press the green button.

  “Mia? It’s Olivia. I wanted to apologize—”

  “Help,” I say, before everything goes black.

  ————

  There are flashes.

  My body, jostled. Pain, so intense and swift I want to cry out, but no sound comes from my mouth, only a scream from deep inside, waxing and waning as I struggle to catch my breath. I can’t breathe. I am drowning.

  A voice, so faint, so weak. “Charging. Hit her again. Who did this to you, sweetheart? Did you recognize him?”

  The light is bright, so bright, and I see something in the distance, something gray and amorphous. I feel fear. I feel numb.

  I feel peace.

  “Come with me,” the strange light says, holding out a shadowed hand. Its grip is warm and soft, and I relax into the fog, listening as the light, the entity, the being, the angel, says, “You’ve always wanted to know what might have been. You need to see how important your choices are. I will show you.”

  What

  Could

  Have

  Been

  The Happily Married

  Wife and Mother

  Kimberly Belle

  “Daddy, Daddy, look!” Our daughter, Hartley, stands in the middle of the front yard in a pajama top and a hot-pink tutu. Her hair is a wild snarl around her head, an equal mix of corkscrew curls and pillow-frizzed fluff. Yesterday was her fourth birthday, and she’s still riding the sugar high, bouncing on the grass like a Mexican jumping bean. She turns to her father and beams. “I can do a cartwheel. Watch!”

  Sam tosses his keys in the truck. “I’m watching, baby. Show me what you got.” He should have left for the restaurant ten minutes ago, just like I should be wrangling the kids inside, getting them fed and dressed for school, but then again, we’re the Mastersons, and punctuality isn’t exactly our strong suit.

  I sink onto the front steps, and her brother, Ford, climbs onto my lap. He knows his sister, and he knows we’re going to be here a while.

  Under her father’s undivided gaze, Hartley sparkles with self-importance. I may be the woman who tucks her in bed at night, who clothes and feeds her, who dries her tears and kisses the pain from her knees when she falls, but above all things, she craves the approval of her father.

  She swings her arms high above her head, points a grubby toe into the grass, and executes a fairly decent cartwheel. She’s barely back on her feet when she swirls around to face him, a gymnast awaiting her score. From the other side of the truck, Sam claps and cheers. A ten.

  Ford burrows deeper into my chest, sucking his thumb. He came out of the crib cranky this morning, and I press a palm to his forehead, feeling what might be a slight fever. Another molar pushing through, maybe, or the beginnings of a cold. A flicker of worry flashes in my chest. My son may have recovered from last winter’s bout with the croup, but I haven’t. In a burst of energy he wriggles free, and I watch him toddle across the grass to his big sister.

  Five years ago, if you’d asked me what I wanted from my life, I would have said not this—not kids, not a barely profitable restaurant and a mortgage tying me to this Southern Georgia town, definitely not Sam. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that plans don’t always work out the way you think they will.

  Across the street, the garage peels open, and our neighbor Sarah Jean steps out in high-heeled sandals and her Lilly Pulitzer du jour, a cell phone pressed to an ear. Her tan legs are lotioned into a high shine, reflecting in the early morning sun like glass; her hair is heat-curled for business. Sarah Jean is Ellaville’s top-selling real estate broker, the ringleader of a clique of former mean girls turned ruthless negotiators, a group Sam and I jokingly refer to as the bubble-gum mafia.

  She d
rops her phone into a giant chartreuse handbag and calls to us across the street, “I need to fill y’all in on the plans for the new sign at the neighborhood entrance before the meeting tonight, but I’ve got to run. Rotary meeting. Do you think y’all can come over fifteen minutes early?”

  There is only one appropriate response to her question, and that is a yes. Even though I have no idea what she’s talking about. Even though Sam and I will not be coming over fifteen minutes early for anything.

  But Sam takes the bait. “What meeting?”

  Sarah Jean’s brown eyes go pony wide. “The neighborhood association meeting? Eight o’clock?” When we don’t respond, she punches a fist into a bony hip. “Don’t tell me y’all forgot.”

  Sarah Jean is everything I hate about the South—her unnecessarily pink wardrobe, how she can report me for some silly infraction and call me sweetie in the same breath, the way I may never refer to her as Sarah or Jean, only Sarah Jean. She will never accept me into her ranks, mostly because she will never forgive me for snatching Sam out from under the noses of all her single girlfriends, women who still gather at the restaurant every Friday night to watch Sam work his magic in the kitchen.

  “See you tonight,” I call out and shoot Sam a look: Zip it.

  “Watch me again, Daddy!” Hartley screams, springing to her feet, and Sam looks glad for the distraction.

  He glances at his watch. “Baby, I gotta go. I got a shipment of fish arriving any minute now.”

  “Please? Just one more time. This one’s the best, I promise.”

  “Fine,” Sam says, leaning on the cab with both forearms. “But just one. I mean it this time.”

  Everybody here knows Sam doesn’t mean it, including Ford, who plops onto his diapered tush to watch his sister do not one but three sloppy cartwheels across the grass. Sam watches his daughter, and I watch Sam, warmth swirling in my chest. He may not have been my first choice, but I see now that he was the only choice. Funny how hindsight can do that, shine a light on all the mistakes, magnify all the twists and turns that led me right here, right now. The exact place I want to be.