The Sick Wife

by Lost, Loretta

  I try to send a polite and cold response back to him, and maintain my distance. But over the next few days, he fights for me, and sends messages of warmth and love, and talks about us trying to find a way to meet up. He wins me back, and makes me feel hopeful again. I try to get over this horrible experience and trust him.

  I put his ring back on my finger.

  We even send each other more dirty photos. He assures me that Yvette was wrong, and he actually loved my pics. That makes me feel a lot better. Overall… as traumatizing as this experience was, it does somehow bring me closer to Gabriel and renew our relationship.

  Having him close again cheers me up a lot more than the antidepressants.

  Chapter 16

  Things have been okayish with Gabriel, and I’ve been feeling better. Early every morning, he starts going for a run outdoors. He uses this time to call me, and we talk on the phone for at least five minutes every day. Precious time he designated just for me.

  It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it means everything to me. It gives me something to look forward to each day, a reason to get out of bed. Every minute of love that he gives me is lifesaving. You’d be surprised, but when someone is struggling, calling them to show you care could literally mean the difference between life and death.

  I am able to go back to work again, and I restart my counseling sessions with Dr. Tanaka. He puts me on a different antidepressant that seems to work better for my sensitive stomach. He said I need to take it daily for over a month to start seeing an improvement, so I hope I can stick with it this time.

  But I’m pretty sure that as long as Gabriel keeps calling me every day, I will be fine. As long as I have that little bit of hope and laughter to keep me going, I know things will be fine.

  “I guess your relationship is going well again?” Mike asks, as he fills up his coffee in the break room. “You’re wearing the ring again.”

  “Yes,” I tell him happily, realizing I was humming to myself. “We had a bit of a rough patch. But we worked through it.”

  “I missed having you here at work,” Mike says. “I’m glad you’re back. You’re the most brilliant nurse we have, and the patients are lucky to have you.”

  “Oh… thank you, Mike,” I say with surprise.

  “Just calling it like I see it,” he says with a respectful nod, before leaving the room.

  Wow. That wasn’t terrible, either. I feel a little bit of pride blossoming in my chest, to have the respect of my colleague. Especially from someone who previously loved to rub it in my face that he was so much more educated and experienced than I am.

  I float through the rest of my shift, until I get off work at midnight. Gabriel usually goes for his run around 6 a.m. in France, so I walk around outside in the cold air, waiting for his call with my earbuds in. I am surprised when he doesn’t call. I wait for about half an hour and text him a few times before deciding to give up and go home.

  I’m a little worried, because I don’t hear anything back from him at all. Not even a text, not for a while. I enter my apartment and remove my scarf, tossing it aside. I move over to the couch and collapse, exhausted, and place the phone on the coffee table.

  It doesn’t take me very long to fall asleep.

  When the phone finally rings, I’m not sure if it’s minutes or hours later.

  I dive for it like it’s a baseball and I’m trying to keep the opposing team from scoring the winning run in the final inning. I am not even exaggerating—that is how I dive.

  “Hello?” I answer, groggy, with barely one eye open.

  “I’m so sorry, Milla,” he says with a deep breath. “Evie got sick, and we had to call the doctor…”

  “Oh, no. Is everything okay?”

  “Milla… please forgive me. I must have really screwed up.”

  I blink several times in confusion. “What? What are you talking about?”

  Gabriel takes a deep breath. And then another. “I don’t know how this happened. I thought I was careful, but…”

  “Gabriel!” I nearly shout, “Are you kidding me right now? Is this a joke?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  My mouth has actually fallen open in amazement. “She hasn’t even been home for a month… you promised…”

  “I swear to God, I didn’t intend for this to happen.”

  “You promised!”

  “I know, Milla. I’m sorry. But I’m going to have to be there for her now. We can’t talk anymore.”

  I taste something funny, and I realize that I’ve been biting my lip so hard that I drew blood. “Gabe, how could you?” That’s all I have the strength to say. There is so much more on my heart and mind, but it just won’t come out any longer. “Please take care of her health.”

  “I will.”

  I look down at my hand. I’m still wearing his mother’s ring. Tears begin to splash on it. I wrestle with it to rip it off my finger. “I’ll send the ring back to you in the mail.”

  “No, please. Keep it, Milla. You’ll always mean so much to me, and I’ll always love you. But I have to do my duty now.”

  “I’ll always love you too,” I say, and the tears come rushing out so hard I can no longer breathe. I don’t think I can stand to hear him say goodbye, so I just end the call.

  I find myself slumped forward with my arms and face pressed against the cold glass of the coffee table, just sobbing.

  He killed us.

  I’ve really lost him now. For real.

  Chapter 17

  I don’t know who needs to hear this, but don’t accept a marriage proposal from a guy who’s already married. Just don’t do it. It never ends well.

  Chapter 18

  I can’t get out of bed. Today, I lost my job. I didn’t care.

  Chapter 19

  Okay, so you know that moment when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, and things must start to get better? Like that moment in the middle of a global pandemic, after you’ve watched freezer trucks carry away dozens of bodies because the morgue was full, when you tell yourself… hey. Things have got to start getting better now. We’re almost past this. We’re through the worst of it.

  And then another wave hits? And another?

  Then everyone starts getting vaccinated, but it’s still not over? And you’re just not sure if you have the strength to keep hanging on, and you can’t handle even one more bad thing happening?

  Well, that’s what my personal life feels like.

  My father died today.

  I wasn’t his biggest fan, so I’m not sure why it affected me so much. He was still my father. My last remaining family member. The worst part was that I couldn’t even call or text Gabe to tell him about it.

  I didn’t just lose my lover. I lost my best friend.

  So, I went to sit at my mother’s grave. Thinking about my parents. Thinking about my life. Thinking about Gabriel’s mother and how he introduced me to her at the cemetery. I wish I could introduce him to my mother, too. I don’t know why, but it feels so unnatural not being able to call him in this moment and share these thoughts and feelings with him. Make some stupid and inappropriate jokes so that everything feels okay. I really got used to him being my person.

  I guess you know you really love a guy if you want to call him from the graveyard.

  Staring at the tombstone, I start to feel really annoyed. It has always bothered me that my father purchased a couple’s headstone for my mother and himself to share. His name and year of birth is already on there, etched beside hers. Why did he do that? Who was he trying to fool?

  If he had treated my mother better when she was around, she might be here now. Not six feet below where I stand, decomposing in a pretty box. She could have been part of my life. She could have guided me and loved me. Maybe I would be a better, stronger person, and less of a pathetic, needy mess. I needed her. She was my only real parent. She was the best part of my life—he was utterly useless as a father.

  I have always blamed him for taking her away
from me. Even if she took her own life, it was his fault, his behavior, his cruelty, and carelessness that led her down that path. And now he gets to share a grave with her body forever? He gets to be buried beside her, all comfortable and cozy like nothing bad ever happened?

  Something seems really wrong about that.

  She wanted to be dead to escape him... and me, I guess—I definitely wasn’t the perfect teenage daughter. But mostly him. Now that he is also dead, and supposed to join her in this grave… how will she rest peacefully? It just seems like a huge invasion of privacy and sacred personal space. She deserves better. She deserves her little plot of earth to be undisturbed, not dug up to dump in a man that she despised.

  “Sorry for your loss, Miss,” says a voice from the side.

  I look to my right, startled. I see a man standing there, leaning against a tree. He has a bag of tools with him, and he looks to be the cemetery groundskeeper.

  “My father died today,” I explain to him. “I guess he’s supposed to go into this grave, beside my mother.”

  “On top of your mother, technically,” he explains.

  “What?” I ask, horrified.

  “The second casket goes on top of the first casket,” he tells me.

  “No way, that’s even worse,” I say, making a face of disgust. “They didn’t even like each other. Why should they be stuck in the missionary sex position for the rest of eternity?”

  The groundskeeper laughs. “I didn’t make up the rules, that’s just how we’ve always done it for couples’ graves. Besides, I’m sure that’s what your parents wanted, if that’s how they set it up.”

  “No… it’s what my father wanted, maybe. Maybe just out of guilt when she died, he thought this would look better to friends and family… making up for the fact that he was a jackass when she was alive. But she hated him. She would have wanted to be far, far away from him.”

  “Are you sure about that?” the groundskeeper asks.

  “Yes. Of course! She killed herself to get away from him.”

  He lifts his eyebrows. “I’m so sorry to hear that. But still… you can’t presume to know anything about their marriage, even if you are their daughter.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask him, feeling the rage rising in my breast.

  “Lots of married couples hate each other,” he says with a shrug. “They still want to be close to each other anyway. I bet most of the couples buried in this cemetery had difficulties, probably mistreated each other, cheated on each other tons—maybe some were even violent to each other. They still stayed married for their whole lives, and chose to end up here, cozied up together for hundreds of years, until their bones turn to dust.”

  “But what if they didn’t want to? What if they just felt forced to stick with their stupid marriage because of social constructs and responsibilities, but they actually wanted to leave the whole time, and tried to leave, but they ended up buried here with the person they hated for so many years anyway? Because they were too afraid to make a change?”

  “I don’t know,” the groundskeeper says, shrugging nonchalantly. “I guess that’s possible. But it’s kind of depressing to think about, and not very romantic.”

  “Nothing is romantic! Because love is dead,” I inform him. “And the institution of marriage has no place in modern society.”

  “I mean, yeah,” he says with a shrug. “Isn’t that why we hook up using Tinder? Because our generation is more honest? By the way, are you on there?” He pulls his phone out of his pocket, as if to literally go on Tinder and see if he can find me. Right now. While I’m at my mother’s grave. “Maybe you can just give me your number.”

  I stare at him, my eyes open so wide that they hurt. “Is this your schtick? You find women who are crying by a tombstone and ask for their number?”

  “I mean… yeah. They are usually really vulnerable and needing comfort. It’s a great way to score. The main reason I took this job.”

  I keep staring in disbelief. “You—you remind me of my father. At least you’re honest about being slimy. He is not going into that grave.” I look down at the man’s big bag of tools. “Do you mind if I borrow a sledgehammer?”

  “Uh… it depends on if you’re intending to murder me or not,” he answers awkwardly, stepping away.

  I move forward and rummage around in his bag of tools for any kind of hammer. I find one that seems sturdy enough for what I need, and I walk back over to my mother’s tombstone. I line myself up properly, and examine it for a moment before lifting the hammer up and swinging it over my head. I smash it down onto the gravestone, and it connects with a satisfying thwack.

  “Holy shit!” the groundskeeper shouts, lifting his hands in a gesture telling me to stop. “I’m pretty sure that’s illegal or something.”

  “Do I look like I care?” I ask him. “Love is dead!” Lifting the sledgehammer again, I swing it down, smashing the shit out of the side of the grave with my father’s name on it. Oh my god—it feels so damn good. I lift and swing and smash, again and again. “He was a terrible person!” I shout to the whole cemetery. “If he had supported me better, I could have been a doctor instead of a nurse. I should have been a doctor! Asshole!”

  Lift. Swing. Smash.

  Lift. Swing. Smash.

  Soon enough, the half of the tombstone engraved for my father is smashed into rubble. I’m feeling high on adrenaline. I laugh loudly, feeling free. It’s actually really therapeutic. For the first time in fifteen years, it feels like that gravestone suits what my mother would have wanted. Okay, there are some jagged edges.

  But it’s the truth now. Not some kind of pretty, socially acceptable lie.

  “What did you do?” the groundskeeper asks in horror.

  I swing the sledgehammer up onto my shoulder, in what I hope is a cool pose. “I just gave my mother a fucking divorce,” I say proudly.

  “Oh, okay,” he responds, scratching his nose.

  How many women—and men, for that matter—have chosen suicide because they were too afraid or too weak to get a divorce? Especially decades ago, when divorce wasn’t legal or recognized by certain religions or cultures, or if it carried a huge negative stigma that just made it feel like too much work, like too much of a failure… like it was better to stay and be unhappy and keep pretending, than try to really go after what you wanted in life? Or to get rid of what you didn’t want?

  Maybe my mother would still be here if she could have just been strong enough to get away from my father. My chest is still heaving angrily.

  I wish I could say this all to Gabriel. I wish I could tell him how angry I am at him. I wish I could tell him that I sometimes feel he’s weak, that he’s a liar. That he never should have gotten into this with me if he wasn’t going to follow through. That he never should have said those words to me.

  But I also understand him, and I don’t want to say such cruel things and make his difficult situation even worse. Maybe he did mean it when he said he felt we were soulmates—it doesn’t change all the facts of his life, and it doesn’t erase years of his history. I respect him for being a good person, and a loyal person. Even if it hurts like hell to lose him and makes me want to scream and smash things. I just wonder how it all ends—whose name is going to be beside his on that tombstone. Whose name is going to be beside mine, if anyone’s?

  More importantly, will my tombstone ever get to say I was a loving mother, remembered fondly by several awesome children? Will there be anyone to visit me and bring flowers decades after I’m gone, and sit and talk to me—and maybe smash some shit in my memory?

  Dropping the hammer, I step closer to my mom’s newly solo tombstone, and I notice something I never paid much attention to before. She is still not alone on that rock. There’s my name. Very small, on the bottom, in italics.

  Survived by her beloved daughter, Camilla.

  I suddenly feel guilty. She’s survived by me. That means I have to survive. For her to survive.

  Whatever it takes, I
have to try to find a way to get better and survive.

  “So,” the groundskeeper says. “Can I have your number?”

  Ew. No, I’ll find a better way than that.

  Chapter 20

  Losing my job was actually a blessing for my mental and physical health. I needed to get out of that environment…. badly. I should have listened to Dr. Tanaka when he told me to take a proper break and focus on self-care, but I just felt like it was essential to keep working. I thought that my job was an important part of my identity. That I was nothing without it.

  But it was killing me. All that I’ve lived and witnessed lately has just been too much. And now that I’ve had everything ripped away from me, I am starting to remember who I am. I am more than my job. I am more than my relationship.

  And now I’m humming to myself happily while watering my plants and cleaning my apartment. There are no forest animals to help me out, but that’s okay. I have dust bunnies: and they are extremely satisfying to sweep away. It turns out that it’s not only having a boyfriend that makes me feel cheerful enough to hum. Not being forced to watch people die every day is also pretty amazing. Not having to rush to a code blue or listen to families crying, while I’m starving and thirsty for hours—who knew life could be so good?

  It helps that my father actually left me an inheritance. There was a life insurance police I didn’t know existed and some property. It’s enough for me to survive for a little while and not have to worry about finding work immediately. I also hate my father marginally less, and slightly wish I didn’t smash his tombstone to smithereens.