Invisible Husband

by Coco Pulliam

  A light beeping sounded from within her purse. She opened it to reveal more beeping. People started to cuss louder around her. She ignored them and reached into her purse for her phone.

  “Get out of the church and come outside. You know our family doesn’t step inside those walls until we have sinned properly first,” said Monica.

  Tammy sighed. She couldn’t keep anything from the other woman’s knowledge.

  “I’m not leaving. I need to see them get married so I can move on. I’m hanging up.”

  She put her phone back in her purse, answering more glares with another charming smile. Closure was the only reason she could allow herself to face such embarrassment. She wanted to be able to peel his existence away from her memories. There could be no thoughts of seeing him anymore if every time she thought of him, a happily married man and woman came into view.

  The picture would be framed nicely without her.

  “Excuse me; have you seen my stupid sister? She came in here by mistake.”

  Tammy could hear Monica’s voice from the other side of the church as she tried her best to whisper. She turned around and caught her sister’s eye. Giving up was the only way. There would be more noise made if she tried to hide under the pews.

  “My insane darling, let’s go right now.” Monica grabbed her under the armpit to pull her away as the oblivious couple finished reciting their vows. Tammy stopped mid-step, entranced. “Do you even have eyes to watch this scene?”

  “This is what it feels like to lose someone completely…” she whispered. Exhaling roughly and inhaling the same way, she tried to keep herself under control as they kissed. She covered her mouth before a sob could break through. Pushing herself out of the aisle, she ran to the back of the room and then out a side door.

  “Now you feel it?!” Monica chased after her into the dark hallway. “It’s a regular maze in here. Can we get out of here before one of us mistakenly gets married?”

  Tammy couldn’t hear her sister. Her legs were completely numb, and she couldn’t stop the flow of tears coming from her eyes, so she let them fall freely. The Strong Black Woman angle never appealed much to her.

  “Just go back to work. I’ll go home on my own,” she said. Though she was well adjusted to her vulnerable side, she really couldn’t break down to a schedule. The other woman rolled her eyes.

  “Fine, but don’t do anything I’ll have to clean up later.”

  Tammy watched as her sister walked away, though she could hardly raise her head. Without a way to make things right, Monica wasn’t the only one who felt like a failure. Coming to watch the wedding was a mistake that she couldn’t admit out loud.

  She got up, using the wall as leverage. Catholic churches had been a part of her childhood until her confirmation service. Looking down the hallway, she saw that lit candles framed the last door. Though it looked like a closed part of the church, she walked toward it. It was probably a place for priests to pray in private. Her hand tightened around the door. Though she didn’t know whether she could be disturbing someone, she didn’t care at the moment. Right now, she just wanted to find something to hold on to.

  The door opened to a well-lit room. Immediately her eyes took in the splendor of the glass-stained ceiling. At first, she didn’t realize she wasn’t the only one in the room. But at the clearing of a voice, her eyes reached the altar. Someone stood beside a priest.

  “Sorry… I didn’t mean to disturb you guys. I’ll be leaving.” She made to turn around but could hear fast footsteps coming towards her. Looking back, she saw someone who had been on the fringe of her mind each time she drove past Six bar and lounge on her way home. “What are you doing here?”

  It was the same blond man who she had kissed on the worst day of her life.

  Well, now the second-worst day.

  He looked different now. Though he was over six feet, there was a slump to his shoulders that wasn’t there before. His cheeks looked hollow, his thin face pale; his blonde hair was tipped with gray, and as she looked into his green eyes he looked as tired inside as she felt. She gulped, feeling another sob coming out. She couldn’t help the need to reach out. Her hand raised her in the air, almost about to touch him, then dropped when she realized what she was doing. But he picked it up before she could pull away. He squeezed her hand gently enough for her to break down.

  “Oh…oh, I’m so sorry.”

  He let her fall against him and pulled her close. Tammy cried, not caring how she looked, and clutched onto his jacket.

  “It hurts so much. I can’t watch him w-w-walk away from me anymore. I-I don’t want to b-b-be alone.” She sniffed and he held her even closer.

  “I’ll take care of you.”

  * * * *

  It had been seventy-two hours. Seventy-two hours since Eric Coyer had married Tammy Fraise. Well, Tammy Fraise Coyer, according to their brand-new marriage license. For three days he had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. After the impromptu wedding, both of them had gone back to his cottage and spent the weekend together. Throughout the weekend, he had seen her phone ringing, but she hadn’t answered it once. He couldn’t figure out if her discomfort came from being uncomfortable having him around. Instead of asking her, he had set up his bedroom for her and made himself comfortable on the couch. Both nights, he’d heard her footsteps in the corridor. She had crawled onto the couch beside him, his pajama shirt on her body along with panties, no bra. He pulled her toward him, molding his body against hers, and didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

  In the middle of making breakfast that Sunday, Tammy came in to attack the pink elephant in the room.

  “Are you regretting that we got married yet?”

  “What—?”

  He turned too quick, almost burning himself on the scrambled eggs. He turned off the gas and plated the eggs. Walking over to the table, he put the plate down in front of her and walked back to the stove. He couldn’t guess where the conversation was going to go, no matter how much he looked at her, though it was hard to look for long since she was wearing another one of his shirts with lace panties underneath.

  On the way to the cottage, he had given her money to buy herself new clothes, but the only thing he had seen her wear from that shopping trip were diverse Victoria’s-Secret-Fashion-show-style panties.

  No pajamas.

  No bras.

  “Well, we’ve been married for a few days and you haven’t tried anything with me yet. Are you not interested?”

  He watched her as she got up and walked toward him. She wore his shirt, halfway buttoned down. All he needed to do was blow a little in her direction and he would be able to see more of her skin—

  “Wishing you married a feisty blonde instead?”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. Tammy was feisty enough for him. The opposite of any of the blondes he had dated in the past. She was petite but curvy in all the right places. Her hair, a thick curly black, he couldn’t help but watch her play with in the bathroom. Her small nose was rounded. It scrunched up as she looked up at him with almond-shaped eyes.

  “Should I just carry you to the bedroom and introduce you to my feisty blonde side instead?”

  He put his hands on either side of her body, on her thick hips. The first time he had touched her in a place that wasn’t her shoulder. His hands were on her ass, caressing her while he lifted her up to touch the place that he wanted to touch most, the place she’d teased all weekend with her panties and opened shirts.

  He bent down and kissed her forehead softly and then the tip of her nose.

  “Tammy, I told you, I’ll take care of you.”

  He pulled her closer and felt something wet hit his arm. She pulled away.

  “I’m going to go take a little nap before I eat.”

  Eric watched as Tammy retreated from the room. He groaned as he looked down at his pants. She had left him no choice but to take care of himself first. He went into the bathroom.

  A few minutes later he found he
r lying on the bed, facing away from him. He leaned on the doorframe, thinking of how to approach her.

  “I have to go back to the city for work tomorrow. If you want to stay a little bit longer, I can be back on Thursday to spend the weekend with you then help you move into my place, if you want…”

  Tammy turned around to look at him, making him stop in the middle of his words. Her face was streaked with tears. When he had thought about what being a good husband meant, three years ago in the hotel room with Tommy, he’d thought that if his wife ever cried he would be holding her before the first teardrop crossed her eyelashes. At least five streaks were already on Tammy’s cheeks.

  Eric moved from the door, slowly trying to get closer to her. He didn’t know if his closeness would be a comfort or if it would start up more tears.

  “Oh, Tammy, baby. You regret everything, don’t you? If you want an annulment I will give it to you. I’ll call my lawyer right now and everything will be okay.”

  She started crying even harder. He rushed over to the bed, pushing aside bed sheets to get to her. He got close enough for her to choose to touch him. She wrapped her arms around his torso. He pulled her into his arms.

  “You can be a single woman by the end of the day, love, I swear. Just treat this as if is an interesting weekend.” He got the words out, but he felt like letting a tear or two drop himself.

  He had meant his words when he’d said, “I’ll take care of you.” The second she had come into through the doors, he knew he was blessed for enduring those three suicide-inducing years. For all the low moments that he was able to battle through, he had been given an angel. The only catch was that his angel had to fall on the way down from Heaven. She was already broken.

  He had thought that would be the trade-off of being with her—helping her heal her heart. He hadn’t considered her having second thoughts. She brought her head up.

  “Well, Eric, the point is that this wasn’t on my radar. You weren’t supposed to be the one.” She stood up on her own, wringing her hands in her lap.

  “Three days ago, I was watching the guy I thought of as my future husband, my college sweetheart, marry someone else. She’s a woman he chose over me because of her skin tone—a lighter one. He destroyed me and he’s still destroying me, so no, I’m not ready yet to respond to you being tender with me instead of just…acting like you settled for me.”

  He pulled her back toward him, holding her hands in his to keep her from wringing them.

  “I’m just not ready yet to go IKEA and pick out couches or wallpaper. I can deal with fucking the stranger I married, but not lovemaking.”

  She laid out the situation as she laid her head on his shoulder. Throughout the weekend, he had tried to figure out her new place in his life, without thinking about what it meant for him to be in hers. But he was still there with her, arms around her waist and chin on top of her head, as she held onto his hands like a kid who’d just climbed a high tree.

  Drop to the floor while you’re still ahead, or pull yourself up even higher?

  “We don’t have to do any of that. Just tell me what you want.”

  He was fully prepared for anything. At least he wanted to say that he was. Letting her go would be the easy part; afterwards he would have to deal with the memoires and loneliness. They were both things that he didn’t have a coping mechanism against. But at that moment, he wouldn’t have to go anywhere. He was her foundation.

  On the bedside table Tammy’s phone had started ringing. Now it was ringing more violently. She didn’t seem to notice it. For the whole weekend, she’d had the same indifferent reaction towards her phone. He hadn’t pushed the issue, and this didn’t seem like a good time to push either.

  “Well, for starters, Hubby Coyer, I want my own closet and soft-colored walls for the master bedroom—something lavender.” Eric tried not to smile too much, hearing the new nickname she had given him. “And for sure, I’ll need a taser for when I go get my stuff. My sister’s probably camping outside my house right now since I’m not answering her calls. And when she finds out that I got married, you might be planning a funeral.”

  He let out one laugh after another. Finally, instead of waiting for her to tell him that she was joking, he looked down at her poker face. She wasn’t joking.

  “I know our families are going to be a somewhat shocked, but I don’t think you’ll need weapons for them…”

  Tammy let out her own laugh. She reached for her phone on the coffee table; she searched for her sister’s messages and read them out loud.

  “I am about to call 911—where are you?! You’d better not be stalking that bastard!”

  “I decided not to call 911 to help you because girl, when you come home you’re going to need 911 yourself. But they’re not going to come fast enough—trust me.”

  “You’re a twenty-something-year-old black woman living in Canada. Girl, there is no amber alert waiting for your ass, COME HOME!”

  Tammy dialed the number for her sister’s voicemail and left her a message: “I’m coming home tomorrow. Stop acting dramatic. I’ve only been gone for three days. Okay, the cell phone is getting turned off now.”

  The moment the message was sent the phone went off, and Tammy took the batteries out of her phone.

  Eric stopped her hand before she could put it on the table.

  “What’s wrong? You should answer your sister.”

  She pushed through her hand with her full body strength, not minding the way his fingers brushed her breasts. He brought his hand back to his lap.

  “It’s ’till death do us part’ and my sister was an English major, so she takes everything literally—so you’re the next target on her list.”

  Tammy got up from the bed and went into the open bathroom. Eric watched her as she washed her face. She bent over the sink, her bottom peeking out of her pink panties. He could see his hands on them, caressing her and kissing her head. Questions wanted to pour out of his head, but he kept them inside. Still, he couldn’t help wondering: where do we go from here? Did we make a mistake that we’re going to regret for the rest of our lives? Or can we truly live like this and be happy?

  “You’re thinking too hard now, Hubby Coyer. And you’re looking at me too hard as well.”

  She had given him a cheeky smile. Finally, she looked like she was feeling better. He stretched out his body and put his hands underneath his head.

  “We have one of those regular and yet sexy Boy Meets Girl stories. We met at a bar years ago, but we had to meet one more time in a church before recognizing our future couple potential. In that moment of galaxy-given clarity, we decided to skip mourning all of our missed dating opportunities and just got married. Don’t let the years in between that we spent hesitating fool you. We might just be destiny.”

  She finished with putting on face cream and put herself back into the bed beside him. Her hand landed on his tense shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, my feisty blonde. Everything will be perfect.”

  * * * *

  Tammy had decided to go back into town with her new husband even though he had been adamant that she not go home until she had worked things out with her sister. But he didn’t know how Monica worked. The woman didn’t solve problems by talking only. There needed to be a beat down or two or else there could be no forgiveness. It was a baptism of fists: with bruises you are forgiven, beloved.

  Monica could be avoided in the cottage, but once begun, it was a countdown to the moment of confrontation. Instead of waiting for that moment, she went over to Monica’s downtown condo, making sure she did so on the same day that the friendly security guard, Rich, was on duty as well.

  Tammy said a quick greeting to him before going up the elevator and toward death.

  “Hey, come inside, baby.”

  Monica looked at her sister with hooded eyes. She was dressed in a long tank and nothing else. Her hair was up in a messy bun instead of neat, straight and sleek like she usually had it.

  �
�Don’t try and hit me when my back is turned,” Tammy said as she moved around her. Monica’s hands could hardly leave her sides. The place looked like she was cleaning up, but only two small unpacked boxes were on the floor.

  “I’m not going to hit you. Your new husband called before you came.”

  Tammy’s mouth dropped open. “Eric called you? When?” She dropped into a chair by a box and looked down. Monica was packing new clothing and food. “What are you packing for?”

  “You just got married; you’re going to need the things that you have here back and also food for your husband. I know you can’t cook for crap. And you also need to have bridal things since you didn’t even have a wedding shower. But of course you had no time to plan things like this during random marriages—”

  Tammy watched her sister walking around without recognizing her. She walked slouched over, less sure of herself than usual.

  “Did you get possessed this weekend or what?” Tammy walked over to her and sat her down. She took out a hair tie and comb from her bag and started to brush out her sister’s hair.

  “I’m finished playing the mature one, the older sister,” Monica said.

  She shook out her hair and turned to look at Tammy.

  “I talked to Eric and heard the whole story. You went and got yourself married to a Scottish man, a white man, after watching Marcus marry that other girl. Though he married you impulsively, he’s not some random drunk who’s using you for sex. And he has good credit.” She said the last part with a cheeky smile. It had been a childhood promise between the two. Get married to someone with good credit so that if he dies early, he wouldn’t leave them as desperate as their dad did. Two stepsisters and two mothers with no money, leaning on each other.

  “I can’t think of anything to fix this for you because this is the first mistake you’ve made that I actually agree with.”

  “No beatings, then?”