Every day that follows is the same. He wants more and more of me and I give in. I never put a stop until it came to the point where I knew things had gone far beyond my control.
Chapter Nineteen
Katherine
Three Months Later...
I’m surprised to see Aidan in the kitchen when I walk back downstairs. He usually comes home around six after work. It’d be a pleasant surprise, hadn’t he been serving himself a glass of whiskey.
"Hey, I didn't know you were home.”
He smiles at me and says, "I wanted to come home early to my beautiful wife." He leaves the glass on the counter and wraps his arms around my waist and kisses me. The kiss tastes like whiskey and that's never been my favorite flavor.
I pull away.
"How many have you had?" I ask.
He chuckles and with his index finger he brushes my hair away from my face. "I just got home."
"I know, but I want to know how many you've had in the five minutes you've been home," I reply.
He sighs, defeatedly.
"Okay, I had two but it doesn't matter, okay?" He kisses my forehead. "I missed you."
But no matter if he tried to divert me from the subject, I wasn’t about to let it go. "Aidan, you know that I don't like it when you drink, not even a glass." This time, he rolls his eyes. "Don't look at me like that, Aidan. You promised that if we had that thing here it wouldn't turn into something daily. You never drank that garbage before."
"Can we not fight about this? It's just a drink." He kisses me one more time, pulling me closer to him to the point where there is no space between us. "I came home because I wanted to have some quality time with you and our little princess," he said between kisses. "And maybe some more quality time with you."
I chuckle. "Well, I'm afraid not. I'm very busy and you have a daughter to go say hi to."
He walks out of the kitchen to our daughter's room like nothing. Like he didn't just pour himself two glasses of whiskey in less than five minutes. He's never been drunk to stumble around. He never gets drunk at all. I stare at the jar of whiskey. Several weeks ago, he asked me if he could have one. I thought it was a stupid idea that he even considered asking due to the fact that both of us never drank, but he insisted on his liking and that it wouldn't become something daily. I can't express how much it angers me seeing him drink, even if it was just one glass a day or two a week, it's never going to be of my liking. I always have to hold back the urge to pour it all out in the sink and throw the jar as far as possible out of his reach.
By the time dinner is ready, Aidan is down in the living room with Elizabeth helping her with her walking. I lean against the wall and watch them as he helps her maintain her balance. It worried me at first when she turned one and was not walking. We took her to several doctors, but no one found anything wrong with her. They said she’ll walk when she’s ready to walk. We've been trying to help her for quite a while, but it seems to be a lot harder for her than what it was for Charlie.
Aidan points at me and looks down at our daughter.
"Look, walk up to Mommy."
"Ma!" Elizabeth called out. I kneel down and open my arms for her.
"Go to Mommy." Aidan encourages her, letting her go by the arms. Elizabeth maintains her balance, and slowly and quite clumsy she takes one step at a time. Aidan hovers above her with his hands out in case she falls and when she’s within my reach, I take her in my arms.
"She's a pro." I kiss her head. Aidan has always been the one to teach the kids how to walk. We sort of split the work. He taught her how to walk and I taught her how to talk. "Come on, dinner is ready."
It happens again when Aidan and I are talking about our day. Elizabeth begins to choke on her food like she's been doing for the past few days. Aidan and I got up immediately and I grabbed her and laid her on my lap, face down and started hitting her back until she spits the food on the floor. I pat her back as she begins to cough and her face turns a deep shade of red.
"Aidan, we have to do something," I said as I took her in my arms and rubbed her back. "This is not normal."
"We've talked about this, Katherine. We're not taking her to the doctor. Dad said she's fine."
"Well, Aidan, your father is a general surgeon last time I checked, not a pediatrician," I said sarcastically. Elizabeth’s crying doesn’t seem to bother him. "I don't know why you don't want to take her to the doctor-"
"Because she doesn't need a doctor!" Aidan snaps and throws his plate in the sink. The struck of the plate against the steel startles us both. "Why take her to the doctor? They always find something wrong, there's always something wrong! You want to take her? Well, be my guest. The door is right there, honey. The only thing that they're going to tell you is that you're going to lose another child like they did last time!"
His words just hit hard and in the worst possible way. I think this is the first time in five months he has referred to Charlie. In true Aidan fashion, I take my child to her room and slam the door behind me. The force of the slam makes Elizabeth cry. Her cries make a loud echo in the back of my head as I bounced her on my lap. I hear his voice, I hear everything he says over and over. I don’t know what I feel the most, anger or pain. As I ponder over his words, Elizabeth gets tired and falls asleep in my arms. I leave her in her crib and take the baby monitor on my way out. When I walked back in the kitchen, the broken plate lay in the sink and the jar of whiskey was now half empty.
I look at his office door. It’s closed, but the small dim light under the door confirms my fears. He’s in there drinking.
The fresh air of the early winter hits me hard. I’m unable to hold back my tears, so I break down in quiet sobs. I can't do this anymore. I can't keep pretending like one day I’m going to wake up and the man I fell in love with is going to be here. There is not a second that goes by that I don’t miss him. That I don’t wish this being that has taken over finally lets him go. This is not the life I want for my daughter or for me. I can't have her growing up with fights, yelling and cries. Worst of all, I don't want her growing with someone I barely recognize myself. Not with this version of Aidan.
I wipe my tears away when I hear the back door slide open.
"Katherine?"
"Yeah?" I clean my tears away with the end of my sleeve. I stay where I am without looking at him. I feel his hands on my shoulders and I back away from his touch. I shrug his hands off me and they fall to his sides.
"Please, don't walk away," he whispers.
"You said you were going to control it," I argue. I look at him and say, "that's not controlling it, Aidan. It's getting worse. You went too far this time."
"I am trying, Kathy. It just gets out of my control. I'm sorry, I really am. We can work it out as we always have like any other happy family."
Is he trying to joke around with me? Or is he really that delusional?
"We're not a happy family," I said under my breath. He needs to know. "We're not a happy family, Aidan." He looks down at his hands with a look of regret. There is always regret in his eyes. "It's too soon, Aidan and from the looks of it neither one of us has recovered from our loss. That's why I don't understand why you don't want to see someone-"
"Do you think I'm crazy?" He asked, his hands closing in a hard fists.
"I don't think you're crazy, Aidan. I think you should consider the idea of talking to someone about it. About that night."
"We don’t talk about that, Katherine, and you know that!"
"Why? Why is it prohibited?" I shout back at him. He gives me his back and walks back inside. I go after him, anger rising like heat inside my body. "Why? Why do you never want to talk about it?" He ignores me. "Why is it that you always want to shut me out and only use me when you need me?"
He stopped cold in his tracks and looked at me shocked. Like he can’t believe what I just said. Maybe he should.
"I would never use you, Katherine."
"That's how you make it look like, Aidan. You avoid talking
to me, keep yourself busy and if you're not, you drink and if you don't drink you yell, you lose your temper!" I run my hands through my hair, pulling at the roots. "I cannot deal with that. It's not you."
"What? Suddenly everything I do is not good enough for you?" He snaps.
"It's not good enough when all you want to do is drown yourself in whiskey and avoid talking to me!" I shout pushing him against the door with every word I said.
"All I want to do is come home and relax, but now it's not good enough for you? What do you want me to do?" He shoves me away from him. "What, Katherine, tell me what?" His voice gets higher with every word he says. "What do you want from me?"
I look at the rage in his eyes. It’s the same face of the man I fell in love with, but he's not here. He hasn’t been here since the night he walked out that door. I was wrong. I am not as strong as I thought. He needs help and I thought I was enough to make the pain go away, enough to make things go back to the way they were but I can't help him if he doesn't want help. How can you help someone who refuses to take the help that it's offered?
"Aidan, please let me help you," I beg him.
"I don't want your help! I don't want anyone's help, can't you see it? Can't anyone see that all I want is to be left alone!" In all his rage, he turns around and punches a hole through the wall, making the whole room tremble. He tugs at his hair, he paces around the room and his breathing is shallow, his chest rising and falling with every breath he takes. "All I wanted was to come home and be with you, but even if you can't see that I don't want to talk about it? Why can't you accept the fact that I want to forget it ever happened?”
He finally stops pacing and lets out a deep sigh, running his hands through his hair. His back is turned to me, his shoulders are dropped and so is his head. He stays silent, trying to control his breathing and his temper all over again.
"All of this would've never happened if-"
"Aidan, there was nothing you could have done to stop this," I said. "If you couldn't save our son-"
"I wasn't talking about that," he interrupts me.
"Then what?" I cross my arms over my chest, like holding a shield to protect myself. Something inside me told me I do not want to know what he actually meant, but I still ask. "All of this would have never happened if what?"
"If I would have left you go back to Oceanside instead of begging you to stay."
At that moment, I felt every last shred of hope I had left my body. I can't believe he said that. He regrets asking me to stay that summer in college, he wished he never had. If he hadn't, we would have never gotten married or had our children. I wouldn’t be here, Elizabeth… certainly not him. He’d be out as a loner living the dream he had before he met me and not stuck here... His head snaps up when he realizes what he said and looked at me horrified.
"Baby, I'm so sorry, I swear I didn't mean to-" he tries to touch me but I slapped his hand away. His expression of horror turns to sadness. "Please, I'm just mad. I wasn't thinking about what I was saying. I swear I did not mean it, Katherine, you know what you mean to me. Baby, believe me."
"I do," I gulped.
It still hurts because the thought crossed his mind. It has gone too far this time. I wipe my tears away and sigh.
“I'm done.”
* * *
"So nothing is wrong with her?" I ask as I picked Elizabeth up from the examining table.
"No, she should be okay,” Dr. Essen assures me. “Normally, infants or toddlers airways are tiny and very vulnerable to obstruction. You just have to teach her how to chew her food correctly. I understand the worry, Mrs. Callahan, it's a good thing you brought her in. Her throat might be a little sore but other than that she should be okay."
"Thank you," I said, relieved. "I was worried. My husband didn't want to bring her, he thought it was nothing. I guess he was right after all."
Dr. Essen looks at me surprised.
"Mr. Callahan? But he always brings them in even when they have a small cough.” She takes a seat across from me. "How's little Charlie? I'm surprised not to see him here."
I'm not surprised she doesn't know. It was Aidan's job to notify her after what happened. I play with Elizabeth’s hand, avoiding letting her see the pain in my eyes. Last time I was in this room, I brought Charlie for his regular checkup… and here I am months later without him.
"My son passed away five months ago, Dr. Essen."
Her smile fades immediately. Out of all the things I could have said, this is something she wasn’t expecting.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Callahan... How-I'm sorry, I shouldn't ask,” she stammers.
"It's okay, it's okay." It feels weird to talk about it with someone who isn’t myself. It’s been so long since the subject has been spoken out loud. "Car accident. He was in our car with my husband when a man under the influence hit the back side where my son was. He died in the OR."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Callahan. I can’t imagine what it must be like."
I give her a weak smile. "I… I still find it difficult to wake up and realize he’s not there."
"How are you holding on? And Mr. Callahan?”
“We’re hanging on a thin thread. We were wrapped in this perfect little bubble where nothing could ever hurt us and the moment it burst, I had more than just my child ripped away from me. My husband… he is… not himself anymore…”
"He's not a stranger, Mrs. Callahan. He's in pain. He's afraid but doesn't know how to face it."
That’s not any kind of brand new news to me. I know my husband still lives in his pain and in his regret and that made him the way he is now. There used to be so many options, so many open doors, so many alternatives, each better than the last one. Now? It’s a small room with a single door, two alternatives, one more heart wrenching than the other. Our lives did a 180-degree turn and I’m finding it harder every day to cross that door.
I wipe a tear away. "I just don't know what to do anymore." I look at Dr. Essen helplessly. "I've tried to help him. I've tried so hard for us to move on. But he won't have it and it scares me how much pain and regret he holds on to."
She reaches for my hand, giving me an assuring squeeze and says, "you can still help him. I can't imagine how it must feel to lose a child so suddenly, so unexpectedly. I've known your family for a short amount of time but I've seen that you are strong. He is as well but look at it from his point of view, think of what could possibly go through his mind right now and what went through his mind when it happened."
I know what he thinks. I know what goes through his mind because it has gone through mine. Everything that was once good and pure is not the same anymore. It became so repulsive.
"He doesn't see things as they used to be," I tell her. "We were happy. Life was this beautiful gift he had and it was taken away so fast. Those moments have turned so dark..."
"Mrs. Callahan," she said. "You can show him how beautiful life can be even in the darkest moments."
"Can it?" I cry. “I don’t know how I can show him when I can’t see it. It hurts to even breathe…”
"It can be, but only when you give yourself time to heal.”
Chapter Twenty
Aidan
I feel exhausted and frustrated both at the same time and it isn't a good mix. This is not what I asked them to do, why can't anyone follow simple orders? The numbers are way off, the contracts have not been doubled checked by the lawyers and agents and I have a fucking deadline to meet in a matter of days. If I don’t, we lose the record deal with a promising artist.
"Mr. Callahan, I reread the numbers three times," Alison said avoiding eye contact with me. "I'll see what we can do before the contracts are sent out, we still have time."
I slam my fist against the table, startling her.
"I asked for one simple thing and neither one of you can get the job done right!" I snap. "Do whatever you have to do before the week is over and do it fast!" I throw the papers on the desk.
She grabs them quickly, muttering a yes
sir and leaves the office. I groan and rub my temples. It's been a stressful week. My assistant cannot seem to get anything right. I'm the one who has to fix everything and to make matters worse, I'm in the middle of a fight with my wife. She slept in Elizabeth's room last night and didn't look at me at all during breakfast. When I tried to talk to her, all I got was a simple nod or an mhm.
My head keeps going on and on about what she said a couple of days ago. It’s been eating me up and every day I get home I’m so relieved to see her there with Elizabeth. The fear of her leaving when I’m not home eats me alive all day long. It’s a nightmare that has surfaced due to recent events.
I'm done.
What does she mean she's done? Done with what? With me? With our marriage? Perhaps she finally realized that I'm responsible for what happened. She finally hates me.
Someone knocks on the door, taking me out of my train of thought.
"Come in," I said. Dorris peaks her head in. She looks nervous for some reason. "What happened, Dorris? I’m a little busy at the moment."
"A p-package has arrived for you, Mr. Callahan."
"Where is it?" I ask. More like what is it? I didn't order anything.
"I didn’t know if you wanted it-"
"Just bring it in, Dorris, I don't have all day," I mutter. I focus on deleting Alex’s email off my desktop and pretend I never got it. Seconds later, Dorris leaves a box on my desk.
I look up at the airplane kit I ordered online a few months back. It was supposed to be a birthday present. I look at the date on the calendar and my heart stops. I forgot it was today, how could I forget? I asked to bring it around this time before I forgot. It’s what he asked for his birthday.
Same Old Song Page 14
