“Start small. You and Ava.”
I laugh. “That’s starting small?”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “You’d rather talk about your boy, then?”
“Fuck no.”
“Right, so start small. You and Ava.” He lifts a hand, and then points at our nearly empty bottles, and a server nods, brings us fresh ones.
“I guess I feel like things just…changed. Snuck up on us, sort of. She got pregnant, and I was happy, you know? I mean, I really was. I loved her, and I felt like we were ready. We were in a good spot financially, we both worked from home, and it just seemed like the best next step for us. We weren’t trying, but we also weren’t trying not to. The pregnancy itself was…I mean, it was a pregnancy. You know how that it is.”
Jonny laughs and shakes his head. “No, I don’t, man. Had a few girls try to tie me down, but it don’t stick. Don’t know what a pregnancy is like.”
“It’s when your wife turns into an alien creature. She eats weird shit, eats all the time, pees all the time, and goes through more mood changes than you can possibly believe. There’s puking in the morning, and there’s when she suddenly wants to drink Squirt all the damn time when she never liked it before, and hates salmon, which used to be her favorite thing. She alternates between hating you for knocking her up and putting her in this position, and loving you more than ever for creating a life inside her. Then she starts to get big and her back hurts and her feet hurt, but the baby kicks and it starts to really feel real when you can feel that little foot pressing against the inside of her belly.” I sink into remembering. “She could barely walk by the end. He was such a big baby, and he kicked her all the time. Right in the spleen, she said. Bam, bam, bam, bam—like he had some kind of vendetta against her poor spleen. And she peed literally every twenty minutes, and seriously ate her weight in cucumbers, rice cakes, and Laughing Cow cheese wedges.”
Jonny stares at me. “Sounds awful. Why would anyone go through that on purpose?”
I laugh. “Because when it’s time, you go through this weird space of like two or three days where there is no time, there’s only the hospital and the contraction monitor and the heart monitor and all that, and she’s in labor and you eat hospital food and drink shitty coffee, and don’t really sleep.”
“Still not seeing why you’d go through that on purpose.”
“Because you watch a human being come out of her, Jonny. For nine months it was just your wife’s belly getting bigger, and ultrasound pictures, and the occasional weird flutter against your hand when you touch her belly. But then…a person, someone who didn’t exist before, a person you and your wife created together…comes out of her. It’s incredible. We were two, and then three.” I push back against the darkness I feel encroaching on me. “Makes it all worth it.”
Jonny laughs again. “Maybe for you. You didn’t have the person come out of you.”
I nod, and shrug, and laugh. “That’s true. But even Ava said it was all worth it, the second she saw him.”
Jonny’s gaze is sharp. “So, how’d that lead you here?”
“I don’t know. We became parents. Our lives suddenly revolved around this tiny helpless little person. We ate, slept, breathed, and existed for him. He was literally everything. All the time.”
“Yeah, man, you’re not making a great case for parenthood, here.”
I groan, and slug back some beer. “That’s not what I’m trying to explain. If that was what I was trying to do, I’d be telling you about what it’s like to hold that helpless little bundle on your chest and feel him breathing, feel his little hand clutching your finger, and knowing you’d do literally anything for him.” I have to pound back more beer, because the darkness is too strong, now.
Jonny doesn’t miss it. “You don’t gotta filter yourself around me, Chris. You know that.”
“I’d have done anything.” I blink hard. “But there wasn’t anything.”
“That’s rough.”
“You have no idea.” I finish the second beer, and wave off a third before the desire to drown myself in liquor takes over. “We were two, and then we were three…and then suddenly we were two. And now I’m just one.”
“Not anymore.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “I know, Jonny. And that means more than you can know.”
“Ain’t the same, though, I’m guessing.”
I shake my head. “No. Not at all.” I fight the urge to run, or drink, or start a fight—anything to lessen the pressure inside my skull. “Being a parent to a newborn takes everything you have, both of you. You don’t have time for yourself, or each other. That was part of it. Parents go through that all the time, and they find ways to reconnect. And in some ways, the utter focus on that child brings you closer, because you’re united in that common cause. But for Ava and I, we didn’t get the break once he got old enough to sleep through the night and didn’t need to eat every two hours. He started getting sick. Just crying all the time. He wasn’t hungry, didn’t need a diaper, was too young to be teething, didn’t have gas, he was just…he just cried all the damn time. We never got a chance to just…find each other, and ourselves, in that new space of being parents. It was all about Henry, all the time. That was a wedge, I think. Plus, even if he did quiet down for a while, Ava felt like shit. About herself, I mean. Physically, mentally, emotionally, she was just…wrecked. Didn’t feel like she was beautiful anymore, like how could I want her. I did want her, but she couldn’t feel it, and even after she got the all-clear, she just couldn’t…she didn’t want that.”
“What do you mean, the all-clear?” Jonny asks.
“After giving birth, a woman typically needs about six weeks to heal before having sex.”
Jonny stares. “Six weeks? Jesus Cristo. How did you live through that, man?”
I laugh. “There wasn’t time to even think about it, at first. Too tired, too delirious from not sleeping.” I fidget, restless and uncomfortable. “You think six weeks is bad, though? I’m not sure I want to admit how long it’s been, in that case.”
Jonny glances into the mouth of his bottle, as if assessing it. “Then I think maybe we need something a little stronger.”
I shake my head. “Not sure that’s a good idea, bud.”
He frowns at me. “Why not? We used to get shitty together all the time. You become an alkie when I wasn’t lookin’?”
I tip my head side to side. “Yes and no.”
Jonny’s snort is derisive. “Alcoholism don’t work like that, man. Either you are, or you ain’t.”
“Yeah, no shit, Jonny. My old man was a boozer, remember?”
“Right, so why you talkin’ about yes and no like it’s a guessing game, then?”
“I guess I’m scared of becoming my dad. When Henry…um—after all that…” I twist the bottle in place, staring at the grain of the wood table under my hands, seagulls cawing overhead. “I started drinking all the time. Like, all day. Morning, noon, and night. A bottle of whisky a day sort of thing, if not more.”
“But you quit.”
I nod, lift the bottle. “Yeah, this is the first drink I’ve had in weeks.”
“Your old man, his drinking—was it because of a tragedy, or was it just because?”
I shrug. “He was a miserable bastard. Hated life. I don’t know. If it started because of something specific, I never knew what it was. My mom took care of him, cleaned up after him, stayed loyal to him no matter how much he knocked her or me around. Which I’ve never understood, honestly. Point is, if he had some reason for being such a miserable, drunken, abusive bastard, I couldn’t tell you what it was.”
“But point is, he just never bothered to quit,” Jonny responds. “You did. I ain’t encouraging you to be a drunk, Chris, but I like to think I know you pretty damn well and, sure, maybe you could put away the booze with the best of us, but you also knew when to call it quits. You drank to unwind, and when it was time to work, you were sober and you worked. You went through so
mething most people can’t even imagine, amigo, and that shit leaves deep hurt. And you know, sometimes I think the only way we can get through the worst of the pain is to numb ourselves to it until we can figure that shit out.” Jonny slid his half-finished second beer away. “You tell me you ain’t drinking no more, then I’ll quit drinking too while we sail together. But I don’t think that’s what it was for you. Just my input, man.”
I shake my head at him. “You’re crazy. But you’re a good friend, Jonny. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“How about this.” Jonny takes his beer back, lifts a hand for a server, and requests something in Spanish—hard liquor, most likely; after a few minutes, the server returns with four shot glasses full of tequila. “If you look like you’re startin’ to have a problem, I’ll kick your ass. And unless that’s what it takes, you’re gonna drink some tequila with an old friend, and then we’re gonna prep that fancy-ass boat of yours and we’re gonna sail to motherfuckin’ Africa together. You and me and the Atlantic, bro.”
I take a shot glass, lift it, and clink it against Jonny’s. We toss it back, lift the second shot, clink, and slam the glasses onto the table. “It’s been fourteen months,” I say, and then chase the tequila with a swallow of beer. “No, wait…fifteen. Almost sixteen.”
“Since what?” Jonny says. And then his face twists into a horrified expression. “Since you had sex? Fuck no. No. That ain’t possible. No way.”
“Way.” I shrug a shoulder. “Since just before Henry was born. After he was born and she got the all-clear, she just couldn’t—or wouldn’t, I’m not sure. Like I told you, she didn’t feel sexy, didn’t feel beautiful. Which, I mean, I get it, as much as a guy can. She had a baby. She put on some weight and…other stuff. Then he got sick, and I was under deadline to finish a book, and then he got diagnosed with cancer and that was the last thing on either of our minds, and then he…he died, and we were both just…fucked-up, as you hopefully cannot even begin to imagine. And then suddenly I’m out here on the boat realizing I haven’t had sex in almost two years.”
Jonny seems at a loss for words. “Jesus Cristo, amigo. Sixteen months celibate? What are you gonna do?”
I shrug. “Hell if I know. Ava and I—things are a mess. It’s not like I can just pop back up to Ft. Lauderdale and be like hey babe, let’s bang.” I finish the beer, a little too fast. “I don’t even know if I’ll ever see her again. It’s a mess, Jonny.”
“How were things when you left?”
I snort. “She spent the better part of two months essentially catatonic. In bed, not eating, just sleeping and crying. Unresponsive to me completely. And then when she came out of that, she pretended I didn’t exist. She drank wine and watched TV all day. And then she started visiting his…the cemetery. Didn’t talk to me. She’s spoken…maybe a hundred words to me since Henry was first admitted to the hospital.”
Jonny eyes me. “And so you left?”
“I wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t writing, couldn’t eat, couldn’t function. I couldn’t grieve because Ava was…I was so worried about her. I brought her food, tried to talk to her, to comfort her, to distract her, and all she would do was snap at me. She actually hit me once. I was going crazy.”
“And so you…left?” His voice sounds…skeptical. Judgmental even.
“You don’t understand.”
“I’m trying to.”
I stand up. “I don’t need this. I didn’t want to talk about this.”
Jonny stays where he is. “Siddown, Christian.” His voice is hard, sharp; I clench my fists, release them, but resume my seat. When he speaks again, he unloads with both barrels. “I’m just tryin’ to understand things, is all. Sounds to me like you left your wife when she needed you most. And that just ain’t the Christian I know.”
I wince, and hiss. “It was fucking hell, Jonny. I was totally alone. My son had just died. My wife was starving herself in front of me. I was trying to keep it together, trying to be strong. But I just couldn’t. I couldn’t. I was going crazy. I hated myself, hated the drunken bastard I was becoming. Waking up on the beach, drunk, puking into the sand, and then going back inside to drink more, just so I could forget how bad it hurt for another few minutes? Watching my wife lay in bed for days on end, only getting up to use the bathroom and drink some water. Watching her waste away, watching her cry. She looked at me like—like she hated me. It wasn’t my fault, but she hated me for it. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t…I couldn’t breathe.” I meet his eyes. “So yeah, I left. Yeah, she probably still needed me. Maybe if I’d been stronger, I’d still be there, and we’d still be together.”
“Chris—”
“Maybe if I’d gotten him to the right doctor sooner, they’d have caught the tumor when it was still operable, and he’d still be alive. Maybe we should have had him go through the treatment. I mean, they said it would only extend his life by a few months at best, and those months would be worse than torture. But maybe it would have—maybe there would have been a miracle. He might be alive, still. Maybe…Maybe there was something I should have done or said that would have helped Ava cope.” I stare at him, and he’s the first to look away, now. “I’ve gone over all this a million times. It’s all I think about. What if, what if, what if—maybe, maybe, maybe.”
“Chris, listen—”
“No, you listen.” I lean forward and stare him down once more. “I was going insane. I mean that very literally. If I didn’t leave, I would have…” I force the words out, an admission I haven’t even really made to myself, much less anyone else. “I was starting to think about suicide. How being dead would be better than what I was feeling. Alcohol wasn’t numbing me enough. I couldn’t do a goddamn thing to fix anything. I couldn’t fucking sleep, I would be awake for days at a time, until I started to hallucinate. And I started to think, like, anything is better than this. Anything is better than watching my wife just…sink into this—this shell, this morass of despair that I wasn’t capable of pulling her out of. What the fuck was I supposed to do? She would have found me swinging from the ceiling fan if I hadn’t left, Jonny. And not even she knows that.”
Jonny leans back, flags down the server, mutters something, and waits. Within a minute or two, the server returns with a dusty old bottle of tequila and two rock glasses. He pours us each a generous measure. Returns my gaze steadily. “Since you were eighteen I know you, Christian. I taught you to sail, I taught you how to charm the ladies like a Latino. I taught you to fish, taught you to drink, and I taught you to tell shit like it is.” He slides me one of the glasses, raises his. “So here’s what it is. You need to dig deep and figure yourself out. You love that lady like I think you do, you owe it to yourself and to her to get past whatever this is that’s got you running. And until you do, brother, I’ll be running with you.”
I’ll drink to that.
20
epistle #1
September 8, 2015
* * *
Ava,
* * *
I have no intention of sending this to you. It is more of a diary or journal than anything else, but addressing it to you makes it easier to be honest, since I am, as you may no doubt be aware, rather facile at lying to myself, whereas I could never lie to you. Thus, I am beginning an epistolary journey, in which I attempt to discover myself. Revive myself. Syntactical cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Prosodic self-diagnosis and -medication.
I’ve journaled most of my life, and I brought those notebooks with me, and read the backlog of journals on this computer’s hard drive. I recently read through them all, and I don’t really like what I have read, for the most part. I tell only one side of things. I indulge in what you, my love, call my purple prose. I am guilty of that, I admit; and further, I don’t think that will change. I enjoy far too much the flavor of words, the delicate tang of syntax and the musky earthen aroma of grammar and the heady floral bouquet of prose. I love to swirl my words like a sommelier with a well-aged wine, recently uncorked, sniffing for
the nose and sipping for the notes. I am not eloquent in my speech; I am still far too much the Midwestern farm boy for that.
No matter how far I sail, I cannot escape that part of me. If I close my eyes, I can walk the acres, freshly furrowed, the dirt sun-dried and fragrant and skritching underfoot, rows and rows and rows of evenly spaced lines spanning in every direction as far as I can see. The sun will be hot on my neck and if I kneel, in my mind’s eye, I can scoop a handful of that rich brown dirt and run it between my fingers and I can smell it, recall the grit of it on my palms. The bellow of Dad’s voice from the pole barn, where I will lay under the tractor which Grandpa drove and great-Grandpa drove, which Dad expects me to fix, because it’s a family tradition to plow the garden behind the house with that tractor, rather than the enormous new one they’ll still be paying off fifty years after I’m dead.
See? Self-indulgence.
The man in those journals, the boy, the young man, the adult—I don’t like him. I don’t remember being him.
I recall our most recent emails, Ava. A few quick digital correspondences, and then silence from you. It hurts. I deserve it, but it hurts. I love you. God, I love you. I sit at this very laptop and I open a new email message and I address it to you, and I get nowhere. I don’t know what to say. I want you back. I want us back. But I don’t know how to get that. If I saw you, right now, I wouldn’t know what to say. I would stare at you. I would steal glimpses down your shirt, and if you turned around, I’d stare at your ass. If you walked away from me, I’d enjoy the view, the swinging sway of your hips and the gentle bounce of your ass. If you bent over, I’d enjoy the glimpse of your luscious mounds. I include that phrase for you, because you would hate it. Oh, you would hate it so much.
“I do NOT have ‘luscious mounds’, Chris,” you would insist, and you would use air quotes with your fingers, and a sharp irritated snap in your voice.
The Long Way Home Page 7
