Dirt

by Cassia Leo

  But surely, every married couple endures their own ups and downs. Why the fuck can’t we figure this out? We used to know how to do this.

  I can’t stand by and watch you keep digging that hole deeper. You have to let him go. We’re never going to know who killed him or why. Let it go, Jack. If not for me, then for yourself and your business partners.

  Yes, you’d better fucking believe that Kent has been asking me to talk some sense into you for a long time. I promised him I wouldn’t tell you about his request, but I can’t keep his secret anymore.

  I’m sick to fucking death with all the secrets.

  Every time I meet someone new, I lie and tell them I don’t have kids, because I don’t want to explain that I do have a child, the most beautiful child you’ve ever seen, and he’s rotting in the dirt.

  Can’t you see I’m drowning, and your obsession is not helping. Don’t you remember? You were supposed to keep me from going under. You promised me you would. All I had to do was say yes.

  You broke your fucking promise.

  The worst part is that I could probably forgive all of that, the obsession, the abandonment, the broken promises. I would wait for you to come out of this, if it weren’t for my own weakness.

  I can’t bear looking at you and seeing him, in the shape of your face and the blue of your eyes. I can’t stand the constant reminder of how close I came to having everything I ever wanted.

  I can’t keep blaming you for fucking me on the waterfront while our boy gasped his last breaths. I can’t keep blaming myself for lingering over that extra glass of wine at dinner.

  I’ll never love anyone the way I’ve loved you. That is the one thing in this fucked up life I’m certain of. But there are so many ways to love someone. I just wish I knew how to love you in a way that would bring you back to me. If you figure that out, you know where I’ll be, waiting and wishing to say yes… again.

  Yours always,

  L

  * * *

  I sat at the table in the dining area of the house we moved into two years ago, staring at the handwritten letter for hours. I thought of tearing it up. I thought of rewriting it. I thought of changing it from a goodbye letter to a suicide note.

  The truth was that none of those options made sense. I couldn’t tear it up because that wouldn’t change the many reasons I’d written it in the first place. I couldn’t rewrite it because I’d already rewritten it at least a hundred times, and I was just so fucking exhausted. And I couldn’t change it to a suicide note because I could never do that to Jack. I still loved him, even if I could no longer live with him.

  Finally, with my hands trembling exactly as they had when Jack first slipped the ring onto my finger, I slid my platinum wedding band off and placed it on top of the folded letter. Jack would be back from the gym soon. It was time to leave.

  3

  Jack

  Laurel’s SUV was gone when I pulled my truck into the garage. She didn’t usually run errands this early in the day. She liked to wait until after nine p.m. to do the grocery shopping. She’d sometimes go a few minutes before midnight, to the market that stayed open until one a.m. That way, she didn’t have to see the other mothers pushing their children in shopping carts.

  I entered the laundry room through the door in the garage and found some of my gym clothes neatly folded on top of the counter. There was no trace of Laurel’s clothing. Stepping into the hallway, my blood pressure soared.

  I could see straight into the guest bedroom across the hall, the room we’d been using as storage space since we moved in two years ago, right after the murders. The ’90s-era oak flooring was barely visible, concealed by stacks of dusty, unopened boxes of Junior’s baby stuff. The door to the guest bedroom was always kept closed. Always.

  But this wasn’t enough evidence to say with one hundred percent certainty that Laurel had left me or, God forbid, we’d been burglarized.

  I charged down the hallway and into the living room. There was no sign that the house had been ransacked. Turning my attention to the breakfast nook, I finally saw it.

  Atop the dining table lay a folded piece of paper. On top of the paper lay Laurel’s wedding band.

  A puff of laughter erupted from my mouth. I shook my head as I approached the table. I should have fucking known.

  As I left for the gym this morning, Laurel asked me if I’d be back soon. She never fucking cared how long I spent at the gym. She didn’t care about anything anymore.

  I snatched the folded paper off the table, letting the ring slide off. It landed on the wooden surface with a clink, then rolled away, falling off the edge of the table furthest from me. All day long, I’d been taking my aggression out on the power racks, imagining myself crushing the murderer’s skull with my bare hands, while my fucking wife sat at home, plotting to leave me.

  I didn’t bother sitting down to read. Unfolding the paper, my gaze skidded to the top of the page, ignoring the roaring ache in my chest as I read the first two words: Dear Jack.

  I devoured the letter in seconds, every word turning my stomach with disgust. She was accusing me of being obsessed with Junior’s case. I was somehow a bad person because I thought my son deserved justice. She thought I needed to see a shrink because I firmly believed the filth who stole my son’s future shouldn’t be allowed to have a future.

  What was I supposed to do? Forgive the bastard?

  Forgiveness was for pussies. All I wanted was revenge. And if I couldn’t have that, then I’d settle for justice, and nothing less.

  I walked into the kitchen and held the letter over the stove as I turned on the burner. When the corner caught fire, I watched it burn, recalling how much I had wanted to torch our house that night. I wanted to see it all turned to ash and pretend it had never happened.

  Tossing the burning letter into the sink, I watched the orange embers crawl over the paper, transforming it into a thin skin of ash. Then, I went back to the breakfast nook and rounded the table to retrieve the ring off the floor. Sliding Laurel’s wedding band into the pocket of my gym shorts, I didn’t bother taking a shower and changing out of my workout clothes. I marched straight to the garage and climbed into the driver’s seat of my truck.

  Laurel was right. I knew exactly where to find her. And I’d be a damn idiot if I let her walk away from our marriage that easily, on our fucking fifth anniversary, no less. Not that we’d celebrated our anniversary today, or last year. You’d have to be pretty fucking sick to celebrate the day your child was murdered.

  I pulled my truck onto the freeway, mildly thankful that Laurel had decided to leave me on a Saturday. I should encounter less traffic on the one-hour drive to Portland.

  As I drove through the sun-soaked gorge, the hillsides scorched black by the summer wildfires, I felt a flame blazing inside me. Hot blood pumped through my veins, pulsated in my fingertips. Laurel always did this to me.

  She pretended as if everything was fine, until suddenly everything was wrong and it was all my fault. She blew up at me at least once a week these days. I should have seen this coming.

  Why the fuck didn’t I see this coming?

  Taking a few deep breaths to calm myself, I turned on the stereo and put on my workout playlist. The hard, rhythmic beats kept me focused. Still, I had no fucking idea what I was going to say when I got there.

  I shook my head. This wasn’t the type of conversation that could be planned out. I had to go with my gut. I had to admit that maybe I’d fucked up, but she had to admit that she’d also abandoned me. Does she think I don’t notice how she can’t look at me when we fuck? Considering how we only communicated while we were arguing or fucking — which happened at least a few times a week — I’d have to be blind to miss that.

  Nope. I wasn’t going to take all the blame for this clusterfuck of a marriage. We were in this together. For better or for worse. Till death do us part.

  4

  Laurel

  The one-hour drive to Portland seemed to fly by
without notice, much like my life seemed to pass me by lately. I found it hard to focus on anything anymore. Just when I thought I’d listened long enough to regain the thread of a conversation, I became lost again. Lost in memories of Jack Jr. Lost in a storm of anger brought on by Hurricane Jack. Lost in a maze of guilt and shame I could never find my way out of.

  I was just a few blocks from the house I inherited after my mother’s death — the house I hadn’t stepped foot in since the funeral — when my phone rang over the Bluetooth speakers. “Hello.”

  “Where are you? Class started twenty minutes ago,” my best friend Drea said in her glorious British accent.

  “Oh, my God. I totally forgot to call and say I wouldn’t be there today. Well, actually…” I paused for a moment, realizing I was going to have to tell Drea the truth now. “I won’t be going to yoga class anymore. I’m moving to Portland.”

  “You’re what?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I didn’t want you to try to convince me to move in with you and Barry.”

  She gasped. “Oh, my word. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, my…” Her voice trailed off and I stayed quiet as she got her bearings. “Well, you’re right that I would have tried to convince you not to go to your mom’s house. I know how painful that will be. Do you need me to go out there today? You know, just to hold your hand? I’m totally willing to do it.”

  I chuckled. “I’m fine, but thanks for offering. I need to do this alone. But I do need to ask you a favor,” I said, tapping the steering wheel nervously.

  “Anything. You name it and I’ll do it.”

  “Can you ask Barry to check up on Jack occasionally? I know they haven’t been talking much lately, but I’m… worried that Jack will spiral.”

  Her brief silence was followed by a stiff clearing of her throat. “You know how I feel about Jack. The man is brilliant. Even if he has gone a bit mad lately, he’s still brilliant. I’m sure he’ll handle the separation just fine. I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. But just to assuage your mind, I’ll ask Barry to check in on him next week. Is that all right?”

  “That’s perfect. Thank you,” I replied as the tension in my shoulders eased up.

  “Good. Now go out there and be somebody,” she said, referencing a joke from a Dave Chappelle comedy special we both loved.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The call with Drea left me feeling sufficiently hopeful. It was exactly what I needed as I exited the highway and began making my way toward my mother’s house. I would need all the positive energy I could get if I had any chance of getting through today.

  Though Drea could be pushy at times, she always meant well. We’d been best friends for five years, since we met at a yoga class. Jack and I had just moved into our dream house. Drea and Barry had just moved to Hood River from London. Once I found out that they had moved there to accept a job offer with Jack’s company, we became instant friends.

  I couldn’t believe that first yoga class was just five years ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then.

  I was twenty-nine now, zooming toward thirty, but I felt like I was eighty. My bones ached. What little food I ate gave me heartburn. I was plagued by migraines and insomnia that kept me up most nights. The worst was the constant chest pains, which my doctor insisted were caused by anxiety. Though my doctor had prescribed me some Xanax, I refused to take it, afraid that dulling the pain would also dull my memories of Junior.

  I might have to take one today, to get me through the inevitable heartbreak of what I was about to do.

  I had to put my mother’s house on the market. I couldn’t stand the idea of living in that house, with all those memories. I needed to move on. I had to reboot my life or I would continue to fall into the same routines. The cycle of hurt had to end, and it had to end now.

  As I pulled into the gravel driveway of my mother’s two-story house in southeast Portland, my chest muscles tightened. John Miller, the real estate agent I contacted last week, was already there, thumb-typing on his phone as he leaned against his black Mercedes. When he saw me, he quickly finished typing and tucked his phone into the pocket of his gray slacks as he made his way toward the front steps.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” John said, tilting his pointy face up at the bright-azure sky, giving me a spectacular view of his impossibly long nostrils. “Summers in Portland are getting pretty nice. I guess we can thank climate change for that.”

  “I’m not buying a house, John. Just selling,” I replied, seeing through his attempt to double his commission.

  His thin lips curled into a sleazy grin. “Had to try, didn’t I?”

  As annoying as I found John, I didn’t have the time or patience to switch agents at this point in the process. The movers would be here later today. The photographer was booked to take pictures of the house tomorrow. I needed to get this over with as quickly as possible.

  I stared at the moss-green front door, which was covered in a thick layer of dust. I fought the urge to claw at the aching in my chest, a physical manifestation of the guilt I felt for what I was about to do.

  Neither Jack nor I had had the courage to enter my mother’s house since the day of the funeral. Even then, we had spent most of that miserable afternoon in my old bedroom upstairs, wrapped in the comfort of each other’s arms, while family and friends gorged on shitty supermarket hors d’ oeuvres as they reminisced about my mother downstairs.

  Unfortunately, Jack Jr. was so young, that not a single one of them had known him long enough to share memories of him. It was almost as if he was a figment of my and Jack’s imaginations.

  Occasionally, someone would knock on the bedroom door to check on us. They’d comment on the many photos of Junior my mother had on exhibition. But they wore their compassion and uncertainty like winter coats. Their displays of pity were warm and comforting to no one but themselves. I found it offensive that I was supposed to feel sorry for them because they had not a single clue what to say to us.

  I didn’t feel sorry for them, not one bit.

  As I showed John around the three-bedroom house, he tried to speak delicately while suggesting I rid the space of all “personal items” that might prevent a potential buyer from picturing themselves in my mother’s home. This was his gentle way of telling me to take down the dozens of framed pictures of Junior that cluttered the walls and the surface of every table and mantle. He assured me he would be back at nine a.m. sharp tomorrow morning with the photographer, once I had “cleaned up.”

  After he left, the movers arrived. They helped me box up the photos, my mother’s vast collection of antique teapots, the gardening tools in the garage, and the storage boxes in the attic. When it came time to pack away the stuff inside the kitchen cupboards, I held back one skillet and one place setting and set of silverware.

  With houses in this area only staying on the market an average of five days, I could survive the next few weeks without cooking. But with my lack of appetite on the verge of becoming a serious issue, I didn’t want to have to rely on shitty convenience food that would probably make me even sicker.

  Everything we boxed up would be going into storage to be dealt with another time. Once the house was sold, I’d use the proceeds to get an apartment, and hopefully figure out my life. As I watched the movers carefully wrap my mom’s teapots and place them in boxes, I clenched my jaw to keep myself from getting emotional.

  I managed to not cry all day long. But when it came time to empty out the bedrooms, I was blindsided.

  As I opened the closet door, I was overcome by a ripple of air heavy with the scent of gardenia and peach. My mother’s favorite perfume. As I crumbled to my knees, I cried as much for my mother as I did for the fact that my life had become a series of depressing clichés.

  The mover muttered something, then he set off down the hallway, leaving me alone with my anguish.

  “You’ve been planni
ng this for a while.”

  My blood ran cold at the sound of Jack’s voice.

  5

  Jack

  “I told them to leave,” I spit the words out.

  Wet wisps of blonde hair stuck to her pale cheeks as she looked up at me with a mixture of fury and confusion in her brown eyes. “W-what? What are you talking about?”

  “I paid the movers and told them to leave the boxes in the garage,” I replied.

  “Why?” she cried in disbelief. “Why are you even here? You haven’t paid me more than a passing glance for over a year, except when you’re pushing your way inside me. I’m just a hole for you to dump your hostilities.”

  “What do you fucking expect? We lost our child!” I roared as she sobbed into her hands. “Did you expect this to be easy? We lost our child and you’re going to give up because I’m not grieving exactly the way you want me to?”

  She shook her head as she rose from the floor, then she pointed her finger in my face. “No. You are not going to come here and try to make me feel bad for being the only person willing to do anything — anything at all to fix this marriage! I’m the one who wanted to go to counseling! You’re the one who turned me down, time and again!”

  “You think I want to tell some stranger how much I fantasize about murdering another human being? Does that sound like a good fucking idea to you? Because it sounds like something only an idiot would do!”

  She threw her hands up. “So now I’m an idiot?”

  I stepped forward, my body taking up the entire doorway. “Don’t do that. Don’t twist my words the way you always do.”

  “Get out of my way,” she said, trying to squeeze past me, but I remained solidly still. “Get out of my way! I have to tell the movers not to leave.”