Bo & Ember

by Andrea Randall

  1:00 AM.

  It was the longest Bo and I hadn’t spoken since we’d gotten back together. It was the only major fight we’d had as husband and wife.

  And, I couldn’t sleep.

  I’d snapped. It came out of nowhere, and by the time I was several minutes into yelling, it was too late to do anything but see it through. I hadn’t acknowledged the pressure I had been feeling inside, and when it broke free, I’d said things I didn’t even realize I’d been resenting, but had to acknowledge.

  Now it was one in the morning, and I was angry, sad, and ashamed. About everything. Christmas was next week, the gala the following week, then two weeks later we’d be flying to California to face our first PR firing squad. To sell a CD sung by two total different people. Ones who were on the same wavelength. Ones who wouldn’t have ever said the things we’d said to each other.

  I lay restless in Bo’s old bedroom. I didn’t even try to sleep. Tossing and turning, I fought the urge to race down the hallway to our bedroom. Would I yell? Would I apologize? I had no answers, so I stayed put.

  I buried my face in my pillow and screamed and cried as loud as I could. My throat hurt, and I was thankful we’d already finished recording the album. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Any of it. Bo and I were soul mates. Weren’t we? I cried harder at the question that never should have swirled through my mind.

  While I’d spent weeks working on my spiritual healing, there was an empty hole inside my heart from the connection Bo and I used to have. Until I’d lost our baby. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but it kept me awake some nights knowing that I couldn’t help the instant vacancy in Bo’s eyes when the doctor confirmed the miscarriage.

  During an intermission from the tears, there was a soft knock on the door.

  “Ember?” Bo’s voice was hoarse and raspy, but came out in a whisper. There was brokenness scraping away at his throat that stung my eyes.

  I sniffed as I sat up, weighing if I should go to the door or make him go away. I couldn’t trust my actions as evidenced by our heinous fight hours earlier. I didn’t want to hurt him any further. And, I didn’t want to hurt us any more, if that was even possible.

  “Em,” he pleaded. “You’re crying and I can’t … just please open the door.”

  As I rose to my feet, I wiped under my eyes, feeling how swollen they were from the uppercuts of a thousand tears. I straightened my shoulders as I opened the door, but that did nothing to steel myself from the sight of him.

  Bo’s head leaned against the doorframe, and he was picking at his fingernails. When he looked up, my chest hurt at the sight of his tear-soaked cheeks and pained eyes. Everything about him looked grey. His eyes, the skin under them, and his frown. Drained to a level of lifelessness I hadn’t seen since Rae died.

  We stared at each other for three of the worst seconds of my life. Bo moved away from the doorframe and stuck out his hand. Instinctively I took one step back and turned my head. I couldn’t bear his touch if it would feel anything like he looked.

  “Can I come in?” he asked as he stuck his hand in his pocket.

  I nodded and walked back to the bed, sitting gently and curling my hands around the edge of the mattress. Bo sat next to me, his leg brushing against my wrist and staying there. A churning pain in the center of my chest worked its way to my throat and up into my eyes as I looked to the floor.

  Bo sighed heavily and put his hand on the center of my back, moving his thumb up and down a few centimeters at a time. I was frozen solid, knowing I was about to explode from the fuel of every emotion I was feeling, and I didn’t think I’d survive it.

  “Hey,” he whispered because I think that’s all the voice he had left.

  I looked to the floor and shook my head. My tongue was swollen with sorrow and anger.

  “Em,” he continued. “Say something.”

  The urgent insistence in his voice broke the dam in me. As I exhaled, tears fell from my eyes and landed between my feet on the hardwood floor. The garbled moan soon followed, and Bo whispered, “Jesus,” as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me to his chest.

  “I…” I started to say something but I couldn’t.

  “Shh,” Bo replied. “It’s okay. Jesus, Ember, I’m so sorry.”

  “No!” I yelled over my cries as I pressed my face into his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I screamed at you, I’m sorry I pushed you, and I’m sorry I lost the—”

  “Stop.” Bo gripped my shoulders and urged me to sit up. “It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.” His chin shook as he cried through the rest of his words. “It just happened and it’s no one’s fault, okay? I didn’t even realize you thought it was your fault.”

  I wiped under my eyes, but I couldn’t keep up with the tears. “That’s because you wouldn’t talk to me about it! I … you just wanted to get back to normal and didn’t even…” I couldn’t finish a single sentence. The tears made them want to come out all at once.

  I took a deep breath and continued. “Maybe it’s because I kept the pregnancy a secret from you for too long. Maybe I didn’t want it bad enough.” I hung my head and cried even harder.

  “Ember, please,” Bo begged. “Stop beating yourself up.” He lifted my chin and looked me in the eyes.

  “How am I supposed to feel? You dove right back into work and stay out drinking with your colleagues at least two nights a week.”

  Bo dropped his hand from my face and covered his mouth, taking a deep breath as he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he shook his head and shrugged. “I’m a total fuck-up. I’m sorry. This isn’t—”

  “How marriage is supposed to be,” I cut in. “What’s happening to us right now?” I lay back on the bed, curling up on my side because I was too tired to even sit.

  Bo sniffed and cleared his throat. “Can I lay next to you?”

  I nodded, and Bo curled his body against mine, wrapping his arm around my waist. Instinctively I took his hand, lacing my fingers through it, and gripped tightly. In the heavy silence of my open-ended question, our bodies clung to each other for dear life.

  Bo kissed the top of my head and rested his chin there for a moment before he spoke. “I’d like us to see Dr. Bittman. Together, if that’s okay with you.”

  “I’d like that,” I responded as my tears slowed and my eyelids grew heavy.

  “Ember?” Bo said after a few minutes of silence.

  “Yeah?”

  “Would it be okay if stay in here with you tonight?”

  My heart broke at the tired hope in his voice.

  “Please,” I whispered. I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but I needed the comfort of the man I knew was still inside his embrace.

  Just as I drifted off into sleep, I heard Bo say, “I’m never letting you walk away again.”

  I prayed we were strong enough to hold up to that promise.

  Dr. Kathryn Bittman was able to see us the next afternoon. Bo had told her some of the shit we’d been going through over the last few weeks and she granted us top billing in her emergency slot. I felt like a bit of an interloper in her office. I’d heard her name several times over the last couple of years, and I knew some of the most intimate things Bo had shared in these walls.

  “November, it’s a pleasure to meet you, finally.” Dr. Bittman had a sweet smile as she shook my hand. She was younger than I had assumed she’d be.

  As I did the math in my head, it seemed possible that Bo was one of her first patients when he came to her after his parents died. She certainly wasn’t close to forty and I don’t know if I could put her much over thirty-five. Her jet-black hair was cut into a severe reverse bob that I’m certain only a therapist could pull off. She had olive skin and dark almond-shaped eyes.

  Instinctively I was uncomfortable, but had to make the split-second decision to get the hell over it if I was expecting her to help us.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too.” I smiled back, my eyes still feeling swollen from t
he night before. I did my best to make myself look presentable, but I didn’t put on makeup before the session. I figured I’d cry it off anyway, so I made sure my hair and clothing were nice to make up for the puffy disaster that was my face.

  Dr. Bittman gestured for us to take a seat. I looked at our options. There was a rocking chair, two armchairs, and a couch. The rocking chair looked nice, but Bo went for the couch and motioned for me to sit next to him. I thought it would be in bad taste for me not to sit next to the husband with whom I was trying to mend a relationship, so, I took my seat and he took my hand.

  Dr. Bittman sat in one of the armchairs across from us and crossed her legs, folding her hands in her lap. “Before we start, I do want to say how deeply sorry I am for your recent loss.”

  Bo’s hand tightened over mine. I didn’t look at him, but I smiled at her. “Thank you,” I managed without falling apart.

  “So,” she continued. “Why don’t the two of you try to give me a general idea of why you’re here and what you think you need to accomplish?"

  Dr. Bittman nodded her head, taking deep breaths in some parts, as Bo and I caught her up on the last year of our lives. Mainly the last couple of months—since those were causing the most upheaval at the moment.

  We took turns telling the story—the story of us. I started with the way Bo proposed, he jumped in with details of our great adventures on tour, we told her about the weekend we were offered our contract, and she smiled. We were talking a hundred miles an hour as we flew through the exciting details.

  I slowed down as we covered the pregnancy and miscarriage. Bo’s thumb grazed back and forth across my knuckles as I choked up.

  “I knew what was happening the second I felt the cramps. They were so painful.” I bit my lip and looked down as I wiped away some tears.

  “You knew?” Bo’s thumb stopped moving. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “It doesn’t change anything, Bo. I wanted to be sure. And you were driving and I didn’t want to scare you any more than you already were.” I sighed as I faced the truth of my intentions. I looked at Bo as Dr. Bittman seemed to fade into the background. “I didn’t want to be the one to say it.”

  Bo’s eyes closed and he took a deep breath. I refocused my attention on the doctor and quickly told her about the weeks since we’d been home. I tried to stay away from attaching adjectives to all of my feelings since I knew she just wanted an overview. There would be plenty of time to delve into my feelings of abandonment. And helplessness.

  “Okay,” Dr. Bittman took a quick breath. “Before we discuss those things, can you tell me why it is you’re here with me today? What do you hope to achieve?”

  Bo shifted in his seat and let my hand go, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants.

  “I don’t want to lose her,” he stated bluntly.

  “And you’re afraid that will happen because—?”

  Bo cracked his knuckles, which I’d never once seen him do.

  “I’ve been a complete asshole.”

  Hearing it spill from his lips filled me with regret that I’d said it to him at all.

  “No, you haven’t—” I started, but he cut me off.

  “I’ve let you down,” he insisted.

  Dr. Bittman stopped us both. “Let’s back up for just a second. We’ll have time for that. Ember,” she smiled softly at me, “why do you want to be here?”

  I put my hand on Bo’s leg and gripped his knee. “I don’t want to lose us. I’m sure I could keep him forever, but if we’re not communicating and loving each other like we should then there’s no us. It would just be two people who tolerate each other until one of them dies.”

  She nodded. “And why do you feel your togetherness is in flux?”

  “There’s all this stuff about him emotionally that I don’t know. Sure we haven’t been together that long but we’re so in synch most of the time. There’s lots about the time in his life before his parents died that I don’t know a whole lot about. It makes me feel like I don’t have the full picture.” I thought back to my conversations with Tyler, and immediately realized that I shouldn’t have said anything. Because now Bo would know. That was followed by the realization that inside a therapist's office was exactly where we needed to be if I was nervous about telling him I knew.

  Bo turned his head toward me. “What stuff?”

  I shot a glance to Dr. Bittman, who nodded once. Carefully and slowly as if she were telling me to proceed as she prepared the emotional gurney for standby.

  I cleared my throat. “Stuff. With Tyler.”

  “You told me about that,” he asserted.

  “Right,” I agreed. “I was the one to tell you about that huge part of your high school history. You never did. Tyler had to. And then the stuff from college—” I stopped myself as Bo’s eyes widened.

  “He told you that?” Bo’s voice raised a few decibels.

  I nodded. “He only told me his side. It is his story too, you know.”

  “Damn it,” Bo whispered under his breath.

  Dr. Bittman put up her hand. “Am I to assume we’re speaking about Tyler Madison?”

  Bo nodded. “Ember met him several weeks ago. He’s in charge of the remodel on the house.”

  Dr. Bittman’s eyebrow lifted just a hair over the accepted level for a professional setting. “Why didn’t you want Ember to hear this story, Bo?”

  I couldn’t tell if Dr. Bittman wasn’t asking us for details because they weren’t relevant or because she already knew them. I quickly decided by the looks on both their faces that it was both.

  “Because,” Bo huffed. “It’s ancient history.”

  I held out my hands. “It’s your history.”

  “Right,” he snapped. “And I look like a self-righteous asshole with fists quicker than my brain! You were never meant to see that side of me, Ember. I never wanted you to know it existed.”

  “Sure,” I rolled my eyes, “you didn’t want me to know it existed until you were out drinking last night while I was home alone … again. Never mind that you grabbed me in the hallway.”

  Dr. Bittman’s eyes widened.

  Bo’s jaw dropped. “You pushed me and then ran down the hallway!”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Dr. Bittman cut in. “We need to slow way down again. What happened last night?”

  Bo and I started to speak at the same time, but he conceded, sitting back and holding out his hand to let me tell my side. When I was through, Bo filled in his own details, from his day at work up until we got the text message from Yardley about our upcoming trip.

  Dr. Bittman took an exaggerated breath before eyeing us both. “First rule from here on out, no touching each other in anger. Got it?” Her voice was sharp and terse. “What happened last night doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it sounds like both of you have pretty hot tempers. When you add in a physical component, things can escalate quickly. Hands. Off.” She eyed Bo as her nostrils flared.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “Me, too,” Bo echoed back.

  “Now,” Dr. Bittman composed herself and offered a small smile, “each of you tell me in three words—no more or less—how you’re feeling right now. Write them down on this paper. When you’re done I want you to switch and read the other out loud.”

  About three hundred words flashed through my brain before I settled on the required number. I looked down and wrote the first three words that had come to mind: abandoned, confused, scared.

  Bo folded his paper, handing it to me as I did the same with mine.

  “Ember,” Dr. Bittman started, “you can go first. Read Bo’s feelings out loud.”

  I nodded and slowly unfolded the paper. My eyes watered as I read his words.

  “What do they say?” the doctor encouraged.

  I cleared my throat. “Scared, angry, and confused.”

  “Bo,” she said, without processing my reaction.

  Bo unfolded my paper and his eyebrows drew together as he read my
words aloud. When he was through, he set the paper on his lap.

  “Well,” Dr. Bittman smiled, “it looks like we have a good place to start.”

  I reached for Bo’s hand, and he reached for mine at the same time. We grinned when our hands collided in mid-air, and we settled them on the space between our legs.

  “What I want the both of you to understand at the outset is that you’re about to embark on a very public, very stressful life. Just because you live in New Hampshire won’t absolve you from tabloid scrutiny or other gossipmongers. The entertainment industry requires thick skin.” She eyed both of us, and we nodded in agreement. We both knew this, but hearing it from someone else felt a bit more ominous.

  “Also,” she continued, “while it’s not uncommon for people in the entertainment industry to be married to each other, your circumstance is rather different. You two aren’t just in the music industry, you’re performing together. You’re one act. The schedules are the same, the stresses are the same, and you’re going to be dealing with the same pressures. There isn’t a time when one of you will be busier or less busy than the other. The good news is when you have a break, you’ll have it together, so long as you’re performing together.

  “What I’m going to help the two of you do over the course of the next few months is to get back on track, strengthen yourselves, and strengthen your bond. By the time your album releases and it’s time for your tour, you don’t just need to be on the same page, you need to be together in every aspect of the word. You need to be stronger than you even thought you were before all of this happened, because while the miscarriage was a devastating event, there will be other stresses that feel earth shattering. There will be rumors of discontent, accusations of affairs…”

  Bo and I took a deep breath at the same time.

  “Now,” Dr. Bittman continued. “Let’s talk about the confusion you feel, Bo, and the abandonment you feel, Ember. Who wants to go first?”

  I nudged Bo. “I’ve been doing a lot of talking … you can go.”

  Dr. Bittman smiled. “Bo?” she encouraged.

  “Well,” Bo let go of my hand and leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him, “I wrote confused because I really was confused about what I was feeling. When I read Ember’s paper, though, it hit me. I feel abandoned, too.”