by Brenda Grate
Anna looked shocked for all of ten seconds before the truth began to dawn on her face. The transformation was startling.
“You didn’t know.”
“I suspected recently, but I didn’t know for sure.” Anna gave a weary sigh. “But, thanks for confirming it. Now I can do what I planned without feeling bad.” Anna stared at the floor.
“What’s that?”
“I’d already decided to leave him. Now, I know I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I’ll move into a hotel for a bit, but I’m going back to Toronto, Jill.”
“What?” Jilly shot up in the bed and gasped at the pain in her arms.
“Hey, hey, relax. Don’t do yourself damage.”
“But Anna, you can’t go back. What will you do?”
“I don’t know, Jill, but I’ve seemed to go wrong ever since I left there, so what I’m thinking is if I go back to the beginning and start there, maybe the next path will be a better one. Don’t worry, I’m not going to stay away forever. We’ll still see each other.”
Jilly pulled Anna into a fierce hug. “How am I going to live without my big sister?” Her voice was muffled against Anna’s hair.
Anna pulled back and looked in Jilly’s face. “You’ll do fine. But you need to deal with this pain. So I think you need to come back with me to see Mamma. Let’s face it together.”
Jilly thought about it, surprised that she didn’t hate the idea. She wasn’t excited about going home, but maybe Anna was right. Doing it her way hadn’t been a barrel of laughs.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Anna said. “Really? Just okay.”
“Yeah, okay. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Well, yeah.” Anna sat back and smiled. “I guess I expected a fight and you took the wind right out of my sails.”
Jilly smirked.
“You sure love that, don’t you?”
“Yep.” Jilly could feel her eyes begin to droop and Anna must have noticed.
“Okay, I’m going to go home and get a couple of hours sleep. You need some rest too. When do you think they’ll let you go?”
“Well, I’m here voluntarily, so I can leave anytime.”
“Then you talk to Gregg in the morning, but I’m going to book the tickets for us to leave in a week or two. Will that give you enough time to get things settled?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Okay. I’ll go to the bank tomorrow and take out half our savings. If I don’t do it now, Rob will lock everything down. Once I leave, whatever I take is what I’m going to get.”
“That bastard! I hate what he’s done to you.”
Anna patted Jilly’s leg and got to her feet. “It’s okay now. I’m glad. I won’t feel any guilt leaving him.”
Anna pulled Jilly close and hugged her tight. “I love you, baby girl. You know that?”
“I love you too, Sis.” Jilly kissed Anna on the cheek. “You go get some sleep.”
“You too.”
Anna stopped at the door and turned. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “We’re going to make it, you know.”
She didn’t wait for an answer.
Alone, Jilly thought about Mamma.
Chapter 11
The house was quiet when Anna got home from the hospital. Rob wasn’t up yet. She crept up the stairs and paused outside their bedroom door. She didn’t want to get into bed with him, and if she slept in the guest bedroom he would wonder what was going on. She didn’t want a confrontation before she was ready.
She went back down the stairs and wandered around the house, trying to settle her nerves. Her brain spun out of control and she couldn’t nail down a single coherent thought.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Mamma and how she and Jilly ended up the way they were. She’d always thought they had done pretty well with their lives, but lately wondered if she’d just willfully kept her mind closed to the reality.
In thinking over their childhood, Anna couldn’t come up with a single event that brought about Jilly’s pain and her own inability to open herself up to the people who loved her. That’s how she’d always lived. It was no wonder Rob had sought female company outside of their marriage. She knew her coldness was in large part to blame. As much of a stick-in-the-mud as he could be, he was still a man. Anna pushed aside thoughts of her husband. She didn’t want to understand him. She wanted to be angry and blame him.
Mamma had never hurt them outright. She’d given them food, shelter and the basic needs children have to survive. What she didn’t give them was herself. She held herself back as though she were an ice queen up in her castle ruling her subjects with distant words. There were no cuddles, kisses, and tickles. No bedtime stories or jokes. She and Jilly had grown up in a world of ice in which only their love for each other could melt some of their frozen parts.
By the time they were teenagers and Jilly’s artistic talent in full bloom, Mamma began to get more involved, but with no change in her austere manner. She just became more demanding. She pushed Jilly to do better with her painting, to “go deeper, be honest, dammit!”, until Anna had to scrape up the pieces of her sister and try to put them back together again. She gave and gave until she felt like nothing more than a pale image of herself.
Jilly at first complied with Mamma, happy to have gotten her mother’s attention at last. Mamma wore her down until finally Jilly snapped. They would scream and yell at each other until Anna, in desperation, intervened, only to feel the blast from both of them. Their house blew hot and cold until Anna was in a perpetual state of anxiety. She never knew which way the temperature would go until she’d stuck her wet finger up to test the air. She took to keeping to her books and studying, only emerging when the shouts would no longer allow her to concentrate.
Soon after this period, Jilly began cutting. Anna only became aware of it after it had been going on for some time, she suspected at least six months. Despite the turmoil and the cutting, Jilly continued to paint, constantly trying to win Mamma’s approval, which never came. She finally gave up once she had the approval of the now most important person in her life. Matty didn’t care if Mommy painted, as long as she was there to care for him.
“You’re still up?”
Rob’s voice brought Anna out of her memories. He stood outside the kitchen, neatly dressed and ready for work. She glanced at the clock on the stove.
“Why are you going to work so early?” Early morning meeting with your girlfriend?
“I have a client coming in from out of town,” Rob snapped as though she didn’t have the right to question him. “What’s wrong with you?” Rob’s mouth turned down. How had she not seen how ugly he’d become?
“I’m fine.” Anna took a step back and turned toward the island counter. She pressed both palms onto the top and dropped her head. Weariness swept over her so fast, she felt dizzy. “I’m tired. I was at the hospital all night with Jilly.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you about it later. I’m going to bed.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to you after work then. What are we having for dinner?”
Anna pushed away from the counter. She walked out of the kitchen without saying a word to Rob. She knew he wouldn’t come after her and demand an answer. What she’d told Jilly a few hours ago came back with perfect clarity. Their marriage was over. She knew it; Rob knew it. He hung on to keep up appearances, but wasn’t willing to do anything to make it better. She hated him for it, but she hated herself more for letting him treat her like a stick of furniture. Was there anything sadder than a woman who allowed a man that kind of power?
Anna went into her office, closed and locked the door behind her. She needed to get everything out before her body would relax enough to fall asleep. She sat down at her desk, pulled her journal forward and picked up her pen.
Her thoughts were in such disarray that she found it difficult to grab a hold of one long enough to make it coherent. She struggled for a few seconds then dropped the pen, resisti
ng the urge to fling it across the room. Where had this anger come from?
Anna leaned back in her chair and stuffed the anger back down. She took deep breaths and focused on the large portrait of Matthew, hanging over the fireplace, her favorite focal point of the room. They’d gotten him to sit still enough for the artist to capture his essence in oils—a not so minor miracle at two years old. Anna had paid dear for the painting, but as she looked at it for the hundredth time, she knew it was worth every penny. She would never have a child of her own, so Matthew had taken on the role of most important person in her life. She admitted freely that she indulged him, something Jilly complained about forcefully and often, but Anna didn’t care. He would grow up far too soon and wouldn’t need his auntie anymore. What would she do then?
Anna picked up the pen again. Thinking about Matthew often gave her clarity, and so her thoughts calmed from a whirlpool into a mere torrent.
I’m going to ask Rob for a divorce. I can’t be around him for another minute. Now that I’m sure he’s cheating on me, I wonder how I didn’t realize it long before. I guess like with so much of my life, I’ve ignored all the signs. I’ve been living in a bubble and it’s time to pop it and get on with real life, even if it’s painful.
With that decided Anna turned her thoughts to Jilly and all they’d talked about through the night.
My sister cut herself again. She hasn’t done it in a long time, but Mamma’s painting must have pushed her to that place again. I’ve never understood it. Why would giving yourself pain make the rest of the pain in your life go away. I guess it’s the same principle of stomping on your foot to take your attention off the pain in the thumb you’ve just smashed with a hammer.
Anna dropped the pen again and pressed her face into her hands. It didn’t matter how much she tried to rationally understand it, there was no getting around the fact that her sister had big problems. Problems with no real solution in sight. It made Anna crazy to think she could have killed herself that night and left Matthew without a mother. Mamma had done the same many times and almost left them alone. Though she couldn’t help but think that, in their case, moving on to a new family would have been the best thing for them.
While I don’t understand what Jilly does, I understand her pain. She’s looking for a way to let the pain out. I realize now that it’s not possible without confronting the source. The source is Mamma and we need to confront her. Jilly agreed to go back to Toronto with me. I’m glad. It just might be the thing that saves us both.
But what if I run into Chris?
As soon as she wrote the words, she dropped her pen. Chris was a subject Anna veered away from, even in her own head. Acknowledging it to herself opened a locked cellar door that smelled of mold and mildew, years without fresh air. It was painful and unpleasant. She’d screwed up. Chris had been the best thing that ever happened to her, and she threw him away. He loved her, loved her and treated her like gold, and instead she traded him in for a man who barely acknowledged her existence. She needed no further proof that she was completely messed up in her head.
I miss Chris like a piece of myself. He was the only boy/man I ever loved. I thought I loved Rob, but I loved what Rob represented. Peace, comfort and no conflict. I didn’t realize what a colorless existence that would be. I especially didn’t realize how unhappy he would make me. I wanted peace and I got total and complete boredom. How stupid could I have been?
The door closed behind Rob, and Anna breathed a sigh of relief. The air in the house felt lighter, less oppressive. She would tell him at dinner she wanted a divorce.
I’m going to sleep all day and then tonight I’m going to tell Rob it’s over. I think it will be the first time we’ve had any sort of a confrontation after ten years of marriage. How sad is that?
Anna put down her pen and closed the journal. Figaro chirped and looked up at her with a hopeful expression. Anna scooted her chair back to make room, and he jumped into her lap, immediately kneading her pants, his claws poking into her skin. She petted him, taking comfort from him while planning what she would say to Rob.
Anna woke up in the afternoon, while not refreshed, at least feeling like she could face the rest of the day. She needed to pack and get a few things for dinner that evening before she left the house for good. She climbed out of bed and headed for the shower.
The small market was filled with harried housewives shopping at the last minute before their husbands got home. Most of them pushed toddlers in grocery carts. Anna turned away before the jealousy could hit her. A cart nearly knocked into hers. She mumbled an apology and moved out of the way. The woman didn't even look at her. She wore sweat pants with a hole in one knee and her hair tied up, but falling out of its clip. She had an adorable child, with a sticky red face, sitting in her basket. The tot’s hand clenched a gooey white stick. Her face mirrored her mother's. They had identical irritated looks.
"Excuse me," said a sarcastic voice behind her. Anna realized she'd been standing in the middle of the aisle, staring after the woman and her little girl.
"Sorry." Anna moved her cart next to the family-size boxes of cereal, which she'd never purchased in her life. She picked up a box of All-Bran. It would last Rob a couple of weeks who was as religious with his cereal eating as he was about color coding his suits and ties. He even insisted Anna keep his sock drawer ordered according to style and color. There were times Anna longed to open the sock drawer and swirl her hand around in it, creating chaos out of order.
The store began filling up while Anna pushed herself through the crowd in order to finish the tiny list. She’d often wondered why she even wrote a list anymore. They ate the same things every week. If Anna attempted to make a small change, Rob did nothing but complain until they went back to the old routine. It had begun to feel like their house would collapse under the sheer weight of the future. Anna stared at her list and wondered what types of items she would buy for herself. It had been a long time since her tastes were the only consideration.
The basket looked the same as it had every week for the past ten years. When they first married, Anna would shop and imagine putting new things in the basket. Diapers, formula, pull-ups, fruit roll-ups and, before long, acne cream. All these years later, she shopped for the same items. After years of hoping, the thought of a baby was like a cactus in the middle of a daisy patch.
When Anna came to the check-out counter, the lines were full. Babies whimpered and children tugged on their mothers’ legs. The mothers looked desperate and seemed to wish they were somewhere, or someone, else. Anna wished she were one of them.
The little girl with the sticky red face sat in the cart just ahead of Anna. She tried not to look at the baby, but her gaze was drawn as surely as the mother's shirt to the gooey candy on the baby’s face. It had a big circle of red imprinted onto the white cotton. The tiny girl seemed riveted on Anna's face and they locked eyes. She smiled and Anna's face responded, despite the grief in her heart. It dawned on her how a person could snatch a child out of a shopping cart in the middle of a busy store. Desperation makes you do crazy things.
The baby lifted her arms to Anna and grinned. She had four teeth, two on top and two on the bottom. Her gummy smile did crazy things to Anna's lonely heart. The little child had no thought but that someone wasn't too busy to notice her.
"Up, up," she said to Anna.
The mother finally turned from unloading her cart and looked at Anna, wondering why her baby said her precious few words to a stranger. Anna felt guilt, despite having done nothing to feel bad about.
Anna gave her an apologetic shrug. The woman frowned and turned back to her child, blocking Anna's view with her broad back. Do I really look dangerous to her? One of those child-snatching crazy women you only see on television?
For the rest of her time in the store, Anna kept her gaze lowered.
At home, Anna didn't even have to think as she unloaded the groceries and packed them away in all the places they belonged. She straightened
the cans so all the labels faced outward while she thought about the planned confrontation at dinner.
Anna closed the cupboard door and looked around the spotless kitchen with loathing. She and Rob had carefully planned out every inch of the space when they built the house soon after their wedding. The appliances were stainless steel, easy to keep clean. The counters were white marble with gold swirls running through. The cupboards were also white; the walls were white. In fact, there wasn’t a bit of color, real color, anywhere. The windows even had white blinds over them.
It would be called a designer kitchen, but she now hated it. There were no tiny hand prints on the refrigerator. There weren't any spills on the floor or milk trapped under the stove. A highchair wasn’t sitting beside the sturdy oak chairs at the table built for three generations. There were two captain's chairs at either end and the other ones were used only when they had company over for dinner once a month, usually one of Rob's favored clients, but once in a while Jilly and her family. Then the house burst with childish laughter and Anna’s heart felt light for a time. A child's laugh is the most weightless thing in the world.
