by Mary Smith
I’M HOME.
No, not at the house. I’m at the arena. The Bears had put out a statement about my absence and stated I was still recovering from my injuries sustained from my panic attack when I fell behind the bench. The press had gotten a hold of a fact about my home life and why I’d been in the hospital. Not to mention Sharon’s incident was still making the headlines.
I’m sitting up in the owner’s box with Oliver as the game goes into the second intermission. We’ve not said a word to each other.
“You want a beer?” He stands and goes over to the bar he had built in his private box.
“Nah.” I keep my focus on the zamboni going around the ice.
“Janan and Nova told me you’re going to a therapist.” He sits back down next to me. “You know I didn’t want to push you in to it, but I know you need it.”
“Oliver.” I sigh. “How long have you been in my fucking life?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He thinks for a beat. “Over twenty years.”
“Then you know you didn’t push me into anything. It was Janan and what she said that made me do it.” I glance over at my friend. “I’m a fucking failure as a father, aren’t I?”
“Nope. You raised two strong, smart, independent girls. Has their life been perfect? No. But I believe everything happens for a reason, and Sharon is a something that happened in your lives to make you all stronger. It’s a shitty way for it to happen, but it happened. It’s over. Now you need to work through it and process it.”
His words ring true to me. I know he’s right, but I can’t think of Sharon just being a something. She’s my wife. My soul mate. The one I moved mountains for. She’s my everything. How come people don’t grasp this concept? How can they not see what she means to me?
Oliver and I sit through the last period and watch the Bears lose another game. I know not every team I’ve coached wins the championship or makes the playoffs, but this team is so special I thought…
“Sharon, sweetheart, I need to finish this up. It’s my first year as the coach and I just can’t be slacking. I want to prove to everyone I got this job on my talent and not Oliver being my friend.”
She’s standing in front of my home office desk, arms crossed, and glaring at me. I’m trying not to look at her. I have to finish typing up these plays.
“Your fucking brat of a niece is in my kitchen making a mess.” She points over to the door.
“She likes to cook. Let her and I’ll clean up the mess.” I try to reason with her.
“Like you can clean? You are fucking worthless. I’ll handle her.” Sharon storms off, and I jump up and follow her to the kitchen.
There’s no mess. Nova had kept everything clean as she went through cooking dinner for us. However there’s a spoon in the sink.
“What is this?” Sharon roars at the top of her lungs. “I don’t like dirty dishes.” She lunges for Nova and grabs my niece by her throat and throws... yes, throws... her into the fridge. Nova falls in pain.
“Sharon!” I jump in between her and Nova. “Stop, please, I beg you. I’ll take care of it right now. I’ll make sure it’s all bleached and everything.” I plead with her. “Don’t hurt Nova.”
“You want to fuck her don’t you?”
“What? No, she’s my niece.” What the fuck is she talking about?
“I bet you do. You sick fuck.”
“You’re wrong and you know it. Why don’t you go to your room and drink, or do whatever it is you do in there? I’ll clean up the kitchen and everything will be back in order.”
She turns arounds, and suddenly, the meat tenderizer mallet is in her hands…
The final buzzer sounds as I rub my upper left arm, where the indentations of the mallet are still visible. I couldn’t use my left arm for a week until the skin healed because she’d caused a lot of damage.
“I’m going to the locker room.” I stand and head away from Oliver.
Several of the security guards and Bears employees smile and greet me. I politely do the same back. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s keeping up appearances. I can carry my bruises around and no one can see them.
I walk into the locker room and no one is really paying attention as the guys are quiet and removing their equipment. “Well, you know how to fuck up a game,” I say and they all turn.
A few chuckle and all of them say, “Hey, Coach.” It’s like music to my ears.
“We tried to give you something to yell at us about,” Alden, the jokester, says. He takes nothing serious.
“I can say you gave me plenty of material.” I grin.
“When you coming back, Coach?” Edgar asks. He’s a good guy. A true family man.
“I’m done for this season. I’ll be better by the time the draft rolls around.” I’m hoping Oliver lets me back by then.
“Coach Kevin doesn’t yell like you do.” Bas, with his thick English accent, smirks. He’s hanging out with Alden too much.
“It is my superpower.” I nod. “I just came down to say hello. I’ll be watching you guys. Please let’s end it on a somewhat high note.”
“Yes, Coach,” they all say.
Before I leave I go over to Nathan Paxton. “Hey, you did a great job out there, but you need to shake off your nerves and focus.” I slap his padded shoulder.
“I will,” he says and with that, I head to the house.
Chapter Five
“YOU THINK IT sounds okay?” Janan nervously stands in the living room, practicing her speech for a NOW Rally coming up this weekend. “It doesn’t sound bitchy, right?”
“I think it’s great, and I can see you worked very hard on it.” I stand and hug her. “I’m very proud of you.”
“Thanks, Daddy. Are you going to be there?”
“Of course. I won’t miss this speech for the world.”
“Jan, it’s brilliant. You’re going to rock it out.” Nova comes up and hugs her next. “Let’s celebrate. We can go have pizza.”
“Yes.” Janan smiles. “Come with us.” She turns to me. “I can’t remember the last time we had pizza together.”
Pizza…
“You took the girls where?” Sharon’s face glows with anger.
“Sweetheart, it was their friend’s birthday party. They really wanted to go, and I don’t think them having somewhat of a social life is a bad thing.” I try to keep the peace in the house, but today I defied her direct order.
“What did they have to eat?”
I know it’s about to hit the fan. “I let them each have one slice of pizza.”
“Pizza! You allowed them to have all those carbs and greasy cheese.”
SLAP!
The first hit came directly across my cheek. “Sharon, please stop. It was one slice.”
“How dare you go behind my back and fill those girls with that nasty shit.” She shoves me up against the wall, and I feel my hands ball up into fists.
“Are you going to hit me, Taden?” She nods down to my hands. “Are you going to grow a pair of balls and fight back?”
I stand frozen against the wall. I’d never hit a woman, especially the woman I love.
“I didn’t think so.”
“Uncle Tad?”
“Daddy?”
“Huh… what?” I shake my head.
“Are you going to come with us?” Janan touches my arm. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yes... No... I mean, I’m fine. Pizza sounds great.” I force a smile and follow the girls out.
We go to our favorite place in Concord. Dallas Pizza. It has to be the best pizza place in New Hampshire. We’d come here because Sharon never really traveled outside of Manchester. We did a lot of traveling in the offseason before the girls came along, but then she stopped altogether. Hell, she hardly left the house at all.
Nova talked a lot about her classes and how excited she is about learning about the ins and outs of business and management. Nova wants to open her own bakery. The girl can bake like no one else.
Janan tells me about her classes. Her major is political science. I think she’s going for world domination because she has a drive like no one I’ve ever seen. She wants to help everyone and all the animals. I can see her running for president someday.
“What time is your appointment?” Janan asks when we get back to the house.
“First thing in the morning.” I can hear the apprehension in my voice.
“Please keep going.” Janan’s big brown eyes beg me. “You’re doing well. Be sure to tell her you’re not sleeping. Maybe you can make a doctor appointment and get some pills to help you.” She suggests.
“How do you know I’m not sleeping?”
“We can hear you,” Nova says. “We know it’s hard, but I’m thinking of making an appointment with Ms. Hammonds.”
I blink trying to process what she’s saying.
“I am as well,” Janan adds in.
“Do... do you need to?” I stare at my girls.
“I’m not sure if you remember, but we were abused too. You were gone a lot.” Janan smarts off.
“I tried.” My voice breaks off, and I know the pain they went through.
So much pain…
“We need to talk.” I get right in front of Sharon watching TV.
“Go away.” She has a large bottle of vodka in front of her.
“No. Why does Janan have a bruise on her cheek? Tell me now.” I’m angry and I already knew what happened because Janan told me, and Nova did too.
“She was bothering me.”
“Janan is five years old. Five. She’s doesn’t need you to punch her.”
Sharon slams the bottle down onto the coffee table and stands up. “Don’t tell me how to raise my daughter.”
“She’s my daughter too and you won’t do it again.” I’ve taken enough hits from her to know how hard she hits. Janan is too small for this type of discipline.
“What are you going to do? Huh?” Sharon’s several inches shorter than me, but I don’t back down this time. This is my child I’m protecting.
“No more hitting the girls. If you have a problem, then you take it out on me, not them.” I made sure to add Nova into this because I’m not sure if she’s hurt her or not.
Sharon steps back and picks up the vodka bottle. “You can go fuck yourself.”
The swing of her arm came faster than I had anticipated…
“Breathe.”
“Breathe.”
I can hear Janan and Nova telling me to breathe, but all the air is gone again. I’m struggling to find the smallest snippet of oxygen but there’s none.
“Daddy, listen to my voice.” Janan’s calm but firm. “Close your eyes and listen to me.”
I do as I’m told and close my eyes.
“Breathe in.”
I try but my chest hurts again. My heart is going to beat right out of my rib cage.
“You can do this, Daddy. Do it for Nova and me.”
My girls.
“Breathe in.”
This time I’m able to inhale a little bit of air.
“Good. Now exhale.”
I do.
“Again.”
Time seems to stop, but Janan keeps commanding for the air to enter and leave my body until I’m able to do it on my own. I keep my eyes closed, and I realize they are each holding one of my hands.
“You’re doing good, just keep inhaling and exhaling.” Janan’s voice is the calmest I’ve ever heard it. “One more time.”
I open my eyes. Nova wipes my face with a washcloth, and I don’t even know where it came from.
“I can honestly say you won’t be missing your appointment tomorrow.” Janan rolls her eyes but continues to hold my hand.
I’VE NOT SAID a single word to Caryn, short of our initial greeting, and I’m staring at the sunflower painting.
“You look tired again, Taden.” She doesn’t make it sound like question. I can see the bags under my eyes just as well as she can.
“Long night.” Sleep still evades me more and more.
“Are you sleeping at all? Or are the dreams you’re having waking you up?”
“No dreams.”
“Nightmares, then?
”From time-to-time.” I lie. I don’t want to sleep because it’s her face I see.
“Are you still talking to your wife, Taden?”
“Not really.”
“Taden.” Caryn pauses and I briefly glance at her. “You do realize your wife is dead, right?”
“I know my wife is dead. I know she killed herself. I know what she did to me and the girls. I’m not looney.” My voice is calm as I say the words and turn back to the painting.
“I don’t think you’re looney at all.”
I try not to chuckle at the fact this well-educated woman used the word looney.
“But I want to know your sleeping habits.”
This is one topic I don’t want to touch and I change it. “Are you still taking new patients?”
“Yes.”
I make my way over to the couch and sit back in my usual spot. “My girls want to start coming to see you.”
“I’d be glad to take them both on. I’ve noticed you call them my girls, even though Nova’s your niece.”
“I watched her birth. I actually was the first to hold her because my sister had been so weak. I missed a few things from her life but not a lot.” I feel the corners of my mouth twitch. “It was hard to explain to her when she was a toddler and Janan would call me Daddy and she couldn’t.”
“You wouldn’t let her.”
“I love her. I would give her the world just like I do Janan, but I’m her uncle, even though I feel like a father to her. She has a jackass for a father, and he wants nothing to do with her.”
“Does she try to reach out to him?”
I rub my chin and try to think when the last time was. “I think she was eight or so. Her birthday was coming up and she wanted to invite him. But he never came.”
“Sharon allowed birthday parties?”
“Yes. As long as everyone was calm and there wasn’t too much noise.”
Caryn giggles. “A noiseless child’s birthday party. I can’t imagine.”
“Well.” I shake my head. “There were only a few because the girls’ knew their friends wouldn’t be able to abide by the rules.”
“Sharon’s rules?”
I nod.
“What were some of the rules?”
I can see her pen is poised and ready on her steno pad to start writing all the notes, but I don’t know what I want to tell and not tell her.
“Taden, eventually we’ll get deeper into your relationship with your wife.” She’s trying to make eye contact with me, but I’m not looking at her. “It’s why you’re here. You know this.”
Still. I remain still on the couch.
“You told me of how you met, your wedding, what about your honeymoon? How was your honeymoon?”
My honeymoon…
“Taddy.” Sharon laughs loudly as I adjust her over my shoulder. “You’re going to drop me.”
“I’m never letting you go, Mrs. Long.” I turn the key in the lock of our assigned hotel room.
“Well, you may have to soon so I can pee.” She’s giggling still.
I pinch her butt and she squeals with laughter. “I’m never letting you go.” I repeat and kick open the door. As soon as I sit her down, my lips find hers.
“I love you, Taden Long.”
“I love you, Sharon Long.” I want to undress her and bury myself in her. I want to be her everything.
She steps back and inspects the room. “Well, it’s not the worst place in the world.”
I glance around… there’s a bed, and it appears to be clean. There’s a bathroom, also seems to be clean. And there is my wife. My world. My everything.
“I promise to take you somewhere a lot better than here when we renew our wedding vows.” I vow to her.
“I’m holding you to it.”
She tugs on my tie and brings me closer to her. “I’m happy, Taddy. I never thought I’d ever be this happy.”
“Did you take her somewhere special for your renewal?” Caryn brings me back to the present.
“Paris. She always wanted to go to Paris. I had a small endorsement contract, and I took that money and gave her Paris.” I smile. “She loved every moment of it.”
“What about you? Did you enjoy it?”
“I did. I mean, I planned everything for her because she had sacrificed a lot for us to be together.”
“What do you mean?”
“She lived in a crappy apartment for years until we finished school. She bounced all over the United States with me when I was traded. She nursed me when I was injured. She got stretch marks with Janan, so she gave up her body. She gave up her career to stay home with the girls. She gave her life for me.” The tears are coming back. They’re burning my eyes.
“What do you mean she gave her life for you?”
The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t say them.
“Taden, it’s important you answer me. What did—”
I stand up and head for the door.
“Don’t leave, Taden. Face this part of your relationship with her. You can do it.”
With my hand on the door handle, I say the words, “I killed her.” I race out of her office.
WHEN DID IT become March? When did my life become so fucked up? When did I lose it all? When did I lose the control I had? Wait... did I ever have control? Maybe I thought I did, but in truth, I never had a damn thing.
I sit in the middle of Sharon’s empty room, holding the envelope. I’ve read the words on the paper inside a million and one times, and it’s still like a knife to my heart each time I read them. I want to read them again, but there’s no point since I’ve memorized Sharon’s suicide letter.
I slowly push the flap back and pull out the letter. It’s on her stationary. Her name in golden foil at the top. Her perfect cursive writing throughout the paper. She seemed to be calm when she wrote it.
She was ready…
