Four Meaningful Words

by A. M. Guilliams

  Me: Dinner will be ready at seven. Have a good day in court.

  I didn’t expect him to answer. He couldn’t have his phone in the courthouse. It felt nice to send that little message to let him know I was thinking of him. It was said the best way to change a problem was to be open to the change itself, and that simple gesture was me starting to show Austin that I still loved him and didn’t want to lose him.

  The house smelled amazing for hours as the sauce simmered. The smell of tomatoes, basil, and garlic could be smelled all the way upstairs to our bedroom.

  I’d showered and put on a simple, but sexy, little black dress and curled my hair the way Austin loved.

  The house was illuminated with candles strategically placed in the foyer through to the kitchen and into the dining room.

  I turned the crock-pot down to simmer and started the water for the pasta.

  It’d been hours since I sent that text, and I hadn’t checked my phone for a reply.

  Walking over to the counter, I picked up my phone and checked the screen. No new messages. Tons of emails, but no response from Austin.

  Glancing over at the clock, I noticed that it was six-thirty. He was usually home by now. Maybe he got held up.

  I tried calling him, but it kept going straight to voicemail. That wasn’t unusual, so I placed the phone back on the counter and continued to finish the preparations for dinner.

  At seven on the dot, I set the table with still no Austin in sight. I couldn’t be mad that he hadn’t arrived. Maybe he had something on his calendar that he forgot to tell me about. We were so disengaged from each other’s lives at present that it was totally possible. I’d been such a shell of a person for the past two years that he’d had to place notes in my office if he had something important for me to attend.

  I walked away from the table after it was perfectly arranged and went into the kitchen. Wine was in order. My nerves grew more anxious as each minute passed. What if I was too late?

  An hour had passed, and the bottle of wine was almost gone before I heard a car door shut from outside. I didn’t move from the spot at the table. It could be a neighbor coming home for all I knew.

  It wasn’t.

  Our front door opened a minute later, and I heard Austin’s keys hit the porcelain bowl we kept by the door.

  As much as I wanted to tuck my chin to my chest, I kept my head held high. Like I said before, I couldn’t be mad that he was late and dinner had gone cold.

  His briefcase met the floor based on the sounds from the other room. And still, I couldn’t move. I imagined the way his face contorted at seeing the candles when he walked in the door. I imagined the confusion written all over his face at what he’d come home to. What came next, I never imagined in a million years.

  He walked through the entryway of the kitchen and came into view.

  He was as handsome as ever in his black suit pants and baby blue shirt that was rolled up to his elbows. The tattoos were now visible to the world from the sleeve he had on his right arm. You’d never guess he had all that ink covering his skin from the suits he wore daily. His black hair was disheveled on top of his head, probably from the frustration of his day spent in court.

  His eyes, however, I couldn’t fully read. They held confusion mixed with heartache, but there was something else there. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  “Dinner’s still on the table if you’d like some?” I finally spoke.

  “It smells great,” he replied as he loosened his tie.

  “Why don’t you come sit, and I’ll make you a plate,” I suggested when he made no attempt to walk toward the dining table.

  “I ate at the office. I didn’t know you’d cooked or I’d have waited,” he replied with a hint of regret in his tone.

  “Oh,” was all I could bother to muster as a reply.

  I should’ve spoken up, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t show that his admission hurt. I didn’t have that right. Not at the moment.

  We continued to stare at each other from across the room. My stomach protested over the lack of food I’d consumed today. I’d waited for him to arrive to eat. Now I wasn’t in the mood to enjoy the fruits of my labor. In all honesty, I wanted to take the dishes from the table and toss them onto the floor, shattering each and every one of them. However, that wasn’t the adult way to react. Instead, I stood, not being able to handle his intense gaze, and began to clear the table.

  “Can that wait, Liz? We need to talk.”

  Four words no one in a relationship wanted to hear.

  Four words that I knew would cause me to never be the same.

  Chapter 2

  Austin

  We need to talk.

  It’s taken me months to gain the courage to broach the subject, and this was the only resololution I’d been able to determine. I never imagined speaking these words. . I longed to see her smile and laugh the way she used to. That seemed like forever ago now. I tried. Damn did I try. I knew she was hurt. I figured it’d take time and she’d break out of her grief and start to live again. She hadn’t.

  That brought us to the now. Coming home to candles lighting up the foyer had caught me off guard. The smell of my favorite meal made my mouth water and this conversation even harder to have. For a moment, I thought I’d walked into the wrong house. We hadn’t had dinner together since the last function she’d attended with me many months ago.

  My legs shook as I walked toward her. I couldn’t continue to stand across the room from her. She deserved to have this conversation with me sitting in front of her.

  Pulling out the chair beside her, I flipped it around and straddled the seat.

  “Liz,” I started, and her lips wobbled with pending emotion. I almost chickened out. Almost said to hell with breaking her heart and mine, but I couldn’t. I loved her enough to set her free.

  “Liz, I love you so damn much. The past two years have hurt. Watching you wither away into someone I didn’t recognize with no way to break through to you has killed me. I didn’t know how to break through to you. Everything I tried failed. When we should’ve been pulling together, we drifted apart.”

  Her sharp intake of breath broke me from my thoughts. I looked at her. Really looked at her. She’d curled her hair. Her hair that was naturally curly and unruly in the best way had the perfect curls I loved so much. She wore the black dress that I'd brought her home on a whim just because I knew she’d look amazing wearing it. Her hands were placed in her lap, and she worried her fingers through the nerves I was sure I had placed there. Looking up, I stared into her eyes that were filled to the brim with unshed tears.

  Seeing her cry would gut me, but in the end, what I was leading up to was the right thing to do. Or so I’d convinced myself until I’d come home tonight.

  Clearing my throat, I continued.

  “I wish things were different, but no matter how hard I pray and hope, they aren’t.”

  “What are you trying to say, Austin?” she questioned, her lips quivering as she spoke.

  “I want a divorce.” Four words that would end the forever I thought I’d have with the woman who owned me—mind, body, and soul. I just didn’t see any other way.

  Thinking back, every aspect of our lives together hindered on four simple, yet meaningful words.

  Will you be mine? Were the words that I’d written on a check yes or no note because I knew her favorite song was by George Straight. At the age of sixteen, I knew she would be special, and I had to have her in my life.

  Will you marry me? I almost choked as I asked her the question that started our future on the day of our college graduation. We’d finished the ceremony earlier that day, and I took her to our favorite spot that was nestled in a park near the campus to pop the question.

  Now four words would be the end of us. I want a divorce. I vowed to love her forever, and I would. She just wouldn’t officially be mine anymore.

  The thought of someone else loving her the way I had for the past sev
enteen years made me murderous, but I loved her enough to want her happiness over my own.

  I stared at her and waited for her to respond. I’d prepared for her to yell, scream, even throw something, but she just sat there, staring at me with a blank expression. No words were spoken. The tears that filled her eyes moments ago still threatened to escape. I wanted her to respond. Part of me wanted her to fight back. To tell me we could get through this downward spiral our life had become. She did none of it.

  Instead, she stood, said nothing, and started to clean up the dinner she’d taken hours to prepare. A dinner that I had a feeling meant more than what she’d let on. I didn’t even take the chance to ask her what the occasion was. I just went into the conversation I intended to have when I arrived home. I expected her to be typing away at her computer. Instead, I found her looking ravishing, sitting at a table all alone in the candlelight, with my favorite meal prepared.

  In my head, I knew I’d made the right decision.

  If only my heart agreed.

  Chapter 3

  Elizabeth

  I want a divorce.

  My mind repeated the words Austin had just spoken to me as I cleared the table. I thought of just throwing the meal into the trash, but I couldn’t let all the food go to waste. It wasn’t my style.

  Grabbing a bowl from the cabinet, I placed the food into the container, made sure the lid was sealed on top and placed it into the refrigerator.

  I want a divorce.

  I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to tell him that we were meant to be together. Only the words wouldn’t come. I couldn’t fight him on this. He looked so defeated as he told me those four hurtful words. I could tell he’d agonized over having the conversation based on the worry lines that etched his forehead and the sadness in his eyes.

  It figured the moment I woke up and realized what I needed to do to save us that he’d be the one to end us.

  Once the last dish had been washed, I grabbed the towel to dry it and put it away. It was a glass serving dish that we’d gotten at our wedding, that just so happened to need to be placed on the top shelf. I’d used a ladder to get it down earlier since I was only five-feet-four and could never reach it.

  As I struggled to try to place the dish in its rightful spot, I felt Austin come up behind me.

  “Allow me,” he whispered before he grabbed the dish from my hands and easily placed it on the shelf.

  He stayed behind me for the briefest of seconds. His breath quickened like he wanted to say something, but I couldn’t hear anymore.

  My heart was already shattered, and it took everything inside of me to not break down in front of him.

  I ducked underneath his arm and hurried out of the room and up the stairs. I had nowhere to go. I had no one close that I could turn to. But I had to get away from him to figure out my next move. How soon would he want me out of the house? How did all this work? I didn’t know since I’d never been divorced before. I never imagined I’d be in this situation. I thought we’d last forever. Love couldn’t bind a marriage together all on its own. So many other factors made a relationship last, and even though we had so much love for each other, love wasn’t enough to keep us from falling apart.

  I went into our room and shut the door behind me. Leaning against the wooden surface, I covered my mouth to muffle the sound of the sob that I’d finally let escape. Reality sank in quickly as the words Austin just spoke replayed through my mind. I’d lost my husband. I was the one to blame. As much as I wanted to tell him that this was me showing him that I wanted to fix myself and our marriage, I couldn’t. It would seem like a desperate attempt to keep him.

  Stripping the dress that he’d bought me off, I let it pool in the floor around my feet. Tomorrow I’d have it washed and donate it. I couldn’t ever wear the one thing that would remind me of this night again. I couldn’t keep the reminder of losing my husband.

  My thoughts continued to race as I glanced around the darkened room. I knew where everything was without having the lights on to guide me. The bed that sat in the center of the room where we’d laughed until our stomachs hurt. The vanity that he‘d bought me because he wanted to have a place to get ready in the morning was on the far wall of the room right beside the window so I could watch the sunrise while I drank a cup of coffee. The reading chair in the far corner of the room that we’d purchased together because he knew how much I loved to read.

  Each piece of furniture in our room was chosen out of love. His love for me. His need to provide the best life for me and to make me happy. Material things weren’t what made me happy. His thoughtfulness while choosing what we should purchase made me happy. The thoughtful words he spoke while he considered piece by piece were what warmed my heart and made me swoon over the man I’d married.

  I couldn’t stay in this room knowing he wouldn’t be here with me anymore. I couldn’t stay in this house knowing that the memories of our love would haunt me day in and day out. I had to leave. He could have it all. The only thing the contents in this house would serve to do was remind me of everything I’d lost.

  Snatching the pillow off the bed, I went into the bathroom and shut the door harder than I’d intended. The sound echoed through the room as I walked over to the sink and leaned against the granite countertop for support. As I stood in our bathroom dressed in nothing but the black slip and panties that I’d worn under the dress, I felt my knees wobble and give way. I landed on the floor with a thud. Clutching the pillow to my chest, I allowed the tears to finally fall.

  I want a divorce.

  Those four words ran through my mind, getting louder and louder, the more they repeated in my thoughts.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of his voice as he spoke the words that ended us.

  “Liz,” I heard Austin speak from behind me.

  I hadn’t even heard the door open. I was so consumed by the voices within my head that I couldn’t register anything else.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, a hesitancy in his tone.

  I’d never be okay again. I was so caught up in my own grief that I never considered his own. I didn’t see that the end of us was nearing until it was too late. What kind of person did that make me? What kind of wife did that make me? A horrible one, that was what.

  I couldn’t answer him. Now that the sobs broke free, I couldn’t stop them. The tears continued to fall until I was a blubbering mess.

  Austin sat behind me and pulled me back into his chest. He wrapped his arms around me as I cried into his dress shirt. The warmth of his arms did nothing but break my heart into further despair. I didn’t deserve his comfort. With the way I’d acted in the past two years, I didn’t deserve the love he still gave me before today either.

  “Why are you in the bathroom floor?” he asked as he moved the strands of hair that had stuck to the side of my face.

  “I couldn’t…” I tried to speak, but the words got caught in my throat. I hiccupped through the tears as I tried but failed to answer him.

  “Breathe, baby. Just breathe,” he whispered as he ran his fingers through my hair and rocked us back and forth.

  Minutes went by, and the sobs did nothing but get worse the more I thought about why I was in this very room.

  I couldn’t sleep in our bed. The thought of never waking up beside him again was too much to bear. The thought of never having his arms pull me closer in his sleep crushed my broken heart and broke the final shards into a million tiny pieces.

  Austin continued to rock us both until I finally settled down. I was spent. Emotionally drained. Mentally exhausted. My thoughts had thoughts that had more thoughts, and all I wanted to do was shut them down, to be on autopilot the same way I’d gotten through the past two years. But I knew that wasn’t the way to overcome my feelings. I’d have to face them head-on. Only this time, I’d only have myself to get through them because I wouldn’t have my best friend anymore. That thought and realization alone caused
the tears to start all over again. Above everything else, even the love I shared with this man—who even after telling me he wanted a divorce, was sitting here on the cold, hard, tile floor comforting me—I’d miss having him as my best friend the most.

  “Can you tell me why we’re sitting here on the floor now?” Austin questioned again as he placed his finger under my chin and turned my head toward him.

  I looked up at him and without thinking, placed my hand on the side of his face and took him in. His soft features. His honey-brown eyes that I could get lost in stared back at me as he waited for me to reply.

  “I just wanted to go to sleep. I got into our room and looked around, and the day that we picked out the furniture came to mind. I thought about how thoughtful you were as we chose each piece. Then I thought about how I’d never sleep in that bed with you again, and I couldn’t lay down. I grabbed the pillow and came in here to get ready for bed, and I just broke down.”

  Tears filled his eyes at my confession. I could see his heartache in the depths of his eyes with each word I spoke.

  “We’ll get through this, Liz,” he spoke then looked away for the briefest of moments. I could tell by the tone in his voice that he was unsure if he spoke the truth.

  “I don’t know how to live without you. I can’t remember a time before you entered my life. You’re all I’ve ever known, Austin.”

  “I don’t know how to live without you either, Liz. I just don’t see another way for us to be happy. That’s all I want for you. To be happy again,” he admitted.

  Happy. I couldn’t recall the last time I was truly happy. The months leading up to the last adoption, I was thrilled and scared at the same time at the concept of us becoming parents, but my happiness masked the fear I felt of not having that child in our lives.

  I turned in his arms and faced him, my hand never leaving the side of his face. I wasn’t ready to let the feel of him go just yet. I wasn’t ready to move out of his hold and feel the coldness that would be left behind.