I absentmindedly nod and he continues. “David, Katie, and I listened as her screams echoed through the labor unit halls and into the waiting room... She was in the middle of the most horrid scream I’d ever heard… Then it just…stopped. I swear to God, man. I thought she was dead. I knew she’d died.”
“What time was that?” I calmly ask him.
His red swollen eyes meet mine. “What time did her screams stop?” I nod and he says, “11:42.”
I nod again as the pieces click into place.
“What time was my son born, Nick?”
“11:42.” He whispers those two numbers, causing my heart and soul to splinter in two.
I meet Nick’s eyes with mine and say the only thing I can with certainty. “When her screams halted, what you heard was her soul ceasing its existence. Lil’s body may still be working, living…but her will to live, her spirit fucking died the second her mind accepted that our son was dead.”
When we make it to the hospital, Lil still has our son in her room. The nurses inform me that my wife is under suicide precautions. They stop me when I head in the direction of her room, telling me that Lil refuses any and all visitors.
Security is called and Nick has me pinned against the wall, four feet away from her hospital room. I feel my soul reaching out for hers, seeking comfort.
Nick growls through gritted teeth, “I know you think you want to go in there. I know you think you can help her, that she needs you.” He shakes his head but doesn’t release his hold on me. “Man, if she wanted your help… When she wants your help, she’ll let you know.”
“That how you fucking kept her happy, motherfucker? By ignoring her silent cries for help?”
Nick’s sad, painful laugh bounces between the walls of the hall we occupy. “Even I know that I never, not once in our fucking lives, brought Lillian happiness. This doesn’t have a damn thing to do with us. I’m only here to save your dumb ass from fucking everything up.”
“GET. THE. FUCK. OFF. ME. NOW.”
Before I can ram my knee into Nick’s balls, I hear a nurse clear her throat. “Mr. Phillips, your wife has released your son’s body…”
Nick releases his iron-clad grip on me, and a second later he’s in the nurse’s face. “Do you even allow the words to run through serious thought before they spew from you, or did your nursing school not spend enough time on empathy vs. sympathy?”
She keeps her eyes on mine before continuing. “I’ve set up a room. It’s private, quiet. If you’d like…you’re welcome to use the room, spend as much time as you need with your son. He really does look beautiful.”
“Yes, that would be…” I push away from the wall that’s holding me up. “Thank you.”
He is beautiful.
Just like I knew he would be. You can see both Lil and me in his features. I kiss the smattering of white blond hair on the top of his head and lay him on my chest. Tucking my arms safely around him, I rest my cheek beside his… And I rock my son, humming Goo Goo Dolls’s ‘Black Balloon.’
Lil buries our son next to her brother on the coldest fucking day I’ve ever had to endure.
Caskets aren’t supposed to be that tiny. It isn’t fucking natural. Nothing about this is natural.
Nothing about this is normal.
And abso-fucking-lutely NOTHING about this makes sense.
At funerals, the only small glimmer of consolation is that you at least get to celebrate the loved one’s life. My son didn’t even get a chance at his first breath. He never even got the chance to grasp his fingers around one of mine or look into his mother’s beautiful blue eyes.
And it pisses me off.
I want to know who the fuck is to blame. I have some fucking demons inside me slashing and pushing to find a way out. But I don’t have any one to unleash them upon, so I lock the motherfuckers down… All that does is cause them to multiply.
During the first week after Baby Leo’s death, I try so fucking hard to get inside Lil’s head, to talk to her, hold her—anything. But she’s so goddamn closed off. Her mind is shut down, and the only snippets of conversation consist of my begging her to let me in and her revealing nothing but an evil remnants left in my wife’s splintered remains.
However, every night I wake to two different women. One is wrapped around me, raining tears and soaking my neck, shoulder, and pillow while she begs me for forgiveness and cries out for me to release her from the pain.
The other woman has my cock shoved down her throat when I wake then begs me to hurt her, fuck her hard enough to mask the pain in her heart and soul.
It’s only on these nights that I see the last few threads of my wife. The sadist and demons inside me rear their ugly heads and give her more than she bargains for. But for the love of Christ, I at least get a handful of seconds with my firecracker when she fights back. And she always fights back…right before she submits and I wholly consume her.
But it’s a double-edged sword on those nights. Because after we’ve come at each other in a tangle of hair pulls, bites, and slaps, once we’re both spent and our ragged breaths begin to slow, I have to hold her racking frame tight as her tears soak us both and listen to her say, “I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry I didn’t cut sooner,” through her hiccupping sobs.
That… I don’t fucking know what to do with that. I don’t know what to say to that. So I just hold her as tight as I fucking can as the madness tears its way through her. I hold her and rock her back and forth, humming and quietly singing to her until she falls asleep in my arms.
“Baby’s black balloon makes her fly… I almost fell into that hole in your life. You’re not thinking ‘bout tomorrow…
“A thousand other boys could never reach you… How could I have been the one…
“You know the lies they always told you… And the love you never knew…
“Comin’ down, the years turn over… And angels fall without you there… And I’ll go on and lead you home and all because I’m, all because I’m, and I’ll become…what you became to me.”
We live our lives in the dark desperation and misery of the night our son passed away for over a year and a half. I started drinking again, though I’m not sure when I started drinking again.
I only remember being an alcoholic with twelve and a half years of sobriety. Then I was just an alcoholic, drinking and skipping meetings.
Every day is exactly as the day before it with only small, insignificant differences.
Honestly, I don’t even fucking know what day this is. I only know the sound of bottles slamming together and the glare of the sun is pulling me from my alcohol-induced sleep.
That and ‘Lise’s voice.
“Leo.” Her whispered sob echoes the space around me and my eyes fly open.
“No. No. No, no, no, no, no, NO. FUCK! Annalise, god-fucking-dammit, tell me we… Tell me I didn’t—” I pull myself up in the cab of my truck using the steering wheel. “The fuck? Annalise?” Sheer panic courses through me.
I’ve never wanted anyone but Lil. Even now, I… Hell I know I’ll never want anyone but Lil. I take in my surroundings as quickly as I can because I know there’s no way I would have…
I’m in my truck, and my truck is sitting on top of our mailbox.
I’m fully clothed. A breath whooshes from my lungs as I sigh in relief.
“Holy fucking shit, Leo. Get over yourself.” I squint, looking in ‘Lise’s direction. The sun is behind her, and I see the silhouette of her very pregnant form. “Yeah, no way in hell, buddy. Like I said, get over yourself.”
“‘Lise, you gotta leave. Lil can’t see you… She definitely can’t see you like that.” I shake my head, causing a migraine to slice through my skull, and bow over groaning.
“Well, by all means, let me remove my baby before I help your drunk ass out of the car…”
I glare at her over my shoulder. “Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that—”
“No, no. Don’t worry about it, ‘
Lise. I know you didn’t mean anything by it. But it just shows how fragile this house of glass is that I live in with Lil. I’ve been fucking walking on eggshells for as long as I can remember.”
Her hand grips my chin before jerking my face up and narrowing her eyes on mine. “You better man the fuck up then, Leo. Because this”—she gestures around at all the empty vodka bottles littered around in my truck—”is YOU being a coward. You wanted Lil. You always only ever wanted Lil. Broken, shattered, or even half alive, you’ve always only ever wanted Lil, Leo. You have her. Now fucking take care of her.”
“Fuck you, Annalise. Get the fuck off my property and leave me and mine alone, bitch,” I spew at her before yanking my chin from her grasp.
Her laughter mocks me, infuriating me. “Didn’t peg you for such an early quitter. I mean, any man who spends the better part of ten years either in the shadows watching the love of his life or the love of his life lurking in the shadows of his subconscious would certainly NOT give up so damn easily.” She shrugs before cocking a hand on her barely there hip and commencing the mother of all staring contests.
I give up first.
“What do you want?” My shoulders fall in defeat.
“Not that. I don’t want any of that.” She pushes the driver’s side door open some more and squeezes herself closer to me before laying her hand on top of mine. I watch her fingers lace in mine and feel comfort.
Then I immediately feel guilt because I’ve felt a measure of comfort that has not been also afforded to my wife… Not once in over eighteen months.
The tears bite the backs of my eyelids before spilling over for the first time. A sob chokes me, and I sputter, “I can’t fucking fix her, ‘Lise. I can’t even fucking find her.” Through my tears, I look up into her eyes. “How the fuck can I fix what I can’t find ‘Lise? HOW!?” My growl has her flinching before she presses forward and hugs my neck.
“Stop.” she pulls away long enough to slap the fuck out of my face. Then she hugs my neck again. Through gritted teeth, she finishes speaking. “Stop fucking drinking, Leo. You and your wife need help. Not tomorrow, not next week. Now. Get to a fucking meeting. Then get you and Lil into therapy.” She pulls away again and I stiffen preparing for another slap, but she smiles. “Leo, happiness isn’t easy. And the loss of a child is enough to tear any parent or any husband and wife apart. But not you and Lil.”
I just look at her. Shock, surprise, relief, anxiety, and dread are all waging a war inside me. But for the first time in eighteen months, hope is also one of the emotions.
“Not you and Lil, Leo. You two were written in the stars. A love like yours doesn’t happen in real life, so when it does…of course fate is going to break its own laws, and it’s up to you to make sure that love lasts, even through hell, Leo… You have to find a way to make it last.” Her eyes leave mine and focus on the bottles around me, “And you will never find the way in one of those bottles.”
I nod and use my hands to dry my face. “Thank you, ‘Lise. I don’t know—”
“I always know, Leo. I don’t want to. Believe me. But I know when you need me. I may not be your one true love”—her voice quivers and she hugs me tightly around her baby belly—”but you will always be mine. Bye, Leo.”
She turns and begins to walk away but stops and says without looking back at me, “Take care of Lil. You have to be happy with Lil, Leo… Otherwise, all of this will be for nothing. Please don’t take away everything I ever loved for nothing. Please.”
My mouth opens to speak only to snap shut a second later when ‘Lise’s car pulls away from the curb.
I’m fucking laughing right now. Really… I wish you could hear the maniacal cackle spilling from me. It is quite spectacular. And sometimes, in these moments of delusion, as I look around at the complete and utter Hell that I live in, guarding the inside of Hell’s gates to ensure Lil doesn’t cross its threshold again, I catch myself wondering if Lilith attached herself onto my soul after she was pushed from my wife.
As Lil said, when she in the clutches of madness and insanity… Let’s end this where we began.
All of that back there was my story. I’m not telling it because I seek absolution, pity, or even understanding from you.
I’ll fucking tell you like I told her. It ain’t gonna fix a fuckin’ thing, but I’ll say it…
I fucked up, okay? I fucked up and I know… I know I did. I let Lil down so many goddamn times.
Fuck!
I know I don’t fucking deserve her, but I’ll be goddamned if I leave her again, and I’ll be even more fucking damned if I let what I deserve or don’t deserve in life keep me away from her. Period.
I told her that everything I touch I fuck up. Why the hell do you think I ran from her little ass all those years ago? I was trying to shut her out before she got under my skin. But I couldn’t. She wouldn’t let me keep her at arm’s length. She wouldn’t allow me to ignore what was as bright as the fucking sun.
She was too strong. Even at sixteen she was too strong for me to fight. She forced me to face the fact that we were two pieces of a whole.
That we were two pieces of the same soul.
She was my firecracker, and I was her knight. She lit me up and turned my darkness into light.
But even a firecracker only lights up the night for a moment.
I would give anything to go back and keep shit from falling apart. I would tell her dad to fuck off, just grab her up, and fucking run.
Out of all the fucking moments, I always return to the turning page. The devastating fork in the course of my life when I was standing on the precipice. The moment in time where our lives went one way or another. The moment when I either lost the life I wanted with the woman I wanted instead of having a life with Lil and Lil alone…
I never should have let her out of my car that night when we were kids. I could have protected her from fucking everything. From all of it...
I could ask where I went wrong, beg for an answer to soothe this fucking terrible ache, this guilt that I’ve carried for decades. But I won’t ask, because I don’t deserve a break from my pain.
I know you think you knew Lil, and now that you’ve read her story and heard mine, it’s possible that you do. But my opinion remains that, until you hold a woman like Lil, until you stare into her drunken eyes, heavy from ecstasy while you’re balls deep inside of Heaven, inside this woman who is so fucking unlike anyone else on this goddamn earth… Until you hold her shuddering body as her tears soak your shirt while she cries out for something even she doesn’t understand, just so long as it takes away her pain… Until you’ve been where I’ve been with Lil, you don’t truly know her.
Not like I fucking do.
I do hope that by the time you finish OUR story, you are able to take away enough from both sides to realize a story is as never as simple or as clean-cut as it seems.
I felt the dread in the marrow of my bones that May night. It started that morning, another one of my countless mistakes; I ignored the hair-raising sense of dread that hit me that morning. I was supposed to be on my way to Atlanta for some stupid fucking merger meeting between my company’s marketing department and another new, upcoming marketing company.
I was hauling fucking ass from one terminal to another, trying like hell to catch my connecting flight from Houston to Atlanta, when it hit me like a motherfucking brick across the face. I stopped right where the fuck I was, assholes crashing into me from behind, cussing at me.
I took my ass to the nearest fucking ticket counter and asked for the next flight to get me back home. Shit, I’d been gone for almost three months straight. I hadn’t seen Lil in over six months—that she knew of. I still kept an eye on her. I just couldn’t fucking explain what the hell my eyes were seeing. She was so far gone that I couldn’t see a single thing in my wife that resembled the woman I had fallen in love with over twenty years ago. The woman I’d waited all my life for was truly and irrevocably fucking gone.
Do y
ou know what it’s like as a fucking man to have to look at your wife and watch her all over these cheesy fuckers, drunk and high out of her goddamn mind, so fucking lost she’s beyond ever being found?
Oh, I knew what the fuck she was doing. I knew about the drugs and ALL the men. But I was such a fucking coward that I just walked away like I had all the other times. I told myself that at least she was happy; at least they made her smile. For more than a year after my boy died, I could only get her to look at me or speak to me when we were in the throes of passion.
I was a pussy. That’s what I was. I just wanted her to be happy, and she was only ever happy when I wasn’t home. Every time she looked at me, all she really saw was what could have been had our son lived. With me or my presence came memories of what should have been. And if there is one thing Lil and I have, it is a fucking world full of what-should-have-beens. There isn’t a fucking thing in this world worse than what should have been.
When I got home and couldn’t find her at any of her normal hangouts, I called every goddamn five-star hotel within a hundred-mile radius and still couldn’t find her.
That’s when I got scared. I hadn’t been there when she’d needed me. I knew she’d finally done it. She’d taken her life and killed the love of mine… She’d killed my firecracker.
I’d fucked up and all but handed her whatever drug or weapon she’d needed to get the job done. When she’d finally, really needed me, I’d been off being a pussy because I didn’t know how to take care of my own wife. I didn’t know how to bring her from the darkness and depth of misery she fed off.
Instead of manning the fuck up and grabbing Lil’s demons by their throats, killing them one by one, snuffing out every single one of those bitches fucking with her head, I’d stood aside, waiting for her to come back to me, waiting for her to need me enough to come back.
Holding Her in Madness Page 20
