“I love you more too.”
These emotions that I’m feeling are so foreign to my body I’m not sure they can process them. Joy, happy and light aren’t things I’m used to feeling. “Good, then we’re even and no one will tell Daddy.”
I push and throw and giggle with Bash for four hours until I see a text message from my husband that sets off warning bells. I text back quickly.
We are just at the lake for the day with some kids from school. We’ll leave now. It’ll take two hours to get home.
He doesn’t respond.
That was the night I started sleeping in Bash’s room instead of my own. I did that for years until Bash asked me to leave. Can you imagine your own son asking you to leave his room? It was also the last time I ever conspired with him while we giggled. Pretty soon after that Sebastian made it very clear that my health, happiness were not his concern. He’d also made it entirely real that he would take everything I love from me. I couldn’t have that. I have no answers for how I stayed other than it’s what I thought would save Bash. It’s what I believed was the best thing. I was so very wrong.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Landfill
It snowed last night, a late spring storm. I love it when the white powder falls from the sky, especially in the spring, and covers everything coaxing us to believe that the world is serene. However, a white covering on shit is still shit. It mirrors my own life, the glossy appearance that makes anything look better than it actually is. This horrible thing I accepted for myself that I can’t quite figure out how to extricate myself from. My days drag, each one seemingly an eternity, then I blink and it’s three months later.
I lay on the ground cold, but unfazed while the dusting of snow covers me. I’m stone still until I can’t see above the bright white that is piled on top of me. This is dangerous, but I welcome a sickness that I can heal with medication. The medicine that is given to me by the counselor Sebastian chose makes me numb to the farce I walk through on a daily basis and it does prevent me from slitting my wrists at the injustice of it all. I’d be lying if I said I never thought about ending things, but my memories of the boy that loved me keeps me here, protecting him.
I was thrown in a dirt pit with things wearing me down until I no longer existed. I crawled out of the mud on my hands and knees. I reach my hands out through the powdery snow. I blink away the remaining moisture on my eyes. My cream wool cap is slick with ice, dark with mud. I take off my glove and slip my hand in my pocket. I pop Effexor XR into my mouth and swallow it dry. It protects me from Sebastian, from myself. I blink.
Sitting up I look into the woods. Could I just walk away, disappear into the woods?
The frigid air makes me long for a fire. The burning I once felt for life that Sebastian snuffed out like it was nothing.
What sort of person could lie so willingly, so readily, so easily? About oh so many things…
I fumble to pick up our landline in our new house that never rings, the only purpose it serves is for our security system.
“Hello,” I answer hesitantly. I’ve become so jumpy that I think there are monsters behind everything. Maybe there are.
“Oh, um…” A soft velvet voice purrs over the line.
I stand there. It’s probably the wrong number.
“Is this Mrs. Pryor?” she asks tentatively.
“Yes,” I answer.
“Oh dear,” the voice responds like she is so sorry my name is Mrs. Pryor.
“I’m Mrs. Pryor too.”
I’m confused. Sebastian’s mother is dead. “Sebastian’s aunt?”
“No dear, unfortunately I’m his mother.”
I step back from the voice and drop the phone. I stare at it as if it’s a snake then I scramble to pick it up. “You’re his mother?” I ask. I don’t feel the harshness of the hardwood floor on my knees with the phone cradled in between my ear and shoulder.
“I’m afraid so. And you’re his wife which makes me feel more sorry for you than I do for most people.”
His mother is dead. He told me about a car accident. “But…” Lies, lies, lies, it’s all lies.
“When he left for college I told him to never come back. I guess that got me killed in his mind.” There is a pregnant pause then a chuckle. “I’m actually glad it was just in his mind.”
A glacial realization settles on my skin and I try to shake it off.
“He’s always been like this?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Why?”
“I never really knew, but I have my own suspicions.”
“And,” I urge. Bash cries in the background.
“Oh God,” she says hearing a baby cry.
“You have a grandson,” I confirm.
“You must know he can’t love anyone by now. I promise you that.” Then she hangs up. She actually hangs up after dropping this bomb. His mother is alive and hates him. He can’t love anyone. He can’t love me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Fucking Lies
“Yes, sure.” I answer into my cell.
I stare off into the distance as I sit on our back porch. I’m listening. I’m trying to make decisions without really making them. I’m on a conveyor belt moving toward the slicing machine and I’m frozen.
“Rebecca,” I hear from the earpiece and it shakes me. I’m having trouble keeping up my façade this week and it worries me.
“Okay, I can do it. I’ll make it work.” My voice is devoid of life.
I sink down in the chair and click my nails on a table made of some sort of plastic that is supposed to last forever from what we were told when we bought it. It’s beige, like everything else around this house.
“No, no. It’s fine. I’ll get it handled and it’ll be fine.”
I shift in my seat, trying to pay attention to what Sissy is rambling on about and that according to her tone I should be excited about.
“Yes,” I half-heartedly agree. “Oh, I just looked at my calendar and he’s going to be out of town, but I should be able to go.” I’m actually looking at my gel nails to see how they’re holding up, not my calendar.
She’s saying something else, but her voice fades into the background until the silence alerts me that I need to respond.
“Okay, sounds good.” The trees fade in and out in the distance to me and I close my eyes to ward off the memory I know is coming. I’ve avoided coming out here for two years.
“I’m looking forward to it,” I lie.
I jump at the sound of the door to the back porch closing. I see Bash’s back and I hadn’t even noticed him. I get up and follow him inside.
“Hey, I didn’t realize you were home,” I say to his back.
“Yeah, well you were busy on the phone.” He throws his bat bag down and walks in his flip flops toward the stairs.
“How was practice?” I call.
“It was fine.”
“Okay,” I mutter.
“You know, you always said there would be no lies between us.”
I nod, uncertain where this is going.
“You’ve always been the best flier around.” He walks up the rest of the stairs leaving me to twist at his words. I know the f in flier the way he said it doesn’t mean funny. I debate whether to charge up the stairs and confront his statement or to crawl into a ball and weep. I don’t want to confront him over the truth of his statement. I walk over to the fridge and pull out a pinot gris. I pour myself enough to fill my oversized glass, which is about half the bottle, and then go back to the porch challenging the breakdown I know is coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I Used to Know You
I hurry into the cafe near the private college where my former friend Christy works as an English professor. Pushing open the door, I scan the room for her. When I see her an uncertain feeling spreads over me. I gather it quickly and throw it in the trash on the way to the table.
“Rebecca,” she says looking up from papers. Her messy brown hair piled on her
head, a pencil stuck through it. She takes off her hipster glasses and places them by her mug of coffee.
“You grading papers?” I ask, sitting down in the booth across from her.
She doesn’t answer my stupid question.
“What’s up?” Christy always has cut to the chase.
I run my fingers through my hair. “How have you been?” I ask because it’s been years since we’ve actually seen each other and that’s what you should do.
“I like your hair better how it used to be,” she doesn’t answer my question. After we moved here my rebellion of choice was to let my natural color grow in.
“Me too,” I agree. My civil disobedience didn’t last long and I dyed it back within a year of moving to Portland.
Her eyes widen and then bore into me.
“What do you need from me Rebecca? Isn’t that why you called me?”
I knew better than to come here and ask her for something right away. I’m not an idiot. I may play one on TV, but all the years of bending to someone’s will has made me very smart in the way of people.
“Nope,” I say simply and wave to our waiter with a smile. “I missed you.” This is a half-truth. I don’t feel enough to miss her, I miss me, the person I was when I knew her.
“You look fake.” Her eyes drop to her lap when she says this.
“I am fake.”
“But what happened?” she whispers.
“Is that really what we want to talk about when we haven’t seen each other in so long? How’s your job?” I deflect.
She pulls her brown cardigan closer together over her old concert t-shirt.
“The job is fine, the kids change, job stays the same.”
The server comes over.
“I’d like hot tea.”
“What kind?”
“Oolong please, with honey. Also, I’d like a cup of your chicken and wild rice soup, please.”
“I’d like the club sandwich with chips,” Christy orders. She places thick glasses back on her face, and they immediately slip down her nose. She’s unchanged from when we were twenty-two, when we met. She was my only real friend as Rebecca Pryor. I foolishly told her things about my marriage that I learned quickly not to share.
The server leaves and we look at each other.
“I worry about you all the time.”
“Don’t.” I worry enough.
“You look…”
“I know.”
“I hate people like you.”
Her words actually stun me, but my mask is firmly in place per usual. “Well, I’m sorry I wasted your time.” I take out my wallet and pull out a twenty. Throwing it on the table,
I slide out of the booth. She grabs my wrist.
“Don’t go. I just wanted to see if there is a glimpse of you left in there somewhere.”
I blink.
There’s not a shred of me left and I think she realizes it. I don’t remember the me she’s talking about. I pull my hand from hers, stepping back.
“Don’t let him take everything Rebecca.”
The server comes with my tea.
“At least stay for your tea and half a meal,” Christy urges. “I promise I won’t bring it up again.”
This is why we couldn’t stay friends. She wore on me. It was hard enough trying to keep my head above water in a marriage that was crushing my soul, but having to justify it to her just wore me down.
“Fine,” I concede and sink into the booth. “I just wanted to see a face that I miss.”
“You miss this?” She laughs pointing at her face.
“I…” I start and then close my eyes. “Sometimes I can barely remember who I was,” I whisper.
“Then fucking look closer, look harder, look longer. You were awesome and he took that from you. How’s Bash?”
“Just like his father, he hates me too.”
“I think you’re giving Sebastian too much credit, he doesn’t hate you. He is using you and you’re letting him.” She raises her hands. “Okay, no more.”
Her words hover over me. I’m letting him. I’ve let him. I don’t believe this.
“What are your papers about?”
“Ah, safe topics...how about I’m dating a history professor with really kinky taste in the bedroom?” She grins.
“Kinky…”
“Oh girl, let’s save that conversation for when you can sneak out to have drinks with me.”
I smile the first genuine smile I’ve had in a while. It feels strange on my face, like a cramp that hurts and shouldn’t be there. I look down at my hands. They look the same. Isn’t it funny how someone can make you feel different, like who you used to be or someone you want to be or just someone else?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Run to What
Christy, my old friend, the only friend I attempted to make after we moved here makes me long for the old me. As I’m driving back to our house from a PTA meeting that lasted four hours, I think about when we first moved out here. I’ve changed so radically with such ferocity that it shook my belief system in everything. When we first got married I searched everyday for what I used to be. When all I had left were the shards of my rib cage because he ripped out my heart so carelessly my personality changed from Rebecca Simmons to Rebecca Pryor. I look back now and wish I could’ve stayed friends with Christy, she may have saved me.
I storm into the kitchen where he is rummaging through the refrigerator. I throw a rumpled button down shirt at him and move closer. My hand rears back to slap him and he catches it, a smirk appearing on his face.
“I wondered when you would bring it to me.” It’s a challenge.
That’s what he says. After everything he’s done to me, he says this.
“I HATE YOU!” I scream this so loud my voice breaks and falls lifeless on the floor. I try to wrench my hand from him, but his tight grasp on my wrist won’t give it back to me. He’s still smiling, the evil in his eyes bubbling with delight.
“Rebecca, I like you when you have this passion. It makes me…” He rips the buttons on my shirt. I convulse with horror. He puts my hand on his erection.
“You’re a monster. A fucking vile human being. How could you?”
He licks my neck, but I’m squirming and doing my best to get away from him. He finally throws my hand away from him and lets out a chuckle.
“What does that make you my dear wife?”
I close my eyes and hold my shirt together, my chest panting with exertion. Sebastian walks around me and sits on the couch, the baseball game glowing on the TV.
“Stupid,” I whisper to myself. It makes me stupid.
Peering into the fridge I grab a few sodas and walk to the opposite side of the room from my husband as he sits there, beer in hand like he’s had the best day of his life. I throw the first can as hard as possible and it explodes on the wall over his head. I lean down to pick up another and his face turns to watch me, taking in what I’m doing in a calculated manner.
“Rebecca,” he warns.
“HOW COULD YOU?”
I throw. Boom. Another explosion on the wall next to the chair. Why can’t I hit his face?
“I LOVE YOU!” I scream.
He finally gets off the couch as I reach for the third soda.
“We both know that I can’t help it.” He’s saying things, but I want to punch him in the face. “I love you, Rebecca.” I want to believe this, but I’m afraid my delusion is fading on this front.
“I want you. What’s changed? That I’m actually making you wash the evidence of my affairs now?”
I’m shocked that his question is sincere. He doesn’t know why this bothers me. All of the fight I had a few minutes ago leaves me limp in his arms. What did I do to deserve this?
“I thought you at least loved me.”
Silence.
“I just said I love you,” he answers.
He said he loved me, but we both know it’s a fabrication.
“I’m pregnant.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lessons
Throughout my thirty-five years, I’ve learned so many things. Things about myself, about Sebastian and about life in general. I learned that life can be cut too short early, before I was ready for that lesson. However, it did not prepare me for Sebastian or my need for him to love me, which I did. I had an insatiable need, urge, desire for him to love me. I don’t know if it was I needed love, I needed him to love me or I was going to meet the challenge of this man. He shattered my need, he completely obliterated me in a contest of any challenge I presented, but I learned. Slowly. I picked up on how he ran elegantly through life never getting caught in his lies, his games, his manipulations, until me. I caught him. I challenged him, until I learned not to. I wait for my chance. I bide my time until I can get out. It took a long fucking time.
Christy and I were running through the streets of her neighborhood. Her house was my sanctuary, where I could go and find some semblance of peace, normality. I can be myself around her. My feet pound the pavement. My joints jarring with each step. Even though I’m pregnant, this is the one thing I allow myself to do. I made sure it was okay with the doctor. I love the way I feel after an hour of running, the pain, the sweat running down my face, in my hair. We step past the second mile and I was just getting my stride when Christy stopped and looked around. My body carried me several steps before I finally stopped. I turned, hand on my small burgeoning belly and look where she stood, bent over and her hands on her knees. It causes some concern because she was in better shape than me, she shouldn’t be bent over.
“You okay?” I jog back to where she is and put my hand on her back.
When she didn’t answer I lean down to assess her. Surprisingly she stands straight up and is white as a ghost. I step closer.
She shakes her head at me over and over.
“What can I do?” I ask.
Then she takes several steps away and vomits on the street.
“Christy,” I ease closer and try to help, not really knowing what to do.
Quiet Lies Page 9
