Quiet Lies

by R. L. Griffin

  We leave today. Two days ago Sebastian texted to say he had to travel suddenly to New York for a business meeting and he’d be gone for a week, but he’s still at the apartment. I’m not shocked by his lies, it’s a sad reality that I’ve come to understand and it gives us the perfect time to leave. Bash has been harassed non-stop by kids at school and it’s been a struggle to make him go to school every morning.

  My thoughts come in waves as Bash plays a game on the new iPad I bought him so that Sebastian couldn’t track us. He can’t know where we are and I’m hoping that I have planned enough for us. We are driving to Boise, Idaho then flying to Detroit then to Charleston. Even with new identification I’m still terrified Sebastian can track us.

  My mistakes are piled in front of me for me to examine. I finally allow myself to sift through those memories that I’d put in a box never to look at again. Nerves are causing knots in my gut and I’m fighting a panic attack with everything I have.

  After ten minutes of keeping my eyes closed and my breathing even. I jolt out of bed and run to the toilet, exhilaration comes out and hits the water with a sickening sound. I drag the back of my hand over my mouth and then stumble to the shower.

  I let hot water wash over me. I sing a few lines of my favorite song, the one that reminds me that things are bad, but I’ll be okay. It always soothes me. This is the first step for us. I’m doing this for me. It’s the first thing I’ve done for myself in quite a long time. Okay, that’s not quite accurate.

  I wake up in utter agony. Excruciating pain fills every cell of my body. I don’t open my eyes because I know it will hurt too much. Even with my eyes closed I can tell the room is still dark. I slept in the guest room because of our fight. I’d finally confronted Sebastian about his latest conquest. I’d held our baby and cried. I’d told him he ruined my life, he’d ruined everything. The truth flew out of my mouth with abandon and I knew this was it, I’d had enough. I was leaving.

  After I put Bash to sleep I had wine, a lot of wine. The burgundy of the merlot stained my lips and glared at me as I stared in the mirror at the mess he’d made of me. A resolve had settled on my intoxicated face and I decided it would be soon.

  Now I regretted the bottle of wine I’d consumed. The pounding in my head was a sledge hammer. I had made sure I’d taken the monitor in the room with me last night and I sat up quickly, my hands searching for it on the bed. My heartbeat quickened at the realization it was gone. It was only then that I noticed the bandages around both of my wrists and forearms. I pulled at the bandage on my left wrist as I lifted myself out of the bed and walked into the bathroom in the hall.

  A gasp escapes my lips and my hands fly to my mouth. The guest bathroom is trashed, blood spots the bathtub. I desperately look around seeing, but not understanding. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I have a black eye. I walk slowly to the mirror and lean in to examine my face, my brain working furiously to remember what happened. Panic is a bubble filling up my entire body. I rush into his nursery to find Bash. Neither my husband nor my baby is there. I run to our bedroom to make sure they are there. They aren’t. I race all over the house. My pants are audible and sweat trickles down my back. My body flashes hot and then cold, as reality sets in.

  I run to my purse and pull my phone out and text.

  Where are you?

  I see there are several texts from Sebastian.

  You have lost your mind.

  Then one from me that I don’t remember typing.

  If you don’t love me I can’t be here.

  Him.

  Please don’t do this.

  Me.

  Please take care of Bash.

  His response to my text.

  You need help.

  My response.

  I love you too much. Please tell Bash I loved him so much.

  Confusion consumes me and I flinch. What the fuck is going on? Where is my baby? I run into our bedroom and start throwing things into my suitcase. I will call a cab after I find Bash and get out of here.

  I hear the door close in the kitchen and I’ve never moved so fast down the stairs. Sebastian is standing there with Bash in a carrier on his chest. We stare at each other in a standoff. Cobwebs of alcohol and delusion cloud my thoughts.

  “I thought it’d be better to go somewhere else last night,” his voice is soft and hesitant.

  “What’s going on Sebastian?” This is a sincere question. I feel like I’m losing my mind. Panic grips my insides.

  “You don’t remember?” he prods.

  I shake my head. “Give me my baby,” I say walking toward them.

  He steps forward. “That’s where you’re mistaken Rebecca, this is our baby. You’re unstable, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t have him in your arms right now.”

  “Unstable?” I step back and look at my arms.

  “I bandaged you up as best as I could.” He steps around me.

  I begin pulling off the bandages as if they are burning me. What I see stops me in my tracks, there are vertical lines on both of my arms with jagged gashes across the wrists, red and puffy. Blood stains my bandages and I look at him. I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t.

  “Rebecca, you were very upset last night, rightfully so. Then you got drunk. I’m so sorry. It will never happen again. I love you and Bash. You are my life. Everything I do is for you and Bash. I couldn’t go on without you. I need to make this better, make you better. Should you get counseling? I can’t let you take Bash with what happened.”

  With what happened...I don’t know what happened. I search my brain for any memory of trying to slit my own wrists after I put my baby to sleep. Tears roll down my cheeks. I shake my head.

  “When I came home and found you like you were I knew I needed to leave. I went into Bash’s room and found this.” He pulls out the branch cuff, dipped in azure, I’d made and was so proud of and clinging onto its ridged edges was bits of my skin and blood dried into the branches. I dry heave.

  “I…” I start, but I have no idea what to say. “No.” I hold my wrist with my left hand in disbelief. This changes everything and I know it. When I look up I see the corners of his lips curl up in victory.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The Great Escape

  Bash and I drive the rental car to Boise City, Idaho. I leave it at the airport. My body is rigid as we file into the plane. I don’t allow myself to feel safe, to think we may actually get away with it. I’ve left before. I’ve felt freedom before he crushed it. I’ve been planning for years for this moment and the thought that Sebastian may find us needles at me causing panic to rise and fall like I’m in the ocean.

  I feel as if I’ve been put up wet and dried so stiff any push and I’ll break.

  Bash is still on his iPad. I remind him not to contact anyone from Portland. He’s not bothered. It’s unsettling.

  The flight is long.

  My eyes close and I see Sebastian in a rage when he can’t find us.

  He rips my closet apart, but I don’t care. He smashes my computer, throws all of my things away in the bathroom until it’s all in a pile on the tile floor that heats so that you won’t be uncomfortable after a hot shower. My paintings and trinkets from my office all smashed against the wall.

  “Mom,” Bash nudges my shoulder. “We’re landing.”

  Sleep slowly slinks out of my mind, confusion lingers. The dream was so real. I’m curious to see how Sebastian will react when he realizes we’re gone. Bash and I stand at the carousel and wait for our bags. He has headphones on. I vaguely wonder when headphones came back in style. My hand ruffles his hair and he scowls at me.

  We walk in silence outside to meet my mother who is picking us up.

  “This is where you’re from?” Bash asks quietly.

  “Yep,” I answer.

  “Why haven’t we ever been here?”

  My thoughts jumble together and knot. I pull one side to untangle them, but it just gets tighter.

  A huge SUV pulls up i
n front of us and I’m back in time. My mother, her face softer, her hair back to her natural brown color cut in the same bob it’s always been in, steps out of the SUV and moves quickly toward the back of the vehicle.

  “Is that your mom?” Bash asks me.

  “That is your Gigi.”

  I look around at the bright sky and seemingly peaceful day. How can a day be this beautiful when I’m scared out of my mind? I glance at Bash who is smiling at my mother.

  I pull out my phone that I bought without Sebastian knowing. I have a voicemail. A chill washes over me and I hit listen.

  “What the fuck are you trying to pull Rebecca? We know you aren’t smart enough to get away with this. Where are you? Where did you take my son? I will find you and when I do there will be a tragic accident. I hate that Bash will lose one of his parents. Just remember you did this.”

  How did he find this number? Oh, what a mistake I’ve made to think I could actually do this. The phone falls from my hand just as my mother comes to where we’re standing and looks at us, her eyes glassy. I don’t see Bash pick my phone up and listen to the voicemail. I don’t notice my mother pull me into a hug, until her arms are around me.

  When she whispers in my ear I’m back here, in Charleston. “I’m so happy to see you, Rebecca.”

  “Mom, this is Bash.”

  Bash stands there, stoic.

  “Hi honey. I’m so excited to finally meet you. I can’t wait to get to know you more than I do from your mom.”

  “Hey, Gigi.” He reluctantly puts his arms around her in an awkward embrace.

  We stand there for a minute, examining each other. So many things pass between us without any words. My mother turns and walks to her side of the SUV.

  Bash pulls on my arm. “Mom, come on.”

  “Rebecca, what’s wrong? Put your bags in the car.”

  “I…” We should leave. I don’t want to bring Sebastian here. I was pretty sure he’d never guess that I came here, but maybe I was underestimating him.

  “Mom, get in the car.” Bash is getting in the backseat and waving me in.

  We have to go back. He’ll find us. Panic begins to take over my limbs, my muscles atrophy. I can’t move.

  “Did you bring your medicine?” Bash asks.

  I nod. I can move my head. I’m a bobble head doll.

  Bash digs around my purse and pulls out a pill bottle. I greedily take the pill he gives me.

  “I turned the phone off, he can’t track you when it’s off. We should be okay. Mom, please,” Bash pleads.

  I did this. I’m so stupid. What made me think I could outsmart him? I see my mother look at me through the window. I close my eyes and picture the one person that brings me peace. My breathing slows. The squeezing of my lungs relents and I sigh.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Silent Screaming

  When I drive over the bridge to the island my dad used to take me to when I was younger stress escapes into the balmy air. It gets caught in the coastal wind like a plastic bag and I watch it flip and twist as it soars away from me. I left Bash with my mother today. I want to find a house perfect for us, but also wanted to come back here for the first time by myself. I was happy here once, maybe I can be again. I want to find a house that would allow us to rebuild our lives, to start over, to hide.

  I drive to the realty office I contacted and unfold myself out of the rental car. Propping my sunglasses on my head, my eyes squint against the blaring sun. May in South Carolina can be extremely hot, but today there is a crisp bite to the air and the wind whips my hair into a strange dance around my head. I inhale and exhale conspicuously. I will start a new life. My phone rings before I reach the door of the office and it’s Bash.

  “Hey babe. Are you okay?” Anxiety follows me everywhere.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes.” The anxiety is spreading and my limbs threaten to fall off into the sand.

  “I found a dog. It’s an American Bulldog. I want to keep it.”

  “What do you mean you found a dog?”

  “It was walking down Gigi’s road.”

  “Well, I’m sure it belongs to someone.”

  “It doesn’t have a tag, nothing. I want to keep it,” he repeats.

  “Put your Gigi on.”

  “Okay,” he complies.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, we found it wandering down the road today. I have no idea who it belongs to,” she says before I’ve really asked anything of sustenance.

  “Girl or boy?”

  “Boy?”

  “You don’t think someone near you owns it?” She lives out in the middle of a ton of land. I wonder how it ended up there.

  “I don’t know dear, I think we keep it. There isn’t anything to worry about. Bash is enamored.”

  “Okay, tell him we can keep it until someone claims him.”

  I hear Bash make cheering sounds on the other end of the phone. My smile is genuine. Real smiles are so rare, I’m surprised by it sneaking up on me and falling into place like it never left me. It’s a weird feeling to be apprehensive about your smiles. To be so consumed with yourself that you actually realize when you do smile. I don’t know what to do with it. I hope I start smiling so often it doesn’t even register anymore.

  I walk through the woods that line our property. I’m starting to get a little hysterical. “Rex!!!” I yell our black Labrador’s name until my voice is hoarse and I am choking back tears. I adopted Rex when he was eight weeks old a few years ago. He is the best dog, he follows me everywhere and is super protective of Bash.

  It is bone-chilling cold, so frigid that I feel icicles form on my eyelashes and my breath is a constant fog in the twilight sky. I’d dropped Bash off at a friend’s house because I was getting worried about Rex. He’d been outside for longer than usual and wouldn’t come when I called. It wasn’t like him and a knowing feeling something bad happened crept down my brain and dove into my throat making its home in my gut.

  I pull my navy wool cap down to my eyebrows and frown at my inability to find a dog that does not venture far from the house.

  “Rex!” I yell again as I veer to the right at the back of our property. The reason why I know it’s the end of the property is because Sebastian commissioned a tall wooden barricade, at least that’s what I called it, at the back of our property line. A feeling of something not quite right on this side of the property pulls my feet toward where we have a compost pile. I walk toward the rain barrel I bought in order to use it to irrigate the vegetables I plant every year, hoping that my tomatoes will turn out like they used to in the lowcountry. They never do. I see a something glinting in the moonlight and I wrap my arms around myself to help with the cold.

  “Rex!”I look to the left and right, scanning the perimeter for Rex when I finally make it to the end of the property.

  My heart leaps from my chest and buries itself among the trash of the compost pile. I close my eyes as tears sting them and I retch into the pile of decomposing trash. Rex’s head is at an angle that even I recognize as unnatural. I cough up phlegm and bile. I close my eyes and try to go back in time, to when Rex was simply lost. I try to go back to where I never knew my dog had his neck broken and was thrown in a pile of trash. Tears flow down my face and I use the sleeves of my sweatshirt to sop up the moisture. I can’t…

  I look back the way I came, at the house that we built out of deceit. The prison that keeps me encased in owing him, hoping things will get better, he will be better. I fall to my knees without thinking and grab the body of my dog. The dog I love more than my husband. The dog that loved me unconditionally. I howl like I’ve been injured. I know no one can hear me, he made sure of that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Smoke and Mirrors

  I stroll through the tents in the vacant field. My lips turn up on their own accord as I’m taken back to when I was fifteen and Samantha and I would come and help her mother sell the lotions, soaps and candles she made.

  “
Look, she’s over here,” Samantha says pulling my hand toward the right side of all the tents. The vendor to my right is selling pictures he took then put on canvas.

  There are yachts and doors of Charleston and wine. I stand very still as I see a canvas of a woman crumpled into a pile of herself in front of a huge live oak tree somewhere in the lowcountry. The rain beats down on her, but her despair petrifies her. Emotions war in my brain, each one trying to find an escape route, and I close my eyes, it’s like something I’ve hidden from myself for so long has started the crumbling of my façade. Art is like that for me. I feel so in tune with different sorts of art, be it a song or a painting. That’s why my jewelry helps me so much, it’s probably the only reason I’m still sane. I let my demons out into the world in a way that I can walk around, without that I wouldn’t be here. I believe that.

  “I love this,” I say to Samantha as I veer into the tent. “How much?” I ask the man standing under the tent.

  “$750,” he answers.

  “I’ll give you $500 cash.”

  I know this didn’t cost shit for him to make, but the sentiment is priceless. It’s the breaking of me, the undoing of the girl who was carefree until I lost the love I’d thought would be forever.

  “Done,” he smiles.

  “I’ll come get it when we’re leaving.” I dig in my bag and pull out the bills. He takes my money greedily and gives me a receipt.

  “Look at this one,” Samantha calls from the back of the tent. “You’re not going to believe this shit. This is Seaver.”

  When I get to where she’s standing I see a man I don’t recognize on a boat that is too small for the Seaver I used to know. I’m not surprised I don’t recognize him, it’s been over thirteen years.

  “No way.” My eyes memorize the photo and the man that broke my heart the first time.

  “Oh yeah, he gave up everything after college and became a beach bum.”

  I’m silent. This is news to me, not that I know what any of my old friends have been up to.

  “So did you find a house?” Samantha asks cheerfully.