The Words We Leave Unspoken

by L. D. Cedergreen

  Her head snaps up and she looks at me apologetically as we both dwell on her word choice. Lucky. I’m anything but lucky. Charley is just making normal conversation but it’s like everything she says takes on a new meaning.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks.

  “I’m fine,” I say, with a shrug of my shoulder. What else is there to say? I’m not great, I’m not a mess – at least not this morning. I’m tired. I feel nauseous most days, like I did when I was pregnant with Olivia. A subtle sensation that neither has me throwing up nor sustaining a healthy appetite, just a gnawing ill feeling. Dr. Sheldan warned me about the side effects of the medication. He also reminded me that it could be worse.

  “Have you talked to John?” she asks.

  I shake my head and take a sip of coffee, averting my eyes to the dark liquid in my cup.

  “Gwen,” she says and I look up only to see the pity in her eyes. She sets her mug down on the counter and steps toward me. “Do you want me to take the kids out today so you two can talk?”

  I just shake my head again. I can’t even formulate words at this point. The guilt is eating away at me but still I can’t tell him. He has asked several times if everything is okay, giving me the opening that I need. A chance to come clean. But I always brush it off, using the kids as an excuse. I’m just tired or I feel like I’m coming down with something. I can tell that he wants to push the issue. I can feel his hesitation, but he always backs down with a smile, massaging the tension in my shoulders, or kissing my cheek. Playing the supportive husband, a role that he does so well, and adding to the mountain of guilt I feel inside, a summit so high I may never rise above it. Tears fill my eyes and drip down my cheeks.

  Charley embraces me and I lean my head against her shoulder, careful not to spill my coffee. And I am so grateful that she’s here. I didn’t realize how much I need her, how much I just need her here with me. It’s funny how you spend your whole life holding someone’s hand, walking them through life only to look up and realize that they’ve been holding you up just the same.

  I hear the garage door open and I quickly pull myself out of Charley’s arms and wipe the tears from my face. Charley wipes her eyes as well and reaches for her coffee cup.

  Moments later, the kitchen is filled with laughter and harmless but persistent bickering, a complete contrast to the quiet from before. It sounds as if a circus has staked its tent right in the confines of this room but I welcome it. This is my life, I think.

  The kids are hyped up on sugar from their chocolate rainbow-sprinkled donuts. I slip upstairs to change into warm clothes and then bundle the kids. We all retreat to the expansive back yard. It’s cold outside but the sun is shining in the clear blue sky. John builds a fire in the fire pit near the beach and then we all gather on the soggy lawn for a game of baseball. More like John pitches to each of us until we manage to hit the ball and then we run around all the makeshift bases at lightning speed. It’s more fun for Max this way. Laughter rings through the crisp fall air, dancing in the breeze like the fallen leaves and I feel happier than I have in weeks. Each time I glance at Max or Olivia, it’s like my mind takes a snapshot of their smiling faces. Even John and Charley are laughing, so much at times that they can hardly run as they stand, doubled over, their eyes filled with tears. Every now and then, Charley gives me a look. A look that says, “isn’t this great and I’m so sorry you’re dying and by the way, you need to tell your husband,” all at once. It’s comforting to have her here, to know that she knows this isn’t just some ordinary day. That today is a great day simply because I don’t know how many of these days I’ll have left. And in the back of my mind I can’t help but wish that today was just another Sunday in a lifetime of somedays.

  “Okay last pitch, Max,” John yells. “It’s lunchtime.”

  Max chokes up on the bat just like John taught him. His tongue is resting on his upper lip, his face drawn in serious concentration. John pitches the ball and Max swings just in time, smacking it over John’s head as it flies through the air until it lands at the edge of the grass where it rolls into the tree line.

  Charley and I scream in unison.

  “Run Max,” Olivia yells, jumping up and down.

  John makes a big show of running across the yard, scooping up the ball and sprinting straight to home plate as Max runs his little heart out. John lets him touch home before he tags him with the ball and picks him up and swings him around.

  “Safe,” Charley yells. Max giggles, a huge, triumphant smile stretched across his face as John sets him down on his feet.

  “Nice home run, little man,” John says in a big burly voice, mussing Max’s blond curls with his knuckle.

  “Okay, who’s hungry?” John asks.

  “Me, I’m hungry,” Max says, raising his hand in the air.

  “Me too, Daddy,” Olivia chimes in.

  I start to walk toward the house to get lunch started, but John wraps his arms around me from behind and swings me around. I laugh, completely caught off guard by his playfulness.

  “I got this,” he says against my cheek as he kisses me softly. “Why don’t you and Charley keep an eye on the fire.”

  “You sure?” I ask as he sets me down on my feet.

  “Yep,” he says and then calls out to the kids, “Okay guys, race you to the house.”

  The kids take off running as John growls and snarls, chasing Olivia and Max all the way to the house, their high-pitched squeals and bellowed giggles capturing my attention.

  Charley and I watch until they reach the deck and then we sit down in the white Adirondack chairs that are set up around the fire pit.

  “Wow, he’s such a great dad,” Charley says, drawing her knees up to her chest with a distant look in her eyes.

  “Yeah, he is,” I agree with a sigh and then shift gears. “So what’s going on with you, anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” she says but I know her well enough to know when she’s evading my question.

  “You seemed upset on the phone last night and you showed up on my doorstep at eight o’clock in the morning. So what is it?”

  She looks up at me, taking a moment’s pause before asking, “Why don’t we ever talk about Dad?”

  I wasn’t expecting that question. Wasn’t expecting Charley to bring up such a painful memory from our past. A memory that I had stored away all this time, locked it up tightly so that it would never resurface. And now I feel the ache in my heart, almost instantly.

  “What is there to talk about, Charley?” Even I could sense the defensiveness in my tone.

  “I mean, do you ever wonder about him?”

  “No.”

  “I had a dream last night. It was so vivid, it was almost like I could smell him. Remember what he used to smell like? That salty, fishy smell when he came home from the docks?”

  I remembered all too well. Only it wasn’t just salt and fish, it was the whiskey too. Although it doesn’t surprise me that Charley doesn’t remember that detail. She was too young to understand.

  “Yeah, I remember. But, Charley, what does it matter? There’s no point opening old wounds.”

  “I just dream of him sometimes and it’s like everything comes crashing back all at once. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if he hadn’t left. If Mom hadn’t driven him away. If we had stayed a family.”

  I look at Charley and see the vulnerability that she tries so hard to mask. It reminds me of when she was young, scared like no little girl should be, her eyes so full of questions that I never answered. And maybe I should have. Maybe she wouldn’t despise our mother quite so much. Or maybe she wouldn’t dream of a father who was no more real than a fairy tale. But it wouldn’t have changed our reality, wouldn’t have changed the bad hand we had been dealt.

  “Don’t wonder about things that aren’t real, Charley. Just focus on the present and all the good you have in your life.”

  “But where he is Gwen? Why have we never tried to find him?”

 
Because I know exactly where he is. I don’t know why I still feel the need to protect Charley. I just can’t stand the thought of shattering the image she has of our father, the pedestal that he still rests upon in her mind. At times, I feel jealous that I could never hide behind the naivety of a five-year-old. I was old enough to know the truth, never having any other image of my father than the one that he deserved.

  “Let it go, Charley. He knows where we are and he’s never come back for us. He obviously doesn’t want to be found.”

  She sighs in defeat and stares into the dancing flames of the fire. I watch her expression carefully. I know she wants to tell me something and so I just wait silently for whatever it is.

  “Don’t you want to see him? Just once before, you know...?” Her voice trails off into a whisper, as if she’s afraid to say the words. But we both know that just because she doesn’t say the words, they aren’t any less real. And my reality grips my heart once again. I absorb what Charley is trying to say, but deep inside I know for certain that I don’t feel the need for any type of closure. I closed the door on that a long time ago, slammed it shut.

  “I have no desire or need to see him,” I answer honestly.

  I hear John call out from the house, “Lunch is ready.” I stand and stoke the fire with a long stick. The flames are slowly dying, the logs reduced to glowing embers.

  “Come on, let’s go eat,” I say to Charley. She stands and we both trudge slowly up the extensive green lawn toward the house, and I wonder if her heart feels as heavy as mine.

  The day has come and gone and after convincing Charley to stay the night, she is now camped out downstairs in the guest bedroom, even though she’ll have to leave the house at the crack of dawn to drive back to the city for work. I could sense that she was reluctant to leave and, selfishly, I wanted her here as if she’s some kind of buffer between John and I. A wall of protection between John and me and the throbbing truth that I have spun into lies so thick, I fear the truth may never surface. The evening was spent playing a mindless game of Monopoly with Olivia and Max; John playing the banker, of course, a job that he takes almost – painstakingly – too seriously.

  I lie in bed staring up at the white ceiling, listening to John snore softly beside me. The steady rhythm of his breath soothing in its predictable way. The house is quiet, the wind the only sound as it blows off the shore and rattles the tall trees that surround the house. Every now and then, the French doors that lead from the master bedroom to the balcony rattle as if they might implode with each strong gust. Unable to bear the silence any longer, I step out of bed and tread quietly down the hall, stopping to peer into Olivia’s room where I see her lying perfectly still on her side, her body barely moving with each shallow breath. She is so peaceful in sleep, as if she is still that tiny baby that I brought home from the hospital so long ago. My heart fills with familiar warmth as a smile tugs at my lips. These moments are my favorite, these quiet, stolen moments from which I could never tire. I softly close the door to Olivia’s room and step across the hall to steal a similar moment with Max. The soft glow of his nightlight illuminates his face and my heart aches to reach out and touch his soft cheek. In contrast to his sister, Max is lying on his back, arms and legs sprawled out in every direction, blankets thrown to the floor as if he had a fit in his sleep. His tiny blue blanket with colorful silken tags of fabric surrounding the border – an attachment he formed when he was only four months old – is fisted in his hand as he hangs on for dear life. Although his body screams chaos, his breath is just as quiet and still as his sister’s. I walk quietly to his bed and pick up the bedding from the floor. I cover him and tuck the edges of his blanket into the bottom corners of his mattress, knowing that it won’t be long before the bedding is thrown to floor again. I kiss his cheek gently, careful not to wake him although nothing could wake this boy from sleep. You could set fireworks off near his bed and he would not stir.

  I continue down the stairs and push open the guest bedroom door. Light seeps in from the hallway, lighting a path from the door to the bed.

  “Hi,” I hear Charley whisper in the dark from where she’s lying in bed with the blanket pulled up to her chin.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” she asks.

  “No. You?”

  “No,” she answers.

  She peels back the bedding and I crawl into bed and lie next to her. She pulls the bedding snug around us as we both lie on our backs and stare up at the ceiling. And I am immediately taken back in time when we would do this very thing as children, after my father left and my mother locked herself away, out of our reach. A time when our safety net had been snagged out from underneath us and all we had was each other. Only it was usually Charley who would seek me out in the dark. Lying next to each other, I would take her hand in mine and we would whisper our fears under the veil of darkness, and it was as if nothing else existed.

  Charley speaks first, her voice barely louder than a whisper, quiet as a breath.

  “I think Grey and I broke up,” she says.

  I don’t respond. I just wait patiently for her to explain.

  “He transferred me to another partner because he can’t work with me any longer. He wants more.” She lets out a frustrated breath. I have heard this same story a million times, each different and yet the same. They always want more from Charley but she insists that she hasn’t more to give, nor does she want to. But it’s hard to miss the note of disappointment and longing in her voice.

  “And you don’t want more? With him?” I ask, although I think I already know the answer.

  “I don’t know.”

  I’m shocked by her uncertainty. That was not the answer I was expecting. Treading lightly, I ask, “It’s different with him, isn’t it?”

  I hear her exhale loudly and then she says, “I feel something for him, but that scares me more than the thought of losing him.”

  I know that she only admits this because we’re lying in the dark, whispering like the child versions of ourselves and she knows that I will never speak of it again. That whatever fears and secrets she confides will be kept in the dark, a silent pact that we made long ago.

  “Maybe it’s time to take a leap of faith. Maybe it’s time to ask yourself if letting him go is more unbearable than the fear of holding on.”

  “The fear is crippling,” she whispers. And I know exactly what she means. I know that kind of fear.

  Charley is quiet for a long time. Her breath is even and calm, but I can feel her heart beating erratically in her chest.

  She reaches over and wraps her hand around mine. It’s my turn.

  “I’m afraid to tell John. I’m afraid that what little strength I have will crumble and he’ll see my weakness and I need to be strong for my family. I can’t fall apart, Charley. It’s like keeping this from him holds me together, keeps me strong. I’m afraid that once I tell him, I’ll shatter into a million pieces and never be whole again.”

  Tears slowly trickle down my cheeks. It feels so good to say it out loud. My fears.

  Charley remains quiet but squeezes my hand more firmly. Finally after what feels like hours, she says, “Maybe it’s time you let go, Gwen. Maybe it’s time you let us be the strong ones. It’s okay to fall. John and I will be there to catch you.”

  A lonely sob escapes as if it has been locked away waiting for release.

  “Remember when we used to sneak into Mrs. Dunmark’s backyard?” she asks, conjuring images to mind from our childhood. I sniffle, wipe my eyes and take a deep breath, welcoming the distraction.

  “Yes, that woman never mowed her lawn,” I say, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “We used to pretend we were in a meadow, like in The Sound of Music.”

  “Right. Remember when all the dandelions would turn from bright yellow to balls of white, cotton tufts?”

  “We called it our field of hope,” I remember with a smile, wondering where she’s going with this trip down memory lane.

  “We used to pull th
em from the ground one by one, close our eyes tight and make a wish before blowing the seeds into the air. You always wished to marry Ralph Macchio, remember?” Charley laughs quietly to herself and then says, “God, you were so obsessed with The Karate Kid. I never thought he was that cute, but you dreamed of that guy.”

  I do remember. I remember covering the walls of my bedroom with pictures of him, cut out with care from magazines like Teen Beat and Bop. I guess some would call it an obsession, but it was more like a distraction, an escape. And Charley’s right. I did love that movie, but more because it gave me hope, wishing for a Mr. Miyagi to come and take me under his wing.

  “I would never tell you my wish. You would beg me to tell you, but I never did,” Charley says.

  “You were so stubborn like that,” I say with a small smile as I picture a string bean of a girl standing in a field of weeds, arms folded across her chest in defiance as long brown hair whipped across her face in the wind. So stubborn.

  “I was so afraid that if I told, it wouldn’t come true. But you know what I wished for every single time?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “To be strong like you. You were my rock, still are. I wanted so bad to not be afraid anymore.”

  This confession pangs around in my heart, trying to find its place. I had no idea. I remember being afraid of everything, worrying about Mother, having clean clothes, what we were going to eat, how much money we had. Worrying about Charley, trying to be strong for her.

  “My wish was never to marry Ralph Macchio. Well sometimes it was,” I admit. “I usually wished to be fearless like you, Charley. You had this roaring confidence. Like ‘what you see is what you get.’. You never worried what people thought of you, you were always yourself. You did whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. You never worried about the consequences. I was worried sick about everything and everyone. I guess I still am. It’s exhausting.”

  “I’ve never been fearless. Look at me, Gwen. I’m afraid to even throw out a receipt, just in case I want to return something. I can’t even commit to a pair of designer jeans. I’m a complete mess.”