Until We Are Gone

by Riley, Gia

  She’s not as enamored with the ceremony or the reception pictures though. Meadow’s never come right out and said it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she wished the wedding had never happened. Without the rings and the marriage certificate, she wouldn’t have to try to figure out who I was or why she’d ever loved me in the first place. She’d be free to move on with her life, meet someone new, and start fresh. And she’d remember all of it because it hadn’t already happened.

  A few friends have told me to walk away, that leaving would be the best thing for the both of us. But how would I do that? What if I gave up, and one day down the road, it all came back to her? She would wake up and remember me, but I wouldn’t be there to explain myself or the circumstances.

  What then?

  I couldn’t live with myself if that were to happen.

  Even if I found happiness with another woman, Meadow would always be in the back of my mind. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone, and it certainly wouldn’t be the way to start a new relationship.

  “Here,” I whisper as I hand the album over to her.

  My throat’s scratchy with emotion, and if I’m not careful, I might say something I’ll regret. Not because it’s mean, just honest. She struggles with my honesty.

  Her slender fingers wrap around the edges, and she smiles. The grin doesn’t reach her eyes, and I know the only reason she’s happy is because she has her obsession back.

  Then, I catch a glimpse of her finger and notice the nail’s turning black. I’m guessing she doesn’t feel much of the pain, and I’m positive that, if I asked her how it’d happened, she wouldn’t remember. Alcohol numbs all kinds of wounds—the ones you see in plain sight and the others that stay hidden inside.

  The old Meadow would have gone to the salon by now, fixing the problem with a manicure and some shiny polish. She used to care about her appearance, cutting her hair every six weeks on the dot, adding those highlights she used to love so much. Once a month, she’d treat herself to a new outfit and then wear it out to dinner on date night.

  She liked keeping things fresh and exciting. The details mattered.

  Something as simple as a tiny plastic straw to stir her coffee or one of the little stoppers they use at Starbucks to keep the drink from spilling would rock her whole world. And those quirks added up, making her who she was.

  Special.

  Appreciative.

  Hilarious.

  Full of life.

  I didn’t have to search her eyes for signs that she was listening or wonder if she’d heard me at all. She didn’t drown me out with music or ignore me entirely.

  When I asked what she wanted for dinner, it wasn’t a chore to get her to eat something as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or tacos. The woman loved her damn tacos.

  These days, if there’s not a bottle with a cork or a glass full of ice and olives, she’s not interested.

  All she wants to do is sit with her pictures, pushing her body back and forth in the rocking chair, as life passes her by. She doesn’t want to make new memories or rediscovering things that she used to enjoy. Hell, I’d be thrilled if she tried something entirely new. She doesn’t have to do all the same things. It’s okay to branch out and be whoever she is. But all Meadow wants is the past, and if she can’t have it exactly the way it was, then she checks out. For good.

  “Mexico,” she says aloud, reminding herself of where the pictures were taken.

  The night of our rehearsal dinner, after everyone went their separate ways, I surprised Meadow with a trip to Cozumel for our honeymoon. She’d thought we were headed to a local beach the following day, but I wanted something special, something she’d never expect.

  We’d never been to Mexico before, and though she hated flying, I’d never seen her so excited to get on an airplane.

  After a send-off fit for royalty, we left for the airport. For those six hours in the air, we were the only two people who existed. Meadow held my hand the entire flight—and not because she was scared. I’d never seen her so content.

  She squeezed my hand hard during the descent, and the landing was full of bumps, but as soon as the wheels were down, she laughed. We hurried down a flight of stairs and onto the runway. The ground was so hot from the engines; the blacktop was steaming.

  “My feet are on fire!” she squealed as we ran inside the tiny airport.

  And tiny was putting it nicely. You could spit from one end to the other, and the line for customs was so long, we could barely fit inside with the door closed. But the air-conditioning felt amazing, and we’d waited our entire lives for that trip. There was no way a little heat or a crowd of people could ruin our day.

  Meadow smiled while we waited for our turn and joined her hand with mine again. Her eyes stayed fixated on our wedding bands, like she couldn’t believe we were officially husband and wife. I couldn’t believe it either. I had a wife.

  And, though she was exhausted with traces of wedding makeup lingering underneath her lashes, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I wanted to remember her just like that, so I snapped a picture of her, and she blushed.

  “I look awful, babe,” she said as she tried to cover her face.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong if she tried. That picture was the first one I had printed and the first I slipped into the album she’s looking at now.

  Last night, before I fell asleep, I was particularly drawn to it. I spent nearly an hour staring at the woman in that picture, wishing she’d grab my hand and look up at me with those big brown eyes of hers. I’d book a flight to Cozumel right now if I knew it’d bring her back to me.

  But she’d never go on a vacation with the way things are. It’s hard enough for her to go to the grocery store or to a new mall across town. The thought of running into someone she’s supposed to know terrifies her.

  Six months have passed, but life isn’t getting any easier. I’m still just some guy she woke up to after a terrifying accident, a man who took her to a home she used to love but had no recollection of. She didn’t even like the color of the bedroom walls.

  “I like aqua?” she asked the first time she saw the room. “It’s hideous.”

  The color was actually called Across the Bay, according to the paint swatch she’d picked out. The soft hue had reminded her of the ocean, and since the beach was her favorite place, she’d had to have it.

  I wasn’t sure if Meadow still liked the beach, but I couldn’t imagine my wife ever hating it.

  “You’ll get used to it,” I told her. “Maybe it’ll help you remember.”

  Looking back, that was a stupid thing to say. The wall color isn’t going to cure amnesia. But, at the time, I was desperate for a touch of the past to find her, no matter how small.

  Meadow glances at me, aware that I’m still watching her. She gives me the look, the one that says, You have two seconds to leave me alone before I go off on you.

  And then something strange happens. She stares at one of the pictures and then back at me. Her eyes widen, and she sucks in a deep breath.

  I’ve never seen her eyes get that big before, and my heart thumps wildly in my chest. “What is it, Meadow?”

  “Nothing,” she says.

  The little bit of hope zinging around my stomach dies, and I resign myself to the fact that whatever was going through her mind had nothing to do with the two of us. She has those pictures memorized, and if she hasn’t remembered something by now, I don’t think she will. Everything we shared is most likely lost and forgotten.

  “I’ll be in our bedroom if you need me,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t respond.

  I’m used to that, too. When she’s in her chair, the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

  The chances of me hearing from her the rest of the night are slim. Unless she runs out of alcohol, which she has more than enough of, she won’t come looking for me.

  Supporting her habit isn’t helping our situation; I’m aware of that. And, once
therapy starts up again, I’m prepared to explain exactly why I enable her the way I do.

  I’ve never told anyone what happened the one time I denied Meadow alcohol. I saw the withdrawal—the shakes, the vomiting, the sweating. She looked like she had the worst flu of her life, and then she lost control of her body entirely. It was like a zombie had taken over, and I watched her slip away all over again. She’d survived a horrific accident, and me forcing her to stop drinking was going to be what killed her.

  In a panic, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of vodka off the counter. It was empty. All the bottles were empty because I’d drained them into the sink earlier that night as she screamed and yelled about what a monster I was.

  Her words had stung like a bitch, but I’d told myself her addiction was out of her control. And, if I didn’t do something about it, she’d never get sober.

  But it had been so much easier to see the detox through in my head. Watching it play out in person was more than I should have taken on by myself.

  I wasn’t an expert.

  From what I’d studied on the internet, she’d be miserable, throw a fit like a toddler, and then sleep it off for a day or two. When she woke up after her long nap, she’d be okay, and then we’d start making progress again. We’d get back on track in no time, and we’d do it together.

  Fuck, was I wrong.

  Meadow got sicker than I’d ever imagined, and within twenty-four hours, she was so weak and dehydrated, I didn’t know what to do. If I forced her to drink some water, it would come right back up, and then she would hate me more because the heaving hurt so bad. Her throat was raw, and the lining of her stomach was so irritated that there were little droplets of blood in the toilet.

  After what felt like the millionth time of her throwing up, her eyes rolled back into her head, and I waited for a seizure to follow. The thought of her passing out and never waking up scared me stupid.

  I had the phone in one hand, ready to dial 911, with her limp body sprawled across my lap.

  “Open your eyes, baby,” I begged.

  It was like being at her bedside all over again. What if she woke up even worse this time? What if she didn’t open her eyes at all?

  Her dry lips twitched, and I shook her a little bit, jostling her awake.

  It took all of her energy for her to whisper, “Why do you hate me?”

  I didn’t have a response for her. What I was doing wasn’t about hate. I was trying to rid her life of the alcohol because I loved her so damn much. But she didn’t see it like that. She couldn’t. In that moment, she was only capable of anger, so I didn’t respond at all. I just focused on making her well.

  Her shirt was soaked in sweat. I grabbed a washcloth from the bowl of ice water next to me and pressed it against her face. The color in her cheeks slowly returned, and her body alternated between the sweats and chills.

  I felt secure enough that I didn’t call for an ambulance, but as far as I was concerned, the attempt to detox was over. Meadow was suffering, and there was no way I’d let her lose the battle with her face pressed against the tiles on the bathroom floor.

  I wasn’t ready to say good-bye. I’d never be ready for that. And that was why I made my next move so quickly.

  The liquor store was closed, and anyone I’d consider calling for help was asleep. Not that I could reach out and embarrass Meadow like that. If anyone saw her, she’d flip out. She’d hate me even more than she already did. Partly because she didn’t like strangers and partly because she didn’t believe her drinking was a problem.

  Meadow needed professional help—a twelve-step program, support meetings, a sponsor, the works. I had been trying to make that happen, but it would have to wait until morning. Because, in that moment, I did the only thing I could think of. I remembered the bottle of whiskey I had hidden in my trunk—a Christmas gift from my boss.

  I hated the sight of alcohol, but when I’d gotten it, nobody at work knew about Meadow’s habit. When my boss had handed me the bottle and the card, I’d accepted it with a smile. Had he been aware, I knew that he’d have given me a different gift.

  Barefoot and shirtless, I ran outside in the dead of winter, opened the trunk, and grabbed the whiskey. The cork was pulled out before I was even through the garage.

  Meadow was still in the bathroom. She hadn’t budged in the time it took me to run outside and back. But she was taking slow, shallow breaths, and I was afraid she was about to take another turn for the worse, so I did the only thing I could to reverse her pain.

  I held the freezing cold bottle against her lips. Like a starving baby, she parted her lips, and she sucked in little sips of whiskey.

  My hands shook from the weight of it all. All those shouting matches about how I hated her drinking, and there I was, pouring it down her throat, encouraging her to do the one thing I despised the most.

  There was nothing more important to me than Meadow’s life, but I couldn’t watch her suffer. Getting clean wouldn’t happen in this house. I just wasn’t strong enough to see her through it.

  “Meadow,” I begged as her head lulled to the side, and she stopped swallowing. She was going out again. I had to keep her awake, so I said, “Open your mouth and drink a little more.”

  She cracked an eye open the slightest bit, like she couldn’t believe I was offering her another taste after what she’d gone through.

  I hated me, too.

  Just forty-eight hours prior, I had given her an ultimatum—us or the vodka, this house or a life on the streets. I couldn’t watch her kill herself anymore. It was too hard. I couldn’t stand seeing this stranger take over my wife’s body.

  For thirty long minutes, Meadow had struggled with her decision. She’d walked outside and stood on the sidewalk in her pajamas, glancing back and forth between the house and the road. She had nowhere to go if she left, and that was the only thing that had kept me inside the house, waiting, instead of running after her.

  Finally, she had come back inside and sat down in her chair. She’d said nothing until I knelt in front of her.

  “Today, it stops, Meadow,” I’d told her. “I’ll help you.”

  She’d paced back and forth, watching, as I dug bottles of alcohol out of secret hiding places. I didn’t think she had any idea I knew about those bottles, but I did.

  And then what did I do? I poured whiskey down her throat and basically called myself a liar. I was proving Meadow right—that she needed the alcohol to get through the day.

  “I like me better drunk, too,” she whispered as she swallowed a little more whiskey.

  This wasn’t about her personality. It was about my lack of control. I wasn’t strong. I was selfish and afraid, and I needed her too much to lose her.

  Everything came full circle, and my shoulders shook as hard as they had in the hospital. I cried as I told her, “I’m making you drink because I love you, Meadow.”

  She was confused.

  Love was so fucked up.

  And I wasn’t sure she even believed in it anymore.

  I’d become a walking, talking contradiction.

  Do this.

  Don’t do that.

  Nothing she did was right because even I didn’t understand my own rules. I couldn’t comprehend addiction. I was just a slave to it.

  With each sip Meadow took, the symptoms subsided. The alcohol made her stronger, and once her hands were steady, she took the bottle from me and gulped down bigger swallows. Within a half hour, my wife disappeared, and the addict returned.

  Dependency was an evil bitch, and it stared back at me like it was about to rip my heart out of my chest for the millionth time.

  “Thank you,” she slurred. “I didn’t want to die.”

  The better Meadow began to feel, the worse I did. We were never at the same place at the same time. It was a constant seesaw of ups and downs. And I hated being on the downside of addiction.

  That night in the bathroom was our rock bottom. As we sat on the floor, having h
alfhearted conversations about death, my soul bled all over the tiles. The guilt nearly ate me alive.

  But I’ve convinced myself that we are okay. That what I did was logical and maybe even normal. Meadow hadn’t asked for that truck to hit her car, and losing her memory wasn’t her fault either.

  Alcoholism is just an unfortunate, devastating result of the trauma, and we are doing the best we can with what we have left.

  Our lives aren’t normal.

  None of what we deal with is okay.

  And the denial has to stop—not just mine, but hers, too.

  Meadow eventually blacked out from the whiskey, and I carried her to bed.

  I wanted to hold her as she slept, but the progress we’d made in those few sober moments was gone. We were back to being strangers.

  We’d been there a thousand times before, only now she knows my threats about sobriety mean nothing.

  Alcohol has the upper hand.

  I am as dependent as she is.

  And her disease is killing us both.

  three

  CASH

  After a hot shower, I check on Meadow. That’s pretty much the pattern—go do something productive, make sure she’s okay, and then onto the next chore.

  She’s still content with the photos, so I sneak into the hallway closet and pull out the biggest duffel bag I can find. A suitcase would hold more clothing, but all the luggage is in the basement, and there’s no way to get it by her without her noticing.

  My plan to get Meadow to treatment is anything but elaborate. I didn’t schedule an intervention because it’s not like her dad would come. And, even if he did, what could he say that she hadn’t already heard?

  Tomorrow isn’t about the number of people pushing her to rehab. There’s never going to be an easy way to lure my wife away from her safety net. It’s about her going and getting the help that she needs.