by Hugh Breakey
Julie’s advance clattered to a stop. ‘What?’
‘It’s what the doctor said they’d have to do. If it happens again, the state would say it’s too dangerous to leave me on my own. Doctor Varma said she wouldn’t be able to stop them putting me away.’
‘What, like in a hospital? In a ward?’ She stepped back. ‘They would institutionalise you?’
‘She said it would be their duty of care.’
‘Duty of care? You couldn’t survive in such a place. Fuck, Robbie. It would kill you. You shouldn’t even be outside on your own. I should have come to you this morning. I’ve been so busy thinking about what it’s done to our lives that I never—’
‘Our lives?’ She spoke as if it happened to her as much as me. As if she faced the annihilation four days away.
‘Yes, our lives. Look around you. Look what my life has become.’ Her hands waved, her eyes suddenly wet and shining. ‘Uprooting myself, spending every moment of my life, every dollar I earn, planning, thinking, lying—to win back a man who doesn’t know me. Do you cry yourself to sleep every night? Do you have to stand next to your one friend in the world, acting like he’s a stranger, when every fibre of your body wants to just—’ She broke off, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. For a moment, she didn’t look fierce or conniving. She looked lost, and alone. ‘And not because he’d decided it had to end, but because he’d forgotten it ever started.’
The tears broke their banks and streamed down her face. The urge to take her into my arms and comfort her almost overpowered me, but I kept my arms firmly folded. ‘You understand it would kill me if they put me in a hospital ward?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why? Because without control of my life and my world, the forgetting would strip me of my self, maybe? Everything about me that makes me the person I am?’
‘Sure.’ She wiped at her tears, as if annoyed at them.
‘But isn’t that just what you’d do to me anyway?’
‘No! I’m trying to rescue you. Bring you back.’
‘I don’t want to be back—I’m right here! This is why I have to be on my own, and in my place. So I can be myself, and not something made up by someone else. You’re smarter than me,’ I echoed her bitterly. ‘Harder than me. Better than me. What do you think would be left of me, in the face of you?’
‘I didn’t say “better”.’ She scowled. ‘Never better.’
A tear escaped the corner of my eye. I hated appearing weak before her, but my face felt like it would crack in half under the strain.
‘Oh, don’t you cry too.’
‘What do you care? You’re the one doing this. You’re the one keeping me trapped.’
‘Don’t say that. I would do anything for you.’ She reached towards me.
‘Don’t touch me!’ I recoiled.
Her hand went to her mouth as she stepped backwards. ‘God, Robbie. I would cross mountains and the desert for you, but I cannot endure this, not even for your sake. This anger and fear. I signed up for everything else, for better or worse, but not to become something you fear.’
I breathed out slowly. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s just what happened.’
She paused for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. ‘I didn’t tell you the truth earlier. Not the whole truth. I think the reason your past self didn’t tell you about me in the letter was because he thought he had got rid of me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He sent me an application for divorce.’ She went over to a box by the wall. The same place she’d looked when I asked her if we were married. She crouched down, rummaged and eventually pulled out a large brown envelope. It looked like the one I kept my letter in.
But when Julie sat down at the table and opened it, I could see its contents were nothing like the letter. It was a sheaf of forms, stapled together. A bunch of tiny red rectangular stickers poked out from the sides at various points.
‘You—your predecessor—sent them to me eight or nine months ago, a few weeks after I’d first barged in on you.’ She grimaced. ‘I wanted to burn them. I could hardly imagine a world where I would give you up.’
I stood beside her, peering over her shoulder at the crisp official-looking pages. ‘Why…?’
‘I wanted to show you something you can trust.’ She reached across the table for a pen, and then turned the pages to the first of the little red labels. It pointed to an empty box: a space for her signature. Just underneath was my name, written in my own hand. ‘You’re right. You should be able to decide what happens to you.’ She picked up the pen. ‘So if you tell me to, I will sign. And then you can post them, and we will no longer be married.’
She looked up at me. ‘Please don’t ask me to do this.’
‘But you will, if I ask?’
‘I never agreed to be something you’d fear. If that’s what you see when you look at me, then…Yes, I will.’ Her lips trembled. Her face was streaked with tears.
It hurt just to look at her, but I answered honestly. ‘I do see something to fear.’
She made a tiny, painful sound, then turned to the document. Her pen poised above the paper. ‘You loved me. So much.’
I reached out and gently stayed her hand. ‘That’s not all I see.’
‘Then what?’ Her hand trembled under mine like a captured butterfly. ‘You have to tell me. Because I need something to hold on to.’
I saw something beautiful and lost. Something I could rescue and make right again. But I couldn’t give voice to that thought. ‘All I do—my journal, my dominoes, my exercising—is to help me stay who I am, despite what will happen in four days’ time. You said before that you could do all that. That you’d held me together before. I believe you. So you’re everything I most fear. And everything I need. And I can’t tell which.’
‘Where does that leave us?’
An idea tickled the back of my mind. ‘What if I did know? What if I knew what it was and could be—full disclosure, like you said before—and then I decided?’
‘But how could you know?’ She shook her head. ‘No photos or stories can get you back there.’
I bit my lip. ‘Let me think. Let me just think for a moment.’ Anything I chose at this point would be a risk. I looked around at the room, at all the life and history hanging on its walls and cluttering up its benchtops. No way you could get all this in a bag in five minutes. ‘I can give us one day,’ I said. ‘From morning until night. As if we were together.’
‘That’s not enough. It’s not even—’
‘It’s all I have. The forgetting is in four days. I need time to prepare. You know I can’t be around you near the date, not if I haven’t made the decision already. Because if it happens when you’re there, I’ll never get to decide.’
‘But—’
‘You said you’d try anything. Is this so much crazier than everything you’ve already tried?’
She turned her back on me. At first I thought she wanted to hide her face, but she walked through to another room. Her bedroom.
Shortly, she returned, a garment wrapped around her hands. Dark grey, soft material. A jacket, well worn. It looked way too big for Julie.
Mine, then.
She stood before me, twisting the jacket around her hand and wrists, until it looked less like a garment and more like a strange cloth binding. ‘One condition. If I get only one day, you have to really try. You must be open to what we had. You can’t keep these shields up against me. This fear. You’d be cheating yourself too, if you don’t try. You deserve to choose what’s best for you.’
I nodded.
‘Okay, two conditions.’ She corrected herself. ‘I get to take you out in the evening. To dinner. Whatever I want. You can decide what we do during the day. But I get the night. They’re my conditions.’
She held out the jacket to me.
I kept my hands at my side. ‘And I need to trust you will be able to walk away, if that’s my decision. One day is all we have. If
I choose “no”, then you sign.’
‘If you really try, and you give me a day, then yes, I will sign.’
‘And you can live with that?’
‘If you know what it’s like for us to be together, and you choose something else, then I can live with that. I’ll sign your forms. I will release us both.’
I reached out to take the jacket.
Julie continued to grip it. ‘You promise me. You promise to try. To be open.’
‘I promise.’
She released the jacket. ‘Well, then—’
‘Your turn.’ I cut off her words and her smile, leaving her holding the jacket between us. ‘Once the day is done, you’ll respect my decision. Either way.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘For better or worse.’
She nodded. ‘When the day is done, I promise I’ll respect your decision. Either way.’
Something had changed, when I promised her the night. Her voice sounded sombre, but her brow was furrowed in thought. As if she had a plan.
Of course she had a plan.
Apprehension gnawed at my stomach. Could I really fall so hard in a single day? What if the man who loved her for years still lay somewhere within me? I remembered the sudden euphoria when I first kissed her. ‘If you don’t sign, I’ll call Doctor Varma and tell her what you’ve done, and that I need to be institutionalised. For protection from you. She can make that happen.’
‘You don’t need to make threats. I take my promises seriously. That’s what I’m doing here.’
I took the jacket.
‘Shall we begin?’ she asked. She was smiling.
‘Not today. Tomorrow.’ She went to object, but I shook my head. ‘If you want me to really try, it can’t be today. I know it’s only ten o’clock in the morning, but I have nothing left to give you. And you said shields down.’
‘Fair enough. Tomorrow.’
I made to leave as soon as I could. With the divorce papers safely tucked away in my backpack, I wanted to get out before she started to have any doubts. But Julie insisted on walking me home. My earlier talk of being put away in an institution really seemed to have panicked her. With only days before the expected date, Julie insisted that it was an unnecessary risk for me to walk the streets alone.
Outside, the bright yellow sunshine and cool air showed it was still morning. I felt drained, as if my emotions and thoughts had been pushed too far, but Julie seemed content to accompany me mostly in silence. I stole a few glances at her as we walked. Occasionally she met my glance and smiled in return, but behind her eyes I could see her mind working. Strategising. Conniving. Growing more cheerful with each passing moment. By the time we arrived back at my apartment, a noticeable spring had crept into her step. But she kept her thoughts to herself, and our goodbyes were brief. We agreed she would arrive at my apartment at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.
A wave of relief washed over me the moment I secured myself safely back at home, the door locked and the envelope with the divorce application stashed in the mementoes box. For the second time in recent days, I found myself scouring the letter—this time for some hint of the divorce proceedings my predecessor had begun. Nothing—except one part where he stresses that I must follow through on everything he has planned out for me. I’d always thought that referred to the dominoes, and maybe the exercises. But now I wondered if it was meant to apply to other, less visible plans.
I shrugged my speculations away and turned to the dominoes. Tomorrow I’d be otherwise occupied, which meant that after today, I’d only have two full days left to complete the entire structure.
I threw myself into the work. After the second hour, I allowed myself a quick break. On a whim, I went to the corner store at the end of my block and brought myself a jar of coffee—the same brand Julie used. I didn’t have a kettle so I boiled a saucepan of water on the stove. Meeting Julie had not resolved as many secrets of my past as I might have liked, but it had thrown some light on a few little things. White, no sugar, for example.
The coffee helped me focus. After each cup, the work felt a bit more manageable, and I whizzed through it. Hour after hour, more and more of my little standing stones stood to attention, spreading out across the landscape. I skipped lunch and had another cup of coffee instead. Eventually I decided it was possible to have too much of a good thing. My head buzzing, I stopped making coffee and put together a sandwich.
By the time the afternoon sun began to pour in through the windows, the maths looked better. I went through my little ritual of pulling another two cartons of dominoes out from the bed, leaving it with just a third of its original foundation.
Only a little over twelve thousand dominoes still to put down now. The dominoes room reflected that dwindling figure: on the floor only one large corner remained to be done, as well as a few of the platforms. This close to finishing, it looked more like a sculpture than ever before. A work of art—even if it was one only I could really appreciate.
A simple meal finished off the day. Julie had said I used to cook. If only I’d left myself some ingredients and utensils—I might have been able to pick it up again. On instinct, like my morning exercises.
My thoughts drifted towards tomorrow. One way or the other, I would have to decide, and then there would be closure. And not by building a new wall for Julie to bulldoze down, but by our own agreement. Set in legal stone.
Day Three
I whipped through the morning exercises. Julie had said she would be over at 7.00 a.m. for breakfast, so I had to move fast.
I CUT myself shaving in my haste, which of course wasted more time than if I’d been my normal careful self, and by the time I was done it was almost seven.
She better not try arriving before then, because I had things to do.
Every time I went outside I took precautions in case the forgetting struck early. Being alone with Julie posed a risk every bit as serious. If the forgetting happened to strike today, I had to be protected against any lies she would tell in those first moments, when I would be at my most vulnerable.
I wrote myself a little note.
Read this now. And read it by yourself. Without her.
You’ve probably already worked out you’ve forgotten everything again. It happens every six months, and it was due on Sunday. If you’re reading this, it must have happened early, leaving you alone with Julie before I—before we—have made up our mind if she can be trusted. You have to find and read the journal. It’s a blue book. It should be on the kitchen shelf. If you can find it, you’ll understand our situation.
If you can’t find it, then she has hidden it. That means she can’t be trusted and that you’ll have to get away from her: disappear completely.
I copied the note out again and put one in my jeans pocket, the other in my sock drawer.
Julie was smart, and I needed to be smart too.
Yesterday, I’d promised to be open. And I owed that to myself, as much as to Julie. But what did being ‘open’ mean exactly? Two days ago, I’d kissed her. My mouth still tingled as if part of me wanted that moment again. I gritted my teeth against the unwelcome urge, and put the divorce papers on the kitchen bench, where they’d remind me of my priorities.
Next I set out all the mementoes on the kitchen table: the wooden elephant, beaded bracelet, crystal vase, key, geode and copper medallion. I hadn’t thought to ask Julie about them yesterday, but it wasn’t an opportunity I intended to miss this time. The first two looked African. North African, if I had to guess: maybe Moroccan? That was the word my mind tumbled over as I fumbled the little carved elephant from one hand to the other. How had it come into my possession? Had I travelled? Or was it a gift? Or maybe—
Rat-tat-tat: 7.00 a.m. precisely. Of course Julie would be punctual. She only had a day. It struck me as I slipped the locks back that there’s one fatal flaw in every lock on every door in every home: the person inside, who can’t help but let the outside in.
I opened the door, and there she was.
‘Hi,’
I said.
Julie returned the greeting and slipped past me into the room. It turned out to be a bit of a squeeze. In addition to a well-stuffed leather satchel slung over one shoulder, she was loaded up with plastic bags. ‘You brought groceries?’
‘Everything will become clear.’ She wove past me and towards the kitchen. ‘It’s all part of a plan.’
‘Of course it is.’
The corner of her mouth curled in a smile.
I followed her into the kitchen, curious. She busied herself unloading all her baggage onto the kitchen bench and I took in the full effect of what she was wearing. Comfortable-looking trackpants flopped around her legs. They matched the crumpled T-shirt she wore, its colour faded to a threadbare grey, several sizes too big. The neck line hung loose.
‘If I’d known you were going to dress up,’ I said, ‘I would have worn a tie.’
‘We said full disclosure.’ She put the last of the bags down on the kitchen table. ‘So in the spirit of brutal honesty, I thought I should present in the strict marriage uniform.’ She held her arms up and spun neatly before my eyes. ‘I call this the Saturday morning couch ensemble.’
As she twirled, the T-shirt slid away from her neck, revealing bare skin almost to the point of her shoulder. The thing wasn’t just large, but stupidly large. No one could get the sizing that wrong. As my mind followed the evidence to the only possible answer—it was my old T-shirt draped so alluringly over her curves—a grim sigh escaped me. If she could get my heart pounding wearing a threadbare band T-shirt and a pair of old trackpants, then this was going to be a very long day.
‘Your hair looks different.’
She ran a hand through it. ‘It’s not nearly back to natural, but I washed out as much of the rinse as I could.’ Her eyes tracked me from top to bottom. ‘You look good. You still work out?’
‘Yes, push-ups, crunches…’ I started to rattle off my current workout.
‘…chin-ups, lunges, squats, calf-lifts, planks,’ she chimed in. Clearly, the morning exercises had been part of my routine for a long time.
