March 12, 2008
Snapshot of "Snapshot"
Can't sleep. Nervous about the MRI. Fell yesterday. Suckage.
I was digging through my borked archives when I came across a story I wrote. While I remember writing it, I don't remember writing some parts of it at all.
Guess I better try to go back to sleep now.
For you, the story -- from January 2004.
SnapshotShe watched him moving the boxes for a moment. She couldn't stand it for long. It was too painful. Marly felt as though little pieces of her heart were now shrouded in newsprint and foam peanuts - and she felt as though she were suffocating as the tape was applied, sealing those seams and all their dreams in a cardboard casket.
With tears in her eyes, she turned away.
It wasn't fair! Dammit! It took two people to make the decision to start their life together. Shouldn't it also take two people to make the decision to end it? It was a partnership, for God's sake! They may not have a piece of paper with some legal declaration of their union, but they sure as hell had been together. And, there was the child to consider.
"What makes this family so easily forgotten and unimportant?" she asked. She knew Tom wasn't going to answer, but Marly wanted to ask the question anyway.
Since he'd told her the news, about his heading back to New Mexico and his family, she hadn't said much. Supportive and understanding, that was what was expected of her. She'd told him that she'd cry and get angry at some point and he said he knew she would. But, it made no sense that he was now angry that the moment had come and that she'd told him how she felt. Marly was hurting and she wanted comfort. Surely he could manage that, right? After all, hadn't he said that he still loved her?
She'd been right. He didn't answer her. She'd known he wouldn't and that made her even angrier. No. What really made her mad was that he was mad. And that no one in his family had tried to dissuade him from leaving them. That made her see red. She'd thought his family would at least do that. Nobody had and nobody seemed to care that two hearts were being broken by his decision. Except Marly.
Last night, she'd told one of her pals that she just wanted to cry and rant and wallow in her sadness and pain. For a day, perhaps. A chance to let it all out and be comforted by the man who was her friend, her partner, her love. The man she'd waited for all her life. Her pal had asked why didn't she do that? Because nobody wants to see or hear it. There was no time. She didn't want to become even more vulnerable than she was already feeling. And she didn't want to look like a bloated pufferfish like she always did when she cried hard. The list of excuses went on and on. In the end, it overwhelmed her and it happened anyway. Without her permission. She guessed that meant she was weaker than she thought.
None of it made sense. Yet, it did. She knew he missed his family. Tom came from a clan that was tight. She envied that for so long. They accepted and cared and comforted. She hadn't had that from her own family in a while and had longed for that kind of family for quite some time. When Tom came into her life, he'd promised to be there. To be the one to stand up beside her and for her. To put the little family she did have in place when they forgot. Anyway, she understood why Tom missed everyone. She missed them, too. Their recent visit had left her heart full and proud to be accepted in their embrace. Still, what she didn't get was how no one bothered to consider how Tom's decision would impact Marly and her son.
Back when Marly first met Tom, she was very clear that she'd not let anyone meet her boy. She didn't want her son getting the wrong impression, the way so many kids of divorced parents did. Her home had no revolving door of "uncles" and "friends" or anyone else to confuse her child. Nobody came close to meeting Buddy until Tom. They'd hit it off immediately. They fell just as hard for each other as Marly and Tom had. Some people have a natural way with kids and Tom was one of them. He got Buddy and Buddy got that Tom got him. It was beautiful to watch.
Now, she'd be watching as her son's heart broke. It. Wasn't. Fair. It was bad enough that she hurt...she was an adult and she could deal with it better (she hoped.) Her son shouldn't have to go through this. Not this way.
Marly thought about all the things that she wished had happened. She wished Tom had come to her, sat down, and discussed options with her. Hadn't she offered him, at least a dozen times, the chance to go see his family? For the holidays when she had to work? He kept telling her no - that they were a family now and they were creating their own special traditions. Maybe that's why this caught her so unaware. Up until recently, he'd still been talking about the future.
The future. It looked bleak from where she stood. She was, oddly, standing at the door to the garage. A door. Opened, she would have to see Tom sorting through things. What to take? Was this thing given to them both something he should take? Was that thing something he should leave? With the door open, she'd have to face the unpleasant reality that this was really happening. Closed, she would miss looking at his face, absorbing every detail so that she could capture each nuance in her mind's eye. Memories for after he was gone.
Torn, she wandered back and forth. Not really pacing but neither was she moving purposefully. Her brain and her heart were fighting.
"Why'd you say that?" The brain would ask. "Don't you know that makes you look pathetic? Or what about the other thing? Don't you think that was antagonistic? What are you trying to do? Are you intent on driving a wedge between you?"
"Shut up," the heart would reply. "I'm breaking and things are leaking out all over the place. Oozing and weeping and raw wounds tend to leak. Deal with it. Stuff is just there, okay? Wasn't I the one who argued against letting him see how we felt in the first place? Yeah. I was. Did you listen then? No. So shut up."
Marly felt like screaming at the both of them to just be quiet for a change. Her head was pounding almost as fast and as loud as her heart (not the emotional one...the anatomical one.) Her body was already aching from the tension that had built up. Her sinuses were rebelling - congested and throbbing.
The morning had started off well enough. Why couldn't it have stayed that way? After her son had gone off to school, she returned home to Tom asking if she wanted to crawl back into bed with him. Fresh from the shower, he had steam rising from his body as he brushed teeth. She was tired. She said as much. He said he'd run to the bank and let her rest. Did he now sense that her emotion meter was nearing the red zone and a little sleep would do her some good? He left her snuggled under the comforter. She drifted off.
Marly dreamed of a river she knew and loved. The river was now slightly obscured by a tall bank. Actually, the bank hadn't started off so tall...but it began to grow. Wanting to see the water again, she scaled the rocks that had appeared. At the top, she saw the river. Instead of the suburban homes she expected to see on the other side, mountains appeared. They multiplied over and over again, some practically shooting up into the sky. Marly heard a noise behind her. In the brush stood Tom.
Startled and semi-awake, she felt Tom caressing her. He'd returned home and had crawled into bed beside her. Stroking her waist and back, nuzzling her neck and breathing softly - but with growing intensity. She could feel the stirrings deep inside, the warmth spreading across her belly and chest. In the midst of that, though, came an upsurge of emotion. The tears sprang forth and overtook her. The sobs shook her violently. Tom pulled her close and held her. Release. Not the release either had hoped for. Visceral and anguished, Marly cried for all that was lost. She cried for all that was supposed to be and now never would. She cried because the ending should never come so close to the beginning and because they had shared so much. For all that she had ever wanted, he was. He had said that she was all he had wanted as well. They'd been a family. The two of them. The three of them. Family.
When the words finally came, she told him this, first through the sobbing and then in her gravelly post-cry way. Anger and heartbreak punctuated the words between the occasional burst of fresh pain. Heart squeezed too tight. No breath to be caught. Face burning. Mind racing.
She wondered if this would have been it. If this would have been the last time they made love before he left. That's what had finally done her in and caused the tears to flow so freely. Wasn't it practically yesterday that it had been three weeks before he left? How did it end up that it was now only two? Where was the time going? Why couldn't they just love their way through the remaining days?
That had been this morning. Only a couple of hours ago. The clock was ticking. Each second seemed to speed the hands around the dial. Racing the final day toward her. She wanted time to stop and allow her the opportunity to fight. She wanted to bite and hit and kick and scream until she could have her man change his mind. She kept thinking that he should have considered all the other options. If he'd told her how he was feeling sooner, she would have suggested them. That's probably why he never brought it up. He didn't want to consider anything else. Even if it did make more sense.
It was weird the way her thoughts jumped from point to point. The things she wanted to say still. How she wanted to hold him and whisper her love for him in his ear. How she wanted to scream and demand his cooperation. The way she worried about her son and how he'd react once Tom was gone and how she'd have to work harder to maintain a brave face for him.
That made her think back on the moment they'd told Buddy. Sitting in his favorite restaurant. Was that a bad move, she wondered? Would he always associate that place in the future with bad news? She had asked the boy if he remembered how much Tom missed his family. Buddy said he did. Marly told him that Tom was really missing them something awful these days and that he was going back to them. Buddy's eyes grew wide, his face paled, and his ears flushed a deep, hot red. "To stay for good? He's not going to see us anymore?" The panic in her son's voice grabbed her heart and wrenched it nine ways to Sunday. "No, sweetie. We'll still talk to him and..." "We're going to visit each other, Bud," Tom chimed in.
The fright left his face, but the ears still burned. Buddy believed Tom's words. For a moment, Marly did, too. But doubt crept in. She thought about how there were no guarantees anymore. Everything she had been promised and believed was pulled out from under her. For her son's sake, though, she fought to believe again.
These were the things that were jumbled around in her brain - flitting in and out of view. One minute she'd feel calm and capable. The next, she'd feel abandoned and frightened. Everything was in focus at once - then nothing was. She couldn't keep up. Feeling dizzy, she went to sit down. As soon as her body touched the chair she was up again and across the room. Opening the door, she asked Tom to come back and talk to her. "You can pack while I'm at work, you know."
He balked. He had stuff he wanted to do.
"Buddy's still at school for another hour or so. We need to talk."
Tom relented. Grudgingly.
Both of them knew that the conversation wouldn't be pleasant. Marly needed to hear him say he was sorry he was hurting her. She needed his arms around her to help her through. She wanted him to reconsider. Two out of three ain't bad...that's what Meatloaf had said. Still, she wanted it all.
They struggled with the moments as they came and with emotions that were now even more raw than before. Their words were loving and harsh and supportive and angry and sad. They had to find a way to manage the time they had left together. Days would become hours and hours would become minutes. Could they do it?
Tom crossed the room and knelt before Marly. His arms wrapped around her and pulled her close. He whispered and kissed her forehead. And she cried. She cried for herself, for her son, for Tom and Marly - the couple, and for Tom, Marly, and Buddy - the family. She cried for their time together being reduced to little more than a snapshot in a frame on the mantle.
The snapshot that - still - sits on the mantle.
Posted by Da Goddess at 04:32 AM | Comments (0)
April 01, 2005
Today
Today I lit a candle for you. It was the same one you lit for me exactly a year ago today.
I remember waiting in the airport, leaning against the column, thinking of our first kiss - the kiss I had yet to experience. I looked up in time to see you walking toward me, your hair slightly mussed, eyes looking a little sleepy. You stopped in front of me. You were smiling. You reached out and wrapped your arms around me, pulling me to you. I had to tilt my head back because you're so tall. Remember me telling you how much I like tall?
You looked into my eyes and then we kissed. It was a wet kiss, not unpleasantly wet, just wet. I melted. I'd waited so long, not realizing I'd been waiting.
That's the funny thing about you. I'd waited all my life to meet you and never even knew it until the moment we finally did.
So many things ended and began one year ago. The course of our lives changed, for ill or for good. Some may consider it all one big April Fools Day joke, but it isn't. It never has been.
We've danced our dances and cried our tears. We've laughed 'til our sides ached and we've exchanged angry words. We've kissed and made up. We've said hellos and goodbyes. How many times? Does it even matter? All I know is that I cherish the time spent with you, be it face-to-face, over the phone, or however we've had to make contact. I wouldn't trade this last year for anything.
Today I lit a candle for you. It was the same candle that you lit for me exactly one year ago today.
Posted by Da Goddess at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)