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I saw how in the days before he left, she wasn’t trying as hard with her appearance. She stopped wearing makeup, always had her hair up in a bun, and stopped smiling. I don’t know what happened, but I knew I would be a stronger wife than she was.
I would, no matter what, always be pretty, always keep the house tidy, never push too hard and never make him feel like I wasn’t happy. And that’s what I’d done.
The current state of my life highlights my youthful miscalculation.
From the moment I met Kevin during my sophomore year at Brown, I committed to being the model girlfriend and then, wife.
He’d been a year ahead of me. When he graduated, and went straight to Wall Street, I was sure he’d forget about me. But he didn’t. He proposed to me on the first weekend I went to visit him and I said yes. We were married three weeks after I graduated, and I never looked back. I was only twenty-one, but I knew that this was the life I was meant to live.
So, in the dawn hours of this new day, as I lay in exactly the same position he left me in, flat on my back, in the middle of our bed, I don’t know what any of this means.
Who am I, if not a wife? Am I even anyone?
I think about Anthony and a little flame of sadness licks at the inside of my chest, reminding me I’m alive and have a very good reason to stay that way.
Thinking of Anthony also renews my panic. What am I going to tell him? He and his dad aren’t particularly close, mainly because Kevin is gone so much. But, he loves his dad and wouldn’t understand him not being here at all.
Kevin wouldn’t try to take him from me, would he? Would he?
This makes me sit right up. Oh, dear God. He mentioned paying Anthony’s tuition, which means he’s telling me I won’t be responsible for it, so that likely means Anthony will be with me.
I lie back down, as my momentary flash of anger is replaced by sadness and fear.
What am I going to do? What would my mother say? What would my sisters say?
My mother lives in the same house. I couldn’t hide it from her, but Lilly was in Miami—I think. Addie is in London, they didn’t have to know.
Kevin and I could work this out. We could. Didn’t all marriages go through this?
A woman who I don’t love resounds in my head, like an alert, reminding me that my thoughts of reconciliation are pure folly.
I feel a fissure in my chest, a crack so deep I know if I reach down to touch the spot, my fingers will come away covered in blood.
I haven’t cried in almost ten years—unless you count the first time I held my son—but this, this wasn’t crying. This is a deep lament. I wail, and scream into my pillow.
I cry for the children I won’t have. I cry for the fracture Kevin has caused, which no matter what happens, would never fully heal. I cry for my son. I cry for myself, and for my failure as a wife.
I remember that on another New Year’s Day, I cried myself to sleep over another man. I open my bedside drawer and dig to the bottom of it. I pull out the picture I haven’t looked at in years and stare at it. Dean’s smile, the happiness in my gaze is too much. I don’t think I can bear the weight of my pain.
I cry until I finally fall asleep. I don’t hear my mother come in and cover me with my comforter. I don’t feel the brush of my son’s lips across my forehead.
I sleep for the next eighteen hours, and while I sleep, I call out for my father. It is my mother, as always, who answers. She crawls into bed with me after she has fed Anthony and put him to sleep.
She holds me all night.
2
* * *
It’s been one month since Kevin left. I have marked every week by calling his new house from my burner phone and hanging up when she answers. I usually call at six a.m. when I know her lazy ass is still asleep. Six a.m. is for people who have jobs, and kids, and responsibilities. She doesn’t have to do anything, apparently, but work out and fuck my husband. I know it’s petty and stupid, but it’s also the only thing that makes me feel like I’m disturbing his new, happy life. He doesn’t deserve to be happy.
For the first week, my pain was raw. I only made it through because my mother took over my life. She made sure Anthony got to school every morning, and that I bathed at least every other day. She kept us fed, alive, and clean, and she didn’t tell a soul about Kevin leaving.
The morning after my life turned to shit, I woke up to find myself alone in bed. A note on the pillow next to my head told me that my mom had taken Anthony to church and then to a movie. There was food in the oven if I was hungry, and they would be back in time for him to wind down and get ready for school the next day.
It took Anthony almost that entire week to notice that his dad hadn’t been home. And when he asked me, as I lay in my bed like a convalescent, whether or not his father was going to be at his piano recital on Saturday, I simply answered, “No.”
He then asked, “Mommy, are you coming? You haven’t gotten out of bed in five days, will you get out of bed soon?”
