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Divorce
Alex
That day. That damn day at the end of September four years ago, when I stayed at home preparing a workspace for Priscila, a nook in the garden for her paintings and her stuff.
I admit I flew off the handle a bit telling her I wasn’t going to her parents’ house, but hell, I didn’t know what to say, how to make her leave and let me put my plan into action. I never thought she’d take it so badly.
Still, I didn’t worry much. I knew she’d be home soon—despite her threat not to—and I’d surprise the hell out of her when she saw what I’d done.
I’d just finished with the garden when my brother’s girlfriend showed up in tears. They’d been together quite a while, and she and I had a good relationship; I was nothing more than a kid to her, but she was nice to me, she’d always been. And that drove Priscila crazy. I didn’t know how to convince her that we were almost like siblings.
Carolina was devastated. She came to my house—mine, and Priscila’s—dropped her bag as soon as she got into the garden and said to me, “Alex, oh, Alex... John broke up with me.” Then she hugged me. At first, I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t much of a hugger, I only knew how to hug Priscila and the water, so my inexperience—and my complete lack of desire—in the hugging department stopped me for a few seconds. But in the end, I put my arms around her—uncomfortable, knowing that was not my place—and comforted her.
I invited her inside to try to calm her down, and we chatted for a while. She told me what had happened and, when she was leaving, she hugged me again. And again, I had to put my arms around her and assure her that everything was going to be okay. That’s what I was supposed to say, right? I don’t know, I’m fucking unsociable.
Then Dark began to bark; he did it often—still does. I ordered him to be quiet, letting him know that we’d be out for a walk soon; it was his usual time, so I assumed that’s why he was barking.
Now I guess he was barking because Priscila was in the garden, watching us, but I was so used to only seeing bushes and weeds as tall as the sky that I didn’t bother looking through the window. Damn, if only I’d looked that way...
When Carolina left, I realized it was late and I called my in-laws’ landline to talk to Priscila. Marcos told me that she’d already left and was bringing me a homemade crème caramel, the whole thing just for me, so I set up the recently assembled wooden table in the garden with two spoons and a soda to share.
As the minutes passed, I got impatient. Priscila should be home already. I opened the gate and went outside to wait for her; Marcos had told me that his sister was in Adrián’s car, but I didn’t see her coming. I decided to take my car and go looking for her, in case something had happened. Maybe she’d had a collision, or run out of gas. Maybe she needed my help. I called her cell phone, but she didn’t answer, which worried me even more.
Almost without realizing it, I parked in front of my in-laws’ house, but no one knew where Priscila was, and she should have arrived home already. So, there I went again, to our house. She wasn’t there.
I thought I would die, thinking that something might have happened to her.
I went from her parents’ house to ours at least forty times, but there was no sign of a collision or any other mishap. Just in case, I went to the nearest hospital and to the town’s walk-in clinic; they didn’t know anything about her.
I didn’t hear from her for seven hours, seven horrific hours going crazy, calling all the hospitals in the area, talking every five minutes with her parents and my brothers-in-law. The only thing we knew was that Adrián had also disappeared, in Marcos’ car, so we deduced they were together.
Hours later, Marcos finally told me that Adrián had called; Priscila had taken a plane to who-knows-where. I didn’t understand. A plane? What was my wife doing on a plane? To where? Her family didn’t know either.
Priscila had been so mad about our argument that she needed to catch a plane and leave? Really? It was fucking ridiculous.
I texted her hundreds of messages, I even wrote her a couple of emails; I had to try everything.
I was worried sick, but I also wanted to wait for her at home, so I didn’t go back to work, to Madrid. I missed my training. I couldn’t concentrate anyway. I could only focus on Priscila. Maybe she needed a long weekend to clear her head; maybe it had all been too intense for her—the wedding, living together... Maybe the way I loved her overwhelmed her.
I kept calling her, but her cell phone had been off for a long time. There was no way to talk to her, so I persisted with the emails. Just to ask where she was. I just wanted to know where she was, so I could go get her.
And then one day, Marcos called me to tell me that he had managed to talk to Adrián. They were fine.
I was... happy.
Everyone was worried and I don’t know why but that soothed me, the fact that they didn’t know anything about her... Yes, on one hand, that meant uncertainty, but on the other, it gave me peace of mind, because if she’d decided to leave me, she would have told her parents, right? So, for four weeks, I fooled myself with that idea.
Until Adrián Cabana returned.
Part of my world died the day he came back home. I knew something was wrong the instant I saw his face, his eyes.
And that wasn’t the only thing that died that day. My incipient relationship with Adrián died even before it started, my hopes and dreams, and my marriage. When I saw that look on his face, I knew Priscila’s trip hadn’t been to clear her head. Something serious had happened. And Adrián only offered me eleven words—eleven, I counted them, and I remember them from time to time: “She’s far away and she won’t return. Forget everything about her.” He didn’t tell me anything else. It wasn’t necessary. I understood the message: my wife had abandoned me.
During the following weeks, I did nothing but rack my brain looking for a reason, elucidating a possible cause. We were fine, more than fine, we were fucking great; we only had that little fight because I didn’t want to go eat at her parents’ house—I didn’t remember our arguments due to her jealousy over Carolina then—and I refused to think that fucking nonsense could have thrown our marriage overboard and ended our story.
There had to be something else.
I even thought that maybe she was overwhelmed because she didn’t love me as much as she thought; that, maybe, she’d realized we wanted different things, although I found that hard to believe. I knew the way she loved me, I’d experienced it firsthand; I’d seen the way she looked at me, the way she devoured me with her eyes, her mouth... the way she wanted me. She was crazy about me. I refused to think it was just physical attraction or a mere whim.
