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“Yeah, probably,” I tell her, and I give her the address for my apartment at the Hidden Pearl.
“Thanks, I’ll get those in the mail tomorrow,” she says.
“Can I ask you something, Emma?”
“Sure.”
“Why now?” I ask, “It’s been six years, why now?”
“Well, to be honest,” she says, “I’ve been seeing someone for a while now, and it’s getting kind of serious. I figure I should probably make sure I’m not still married before she decides to propose.”
My eyebrows shoot up into my hairline. “She?” I blurt out.
Another nervous laugh. “Yeah, um…obviously a lot has changed.”
“Sounds like an understatement.”
So Emma starts to backtrack her life a little, explaining that for the past two years, she’s been in intensive therapy. I learn, to my shock, that not only was she cheating on me during the course of our marriage, but she’d been abusing drugs, and I never had any idea.
Looking back, it seems obvious, and I don’t know how the hell I missed it.
“I was just in this toxic pit,” she says, “And I was determined to drag everyone down to hell with me, starting with you.”
“You did a pretty good job of it. Getting me arrested was definitely the push toward rock bottom.”
The second-to-last time I had seen my ex wife had been the worst night of my life. Emma had come home after being out partying, and when I’d gotten mad at her for coming home so late, drunk, with a hickey I hadn’t left her, she’d flown into a rage.
Now that I know she was using, I realize that the fury was probably largely fueled by the drugs. But she’d attacked me, kicking and screaming and scratching at my face.
I’m not proud of it, but I’d shoved her in an attempt to get her off of me, and in her drunken state, she’d stumbled and fallen, breaking her wrist.
She’d kicked up such a fuss that our neighbors had called the cops, and despite the bleeding gouges on my face, I was the only one that left the house in handcuffs that night.
It didn’t help that Emma’s older brother was a cop, and while he hadn’t been the arresting officer, he’d still used his influence to sway the story her way.
So with that arrest on my record, I lost my job, and had been unable to find another until my friend had called me and told me about the Hidden Pearl. And even then, without him vouching for me, I can’t say I would have landed the spot.
“I wish I could take it back,” she says softly, “Chip, I know the words don’t mean much, but I swear to you, from the bottom of my heart, if I could take it all back, I would.”
“It means more than you think, Emma,” I say after a long pause, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
She goes on to tell me that after leaving me, she’d spiraled even further, until she finally wound up homeless and got sick, nearly dying when a simple flu turned into pneumonia.
“But it wound up saving my life instead,” she says, “While I was in the hospital, obviously I couldn’t get the drugs anymore, so I was kind of forced into sobriety, and it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I started going to support groups and getting my shit together…and then I met Paige.”
I can hear the smile in her voice, and the love for this girlfriend of hers is palpable. She’s smitten, and to my surprise, I’m really, truly happy for her.
The Emma on the other end of the phone might physically be the same person, but I can tell that mentally and emotionally, this is a very different girl from the one I’d married.
And in spite of everything, I’m genuinely happy to hear that she’s turned her life around.
“So what about you?” she asks when she’s finished giving me the rundown of her last six years, “I know you left New York…are you happy?”
I’m silent for a long moment, not sure how to word my answer, before finally saying: “I wasn’t, not really. Not until recently. And now I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, “I know this might be super weird, but…do you want to talk about it?”
