In the Stillness(57)

“I think we can fix us.” He kneels in front of me again, taking my hands.

“Don’t touch me.” Recoiling, I pull my hands away and tuck them between my legs. “I want you to leave, Eric. I’ve heard all I need to know, and I don’t think I can take anymore today. Don’t say anything to your parents yet, and I won’t say anything to mine.” I stand and walk to the door, opening it.

“Come on, Nat—”

“No, Eric. This . . . this is too much. We might be broken, but I’ve been broken for longer, and I need to figure some shit out. Just leave, please.”

Eric walks, slumped-shouldered, toward the door. “I love you,” he says as he meets me in the doorway.

“Just because you say it doesn’t make it true, you know.” I look toward the stairs, where I want him to go.

“I do love you, Natalie.” His brown eyes are faded, pleading. He’s actually able to pull off looking remorseful, which makes me feel even sicker. He’s an actor of the most threatening kind.

“Yeah?” I huff. “Well, you’ve just proven that it’s not enough.”

Feeling used, disgusting, and disregarded, I let my tears fall freely out of his view when he leaves. I can’t get over the gratefulness I feel over our boys being gone for the week.

Our boys.

I can’t make a clean break and never see him again. There’s no restraining order or semester at home with my parents that will make this all go away. Not this time. I’m going to actually have to deal with this. So, grabbing my purse, I decide the first place to start is a quiet townie bar on a Sunday afternoon. One I’ve never been to with anyone before. One that will be free of any memories the last twelve years have etched into my brain.





Chapter 28





This entire time I’ve been thinking how awful I would look leaving my marriage—breaking up my family—while one of my boys begins dealing with what will be a lifelong disability. How distasteful and unspeakable it would look to others for me to leave my doctor husband while unemployed. For the last three years I’ve talked myself up, saying women have done this for centuries—this motherhood thing. It’s not that I don’t want to be a mother. I simply don’t want to be the mother in Tim Burton’s version of a family.

The last several weeks have had me hiding in the bathroom, cutting my skin open to relieve the guilt and shame I’ve felt about wanting to leave. Yes, I’ve wanted to leave the boys at times, too, but I can’t do that. Especially not now. I feel my heart clinging to them all of a sudden, like they’re the only true and pure things left in my life. The rest is complete shit.

“Fucking guilt,” I mumble as I turn into the parking lot of “The Harp” in North Amherst. It’s an Irish bar I’ve been to about two times in a decade and a half, but that’s just enough to know where it is and that I’ll be away from people I know.

Guilt is intense. Suffocating. A brick, tied quietly around your ankles while you sleep. You never fall slowly into guilt—you wake up with little time to take your last breath before being pulled under. Guilt over being a bad wife turns on a dime into guilt over being a dumb one. Self-condemnation over wanting to leave your children behind flips into shame that they’re in love with a mother who doesn’t love herself. Who doesn’t know how.

“Afternoon.” Three post-middle-aged heads turn in my direction as the bartender greets me.

Breathing a sigh of relief at the relatively empty bar, I smile. “Good afternoon.”

“What can I get for you?” the man who appears slightly older than my dad asks as he leans on the bar.

I stare at the vodka for a few seconds before deciding I’ve had enough of that this week. It’s time to move on. “Tequila.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Just . . . tequila?”

“You feel like mixing me a margarita?” I shrug.

He laughs. “Sure thing, Honey.”

I grin. “Mix up a pitcher to save yourself some time. I’m gonna be here for a while.”

Two of the three men at the bar whistle in surprise. The third seems to be asleep.

“Here ya go,” he says, handing me a glass and the pitcher full of guilt-numbing goodness.

“Thanks.” I grab them and head to the furthest table from the entrance—one with the least amount of light—and start pouring.

As I reach the glass to my lips to take the first sip, I spot a faded scar on my wrist. I don’t know if it will actually turn into a real scar, but it’s there.

I have to stop this . . .

With one more drop of self-loathing filling my glass to the brim, I open my mouth and tip my head back, swallowing half the glass at once.

“That bad, huh?” one of the men at the bar hollers across the empty space.

I chuckle. “You have no f*cking idea . . .”

Well, two hours later, they have an idea. After finishing half the pitcher, I saunter over to the bar, ready to talk. And, I do. For twenty minutes straight.

“And, the bitch of it is, I have no f*cking clue who this woman is.” The guy who was sleeping is now awake, starting at me wide-eyed.

“Sorry, Kid,” one of them says.

“My name is Natalie. But you? You can call me Nat.” They laugh as I continue drinking. If I’m not careful I’ll start speaking Spanish soon with all this Cuervo swimming through my blood.