Moments

Jennifer Neri

Amy forced herself to look at her husband. The glance lasted but a moment, yet his eyes startled her. They were unfamiliar, and she realized she had not looked at him in a long time. It was the words he had just said, his betrayal, which caused her to see him.

“We’re connected,” Christopher said, trying to draw her gaze back, but she stared at the painting that hung on the wall behind him. It was a painting she had chosen after the birth of their first child, six years ago; it was a modern scribble, contrasting black and white. At the time, she had thought the painting, done by an obscure local artist, defined her; perhaps she hadn’t known herself at all then.

“You don’t really believe that,” Amy said.

She had been looking forward, longing, for an evening curled up on the couch, to a quiet moment when the children were in bed. She had not planned for this conversation. For this life altering information.

“I do,” Christopher said. “We’re supposed to be together.”

“So then, how come we’re in this situation? How come she is the story that ends our life?” Amy tried to mask her words with indifference. She didn’t want Christopher to know that he still mattered.

“Because I was lost, Amy. I was blinded by my own bullshit. She didn’t mean anything. She could have been anyone. She was a way for me to forget.”

“What did you need to forget? Me? Your children?” Amy swallowed, and felt how restricted her throat was. Why was she asking questions? There was no use for them now.

“We fought. I thought we were getting a divorce. I thought you didn’t love me.” Christopher stopped talking, and walked closer to Amy. She recoiled from him, and hoped it was obvious. She exhaled when he sank into the chair closest to her.

“I was stupid. I was weak.” Christopher shook his head. “You would never do that, Amy, I know. You’re too strong.”

“You hit me,” Amy said.

“I had sunk that low already, there was no coming back.”

“What did she look like?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“It does to me. Was she beautiful?” She peered at him. He looked sad. He pitied her. She could not allow that.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Amy,” he said. “Don’t punish yourself. You did nothing wrong.”

“Ten years,” Amy said. “We’ve been married for ten years. How many of those were good, Christopher? Why do you get to be the one to walk away?”

“I didn’t walk away, Amy. I thought you were already gone.” He stood up and walked towards her again. “I love you, Amy. I need you.”

“Leave,” Amy said. “Get out of my house!”

She wanted to cry. But, she could not do that. He couldn’t know that he had caused her tears. “Get out!” she yelled again.

From her peripheral view she saw him drop the arm he had held out towards her.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll respect your wishes.”

“Too late for that,” Amy said. He stopped walking, but said nothing. She held her breath until he stepped out, and shut the front door. She stood in the hallway, and finally turned out the light. It was as though the dark had turned this reality into a nightmare. Nothing more than a bad dream. But then she heard the baby, a whimper, then a cry. “Coming, Jake,” she said quietly.

Amy walked up the dark stairway and into the baby’s room. “It’s all right, baby, I’m here,” she said. “Shhh. You’ll wake your brother and sister. They have school tomorrow.” She reached down into the crib and rubbed his back. He was warm, the most soothing touch in the world. She wanted to grab him, scoop him up into her arms and squeeze him forever, but what right did she have to disturb him in this way?

“Go to sleep. I’ll see you in a few hours.” To her amazement, Jake fell right asleep. He was a good sleeper, even though he was eight months old. Her older two had not let her sleep at all.

She stood next to the crib, listening to him breath, inhaling his scent that she knew better than her own. His mouth was open and round, angelic in the soothing light cast by the Max and Ruby nightlight, and she touched a finger lightly to his lips. Jake did not stir, and she knew it was safe to leave.

Amy walked downstairs, and peeked out the window to make sure her husband’s car was not there – ex-husband, she reminded herself. It wasn’t. She grabbed the phone and almost sat in the chair he had occupied before he left. She hurried into the family room, sat on the couch, and turned on the TV. She scrolled up and down the play list, and settled on Seinfeld. A moment later she switched the television off and picked up the phone again. Who should she call first, her sister or her mother?

Her fingers dialled, and chose neither. Instead, she called her best friend. “Hey Gwen,” Amy said.

“Hi. What’s the matter? You sound awful.”

Amy laughed, and then shivered. She was suddenly freezing. “You can tell that quickly that’s something’s bothering me? Wow. I should have been married to you.”

“What’s going on?”

Amy didn’t want anyone to know about this. She was an embarrassment. She couldn’t even keep a husband. That wasn’t true, she told herself firmly. She wasn’t going to think this way.

“He did it,” Amy heard herself say.

“Did what?” Gwen asked. “What are you talking about?”

“He cheated on me.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, until finally Gwen said, “Christopher had an affair?”

The word sounded awful, it burned Amy’s ears. She felt her heart racing, just as it had when Christopher walked into the living room not long ago. “I have to end this charade now,” he had said. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend it never happened.”

“Well,” Amy said to Gwen. “That depends on whether or not one night is an affair?’

“He told you this?”

“Uh huh.”

“Does he love her?” Gwen said.

“He claims he doesn’t even know her name.”

“I can’t believe this. I thought since Jake things had gotten better.”

“No, we’ve just gotten colder,” Amy said. She remembered Christopher’s joy at the first pregnancy. He didn’t stop smiling for nine months. She remembered the way he couldn’t keep his hands off of her, the way he stroked her growing belly, whispering to it non-stop. The second time she was pregnant she had positioned the positive pregnancy result next to his dessert plate at the dinner table. The third time she became pregnant was an accident. A woops that really wasn’t a mistake, just an undesired consequence. She hadn’t told him for weeks.

“He wants to continue the marriage,” Amy said. The words made her feel heavy. She wanted to lie down, close her eyes, and disappear into safety. Of course, she couldn’t do that. She had children. She was the one providing safety.

“What other option do you have?” Gwen said. Her voice was soft, low, almost a whisper, but Amy heard it as though it was a yell. A horrendous declaration.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Amy said. She was sitting up, her spine tightening, straightening. “You, of all people in the world. You tell me this.”

“Don’t get upset, Amy. Think about it. You’re a stay-at-home mom – ”

“I have a degree!”

“And when was the last time you used it? Seven, eight years ago? You have a beautiful home. Three children. You have everything you want.”

“Except love. A faithful husband. A good marriage.”

“When was the last time you had sex, Amy?” Gwen asked, her tone low. “When you conceived Jake?”

“What has that got to do with this?”

“Everything. He’s a man.”
Amy realized she was standing, her left hand pressed hard against the windowsill. “I have to go,” she said and heard the way her voice shook.

“Don’t take it that way, Amy,” Gwen said.

“Jake needs me. Bye.” Amy pressed the off button on the phone and stared at the orange light that illuminated it. It began to blink. There was a message. She ignored it.

Her head fell against the window pane, the point of her nose pushing, as though trying to act as a wing and aid an escape from the house by propelling her forward. It was chilly at night now, autumn was approaching, and soon her breathing left a spot of moisture on the window. Amy lay down on the floor, the carpet itchy on her skin, and curled herself tightly into a ball. The phone rang and stopped. A few minutes later it began again. This time there was no pause between the final ring and the new one. She pushed herself up, and reached for the phone prepared to turn the ringer off, but saw it was her mother.

“Amy!” her mother yelled before she got a chance to say hello. “Finally you pick up. I’ve been calling.”

“I’m not up for talking now, Mom.”

“I know darling, Christopher’s here. He’s told us all about it. I feel awful.”

Amy felt herself go silent for a moment. It was a surprise, pleasant, warm, but it was fleeting. “He told you?”

“You should see him. He’s a wreck.”

“He’s a wreck?” Was that supposed to mean something? He had betrayed her, and the life they had made. She was the one who was supposed to be a wreck.

“When do you think you’ll be ready to talk to him?” her mother asked.

“Mom, do you even care how I feel?”

“Of course I do, darling. I know how I felt when your father did this to me.”

“Daddy? He cheated on you?’

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. All that matters now is saving your marriage.”

“I’m getting a divorce, Mom.”

“Don’t say that. It will all work out.”

“I don’t want it to work out. I have to go, Mom. Bye.”

Amy rolled onto her stomach, and felt her cheek rub against the wool carpet.

She would have to tell the children.

How?

“Your Daddy can’t live here with us anymore,” Amy said practicing the words out loud.
It had been crucial for Amy to provide a solid home for her children. Top priority. Were her mother and best friend right? Was she supposed to try again? The thought made her shudder, and before she knew it she was rushing to the washroom, the automatic lights in the hallway responding to her movement and illuminating, as though marking her path.
Amy’s fingers touched the cold porcelain of the toilet bowl, and her stomach released the dinner she had eaten. The pungent smell of bile hit her nose, and she shook, amazed by the physical ferocity of her response, her body and mind in synchronization. This was not supposed to happen to her!

She turned on the hot water tap, and placed her unstable hands under the flow. In a moment it would scald. Her fingers didn’t feel abrasive enough, and she twisted them. She saw her wedding band. It had been a part of the intricacies of her form for so long that she hardly noticed it anymore. She fumbled to remove it, needing it gone before it seared into her flesh. Finally it was in her grasp, and she flung it. She heard it clang against the wall, and then into the bathtub. She listened to it roll and settle somewhere behind the shower curtain that was studded with smiling yellow duckies.

She leaned against the sink, feeling the edge of it push into her stomach. She bent her body further, savouring the pain in her gut. It was a clear distraction. One pain in, one pain out; a necessary rebuttal on her part. Physical hurt was cleaner than emotional distress.

She lifted her head and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Am I still beautiful, she wondered. She saw her hands pulling on her cheeks without feeling the movement. She traced the line of her nose, the outline of her eyes.

“Did I cause this?” Amy asked herself. She saw her lips move, the words igniting in her head. She shook herself. No. She would not take the blame. She turned off the light and heard the tap running still. She turned it off, and stood in darkness again. Somehow, it helped. The world around her seemed to withdraw into the shadows. Out of sight.

Amy needed someone to tell her how horrible Christopher was. Leave him. Run for your life. Quick, before you get hurt again.

9-11. Jump. It doesn’t matter where you land.

She searched for the phone, not recalling where she had left it, and found it hungrily. Just as her fingers tightened on it, it rang. It was her sister. Now there was a connection, she thought.

“Hi, Liz,” Amy said.

“Amy, I’m so sorry. Are you ok? Should I come over?”

“I think I need to be alone now.”

“Do you want to talk?” Liz asked.

“We’ve had a heck of a time. A really bad few years. And he was so lost. So self-absorbed. But, I always thought we were safe from this.”

“No one ever wants to think this could happen to them, Amy.”

“What are the stats?” Amy said. “How many Canadians end up divorced?”

“I don’t know,” Liz said. “Many, I suppose.”

“Was I so blind?”

“No. You had faith. In your marriage. Your promises to each other,” Liz said.

“I feel naïve. And mad. Everyone expects me to give him another chance.”

“Only you can decide that, Amy.” Liz said. “You know, it’s ironic. I’ve been waiting for my marriage to end for years. You’ve never indicated that to me. And now, in one moment, everything’s changed for you.”

Amy chewed on her lower lip, unable to formulate a response to the question that had been nagging her.

Life had been stable. Defined. Now, all of her expectations had become unattainable. In one moment, everything had to be re-examined.

Was that correct? Was it really one moment that caused her life to become something unforeseen? Or, had it been many moments stacked upon each other, binding together, until each one was indistinguishable from the other, culminating in a heartbeat.

“No, Liz. I saw it coming.”

Amy spoke the words, and knew they were true. This wasn’t a car accident, or a fatal virus. She hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had made the wrong choice one too many times. And so had Christopher. Many moments, many decisions. It was up to her to decide what her next moment would be.