Chapter
One:
Security
I felt like one of those people in the Claritin commercials, you know, before they take the miracle
allergy drug that magically brings their world back into focus. My world wouldn’t come back in to focus
until after the sun came up, and that occurrence was still several hours away. I
lay with my eyes closed, listening to Charlie rummaging around in the closet.
But that soon got old, and my focus shifted to the sounds outside. It sounded
wet. My brain may have felt foggy, but I could always tell when it had been
raining because the cars sounded different. Yes, there were always a few cars
zipping down the Avenue, even in the dead of night. I don’t understand it
either.
Charlie opened the door to the walk-in closet, which was as big as
our entire bedroom, and the warm, yellow light assaulted my eyelids. I slowly
opened my eyes, squinting up at him.
“Hey, babe. Sorry to wake you.”
I shrugged my shoulders, closing my eyes again. I still
wasn’t all there.
“I’m going now. I’ll see you when I get off.”
I dreaded this time of year. Every summer, for the last
five years, Charlie worked construction to earn money for our future. He
refused to marry me until he reached some magic number in his savings account,
so I thought it might stop after we got married. Ha. I really hated being left
alone in the middle of the night, and I especially hated waking up without my
husband by my side. It was horrible. I always heard noises.
“I love you,” I said. My throat was dry, but I couldn’t
drink water before I was truly awake. It always had a horrible taste as it
washed around the germs that had been accumulating in my mouth during sleep.
“I love you too.” He leaned down and kissed me on the
forehead.
I heard him in the living room, pulling his bulky jacket from the
coat closet. Then he was in the kitchen, taking a swig of orange juice and
grabbing a handful of cereal as he rushed out the door. The door to the
apartment slammed, the deadbolt slid into place, and I listened to his heavy
footsteps as he hurried down the stairs. But then that faded away too, and he
was gone.
The cars still sloshed around outside. Where people had
to go at four thirty in the morning, I would never know. That kind of stuff
always interested me. I just couldn’t imagine where people had to go all day
and all night. Why were the freeways always packed with people? Why was the Avenue
never deserted? I really wished they would all just go home to their wives and
leave me to have a silent, peaceful night’s sleep for once.
I pulled the comforter to my chin, snuggling a little
deeper into the warmth. With Charlie gone, it was sometimes a struggle for me
to keep warm. I squeezed my eyes shut, held, and released, trying to relax the
muscles behind them. This was the part I loathed the most: Trying to fall back
asleep, with nothing but the cars outside to protect me.
Then it started happening, like it did every morning
after Charlie left. I heard noises. Strange noises. And we didn’t even have an
animal that I could blame it on. I kept telling Charlie that we should get a
cat, or a puppy. It would really help my paranoia, I told him. But he just
laughed, and tossed the suggestion over his shoulder. You don’t need a puppy,
he would tell me.
This morning, I heard sirens. My
eyes flew open in horror, and my hands gripped the comforter. I just knew
Charlie had been killed. He had been run over by one of the cars, speeding down
the Avenue, and I would never see him again. Soon, a policeman would come up to
our door, hammer on it with his fists until I was able to throw on a bathrobe
and talk to him, and then he would tell me that my husband had been killed in a
horrible accident. I threw the comforter over my head, trying to stay calm. I
would just wait here for the cop . . . I wouldn’t panic until I heard the knock
at my door. Praying never helped me in these situations. In my state of
half-awakedness, not even a heavenly presence could console me. All I could do
was focus on my breathing.
◦◦◦
The next thing I knew, sunlight was filtering in through the
blinds, and my phone alarm was going off. Unlike most people, I really liked
the sound of my alarm. At least during the summer, when it meant that I had
made it through morning, alone. I stretched and reached for my phone, giving it
a little kiss before I turned off the alarm. I only did crazy things like that
when Charlie wasn’t here. After six years of dating, I still felt like I had to
hide parts of myself from him.
I said a quick little prayer of gratitude that nothing horrendous
had happened during the night, and threw the comforter off me, instantly
regretting it. Stupid Charlie. He didn’t like to turn the heat on, and the
summer rain had made the temperature drop unnaturally in the apartment. He was paranoid about never having
enough money, and I was paying the price.
I jumped out of bed and ran the short distance to the bathroom. I
slammed the nozzle thingy as far into the red zone as I could get it, and I
silently cursed the cold. That was another thing Charlie didn’t know about me.
I really enjoyed a good swear word every now and then. It made me feel just a
little bit wicked. I hopped back and forth from foot to foot, trying to stay
warm. After a millennium, I stripped off my fuzzy duck pajamas and stuck a hand
into the warmish stream of water. Good
enough, I decided, and jumped in.
I felt the barely-warm water rush over my skin as I twisted back
and forth to get all of me wet, shivering a little. It will heat up soon, I told myself. Please, God, let it heat up soon. Finally, it started to steam.
Charlie thought I was going to die in the shower one day. Like a
frog. You know, how people cook frogs by putting them into a cold pot of water,
and then gradually heat it to a nice, healthy boil, until the frog is dead? I
always wanted my water boiling.
I grabbed my face wash and started scrubbing. I really enjoyed
washing my face. I felt like a new person after I shed my greasy, plastered
skin, and discovered my raw, shining, natural one. I know I should wash my face
at night, but that’s the last thing I want to do when I’m tired and snuggled
deep in my warm bed. Plus, I don’t like it when Charlie sees me without makeup.
It makes me feel vulnerable, and I know he thinks I’m ugly without it.
Suddenly, I froze. With my eyes squeezed shut to block out the
suds, I listened. There it was again. Noises. Coming from inside the apartment.
Was Charlie home already? I felt very alert as I peaked around the curtain,
looking for invaders.
“Hello?” I asked.
No answer.
“Hello?” I said louder.
I jumped as my eye caught movement. The bathroom door knob turned
slowly.
“Hello,” I whispered again. My knuckles, which gripped the plastic
curtain, turned white.
“Boo!”
I screamed, twisted around, fell to floor of the bathtub, and
balled into an up-right fetal position as Charlie flung the door open and
jumped into the bathroom. Holy hell!
I thought, rocking back and forth, trying to keep myself from going into shock.
“I hate you, Charlie!” I yelled at my knees, arms wrapped tightly around my
head. He laughed. “I hate you!”
“Honey, I’m home!” he sang.
“What the hel . . . eck were you thinking?”
Still chuckling, he stripped off his work clothes and climbed over
the lip of the tub, into the shower with me. He tried to crouch down to where I
sat on the floor, but ended up smashing his left thigh against the wall of the
tub, while sinking to his right knee, trying to get close enough to take me in
his arms, but not really succeeding. He
leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead, which might have been a sweet
gesture if I wasn’t so angry at him, not to mention the fact that he was awkwardly
crowding me. He was too big, I was too big, and all in all, this little pow-wow
we were having on the tub floor just wasn’t comfortable. I wanted him to stop
touching me.
“I’m sorry, babe. They sent us home early, because of the rain, and
I couldn’t resist.”
I stood up angrily, pushing him away, and grabbed the shampoo. “Resist
next time. Jerk.”
“I said I was sorry. You should have seen your face.”
I turned around and glared at him. The stupid grin slid from his
face.
“Fine, fine. I’m sorry.”
I turned around again, massaging my scalp clean. “I forgive you,” I
said smugly. I liked to make him feel bad for the things he did wrong. That’s
probably why our fights always lasted so long. I continued to ignore him as I
rinsed the shampoo out of my hair.
“You shouldn’t have the water this hot. All the money from the
school year is literally going down the drain.” I could hear a lecture coming
on.
Without looking at him, I reached behind me for the conditioner. “I
had another panic attack this morning,” I told him, not wanting to be made the bad
guy in this conversation.
“What?” His voice was tense.
That’s
it? That’s all you have to say about your wife’s fragile brain and acute sense
of paranoia? I grabbed the soap and started taking out my
frustration on the sleep-grime that covered my body.
“Andrea, look at me.”
Furiously, I scrubbed even harder. I could tell he was angry,
because usually he just called me Andy, but he had no right to be mad. He was the
one who had screwed up. I was the one
who should be upset.
“Look at me!” he said, grabbing my shoulder and spinning me around.
He wasn’t that much taller than I was, but he could be very imposing and a
little frightening when he was angry.
“What?” I snapped.
“Why do you keep doing this? What do you expect me to do about it,
Andrea?”
“Quit calling me Andrea.” I folded my arms across my chest and
stared defiantly at him. If he wanted a fight, I would fight. He started it,
after all.
“Why?” he asked.
“You have no reason to be upset with me.”
“You always make me feel like it’s my fault!”
“It is your fault! You
leave me alone in the morning, and I get so scared! This morning, I thought I
heard a crash. Then sirens. And I knew I was going to get a visit from a
policeman, or a call from the hospital, telling me that you had died! That
wouldn’t have happened if you had been next to me like you’re supposed to be!”
I knew that would hurt him. He would feel bad for being mad at me when he heard
how worried I had been about him. I looked up into his eyes, waiting for the
right reaction, but they didn’t soften at all.
“You know I have to work during the summers, Andy. Otherwise we
would starve.”
I rolled my eyes and threw my head back into the water, vigorously ushering
the conditioner out of my hair. That’s the problem with Charlie. He grew up
poor, and his parents always wondered how they were going to feed their kids,
one meal at a time. I had never had that problem. My parents weren’t rich. Actually,
they were in a lot of debt, but they used their money to enjoy life. They took
us kids to DC, London, Spain . . . I guess Charlie would say they were pretty irresponsible
with their money, but I had grown up thinking, if you had it, spend it. And if
you didn’t . . . well, they realized
that a little debt was worth the happiness!
Besides, Charlie and I had plenty of money. He worked full-time
during the school year as a civics teacher at Lawrence High and I worked from home,
doing free-lance editing. I didn’t understand why he felt like he needed to
work construction over the summer, especially when we could be using those
months to go the Disneyland or to explore Europe.
“Andy, we wouldn’t have enough money. You know that, right?” He put
his hands on my waist, pulling me closer.
I was too tired to fight anymore, after staying up half the morning
worrying, so I surrendered, putting my hands on his biceps. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Good.” His smile was back. “Now move out of the way so I can scrub
work off me.”
I squirmed around one more time, to make sure that I was completely
soap-free and then squeezed myself between his body and the shower wall, trying
to be as skinny as I could. I didn’t want his grimy body to wipe all over me,
effectively ruining the last 15 minutes I had spent getting clean. I reached for
a towel and pulled it inside with me, far away enough from the stream to keep
from getting wet, but not ready to meet the misty, cold, bathroom air until I
was sufficiently wrapped in the rough green fabric. I pulled my arms around my
body, and put my chin on my fists, which clasped the towel to my shivering
self, and waited.
“Hey,” he said.
I looked over at him, his wet hair slicked back handsomely from his
forehead. “What?”
“Have I ever told you how beautiful you look without make-up?”
I was taken aback. “What?”
“The only time you don’t wear it is right when you get out of the
shower. That’s when you’re the most beautiful.” He turned his back on me,
rubbing his hands over his face in the stream of water.
I didn’t know what to say. I just watched him for a minute, and
then stepped out into the steamy bathroom, my skin red from the hot water and
my cheeks pink from what I had just heard. I felt even more naked than I
literally was. It was the kind of naked where he could see me for who I really
was, and that scared me. He had told
me that before, but I had never believed him. Husbands were supposed to say
things like that, but I was starting to get the sense that he was sincere, and
that meant it was going to be harder for me to keep hiding things from him.
Things he didn’t need to know, like my love for occasional profanity or my
fondness of my cellular device.
◦◦◦
“Andy, I said no.”
“It’s just a new pair of work pants. I don’t see
what the big deal is.”
I was irritated again the next night, as we were
getting ready for bed. I didn’t understand why Charlie wouldn’t
listen to me. I felt more professional when I dressed up for work, even if my
work was at home. He didn’t understand that, which obviously meant it was
stupid and irrational. Why didn’t he treat me like his partner?
“I told you, we can’t afford it.” He pulled on his pajama bottoms,
much more roughly than necessary.
“We have plenty of money! What’s the pointing of hoarding, saving,
and scrimping? We can’t take it with us when we die anyway.”
I watched him from across the bed, anger building as I realized he
had no intention of listening to me, yet again. He didn’t treat me like his
partner because we weren’t a team. We functioned as two different individuals,
fighting for our own best interests, and I would never, ever understand him.
“Holy cow, Andy. Why can’t you understand where I’m coming from?”
I looked at him. His hand was in his hair, and he looked at me,
too. My chest started heaving, and I suddenly had a strong desire to pommel
something.
“Answer me,” he said.
Then I snapped. I don’t know what happened, but the strain of
fighting for so long finally killed my self-control. “You . . . you ass,
Charlie! You don’t treat me like I’m your wife at all! I’m just a kid to you.
I’m not a kid, Charlie!”
“What did you . . .?”
“Shut up and listen!” I threw my hands above my head and then
brought them down to my temples, digging my fingernails into my skull as hard
as I could. “I don’t care about money. Hell, let’s be in debt for the rest of
our lives! I want to live in a bigger apartment, in a quieter neighborhood . .
. it’s one in the morning! Where the hell do all of those people out there have
to go at one AM in the freaking morning?”
He blinked at me, his hand sliding from his hair. “Whuh . . . how .
. . since when did you start using language like that?” His voice was much
quieter now.
I pushed my palms into my
eyes. Of course that was the part he had paid attention too. He still wasn’t
listening to me. “I want to turn the heater on, at least when it’s
cold,” I said.
“That’s
why we have . . .”
“And
I want you to take me somewhere. I want to travel! I told you that before we
even got married. But do you care? No. All you care about is earning, earning,
and earning until you die . . . and what will happen to the money then?
Nothing. Nothing, Charlie! What’s the point?
“The
point is . . .”
“I
want my husband back! I want to fall asleep, and I want to wake up, having felt
safe the entire night!” I slumped onto the bed, shaking. I knew I had won
that time. There was nothing he could say to prove me wrong. I wasn’t wrong. I
looked up at his face and was surprised to see anger there instead of
repentance.
“I
work so hard to keep bread on our table,” he breathed.
I
started to feel a little scared. I felt something coming.
“Dang
it, Andy! I work my butt off, and all you ever do is complain about how I’m
never here for you. What do you want from me? I never do anything right. Why do
I even bother trying?” He turned around, stormed into the bathroom, and slammed
the door.
I
was stunned. We argued all the time, but he had never lost his temper with me
like that before.
“Money
doesn’t grow on trees, you know!” he shouted through the bathroom door.
How dare he take that tone with me? How dare he just walk away like
that? I slammed into bed, smacking my head into the pillow, and pulling the
comforter over my head. Screw you, you
dramatic baby, I thought. I’m going
to bed.
I was asleep before I kind of subconsciously felt Charlie slide
into bed next to me. I rolled over to
lay my head on his chest, but his back was to me. Hurt, I rolled back over,
remembering our fight. Then, his alarm went off. He slipped back out of bed, got dressed for
work, and was gone, without even saying good-bye. I felt a tear slide down my
cheek. I wasn’t sure when I started crying, but I brushed it away angrily and
flipped onto my other side. I hope he
gets in a real car accident today, I thought.
I anxiously waited for the noises to start again. I
wanted something else to throw in his face when he got home, on top of his
leaving like that. But something was wrong. There weren’t any noises at all.
Even the cars on the Avenue were silent.
Holy
crap, I thought. My marriage is in
trouble! I knew why the Avenue was empty. Everyone was at home this
morning, happily in bed with their wives, with nowhere to go. Charlie had
somewhere to go though. He had a place where he could escape from his horrible
wife. Why did I do this to myself? To him? I hated the silence. I wanted the
cars back. I wanted Charlie to love me again. If the cars returned, it would
prove that I could be unselfish. I could live in this dumpy, noisy apartment,
just because that’s what Charlie needed me to do. I could handle the mornings
alone, because Charlie was a hard-working man, just trying to take care of me.
The silence was worse than anything I could have ever imagined, so I started to
pray. But I felt nothing but fear. I was utterly alone. Even God had abandoned
me, and I deserved it.
I felt cold and scared as I stared at the white wall,
listening to nothing.
My phone went off a few minutes later, telling me that I had a new
text message. Thank goodness, I
thought. I needed something to distract me. Something to break the horrifying
calm. I grabbed my phone and sat up, wondering who would be texting me so early
in the morning. It was probably Marissa, since it was already eight AM her
time, and she had probably been up for at least a few hours already. She was
something of an early riser.
It was from
Charlie:
Hey babe, I’m
outside the apartment. I thought I’d give you a heads up that I’m coming in,
since I didn’t want to scare you like last time.
I got up and opened the bedroom
door, waiting for him to come inside. Nothing.
Okay, I texted
back, slightly confused and a little bit afraid. What was going on?
I heard a faint beep outside, telling me that he was
there and had just gotten my text. I hurried to the door.
He pulled his key out of the lock just as I reached it. I
flung it open before he even had the chance.
He stood there, eyes wide. “What
. . .”
I threw myself at him and
hugged him tight. It took a couple of moments for him to respond, but soon his
arms wrapped around me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. But I didn’t want to
breathe. I just wanted him to hold me.
Finally, I pulled away. “What are you doing home?”
He pushed me a little farther into the apartment and
stepped in after me, closing the door behind him. “Why aren’t you asleep? Let’s
go get in bed.”
I tried to examine his face, but it was too dark for me to read
what was there. “Alright.”
I crawled back into bed and waited for him. He sat on the
edge, unlaced his boots, took off his jacket, and pulled his shirt over his
head. This all ended up in a little pile on the floor. I was usually the messy
one, not Charlie. Finally, he slid under the covers next to me.
“They let me come home early,” he said.
I raised my eyebrows.
“Why?”
“I told them I had to go home, because my wife needed me.”
“Oh.” I looked down at my hands, which were clasped on my
stomach.
“I can quit tomorrow. If you really want me to.”
Outside the traffic had started moving again. I sat up, reached for
my lamp, and switched it on, turning to look straight at Charlie. He watched
me, a slightly worried expression on his face.
“I don’t want you to do that.”
“Really?”
“I hate it when you’re gone, but I know it makes you feel better to
work through the summers.”
He nodded and looked up at the ceiling. “It does. We may have
plenty of money, but I just get so nervous that it’s all going to drain away
some day.”
“I think I understand.” And I was really starting to.
I sat there, watching his chest rise and fall, thinking about what
he had just told me. I felt his eyes go to my face, and I looked up at him, not
sure what to say. I still didn’t want him to leave me, but I knew I would have
to make the sacrifice. So I smiled instead.
He smiled back, reached over to pull me down close, and I cuddled
up to him, my head on his chest. I always felt better when I was there.
“Thank you for offering to
quit your job for me,” I said.
“You’re welcome.”
“Maybe we could get a kitten instead?”
“Deal.”
“Hey, Charlie?” I twisted around to look at his face, resting my
hand on his chest.
"Yeah?”
“I’ve been swearing since I was 15.”
He smiled at me. “If I had known that earlier, I wouldn’t
have tried so hard to censor myself. Damn.”
