Excerpt
Randall doesn’t step forward to comfort me, to hold me, to smooth my hair or to say everything will be alright. I feel naked and vulnerable before him and these two strange men sitting and drinking coffee at my kitchen table, my pain new, raw and exposed. If someone doesn’t get me to a chair soon, I will find myself on the floor.
The men don’t seem to recognize how close I am to collapsing, so I stumble to the nearest chair and sit down. With the mechanical precision of an old robot, I raise the crumpled sheet of paper too close to my face and begin reading, the ever-present tears clouding my vision.
“Mom, Dad, the only reason that I’m leaving this note is so that you don’t think something terrible has happened to me. It hasn’t. I left because I needed to get out of your house before I suffocated. I felt like I was slowly dying here. It’s like I never belonged here anyway. Lately it seems that there is no peace in your house ever, and it seems to me that I’m the reason everyone is mad. Mom, I don’t think you ever liked me, especially after you had Terrence. I think that you would be happier if I was gone. You won’t have to pretend that you like me when we both know that you only put up with me because I’m your daughter. Now you can focus on your one perfect child, since your messed up one will no longer be around. Now that I’m gone, maybe the three of you can get back to being a happy family. I need to grow up and you don’t want to let me do that, but I think I’m old enough to begin making some decisions on my own which is why I’ve made this one. I do love you very much. I just can’t live in your house under your rules anymore. Ashley”
By the time I reach the end of the note, I’m sobbing uncontrollably, fully releasing the torrent that has been trying to escape my battered soul all morning. The crumpled notebook paper is a tight wad in my hand. I hold on to it as if it is my only lifeline, totally oblivious to anyone else in the room.
Then I feel a strong hand on my shoulder. I look up, expecting to find my husband coming to be with me in my time of desperation, to comfort me, to talk with me, to do something to make me feel better, something to give me reassurance that we will get through this together.
But it isn’t Randall. He has taken a post at the kitchen window with his back turned to everyone else in the room, his back turned to me. The hand on my shoulder belongs to Officer Martin.
“Ma’am, we’re gonna need that.” He motions for me to hand him the note.
At first I hesitate, not wanting to relinquish this last little bit of my baby girl to a total stranger, but then I hand it over.
I look past Officer Martin to Randall, who although present in the room in body, I can tell is far, far away in thought. I know him so well. Even though I need him to share this ordeal with me, he is unable to share his pain with anyone. This man, this strong and good provider for his family, my almost-too-perfect husband, Mr. Take-Control and Always-In-Control, has finally run up against a situation he is ill-equipped to handle. This situation doesn’t involve theories of cause and effect or injury and relief. This situation deals with issues of the heart at their most basic, painful level, a level that Randall has never allowed anyone, including himself, to explore. As much as I wish otherwise, I know that he can’t comfort me. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because I’ve always given him a pass where complex matters of the heart are concerned. If he’s an emotional cripple, I’m largely responsible. He’s not capable of being there for me because he doesn’t know how.
And so I step into my appointed role in our relationship. I allow myself to know what’s in his heart without requiring him to demonstrate it. My heart opens to Randall, even as his remains closed to me in our mutual time of heartbreaking need.
The officers began collecting their papers and prepare to leave. Through a haze of pain and affection, I hear bits and pieces of what they are saying... “We’ll talk with some of her friends”... “Here’s my card, give me a call if you hear anything”... “There’s not much else that we can do at this point.”
I float through the haze past them, floating almost effortlessly to Randall, who is still standing ramrod stiff in front of the kitchen window. I hear one of the officers say they will show themselves out. Then I hear the door close as they leave.
I reach Randall and touch his side, willing him to turn around, to turn to me. Reluctantly, but finally, he does. Silently, I open my arms to him in much the same way he did to me only a few hours earlier when our world was still perfect and untouched by tragedy. He comes into them for the comfort that he has been unable to offer.
And there in the silence of our perfect kitchen, in our perfect house, with our perfect world crumbling all around us, the only sound that can be heard is the sobbing of two souls, lost in the stark, unavoidable realization that what seemed so perfect hours before was little more than a formulaic facade.
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