Short Story

The Truths We Keep

“I can’t remember what I said,” an empty voice jetted out of the receiver.
Even in my sleep, I knew who it was on the other end of the line. My blurred vision told me it was just after three in the morning. I groggily lifted myself upright in my bed and cupped my hand around the phone in an effort not to wake my husband who was sleeping soundly beside me.
“Liz, hang on a second,” I whispered as I eased my way out of my bed and into the bathroom.
My body jolted awake the second my feet hit the cold ceramic tile. Carefully, I shut the door and with the help of the moonlight peeking through the blinds, I found my way to the furthest corner of the bathroom. There I stood in the darkness and took one last deep breath before I held the phone up to my ear.
I could hear Liz’s quiet tears as she tried to remember the last words she spoke to her husband, Mark. This wasn’t the first time she had woken me in the middle of the night panicked like this, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“Liz, it’s going to be okay,” I lied.
“Tegan, I can’t remember. I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I just can’t…”
Her words were lost through her cries which had gone from controlled moans to hysterical sobs.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I said and then hung up the phone before she could respond.
These late night calls had become somewhat of a ritual this last year, although over the past few months the calls had become less frequent. From my estimation, we were down to about two a week. Liz hasn’t slept through the night since Mark passed away. Even the sleeping pills and anti-depressants can’t dull the pain enough for her to get a good night’s rest. She is showing some progress though. Now she doesn’t call every night. She is starting to calm herself down, but there are some nights, like tonight, when she needs assistance.
On the nights that she is fortunate enough to find rest, it is often disturbed by the vision of a police officer at her door. That image alone is all it takes to startle her back to reality and out of sleep leaving her to relive the last memory of her husband.
I slipped into the clothes I had hanging on the back of the bathroom door specifically for occasions like this and proceeded to make my way out of my home and over to Liz’s. As I tiptoed past my husband I paused and studied his peaceful face. Liz recently told me that she couldn’t remember what Mark looked like when she shut her eyes. She said that she felt like her memories were trapped in a thick, dense fog.
Since Mark’s death Liz had become a shadow of her former self. Once the glue that held everything together, now she was broken glass that had been trampled on during a stampede. I honestly don’t know if I will be able to pick up the dust and put her back together again.
Mark had been her whole world. She lived and breathed for him. I had always admired the relationship they had. They were so connected, on more levels than anyone else I had ever known. I remember thinking that once they had kids that things would probably change between them. After all, when you have children your attention usually shifts to them and unfortunately the husband is usually the one who suffers, but not with Liz. It’s not that she didn’t love her four children, she was always a model mother, but Mark was always number one. He appeared to be just as enamored with her. I always envied them, before anyway.
As I pulled into Liz’s driveway I noticed that almost every light was on at the house, except for the children’s rooms. She’s become afraid of the dark since the accident. It’s silly that a grown woman would be that way but we all deal with loss differently. This was just one of the many new habits Liz has picked up since Mark’s death.
Recently my daughter asked me what kind of power I would want if I were a superhero. That was an easy question to answer. Undoubtedly I would want the power to read minds. That would have been very useful to have, especially last year. If I had known that Liz would have turned into this fragment of herself, I may have made different choices. Maybe things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. Maybe we would all be sleeping now- me, Liz, Mark, all in our own beds. Sometimes I think he knew and that’s why he was driving so fast. He was trying to get home to keep her from shattering.
I froze for just a moment before I opened the door to her house. I needed a second to prepare for battle, because after all that is what this is. This entire situation has become a war. A war to bring Liz back. There have been battles won, but more losses than I can possibly count.
“Liz?” I said, as I peaked through the doorway.
Across the foyer, phone still in hand, I see Liz lying on the floor trembling.
“It’s okay. I’m here Liz.”
Seeing her there like that reminded me of an abandoned bird. She looked so weak, so frail, I was almost afraid to touch her. I gently placed my hand on her arm and began to stroke her long blonde hair. The color was drained from her face and her once sparkling blue eyes were now dull and gray. She had lost weight off her already slim body and now she was just a pile of bones.
She turned her head towards me and stared. Lately, when she looks at me it’s as if she’s trying to place me. Like when you see someone you haven’t seen in years, someone you know has played a role in your past life. Their face has all the warmth of a friend like one you know you can trust. If only you can remember how you know them. You rack your brain, flipping through it like a rolodex, until there is a spark of recognition. With Liz this process seems to take longer and longer even though I see her every day.
I know what the night has in store for me. I’ll calm her down enough to get her to lie down and for me to drive home to get a few hours of sleep. Then I’ll be back here in the morning to make Liz function. Take a shower Liz. Dry off Liz. Get dressed Liz. Please eat something Liz. Move your feet Liz. Take a breath Liz. Day in and day out, I’m here moving her like a puppeteer.
Finally the moment of recognition! I can see it in her eyes, a small glimmer of her former self. But just as quickly as it appears, it fades away.
“Thank you,” she mutters to me.
“Let’s get you a nice hot cup of tea. That will help make you feel better.”
I help her to her feet and lead her into the kitchen. As soon as I enter through the doorway, I stop dead in my tracks. I’m shocked at what is laid out before me.
On the oven is a frying pan with burnt eggs caked on it. There is a full pot of coffee on the counter. A breakfast set for two is on the table. A man’s jacket had been carefully draped over one chair. Seeing this scene, I knew I had just stepped back in time. This was the setting of the final occasion she would see Mark alive. Although I wasn’t there the last morning they spent together, I had seen it before. Liz has recreated this moment time and time again. The doctors told her to stop doing this, and as far as I knew she had.
“Liz, what is this?” I demanded.
“I thought if I just did it again, I could remember. If I went through the motions the memories would come flooding back, but they don’t. The only thing that comes back is the party. That stupid party! That’s all I was thinking about that morning. I didn’t hear a word Mark said to me. And the night before, the same thing. The party, the party. That’s it!”
The weeks leading up to the accident were filled with plans for Mark’s fortieth birthday bash. She was planning a surprise party for him which would have taken place the Saturday following his death. Instead of candles being blown out that day, a casket was shut.
“It’s funny how when there’s a big event on the horizon all the little things just fall through the cracks,” she spoke with no emotion.
She staggered to the table and lifted the jacket from the chair and brought it to her nose. I watched her inhale what was left of the scent of her husband.
“I don’t know if I told him that I loved him. I told him everyday, but I can’t remember if I did that day.”
She clutched the jacket to her chest and began to rock back and forth. With a distant look in her eye she began a play-by-play explanation of her morning, “I woke up and came downstairs. I started the coffee and then I set the table. I then took the egg carton and the butter from the refrigerator set it there by the stove. I put a tablespoon of butter in the pan and let it melt. Then I cracked three eggs into the…”
“Liz, stop! This is over the top. You can’t keep doing this! Do you know what will happen if your doctors find out about this? They will commit you Liz. Do you understand? They will lock you up in hospital somewhere, away from your kids. You won’t see your children anymore! Do you understand what I am saying? Locked away, Liz! I know you don’t want that. You might not see it now, but I know you don’t want that. You can’t keep doing this to yourself! This is ridiculous! You have to snap out of this!”
I could see immediately that I had hurt her, but for the first time I didn’t care. I just kept thinking about those four children sleeping upstairs and how in all of this they not only lost a father, but also a mother.
Liz was holding Mark’s jacket so tightly that her hands were turning red.
“How dare you speak to me that way,” she snarled. “You can’t even begin to comprehend what I’m going through!”
She was right, I couldn’t. I still had my husband. I still had my sanity.
She glared at me and asked, “How would you feel if your life was ripped away from you?”
That stung.
“But you still have your life, Liz. You’re just choosing not to live it.”
“Tegan, I don’t have a life without Mark. He was my everything. Don’t you get that? Without him I have nothing.”
She collapsed into a chair at the table and put her head in her hands.
“You don’t understand,” she went on, “he was the only one who really loved me. He took such good care of me. You know what I was like before I met Mark. He was the one who saved me.”
It was true, before Mark she was a mess. Her father had left when she was young and her mother raised her. However, her mother wasn’t a typical mom. She was more concerned with her own life and treated Liz like an obstacle she needed to overcome. She didn’t care what she did or who she did it with. Liz was left to fend for herself and took advantage of it. She was a wild child and I was her sidekick. I’d watch her drink herself into a stupor and then after she would black out, I would carry her home. She did drugs, she slept around and she was out of control. When she met Mark though, everything changed. He encouraged her to change into a better person, someone I was never able to help her become.
“Liz, I’m not saying Mark wasn’t a huge influence in your life, he was, I know that. I’m just saying you were ultimately the one who made the changes. The fact is you did change and you are who you are today because of the changes you made. You aren’t who you were years ago. You are stronger now. Even without Mark you’re still strong. You have to believe that! You have to move on with your life. If not for yourself, you must do it for your children,” I pleaded with her.
“I can’t. I need him…,” as she continued to praise her husband my mind began to wander. I could feel my blood begin to boil. I heard words like wonderful, strong, loving, trustworthy. The more she spoke the angrier I became. If only she knew the truth about her husband, would she be the same? I had a decision to make. I could calm her down, put her to bed and be back here to repeat the same thing tomorrow or I could tell her the truth, right here, right now. Maybe if she knew Mark wasn’t the saint she claimed him to be she would be able to pull herself together.
Before that night, I would have agreed with everything she believed about Mark. From what I could see, he was a great father and husband. He was supportive both financially and emotionally. He treated Liz like a queen, buying her gifts, putting her needs first, and for all intents and purposes, worshipping the ground she walked on. That’s why it was such a huge shock when I saw him that night.
I had plans to meet a colleague for dinner at LaBella’s Restaurant. I was running late, as usual. When I finally did get to the restaurant, I was frantic. This explains why I didn’t notice that I had parked next to Mark’s Volvo or that I walked right past him to get to my table.
It wasn’t until I finally settled down and was able to relax that I noticed him. I was glancing over the menu when something caught my attention. It was a familiar laugh. It only took me a second to place it… Mark. I turned my gaze towards the direction of the laughter to find not only Mark, but also a beautiful brunette woman not even closely resembling my best friend. I felt as though I had taken a bullet in the chest. In an instant the room began to spin and the sounds around me became distorted. A cold sweat swept over me, sending shivers down my spine.
My associate noticed something was wrong and asked if there was anything she could do. I shook my head and took a sip of water to help compose myself.
“Excuse me,” I said.
I was on autopilot. I felt myself push away from the table then allowed my feet to carry me over to Mark. Soon I was standing there, looking into the eyes of the man I had trusted with my friend.
I could tell he was stunned to see me. He shot a look across the table to the other woman and I watched the smile fade from her face. I stared him down for an eternity then leaned over and softly spit daggers at him.
“You have from the time I order, eat, and pay my bill to tell your wife.”
Then I coolly turned and went back to my table where I sat back and watched him leave the restaurant in a frenzy.
Of course, I couldn’t do what I said. After Mark left I apologized to my coworker and headed for my car. I drove to a nearby park where I silently watched the clock work through three hours before I proceeded to drive to Liz and Mark’s home. When I arrived, I was surprised by the sight of a patrol car parked in the driveway. Instead of finding my friend saddened because of her husband’s betrayal, I found a stranger in the shell of a woman who resembled my lifelong friend.
Mark had been killed in a car accident. Due to driving at excessive speeds, he had lost control of his car and wrapped it around a tree. He died instantly, taking his wife’s spirit with him.
To say I didn’t feel responsible would be a lie. Everyday since the accident, I have been ridden with guilt. It’s what I wake up thinking about and fall asleep dreaming of- how I took my best friends life from her. Everyday I watch her deteriorate and think if it wasn’t for me she would be delusionally happy.
Now as I stand in her kitchen I am faced with a choice. Should I or shouldn’t I? If I tell her, I will single handedly shatter the memory of her marriage. If I keep quiet, I will be sentencing the both of us to a life no longer livable, me with my guilt, and her with her pain. Either way she will be destroyed. So, do I ruin the past or the future?
“Liz,” I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She turns her head up to me, and at that moment, I see defeat written across her face. She is done. She shifts her weight and lets her body melt into mine. I gently lift her from the chair and guide her to her bedroom.
As we move down the hallway, I am startled by Liz’s oldest son. She doesn’t notice him as he slips out of his room and heads downstairs. I continue to guide her to her room, all the while listening to the fourth grader clean up the remnants of his mother’s breakdown in the kitchen. Here we both are, doing our part to keep up the illusion that she is getting better.
Once in her room, I help her into bed and get her settled in for what is left of the night. She closes her eyes, emotionally exhausted, she sleeps.
On my way out, I pass a picture of Liz and Mark. It was taken on their last trip together. They were on a cruise. He is staring straight into the camera and she is gazing up at him with a content smile gracing her lips.
I couldn’t help but wonder could she really see him? I certainly couldn’t, but I was on the outside. Do we only see what we want to see? I know the answer… we do. I tell myself that I’m helping her, when in fact I’m just enabling her to ease my own guilt. She convinced herself that her husband was perfect and then hid behind him to cover up her own insecurities. If she knows the truth will she see it, or will she only see the story she has told?
I turn back to her and lightly kiss her on the forehead, “Sleep well, Liz. I will be back tomorrow.”