Yavonne

I stood beside the bed in the dark and looked down at him. How is it a 38-year-old, 6-foot, 210-pound man can look like a 5-year-old in his sleep? Must be a lack of conscience -- or at least a clear conscience. So sweet an expression, so free of worry, so innocent. I was torn between wanting to stroke his cheek and smothering him with his own pillow.

In the end, I did neither. I laid the envelope on the nightstand and silently left the bedroom, the house, and my own quiet Hell.

I walked the half-mile to the entry of our subdivision where Lisa waited. As I opened the car door and got in, thunder cracked and the angels wept.

"Are you OK? Did he try to stop you?"

"No." I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and thought, But he might have if I had told him.

I was still in bed in Lisa's guestroom the next morning when the phone rang. The bedside clock read 6:15. I could hear Lisa's voice through the closed door.

"No, Will, I'm sorry. She doesn't want to talk yet. . .I'll tell her you called though. . .I'm still your friend, too. But. . .Will, please. . .Fine. I'll give her your message." He must have said something ugly, that last comment had a sharp edge to it.

The door to the guestroom -- my room for the moment -- began to open. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep still. After a few moments of silence, the door closed again. Lisa, bless her, was the very best kind of friend. Loyal, caring, ready to help no matter what. But also ready with a motherly lecture if she felt you needed one. I was fairly certain she'd think I needed one now. She might have agreed leaving Will was best for me, but she strongly disapproved of the way I left.

I know I took the coward's way out. But I couldn't bear to confront Will with my feelings. Mostly I was just scared he'd manage to talk me into staying. After all, what good reason could I give for leaving. Will was perfect. My life with him was perfect. Just. . . perfect.

I remember when I told this to the therapist. . .that first one. She had actually laughed. Will and I had only been married a year and a half. I can still smell the cheap potpourri she had out on the table. Everything in her office was carefully contrived to obscure the room's real function. Ambient lighting, unobtrusive classical music, soothing color scheme. The inevitable desk sat hidden in a dim corner, while what designers call a "conversation grouping" of couches and chairs was clustered in front of bright windows that overlooked a beautiful courtyard. Each and every aspect deliberately structured to produce a calming effect. To make patients -- excuse me, clients -- comfortable and forget the woman they were spilling their guts to was actually dissecting and analyzing every tone, nuance and flicker of movement. All at $200 for 50 minutes. Guess they must need that extra ten minutes to encapsulate your neuroses.

Goodness, we're not bitter, are we?

That therapist listened to me exactly 32 minutes before she laughed. She thought she was being reassuring and congenial. Yeah, right.

"Oh, everyone feels that way from time to time, dear. You're perfectly normal. It's referred to as 'the end of the honeymoon'. Reality is setting in, that's all." She reached over and patted my arm. "I know it's such a relief to hear. But you'll still need help adjusting to married life. Make an appointment for next week on your way out."

We didn’t even get the full 50 minutes. She had me pigeonholed in just under 40.

To his credit, Will insisted we not go back to that idiot. Even though, deep down in his secret heart, he wanted to agree with her. Will wanted the problem to be simple, something lots of couples go through. If it was normal, then it really wasn't a problem, was it?

But there was a problem. I knew it. Will knew it too. No matter how many therapists say everything's fine, sometimes what's pretty on the outside is really nothing but papier-mâché -- hollow and empty.

**********

8:15 am. I could get up safely now. Lisa should be the only one home. As I opened the door into the hallway, I listened. Stillness. A distinct lack of bustling family-type sounds. That was a relief. No uncomfortable questions to answer. No "Von! What are you doing here?" No "Why did Aunt Yavonne spend the night without telling us?” No "Where's Uncle Will?" I seriously doubted my abilities to deal with such innocent questions.

I walked into the sun-filled kitchen with its painted handprints all over the walls. Lisa and Ted did that themselves. I could remember Lisa laughing about how they bickered over whether the colors should be random or in a set pattern. That was over ten years ago and Lisa still got dreamy-eyed when she talked about the way they had argued until finally they had simply made love on the kitchen floor amidst the paint globs. She swears up and down that was when their second child, Anna, had been conceived.

I poured fresh coffee into the cup that was waiting on the counter just for me. It even had my name on it. Looking around I picked out the differences between my own kitchen and this one. Here, the breakfast table was still cluttered with dishes, the sink held a pot from last night's dinner. The windows could have used a good scrubbing and the floor could too. To top it all off, there was a fresh pancake-syrup-handprint on the refrigerator -- just about 6-year-old Jonah's size. They often say the kitchen was the heart of the home. Here it was in practice. Lisa was a flake and sometimes a slob, but she cherished and enjoyed her family and home.

My own kitchen -- mine and Will's -- was gleaming chrome. Everything spotless and decorator perfect. Straight out of a designer magazine, right down to fresh flowers every week, professionally -- but casually -- arranged. And not just because Will wanted it that way. He would have been just as happy in a kitchen like Lisa's. No, the perfect kitchen was for me, even though Will did most of the cooking.

"I know you're in there!"

The voice just outside the backdoor startled me bad enough that I sloshed coffee onto the floor. I took a deep breath as I realized it was Lisa yelling from the back deck. I tore a paper towel off the roll that stood on the counter (in my kitchen the paper towels sat on a spindle, inside a cabinet) and mopped up the spilt coffee.

"Von? You are in there, aren't you?"

"Don't get your panties in a wad. I'll be right there." I refilled my coffee before walking outside onto the deck.

Out on the deck, Lisa was sitting in her usual lotus position on her favorite quilt. She was concentrating on the Tarot cards she was dealing out in front of her.

I sat down in the only chair on the deck. "Planning your day?"

Without looking up, she turned over another card, "No. Yours."

I sipped my coffee. "So, is the Earth gonna crack open and a thousand fiery demons reach up to drag me to the depths of Hell?"

Lisa still didn't look up. "We’ll know in a second." She took one last card from the deck. From where I sat, I could see it was 'The Hanged Man'. Sacrifice. A chill ran through me. I slipped out of the chair to sit on the quilt beside Lisa and see all the cards.

"Does that mean I'll have to make some sort of significant sacrifice?"

Lisa tapped The Hanged Man card on one bare toe while she studied the layout before her. "Mmmmm. . .or maybe you've already made it."

Already made? I thought of everything I had sacrificed in the last 10 hours -- my home, my security. . .and, of course, Will. He had been offered to the gods just as surely as if I had cut out his heart or thrown him into a volcano. I had deserted him . . .in the dark of night. . .like a thief. . .like a coward.

Deserter. . .coward. . .wretch. . .what kind of person was I? Will had given me everything. Not just possessions, but his time, his attention, his whole heart and soul. What had I done? How could I possibly commit such a heinous crime against this man?

Swear to God, sometimes Lisa really is psychic. At the very moment I had recognized the true evil of my deeds, she grabbed my wrist and brought out of my twisted daydream.

"Keep it in the now, not the may-be,” she looked me sternly in the eyes and gave me a pinch to cement her point.

"Ow!"

"Now back to the question I was trying to ask while you were zoned, 'are you going to work today?'"

I hadn't thought about the office. Should I go in? More than likely Will had already called there looking for me; ergo, it stood to reason that the office grapevine was working overtime speculating as to why he's anxious to be in touch at this time of day. Too many awkward stares and whispers. "No, I don't think I'll go in today."

Lisa gave me another of her motherly "I disapprove" looks. I lowered my gaze from hers pretty quick. She lowered hers back to the deck in her hands and the cards on the quilt. "Whatever. But you have go in tomorrow. And then you have to talk to Will."

"I just can't. . .not right now." The thought of confronting Will -- face-to-face or even by phone -- was unbearable.

"Not right now often rots into not ever. And Will deserves better than that." She had the guilt thing down better than my mother. "You deserve better than that too.” She gathered up the Tarot cards and slipped them back into their little velvet sack with the silver cord drawstring. She stood and pulled on the quilt, forcing me to get up.

"I guess you can make yourself useful around here while you play hide-and-seek with your emotions. I'm in charge of snacks for Jonah's class this week. So you can be assistant cupcake-hander-outer. . .today."

By the time we had handed out all the cupcakes I was wishing I had gone on to work and faced the Inquisition there. Fifteen squealing, giggling six-year-olds. How did Lisa stand it? I mean I love Jonah, but there’s only one of him. Get a bunch of the little beady-eyed crumb snatchers together and the pack mentality takes over. It was no time before they had me pegged as a newbie and unsteady. Three or four of them quickly culled me from the herd and kept me cornered while they wore me down with questions and more information than any one person needed to know.

“Did you know flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp?”

“My grandpa has hair growing out of his ears.”

“My grandpa can blow smoke out of his nose. He looks like a dragon.”

I learned fast the questions didn’t require answers. Really, they came in such quick succession, there wasn’t time to answer. Some left me speechless and unable to answer anyway. Like little Ashley who asked if I was really Jonah’s aunt.

“I have an Aunt Susie, but she isn’t really my aunt. She’s really my mommy, but Granny makes me call her Aunt Susie. Granny took me away from her when I was a baby ‘cuz she was a baby too and Granny says she didn’t know how to take care of a baby and she might drop me or feed paint or something.”

How do you respond to something like that? I must have looked like a deer in headlights, because the teacher rescued me fairly quick after that.

**************************

Later that afternoon, I felt almost normal again as Lisa and I sat on the back deck drinking wine and eating leftover cupcakes.

Lisa laughed as I told her the things the kids had told me.

I was so relaxed that I didn’t think twice when the phone rang. At least not until I heard Jonah exclaim, “Uncle Will. Aunt Von came to my class today…Yessir, she’s here…Are you coming over?”

I started to panic. Lisa touched my arm. “Don’t you move. He’s already been told you’re here. You wanna explain to Jonah why you won’t talk to his Uncle Will?”

I was stuck.

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Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Yavonne and Will -- Chapter One

Yavonne