Broken (13 page)

Heather stared at me intently. I felt such anger
towards her for ruining our lives, ruining her own life, and especially
William's. She pulled her arm free of my grip and walked a step closer. With a
low hissing voice she said the words I will never forget:

"You, Chris. I never had you."

Shocked by the truth in her answer I took a step
backwards in the driveway. "What do you mean by that?" I asked even
though I knew the answer all too well.

Heather scoffed. "Remember how I was used to get
everything I laid my eyes upon? Everything I wanted? Remember how no one ever
was able to say no to me?" She paused not to wait for my answer but to
make sure I got the message. I did. I did before she finished her sentence. It
felt like someone had punched me in my stomach.

 
"Well
no one except for you, Chris. I wanted you and granted I did get to marry you.
But I could never get the only thing I ever wanted. I could never get you to
love me. Not like you loved her. That is all I ever wanted in life. You to look
at me the way you used to look at her."

Heather went straight for the bar in the living room
when we got inside and poured a drink. I followed and stood right behind her as
she emptied the glass without putting it down. Then she poured another one. I
sighed deeply. I wanted to take all those bottles and throw them out the
window. I wanted the alcohol and pills out of my life for good. I felt so
guilty for not having stopped her when there was still time. Now that I
realized how much she struggled to get me to love her I felt a heavy weight on
my shoulders as well. I had a part in this too. I was just as responsible as
she was for causing this. I could have stopped her, I should have gotten her
help before it went this far. Before she ...
 

"Please leave me alone," she said with a low
voice. Her back was still turned at me.

I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I am
sorry," I whispered. "I am sorry I haven't been a good enough husband
for you. I tried my best. I really tried."

Heather drank again. "Well I guess I learned my
lesson," she said. "I thought I could make you love me."

"I did love you. I still do."

Heather emptied her glass before she turned and looked
at me. "Just not the way you love her," she said.

I had no answer for that. She was right. I had loved
Aiyana
in a special way. I still did love her, but Heather
was my wife and I was not ready to give up.

"You made it so easy for me, Chris," she
said as she turned her head to face the window again. "It was so easy for
me to just give up. Nobody needed me. Not William. Not you."

"We all needed you. We still do!" I said.

"No, you don't." Heather grabbed another
bottle and lifted it with the intent to pour herself another drink. I pulled it
out of her hand and put it back on the table. Our eyes met.

"No more of this," I said. "We need to
figure out what to do now."

Heather snorted and grabbed the bottle again.
"That's where you and I are different, Chris. I need this more than ever
now."

"No. We need to figure out what to do. I need you
to be sober. We need to figure out what to tell William. When to tell him, if
we should tell him anything. We need to start you on medicine and get you the
best treatment possible. Drinking alcohol will only make your immune system
weaker and make you more receptive to diseases."

Heather shook her head and pulled the bottle close to
her body like she was hugging it. "This is all I need right now," she
said and turned away from me. I was on the verge of panic.

"No!" I yelled. "I am not giving up on
you now! This is not over yet. We can fight this. I know we can."

Heather spun around and looked at me. "There is a
huge difference between you and me now, Chris. You still belong to the world of
the living and therefore think like someone who actually has a future. I
don't."

Then she turned around and left me. I was alone.

Chapter 16

I was
sitting on
the thick carpet in the hallway outside the
bedroom door when William returned from school with Sarah. I had been crying
and hid my face in my arms as I heard him calling for me.

"Far? Far?"

I didn't answer. I had dreaded this moment when I was
to stand face to face with my son and tell him his mother was ill and would
probably die. I still remember when my own father told me my mother had cancer.
Every little detail is etched in my memory. My dad was wearing an ugly brown
cardigan; the smell of Goulash was coming from the stove making me nauseous.
That sensation still returns whenever I smell it. My dad had a small crumb of
bread in his moustache when he spoke the word. Cancer. It caused it to vibrate
as it followed the movements of the upper-lip. I wondered if it was going to
drop off. My dad smelled like cigarettes and coffee ... and cheese. He had just
finished a piece of bread with cheese before I entered the kitchen. The clock
on the wall made a loud ticking sound in the background. It was seven minutes
past four on a Tuesday afternoon. Nothing about this day had seemed special on
my way home from school. It had been just as cold and rainy as always and my
trousers were wet from the puddles I had ridden through on my bike. I was still
wearing my backpack when my world at once dissolved by that one word
"cancer" in my kitchen which had so many fond memories from my
childhood. The same place I had sung songs with my mother while she played the
guitar for me, the same place she had put a Band-Aid on my scraped knee and
wiped my tears away with her hands. The same place we had laughed till the
tears rolled down our cheeks and cried when my grandmother died, while holding
each other's hands and talking about how much she had meant to us. In there, in
that same kitchen my life was forever changed and after that nothing was ever
the same again.

I lifted my head and listened to hear if Heather was
still awake. I sat outside the door of our bedroom listening to her weep for a
little over an hour, wanting to go in and put my arms around her and tell her
that we could get through this together and that I would be there for her no
matter what. But she locked the door and refused to open it. She wanted nothing
to do with me, she said. She didn't care what we did or what I told anybody. I
could tell them she was dead for all she cared. It was going to be true soon
after all. I knew she was emptying the bottle and I let her. This was what she
needed right now. This was her way of dealing with this, or maybe not dealing
with it, but it was all she could do right now. I knew it and accepted it. She
had been quiet for a while and I figured she had probably passed out.

"Far? Where are you?" William's small voice
called from the stairs. Small feet climbing the stairs followed and soon I saw
his wonderful blue eyes staring at me. He tilted his head slightly.

"What are you doing here, Far?"

I wiped my face dry with my hands and hoped my eyes
weren't as red and swollen as they felt.

"Why are you sitting there?" he asked as he
came closer while wrinkling his nose at me.

It made me chuckle lightly. I forced a smile and
swallowed my pain. A knot of sadness grew in my throat as I looked into
William's eyes and realized how much sorrow they were about to be filled with,
how many tears they were about to shed. I knew how it was going to feel for
him. I had been there. My mother had been sick for years with cancer before she
died. Every day coming home from school I had feared opening the door and
finding her dead in her bed. Every single day for two and a half years my
stomach would cramp when I put the keys in the lock and opened the front door.
I would call her name, petrified that there would be no response. As her answer
came I remember vividly the relief I felt while running upstairs and going into
her room to kiss her and feel her love as if it was the very last time. Because
I knew it might be. I knew it would be one day.

A tear slipped from the corner of my eye as I grabbed
my son and pulled him close. I hugged him a long time, just held him tight
while crying deep inside because I knew that he would have to go through the
exact same thing. So much pain, too much pain for such a young age.

It was unbearable.

"What's wrong, Far?" he said seriously,
already too old for his age.

I bit my tongue to not burst into tears. I took a deep
breath and stroked his cheek gently. I saw the fear grow in his eyes and
recognized it all too well.

"Is everything okay with Mom? Is Mom sick again?
I want to see her!" he said with a slight trembling voice. He was trying
so hard not to panic.

What I did next wasn't really well thought through, I
admit. But I did it with the best of intentions. I did it to save him some
tears, to spare him months or even maybe years of torture. I decided I wasn't
going to tell him that his mother was terminally ill. Not yet. I just couldn't
do it yet. I decided that my son wasn't going to live with the same fear that I
had. Yes he was probably going to lose his mother but I didn't want him to be
afraid every moment he had left with her as I had been. I didn't want him to
sit next to her bed while she was asleep just to make sure she was still
breathing. I didn't want him to throw up in the schoolyard from fear of coming
home and finding her dead. I didn't want him to have the same sleepless nights
and constantly say no to play dates with friends because this might be the last
day with her. I didn't want William's life to stop. I wanted him to remember
his time with his mother as something wonderful and special, not filled with
the same anger I had shamefully felt towards my own mother because I knew she
was going to leave me. Anger and pain was all I remembered from those years. So
much that it had actually been a kind of relief when she had finally died. Only
then I could let go of my fear and begin to live again. That was when I started
living my own life.

I swallowed hard and pulled him closer again.
"You know what, buddy?" I said with a cheerful voice. "She can't
see you right now because Mom is sleeping. Remember how I told you that Mommy
is a true princess?"

William nodded.

 
"And
everybody knows that real princesses need lots of sleep."

His face brightened for a second. "Like Snow
White?"

I nodded with a deep sigh. "Just like Snow White
and Sleeping Beauty and the Princess and the Pea. Remember I read you that
story?"

"Yeah. That story written by that guy from
Denmark, right?"

"His name was Hans Christian Andersen. But the
point is that since all princesses need a lot of sleep, so does Mommy. She will
probably be sleeping a lot from now on and will be in her bed a lot. What we
need to do is make sure that she has everything she needs and make sure to not
disturb her too much. Can you do that for me?"

"Sure. But will she ever wake up?"

"If you kiss her she might. But not right now.
Right now we have more important matters to attend to."

William looked at me.

"Can't you hear it?" I said.

He shook his head, causing the blond curls to shake.

"Well maybe it is because it is coming from
inside of me. I hear my stomach needs something. It craves something nice. Now
what could that be? Something nice for the stomach ... Aha! I've got it. Ice
cream. How about yours? Does your stomach also scream for ice cream?"

"It sure does," William laughed. "Mine
wants chocolate."

I took William in my arms and started walking towards
the stairs while whispering in his ear: "But we might have to fight the
evil witch for it. She controls the kitchen you know. I think she might be down
there right now. Listen!"

William laughed again. "That's just Sarah!"

"She might be just Sarah to you, but how do you
know that she is not an evil sorceress to someone else?"

"Then I
wanna
be
Spiderman!"

"You read too many comic books. Spiderman is not
real!"

"He is to me!"

"Okay then you'll be Spiderman," I said and
put him down as we reached the end of the stairs. I watched him run towards the
kitchen and hug Sarah's leg. She put her hand on his head while stirring in a
pot on the stove. William turned and looked at me.