A letter to my husband – 2

That summer I'd found the rabbit lying in the road, hit by a car, its legs broken; he couldn't be saved. Yet, I had to try.

I knew the marriage couldn't be saved. Yet, I had to try.

I called the vet, no hope; we fed the rabbit lettuce, he refused to eat. He died. This, within 7 days.

Within 7 days of moving into our new home, I found the pictures; you said she was just a friend, and I believed you.

I'd not yet developed that deep intuition which erupts during times of stress.

Still I knew something was up. The marriage was in shards; we went through the motions, we searched each other's eyes for remnants of the other; we looked away, only to look again.

That summer, when you walked through the door, you brought a chill; I felt that cold blast right through you as you slammed the door; our eyes looked downward, ever avoiding each other should we suddenly find the common ground we once knew and blow your cover to smithereens.

That summer, my heart beat  to the tom-tom's drumming; its drumming rose to a deafening roar with each footfall that hit upon the road, as I ran to quell my nerves.

Winter came, still an impasse. On New Year's, you sat me down to talk. You confessed. I listened.

You said you'd continue with her--the unnamed woman—and I threw the champagne flute against the picture window and said, not here, you don't.

You applauded my outburst, felt relieved of your guilt; you were determined you'd stay; I was determined you'd leave. You left.

She was unnamed and unknown as she forbade any knowledge of her name or whereabouts.

I knew then you'd sunk into quicksand and that you'd never again surface.

I drove, trusting my instincts, going on nothing but intuition.

When I revealed the street in which I'd ended my journey, your mouth fell open.

You told me I'd found her street; you told me her name, her story; how she'd lost her children to drugs, how she drank and recovered and drank again; how she turned tricks, how she'd held her attacker at gunpoint; how she'd been arrested for concealing a weapon, for drugs, for prostitution.

You saw only her lily-white lies; you didn't see who she was.

That summer, the tom-tom's beat in my heart grew ever more deafening as my footfall hit upon the road as I ran.

The anxiety was unbearable; the videos showed nothing of our distress; how easily we stepped outside of our bodies to smile for the camera.

We created an invisible double of ourselves, someone to process the stress, so the other could get on with the business of life.

In midsummer, I'd had a dream of you and her on a lake, in a rowboat; you two sat in the boat; you'd lost your oars; I took my own oars from my boat and rowed ashore, leaving you two stranded.

I knew then we were finished. I knew also that we would continue together.

You moved back home.

Later, you heard she'd killed herself with drink and drugs; she was found naked in a motel bathtub next state over, dead from an overdose.

You'd never climbed out of that stinking quicksand; the shards from the clay pot that once had given our lives meaning remained broken.

One day, we knew our differences would cause problems longer than our shadows in late afternoon.

I only hope that you can heal and I can heal, in our own time, our own way.

Note: This is fiction; the emotions are real; the emotions have been placed inside the husband and wife characters.

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A letter to my husband - 1; A letter to my husband - 1.5; A letter to my husband - 2.5;  A letter to my husband - 2.6;

A letter to my husband- 2.7;

A letter to my husband - 3.