Page 12 of Beyond our Forever

Starved of love and affection, all the things we never said to each other led to the death of our marriage.

I don’t know what kind of magic Beth has done with the children, but when I eventually walk in, everyone is in their bed, ready to fall asleep, so at least they won’t get to see the state I am in.

I walk through the hall, consumed by the silence that darkens them even more, looking at the photos that hang on the walls like someone watching a movie go by. As if it were someone else’s life, everything seems so distant, so alien, so far away.

In one of my favorites, we are all posed smiling, sitting in front of the magnolia tree we planted in the garden when we moved here about eight years ago, so spring will always live in our house, Bruce said, and I believed him.

The woman in the image looks happy, radiant even, ignorant of what is to come, blind to the future.

Where was it lost?

When car lights illuminate the entrance, I’m more than sure who it is. I hug myself, waiting for him to enter, gathering the few forces I have left, stubbornly standing.

In the distance I hear my phone ringing over and over again, but the door never opens. The minutes pass, until looking through the curtains, I see Bruce’s car drive away.

I sigh in relief. He’s gone, he’s given up.

Maybe it’s time to do what Emilia has advised me to do so many times. Find me a good lawyer, put some order in the chaos ruling my life.

One step at a time… I tell myself.

First I have to get through the long night ahead of me.

A few hours to convince both my head and my heart that this is for the best.

Because I have to find a way.

The way to be me again.

To stop being a noun and go back to being the verb.

To be the ‘I’ in my own life.

???

“Come on, kids, hurry up,” I nag them the next morning. “It’s getting late.”

It’s the same every day. Noah can never get up on time, Aaron takes more time than he should in the shower, and Ava refuses to put on her school uniform. Some days she doesn’t like the skirt, other times it’s the shoes. It means we always run late, avoiding the traffic and praying to God that we get there before the bell rings. We live on the outskirts of the city, in a sparsely populated, almost rural area. That allowed us to buy a bigger and more comfortable house at a better price. To tell the truth, we bought a run-down property and transformed it to our taste.

But well, nothing in this life is free, there’s always a downside. Ours is that we have to be punctual, we must always leave a little earlier.

As we head down the narrow road, I see a moving truck parked on the property closest to ours. They finally sold the Trubber’s old house. I hope they’re good neighbors, and I mentally remind myself to bake at least a dozen muffins to welcome them to our street. One more item to the already long supermarket list.

Today is a day to stop by the bank, stocking the pantry and, apparently, also create confectionery.

An hour and a half later, I climb the stairs to the front porch, carrying a shopping bag in each hand, craving a good cup of tea and some cookies that should be in the kitchen.

I drop one of the packages on the entrance mat, ready to hunt through the madness of my handbag for the keys. Until something strange stops me cold.

A couple of red flowers that I don’t recognize, tied with string, rest on the entrance mat. I turn around, looking for the perpetrator of the joke. Everything looks the same as always.

Exactly the same.

Well, in a neighborhood like this, there aren’t often any changes.

Nice joke you played this time, Emilia.

It cannot be anyone else. And yet, instead of making me laugh, it has again managed to leave me on the verge of tears.

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