Page 104 of Spiralling Skywards: Fading
The door to my room opened again and the nurse walked back through, carrying a jug of water and a plastic cup with a straw in it.
She explained that the doctor would be in shortly, all while helping me to sit up and plumping my pillows behind me. She filled the cup with water and helped me to take a long sip through the straw. The whole time I was aware of Liam’s eyes on me—staring, hard, cold.
Nurse Judy, according to her badge, left the room and the silence hung heavy between Liam and me.
“Why’d you do it, Sares? I’m your husband, do you not think that I at least deserve an explanation?”
I took in a shaky breath and tried to arrange the words in my head. I knew that once I said them aloud, there would be no going back. The guilt and self-loathing that had held me captive and consumed me for the last six months crawled from my toes to my belly to my chest. It clawed its way from my insides out, until I was smothered, barely able to breathe.
The fog that I had been living in for the past few years made everyday life almost impossible, but after I did what I did six months ago, things just spiralled and spiralled until I was so far down the rabbit hole I couldn’t see a way back.
Then the dog happened. I killed the dog. It could’ve been one of my children. I put them in danger. It just confirmed things for me. I was no good. There was a reason people left me. And last night it all became clear, death became my only option.
“Why aren’t we enough? Why are me and the boys so inconsequential to you that you could do something like this?”
I let out another sob. I had no excuses and no energy, need, or desire to lie.
“I did it for you and the boys.” I told him, my voice sounding huskier than normal.
“What the fuck does that mean? How was it for us? We would never want you dead, you’re the centre of our universe,” he stated, matter of factly.
Oh, if only it were true. I shook my head in disagreement.
“You don’t even see me,” I told him, desperately trying not to cry.
“You’re all I fucking see, Sare, you’re all I’ve seen since the day we met.”
He was lying, and if he knew the real me, knew what I’d done, he wouldn’t be saying that.
“I’ve been in a dark and lonely place for so long. I wasn’t coping, not at all. You didn’t see that, did you?” I accused.
This, this conversation right here was just one of the reasons I made the decision to end my own life. Call me selfish, a coward, call me what you will but anything was better than living my life under the weight of the deepest, darkest of depressions and the all-consuming guilt that shredded me. I was terrified that I would eventually end up blaming my husband for it. It wasn’t his fault; it wasn’t my fault.
It just was what it was.
His eyes looked all over my face, and I could actually see the change in his expression as realisation dawned on him. He was actually seeing me for the first time in years, and realised that the light had gone from my eyes.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” he asked quietly.
“You never want to talk.” I didn’t want to sound accusatory, but I couldn’t seem to hide it from my voice.
“We go out with your work mates, and you have so much to say to everyone. I turn up at your office, and you’re deep in conversation with Mel, Liz, or Cassie, or any one of the other women there, but when you come home to me, all I get is silence.” My bottom lip trembled as I said the last few words. I hated myself for it.
“Sarah, I don’t talk because I didn’t think that I had to.” His voice was so soft that it filled me with sadness. I felt it right down to my bones. “You’re my sanctuary, my safe place. I come home to you and our babies, pull on my sweats and lie on the sofa with my hands down the front of my jocks, and I chill out. I can’t do that anywhere else. No one else sees me like that, just you and the kids. I leave all the shit that I deal with at work at the office. I spend the entire day counting down the hours till I can come home to you. Till I can bath the kids, tuck them in and eat dinner with you. I can’t wait till I can then lay with my head in your lap and switch off my brain.” His jaw was now trembling as he spoke.
Mine mimicked his, and we both broke a bit more.
“I’m not ignoring you when I do all of that Sarah, I’m soaking up every moment. I’m cherishing every fucking sight, sound, and smell of our home so that I can recall them the next day while I’m sitting in my office and things are going to shit. Those thoughts, feelings, and memories are what get me through each and every day. You . . . you, the home, and the life you provide me and the kids with, it’s all I’ve ever wanted. So don’t ever fucking tell me I don’t see you.”
He wipes his nose across the back of his hand.
“Sometimes, the only conversation I get to have with an adult is at the supermarket. The girl or boy on the checkout ask me how my day has been more than you ever do. Have you any idea how that makes me feel?” I was full on crying. I just let it go. My throat ached from the sobs I tried to speak around. “Lonely, isolated, worthless,” I spit out. “I look forward to you coming home all day, and then you just don’t turn up. No call, no text, nothing. It’s like I don’t exist anymore, like I’m just not important enough to bother with.”
He shook his head continuously as I spoke and looked at me in utter disbelief.
“It’s not like that—” I held up my hand to cut him off. I needed to get this out, and now that I had started, I couldn’t stop.
“And then on the nights you do come home, you take the kids up for their baths, you sit and eat dinner with me—giving me the tiniest scraps of your attention—and then you pass out cold on the sofa. Then, I’m alone again. Alone and feeling worthless. Like my life has no purpose other than to wipe arses and noses and cook dinners.”
