Quiet Interlude

With apologies to Robert Stack

Listen here

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It's 5:23 a.m. barely morning light.

Eerie fog sitting low floating like clouds atop the water and I begin to walk into the river outside my house in my quilted robe. Rocks filled each pocket.

I had every intention of doing it this time.

It feels so cold.

I walked until my face and my body completely disappeared and began to float belly down.

Everything was dark and murky.

Algae and bubbles surrounded my still frame. I folded my body to reach down as far as I could for anything heavier. I could feel stone graze my fingertips and managed to grab two big ones. I flipped over onto my back and waited for my face to reach the surface for air.

Deep inhale.

Exhale.

Ok, yes I thought while smiling. I'll put one in each pocket and try this again. I'm determined to make this work tonight, this morning. My robe separated from my legs falling with the pressure of my newfound friends.

There we go.

I look up towards the sky one last time, closed my eyes and let everything in me go free with absolute resolve. In a few minutes, hopefully seconds, I'll have everything I've ever wanted.

Heaven on earth.

I sank lower and lower into the abyss and forced my eyes open under the current. I can only describe what I saw as what one might see through a kaleidoscope.

It was beautiful.

Should I just start breathing in water right now or hold my breath until I can't?

I chose the latter.

I felt something brush past my feet and assumed it was just some floating rocks. Next came a sudden pinching feel on my toe then that pinch turned into a full-blown bite. That was definitely a bite! I started screaming underwater and without thinking my body immediately started scrambling back up to the top. Not even the weight of the rocks could hold me back at that point.

My body pops out of the river, arms flailing in the air. I spit the rest of the water I frantically gulped out my mouth, threw all the hair covering my face out the way, and start treading in circles looking for what in the hell that was.

My adrenaline is on 1,000 and now what was to be the most beautiful day of my life is resembling a horror movie. The misty fog, the barely visible river, the dark gray sky. I hear a little movement and turn my attention quickly to that direction.

Is that a...?

I squint my eyes at this ominous dark mound-shaped creature and thought my god is that an alligator, an anaconda? No, it's two little ass big back turtles all in my business. In that same instance of sudden relief, a wave of embarrassment and rage washed over me. I grabbed for the stones in my pocket and began hurling them at the turtles. None of which even hit them and off down the stream they went.

Now what do I do?

Jaw clenched and fist balled, I drew my arms into my chest and let out a screaming FUCKKKKK! A scream that rivaled even the best gut-curdling one from Hamnet's mother.

This is now my third failed attempt.

5:35 a.m.

I walked out of the river, clenching onto my robe that barely clung to my body. I fix my hair, tighten my belt and start heading back to my house before the first round of dog walkers and joggers start appearing. I fold my arms to lock in any heat possible, seeing every breath that leaves my body amongst the cold air.

I'm shivering, I'm pissed, I'm grieving for what was almost mine.

Only a quarter mile left.

Look at me, I look like the walking dead right now. Purple lips. Hair fallen around the frame of my face like the strings of a wet mop. Limping and tiptoeing around the terrain full of spiked earth. I didn't wear shoes because I thought....I knew I wasn't coming back.

I can see the glass windows from my kitchen peek from behind the last hill I have to climb. The thought of getting back indoors was a sign of relief but the big gulp that followed was the despair of failure. The remembering why I left in the first place.

I went through the back door that has the punch code on it to get in as quietly as possible. Tiptoeing through the cold tile floors I rush into the laundry room and throw my wet robe into the hamper and grab two fresh towels. We have a spare bedroom on the first floor with a bathroom so I decide to take the hottest shower in there. Quietly.

Here I am back in this house. This bathroom. This beautiful shower stall with the white marble we picked out during our trip to Florence three summers ago. The custom bench installed that reminded me of the thick cemented holy pillars of the basilica in Florence we randomly walked into during our long sunset walks.

Yet still, none of it made me want to stay.

I must have sat on that bench for thirty minutes and let the hot water just run down my entire body. Eyes closed. I even imagined none of this was even real. I did drown at the river. Body still floating face down one mile away from here. I'm a ghost. Every pellet of water hitting the crown of my head said otherwise and I began to cry.

I felt tired and sad and angry.

My husband upstairs has no idea of my intentions of making him a widow. Why am I mourning? I don't know if I'm mourning the death I didn't get or the life I have to keep living or the man I almost left or the version of myself who could have gone through with it.

Maybe all four. Probably all four.

Every tear that fell from my face held the desire and shame of what I did. Of what I tried to do.

I wipe the steam off the mirror and stare at the aftermath. My wavy hair. Puffy eyes. Red lips. I just stand there for a good five minutes.

I drop the towel on the floor and grab my hair in a ponytail with my hand. Head leaned to one side and give a big smile. Ok, no, that doesn't feel right. Face dropped, I turn my body to the side lips pursed and pose with the other arm cupping my breasts. Whatever.

I take one more look into the mirror deadpan and walk away.

I'm all dry and dressed now. Nightgown on. Dirty footprints wiped clear. I had to make sure all the evidence of my failed attempt was undetectable. After all, this was a crime scene that technically never happened.

My husband could never know what I just tried to do.

It's a little after 7:30 a.m. and I've settled down for the most part. I walk up the stairs and down the long hallway to our bedroom. I don't know why I feel like the intruder to my own life now. I guess every moment after that damn turtle feels like borrowed time.

I slowly open the bedroom door and find my husband as expected sleeping peacefully. I just stand at the doorway there looking at him.

Look at him.

He has no idea of anything.

I love watching him sleep and how his face rests like every fear he carries has finally let him go. Sleep resembles the beauty of death to me and any mimicry of it was captivating.

I walk over slowly and quietly to my side of the bed and slide right into a big spoon position. But when I pulled the covers over me, he, still in a dreamlike state, sensed my presence and rolled over and grabbed my body close to him. Like he didn't want me to go anywhere.

Little did he know I already left.

I was willing to break his heart. I was willing to abandon him and everything we had together. I was willing to crush his world. But I also thought maybe my death would be the best gift I ever gave him.

How selfish of me. How selfless of me.

Who am I kidding. I can't fall asleep. I just sit there quietly staring at the wall.

None of this morning ever happened.

7:42 a.m.

Some time had passed, and I knew his alarm would be going off any minute now so he could wake up and get ready for work as usual. He never minded a little background noise, so I turned the TV on and pressed the channel-up button a few times before it landed on a pastime favorite, Unsolved Mysteries.

Now, to be clear, we're talking about the eighties-and-nineties Robert Stack version. The real version. The trench coat. The smoke. The cheekbones. The voice of a man who could make a misplaced set of car keys sound like the beginning of your untimely death.

The theme music started, and for the first time all morning, something inside me softened.

I had always loved this show. I liked the presentation.

Everything on Unsolved Mysteries looked exactly how tragedy was supposed to look. Fog drifting across an empty road. Moonlight falling through lace curtains. An abandoned car glowing beneath one lonely streetlamp. Even the terrible things were never allowed to be terrible in an ordinary way. They had mood and restraint and lighting.

No one ever died under fluorescent bulbs on that show. No one slipped in the shower and cracked their head open beside a half-used bottle of drugstore conditioner. No one choked on rotisserie chicken during a pharmaceutical commercial.

Their endings came with shadows and violin music and one final unanswered question floating beautifully through the fog.

I admired that.

The idea that no matter how little control you had over your life, you might still have some control over the way it ended was comforting. The location. The timing. The dress. The weather.

I suppose that was what I had wanted this morning.

The river at dawn. The gray sky. My robe billowing beneath the surface. My hair floating around my face like a drowned Ophelia with better real estate. I had imagined myself sinking slowly beneath the fog, my last moment so quiet and lovely that even death would have to appreciate the effort.

Instead, I got mauled by two turtles and came home with a swollen toe.

On the television, a young woman in a white nightgown ran barefoot across a field while fog machines worked overtime behind her. Somewhere off camera, Robert Stack explained that she was never seen again.

Lucky bitch.

Then my husband's alarm went off.

His alarm was a public emergency. A violent, blaring sound that made even Robert Stack seem briefly inappropriate.

He groaned and slapped around on the nightstand until his hand found his phone.

"Jesus Christ," I said.

"You say that every morning," he mumbled.

"Because every morning I think we're being evacuated."

He smiled without opening his eyes, then rolled onto his back and rubbed both hands down his face. Pillow marks pressed into one cheek, hair standing straight up in the back like he had been mildly electrocuted in his sleep.

He blinked toward the television.

"You watching this creepy stuff already?"

"It's not creepy," I said. "It's ambience."

He turned his head toward me and smiled, one eye still closed.

"You're so weird."

"I know."

He leaned over and kissed my forehead before pushing the covers away from his body.

I watched him stand and stretch. Watched his T-shirt lift above the waistband of his boxers, revealing the soft strip of skin at his stomach. Watched him scratch the back of his thigh and walk toward the bathroom with absolutely no awareness that I had almost turned him into the saddest man on our street before sunrise.

"I'm showering," he announced.

"I figured."

The bathroom door clicked shut behind him. A few seconds later, the shower started.

I stayed in bed listening to him move around behind the door. Cabinet opening. Toothbrush knocking gently against the sink. Shower door sliding shut. Then the low, tuneless humming he did every morning when he believed he was not humming.

On the television, a woman from Michigan explained how she knew the shadow outside her bedroom window had not been human. The reenactment showed moonlight pouring through curtains and landing on the floorboards in a perfect blue rectangle.

It really was beautiful.

"Coffee or tea?" I called toward the bathroom.

His humming stopped.

"What?"

"Coffee or tea?!"

There was a pause, as though I had asked him to choose which parent would live.

"Coffee, please."

"How do you take it?"

The shower door opened slightly.

"Very funny."

I smiled despite myself.

"I'll be downstairs."

"You're the best."

The words landed without warning.

I got out of bed.

My nightgown swayed with my hips as I walked down the stairs. Behind me, Robert Stack continued narrating someone else's disaster. The house had started becoming morning now. The dark was retreating from the corners. Furniture returned to being furniture. The kitchen counters caught the first weak light at the windows.

Everything looked clean.

Good.

Cause he can't know a thing..

I picked up my phone and connected it to the speaker on the counter. Silence felt wrong and too direct.

I scrolled for a moment, then pressed play.

Frank Sinatra began singing My Way.

I laughed.

Of course.

Of course this was the song.

Nothing said graceful self-determination quite like Sinatra congratulating himself through an orchestra while I prepared my husband's coffee after failing to drown because two prehistoric little assholes had objected to my plan.

It was painfully obvious. Completely unsubtle. Exactly the sort of music a bad director would choose for this scene while believing he had done something profound.

Still, I let it play.

While the coffee machine began to sputter, I stepped into the laundry room and pulled my robe from the hamper. It was still damp and cold when I lifted it, the pockets sagging with river water. I pushed it into the washing machine, poured in detergent, selected the quickest cycle, and closed the lid.

There. One more thing being handled.

Back in the kitchen, coffee had begun to drip into the pot. The smell rose warm and rich through the room, offensively comforting.

I turned on the faucet to rinse a spoon that was already clean.

That was when I saw it.

A thin dark smear beneath the band of my wedding ring.

Mud.

Barely anything. Just a small crescent of riverbank caught where the ring met my skin. No one else would ever have noticed it. My husband certainly wouldn't have. But I knew exactly what it was the moment I saw it.

I held my left hand beneath the light above the sink.

There it sat. A little piece of the river tucked underneath the symbol of the life I had nearly left.

My stomach tightened.

Behind me, Frank kept singing with all the conviction of a man who had never had his intended finale spoiled by wildlife.

I turned the water warmer and twisted my ring around my finger. The mud loosened slowly, gathering into a dark little streak before the water carried it away.

I washed my hand again.

Then once more.

I turned my ring all the way around to make sure nothing else remained hidden beneath it. The diamond flashed brightly beneath the kitchen light. Clean with innocence.

The coffee machine finished with one last wet sigh.

I poured his coffee into the blue ceramic mug with the crooked handle. Two spoonfuls of sugar. A little cream. Not too much. He always complained when too much cream made his coffee cool down too quickly, as though temperature were a betrayal being committed specifically against him.

For myself, I poured half a cup.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted it. I wasn't sure whether wanting things had started back up yet.

By the time he came downstairs, Sinatra was building toward the triumphant part. My husband appeared at the bottom step buttoning one cuff, dressed in dark slacks and the light blue shirt I liked on him. His hair was still slightly damp, his watch fastened, his wedding ring shining when he reached for the last button at his wrist.

He smiled and came into the kitchen.

"You made mine?"

"Blue mug."

He lifted it from the counter and took a careful sip.

"Perfect," he said.

"Obviously."

Crisp shirt. Fresh coffee. Beautiful kitchen. Wife in a nightgown standing across from him with her own mug cupped between her hands.

It would have made a convincing picture.

"You sleep okay?" he asked.

"Not really."

"What happened?"

"Woke up too early. Couldn't get comfortable again."

"You should nap today."

"I probably will."

He nodded, satisfied with that solution, and drank more coffee.

That was it.

No narrowing of his eyes. No sudden awareness that something had shifted in the house while he slept. No noticing that my hair had dried differently, or that my right big toe throbbed every time I shifted my weight, or that I was holding my cup with unnecessary care because my hands still did not entirely feel attached to me.

The cover-up had worked.

I couldn't decide whether to feel proud or offended.

He looked down at the front of his shirt and smoothed one hand over it.

"Does this look okay for the presentation?"

"It looks good."

"Too blue?"

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Too bright?"

"You look handsome."

His hand fell away from the shirt.

"Well, that wasn't what I asked, but I'll take it."

"Take it."

He smiled, then looked briefly toward his laptop bag by the kitchen table.

"I'm still not sure about that title slide."

"The title slide is fine."

"You think the green works?"

"The darker green works."

"I should've gone with the other one."

"No. The other one looked like a dental office logo."

He laughed.

"See? This is why I ask you."

I looked down at my coffee.

The night before, he had stayed up until almost midnight working on that presentation. Two nearly identical shades of green pulled up on the screen, asking my opinion as though it mattered greatly. I had picked the darker one.

He had trusted me.

"You'll do great today," I said.

He looked at me over the rim of his mug.

"You always say that."

"Because you always do."

It came out clean. Tender, even. Not a single cracked edge to it.

That was the thing about a convincing performance. It helped if every line of it was true.

He set his mug down and walked around the island toward me. When he reached me, he slipped one hand around my waist and pulled me gently against him.

I put my mug down before I spilled it between us.

He kissed me.

A real kiss. His mouth was warm, his face smooth where he had shaved, his hand resting lightly at the small of my back. I kissed him the way I always kissed him before work. Enough to send him out feeling loved. Not enough to make him late.

When he pulled away, he kept one arm around me.

"What are you doing today?" he asked.

"Very serious things."

"Like?"

"I haven't decided. Maybe some online shopping. Maybe emotionally supporting Robert Stack through another disappearance."

"Sounds exhausting."

"Someone has to do it."

He laughed and kissed the top of my head.

"I can bring dinner home tonight," he said. "You want anything?"

For one awful second, the question made no sense to me.

Dinner.

Tonight.

The casual arrogance of it. The confidence that the hours ahead would collect themselves neatly and return him to this kitchen, where I would still be standing around wanting food.

"Thai?" I said.

"I was thinking Thai."

"Drunken noodles."

"You always get drunken noodles."

"Yes. Because I've made excellent choices in my life."

He laughed again.

"Spring rolls too?" he asked.

"Obviously."

"Very demanding for someone who almost didn't make me coffee."

"I did make you coffee."

"And it was perfect."

"Exactly. I deserve spring rolls."

"You do."

He glanced at his watch and made the face he always made when the morning finally caught up with him.

"I have to go."

"I know."

He picked up his laptop bag from the chair, slipped his phone into his pocket, then came back to me for one last kiss. Brief this time but still sweet.

"I love you," he said.

I smiled at him to hide any guilt.

"Love you too. Have a good day, baby."

"You too."

He headed toward the front door, stopping once to retrieve his keys from the little ceramic dish by the entryway.

From the kitchen window, I watched him cross the driveway.

The fog had thinned almost completely. His car was beaded with moisture, the roof catching what little sunlight had managed to force its way through the morning. He opened the driver's door, tossed his bag onto the passenger seat, then looked up toward the kitchen window.

I lifted my hand.

He smiled and lifted his.

Then he backed out of the driveway and gave two short, happy little honks before turning toward the road.

I laughed and waved again, bigger this time.

He loved when I waved from the window. He said it made him feel like the main character in something.

His car disappeared behind the hill.

My hand remained raised in the kitchen window for another second.

Then I lowered it.

My smile went with it.

My face simply returned to the position it had apparently been waiting for all along.

The kitchen stood bright and quiet around me. Sinatra had finished his grand announcement to the world, leaving only the little electronic hush of the speaker and the distant murmur of the television upstairs.

I stood at the window for several minutes without moving.

Nothing happened.

Without him there to look at me, my face had no reason to do anything at all.

Eventually, I picked up his empty blue mug from the island then placed it in the dishwasher.

I rinsed my own mug and set it beside the sink in case I decided I wanted more later.

Then I went into the laundry room.

The washing machine had finished. My robe lay curled against the bottom of the drum, clean now, heavy with water and smelling like lavender instead of river. I lifted it out with both hands and transferred it into the dryer.

I closed the door and pressed the button.

The machine began to turn.

Click.

I stopped.

Clunk.

I opened the dryer door again and reached inside.

At the bottom of the drum sat a small gray pebble.

I picked it up.

It was cold against my palm.

For several seconds, I stood there with my fingers closed around it. I should have thrown it away or returned it outside.

Instead, I kept holding it.

I turned the dryer back on and walked upstairs.

Robert Stack was still waiting for me in the bedroom. Somewhere in Arizona, a woman had awakened in the middle of the night to discover that every clock in her house had stopped at exactly 2:17 a.m. He described this in the patient, grave voice of a man who understood that ordinary things became beautiful the moment they frightened you enough.

I raised the volume two clicks.

Then I got back into bed.

My husband's side still held the shallow shape of where his body had been. His pillow was dented at the center. I rolled toward it without meaning to, drawing my knees up beneath the blanket.

For a moment, I thought about placing the pebble on the nightstand, beside my wedding ring dish and the glass of water I never finished.

But that seemed too far away.

I closed my hand around it and tucked my fist beneath my chin.

On television, fog moved slowly across a desert highway while Robert Stack explained that some mysteries were never solved.

My eyes grew heavy.

Tonight, my husband would come home carrying drunken noodles and spring rolls. He would tell me how the presentation went. I would ask whether they liked the darker green. He would say he knew they would. Maybe we would watch something together. Maybe he would fall asleep before me. Maybe I would lie there again, looking at the peaceful arrangement of his face, and wonder how much of a life could disappear without ever technically leaving.

But that was later.

For now, I slept with the pebble pressed into my palm.

By the time sleep finally took me, I had loosened my grip.

It did not go anywhere.

---

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace.

— Wisdom 3:1-3

1919 - 2003