a dozen simple truths, part 1

December 28, 2083 - Leila Watts is 28, Nessa Phoenix is 33.

* warning: 1st person narration, Leila speaking ;) *

Soundtrack: "Sweet and Low," by Augustana.

Sometimes I remember my life like it was a series of photos. Each of these moments, if you laid them one next to the other, that if you scrolled through them like a film reel, could make up the whole of my time on this planet. This house, this farm, the street that ran between my home and Charlotte's, the church down the road where we both got married. At the start of all this, the photos didn't make much sense, but I could see it now, the patterns, the way they fit together, the places they seemed to fall off course.

Matt was sleeping at Charlotte and Paul's for now, on a mattress on the floor in their spare room. It would have to do. When he started up the farm work again in a couple months, I would need to be home with the kids in the days. I had a house in mind, not very far away from where we were now. Small, but it had three bedrooms and a yard. I'd spoken with a realtor the Monday after Christmas.

And I was prepared to accept that at least for now, he couldn't stand the sight of me. He couldn't stand to be in the same room. Maybe that would be my punishment, and I would live with it. The penance for my sins. I would atone them, and some day he might set me free. That day wouldn't be soon, and I understood that too.

The long drive to the city was therapeutic. I didn't get enough time alone - I hadn't had time alone since I was a girl, fifteen, my eyes bright and wide open to my own future. I never would have guessed any of this, had you asked me then. I couldn't have seen it if I tried.

We hadn't seen Jack and Nessa in too long. And now she was sick. Matt told me she was sick, and I wanted to see her. He wanted to see Jack. He said, "I don't think we could manage not to fight all night. I don't think you could put aside all that disappointment." I wasn't the disappointed one, but I didn't say it. I tried to let him have his opinions. I didn't want to fight with him; I just wanted to move on. So I would just turn my head from the anger in his eyes. "Fine, you go," he said. "I don't know what I'd do there anyway."

So I went. And I brought a quilt and a teddy bear for Aaron, whom I hadn't even met except in a birth announcement.

Jack avoided me for most of the night. He was uneasy with me here, and I knew it. He'd been friends with Matt since college, even longer than I'd known Matt myself. There are loyalties there - Matt should have been at this party and not me. The way he saw it, I shouldn't have been breaking up his friend's marriage at all.

But wasn't Nessa more important than any of that? I still remembered that she and Jack had been some of the very few people at our wedding. And that I'd been at hers. And now, if she was sick, if this party was what she wanted, not a Christmas party, not a New Year's Eve party, but a simple, no-pressure, generic holiday party, then I wanted to be here for her. I would have put aside my hostilities if he would. But he wouldn't.

Nessa took me around the crowded room and introduced me to all of their other friends. She took me by the arm, and made sure I'd met everyone. I didn't know any of them. All these people with college degrees and career jobs in the city, but I tried to blend in with them. I put on my best act. And when they asked, "What do you do?" I didn't say I was a mom, I said I was a seamstress, and they nodded. They got it. I kept up with my current events and I read more than the average working professional. I could hold a stimulating conversation. I wasn't just smart, Corbin used to tell me; I was fascinating. Matt never saw that about me.

Lara was one of their friends, a mother of two, the same ages of my own children. She knew too much. They'd all been talking about it. I figured Matt had told Jack, but somehow they all knew, that we were getting divorced, that I'd cheated on him. But that wasn't even what it was. That wasn't even what I'd done at all. Or at least it hadn't felt that scandalous.

It was so overwhelming sometimes I could have cried. I did cry, too much. It came up at the oddest times.

I left the living room, in search of a bathroom. In an empty hallway, the guest bathroom was occupied. My eyes started to burn with embarrassment, with shame. I found a bedroom, someone's bedroom, and the master bathroom inside.

I turned on the light and splashed my face with water, cool and awakening. I washed my hands, my naked ringless hand, with its deep grove worn in from ten years of wear.

I had taken off my wedding ring that morning. Four days after he'd thrown his onto the floor where I sat. He couldn't bring himself to put aside the hostility. It ate at any scrap of civility we might have had left. We were dead already, and it only picked at our bones. All the things he must have said about me to these people. I tried to tell myself that he didn't really mean all of this. I knew what this was; a man who is losing becomes a very different creature.

I steadied myself on the sink, my arms shaking lightly. There was a knock at the door. "Sorry," I said. "I'm done in here."

I'd left the door a crack open and Nessa's voice peeked through. "Can I come in?"

"Sorry, I shouldn't be in here," I said. "I just needed-" What did I need? I needed the quiet, needed to be alone, I needed a whole-life re-do?

"You okay?" Nessa handed me a clean towel from a cabinet.

I shook my head. "Oh, please don't worry about me. Nobody needs to worry about me."

We'd barely spoken many words to each other in these years, but we knew so much about each other through our husbands.

Nessa patted her hair, looking into the mirror. "It looks terrible, doesn't it? It looks fake."

"No, it's not bad," I said. It didn't look fake so much as it just didn't look like hers. Because it wasn't. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, Nessa said, turning around. "Fine right now. A little tired. I just finished this round of chemo, and they'll check again in a few weeks. But this is good. It's good to see you again."

She turned around and I tried to smile for her. I was sure it didn't work.

"Jack told me," she said. "I'm so sorry. I never would have thought it'd be you guys."

I nodded. Sorry. It felt strange. I should be the sorry one. I wasn't sure what she knew, or if she knew what everyone else seemed to know. Corbin hadn't called back. First it was Christmas, so I waited, then it was a few days. I hadn't specifically asked him to call me back. Maybe he never got the message at all. Maybe he hated me to death. I wouldn't have blamed him. "I didn't mean to," I said. I felt like a child, pleading my case. I lowered my face and waited for my lecture.

"I get it," she said. Her eyes were soft, sympathetic, tilting her head again gently. "Jack was engaged when we met. We couldn't help it either. Sometimes you just can't see it coming, and the heart just knows what it wants."

She had no obligation to either of us. Jack did. Jack was Matt's friend. Nessa was a neutral party, and I appreciated it so much. I was grateful.

I hugged her lightly. I didn't know if there was a certain etiquette in hugging a sick woman. Her skin felt hot and her synthetic hair smelled like baby powder. "Thank you," I said.

Nessa led us both back out to the living room then. I would hang on her arm tonight. I would help her get snacks and serve some more wine, and meet anyone else she might want me to meet. We parted through the sea of warm bodies toward the kitchen.

Nessa stopped. "Oh, you haven't met Corbin yet."

And there he was. I stalled where I stood. But he saw me. His eyes, and mine, met with a feeling of gravity, of fear, though I didn't know exactly what we were afraid of. How was this possible, he and I, standing here, when everybody knew everything there was to know about the destruction of my marriage, and yet nobody knew what this was?

Matt had asked everything about him. Except for his name.

The two of them stopped talking as we approached. Corbin looked poised to flee, but Nessa took my arm. And Jack spoke up, "Corbin, this is my buddy's wife, Leila." Then Jack turned to me. "And Leila, Corbin teaches at the university. For now. He's transferring to Portland State next month though."

Ex-wife, I wanted to say, but instead I was only thinking, Portland. I winced, mouthing that word, not even sure if I had spoken it out loud. I was so foolish, to think he would stay just the way I left him, as if I could put him on pause, capture him a photo and keep him pinned to a cork board to take back down again later. I'd broken his heart. I'd seen the life drain from his eyes that night, and two months is a very long time. He'd even cut off his hair.

He reached out to me, his palm open, and I placed mine in his. At our contact, I gasped, and in that split second I could see his eyes, so honest and clear, fill with sadness. "Pleasure to meet you, Leila," he said.

With his hand still wrapped around mine, I tried to smile, but I only felt so much regret. He never called back. It was only days, but still, I hoped he would, and now I knew why. Four seconds, the length of time it takes for a wife to kiss her husband, he and I stood there in that room and nobody knew it, how large it had been, how important. If the photographs of my life had been laid out one next to another next to another, the ones I shared with him would have flashed through my hands brightly and far too fast.

He let go of my hand then, and I couldn't move. I was paralyzed. No, I wanted to say. Not yet. I wasn't ready to let go, but he did. My hand hung there, retreating back, a slight tremble in my fingers. Four whole seconds the two of us stood there as if we could actually stop time and stay right there in that moment.

But time didn't stop, and we couldn't either.

Jack finally started their conversation again, and before I knew it, Nessa pulled me away and whisked us off to the kitchen to serve the wine.

I could still feel his hand around mine. I tried to shake it out, but I could only hold it to my chest as if damaged. All this time I had tried so hard to shake him, but he would never shake. It was impossible. It took me too long to realize that he was never meant to be shaken at all.

*******

notes: to be continued ;)