Alex (17 page)

He hit
END.
 
Her face, at the session, haunted him.
 
She looked like he had stabbed her in the stomach.
 

At the start of the night, she had
smiled
at him.

"God!" he screamed.
 
"God damn it, god fucking
damn it!
"
 
His voice broke, still raw from his tantrum earlier in the day, and he sat down hard on the couch, staring at the floor.

She couldn't be pregnant.
 
It was nearly impossible, unless she'd been with someone else.
 
He couldn't imagine she would do that.
 
She'd handled Alex's death better than he had, but surely not enough to have an affair?
 
If she were with someone else, why would she still bother with the sessions, or their occasional calls?
 

With Alex, she had started showing late in the third month.
 
Three months ago they weren't even in the same house anymore.
 
She had moved out, gone to live with her father -

Right after their last night together.
 
It had been good, their first sex in months, but it hadn't been enough.
 
A couple weeks later the same old shit had started up, and she'd gone.

One night?
 
There was no way.
 
They had tried for months to get Alex.
 
And she was on birth control, too - unless she had stopped that after Alex went missing.

His stomach flipped at the thought of a second child.
 
It flipped back at the thought of Alina having the baby without him.
 

You're ahead of yourself.
 
You don't even know she's pregnant.
 
And it doesn't matter.
 
You have to fix this.
 
You have to figure out how to calm down -

He clenched his fist against the couch.
 
How could he calm down, how could he move on, with Alex screaming every night?
 

He had to tell her.
 
That was all.
 
Tell her what was going on, that he was hallucinating, that he was going to get help.
 
She might understand.
 
They had been married for ten years, and they had been
good
years.
 
They had.
 
She might forgive him, might wait for him, if she knew -

The home phone rang.

He grabbed at his cell out of habit, and the home phone trilled again.
 
He scrambled to his feet and into the kitchen, caught it on its third ring.
 

"Hello?"

The line was quiet.
 

"Alina?"

Her voice was a like a pane of cracked glass.
 
"I'm done, Ian."

"Alina, I'm so sorry.
 
Please, listen -"

"No.
 
I'm done listening.
 
I'm done trying to fix you.
 
You have to fix yourself."

"I know.
 
I know, you're right -"

"
No
, Ian.
 
Are you listening to me at all?
 
I'm
done.
"

The room tilted.
 
He stumbled to the closest chair and sat.
 

"I wish..." She paused, pulling together the shards of her broken voice.
 
"
God.
 
I wish you were still strong.
 
You used to be so strong, the whole time we were together.
 
And this is hard, I know it is, but life moves
on,
Ian.
 
My
life moves on, and you... you won't move.
 
You won't come along.
 
You... you're making me go alone."

"No," he whimpered.
 

Her voice writhed, high-pitched, nearly breaking.
 
"I don't
want
to be alone."
 

"I don't want you to -"

"But you
do!
 
You do.
 
Or you would come with."

"Alina..."

"Do you have any idea... how
embarrassed
I was tonight."
 
It wasn't a question.

"Yes.
 
I'm sorry."

"I felt... like an
idiot."
 
She spat the word like a curse.
 

His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth and stayed there.

"You say... you miss me.
 
And you say... you love me.
 
But you think I killed our son."

"No...!"

"And there's nothing I can do to change that, and I can't live with that.
 
I can't live with a person who would believe that of me."

"Okay.
 
Okay."
 
The room was swimming.
 
His head throbbed.
 
"Okay."

"Goodbye, Ian," she said, but before the words were done he blurted:

"How long have you been pregnant?"

He waited for her to scoff, to hang up on him, to deny it.
 
Then she said, "Three months."

He had expected this answer, but it still made the floor tremble beneath his chair.

"Is it mine?"

An exasperated, disbelieving sigh.
 
"Yes, Ian.
 
It's yours."
 
Then a muttered, "Jesus."

"You should have told me."
 
It wasn't the right thing to say, not with things as precarious as they were, but -

"And what would you have done, Ian?" she said, acidly.
 
"
God.
 
You probably would've thought I did it to you on purpose, just to force you to deal with it."

"It changes everything, Alina."

"
No, it doesn't.
 
Don't you get that?
 
That's exactly the problem, it
doesn't.
 
That's why I didn't tell you.
 
You are not the man I married, Ian.
 
You're not the guy I wanted to have children with anymore.
 
I miss that man, I miss him really bad."
 
Her voice cracked.
 
"God, I
dream
about him, I miss him so bad.
 
But he's gone and he's not coming back."

"How can you say it doesn't change anything?
 
A second child?
 
That..."
 

"Every day, you would look at this kid and think, 'They wouldn't be here if Alex still was.'
 
Tell me you wouldn't."

His heart labored in his chest, but he couldn't answer her.

"You know," she said, "when I first found out, I thought, 'This will be good.
 
This'll give us something to grab hold of, something to look forward to.
 
He'll be...'"
 
The words whined upwards in pitch, tumbled off a cliff.
 
She finished hoarsely: "'He'll be so happy.'"

The room spun slowly around him as he listened.

"I took the test at work.
 
I was actually in a good mood all day.
 
Terrified, but happy.
 
I couldn't wait to tell you.
 
And the second I walked in the door, you started in on me about the dishes, or some shit, and I realized..."

He remembered it.
 
He had delivered another stupid round of accusations at her, and she had fallen silent for the night.
 

The next day, she'd left.
 

"You're grieving, Ian, and you're doing it by hurting everyone around -"
 
Her voice choked off.
 

"I'm sorry," he said into the silence.
 
"I'm really hurting, Alina."

"Well,
so am I!
" she snapped.
 
"
So am I!
 
You're not the only one who loved him, Ian!
 
You're not the only one who feels guilty!
 
But I thought this was something we could get through together, and you... you won't even
hold me at night
anymore!"

"I will, if you give me another chance, I will -"

"Oh, fuck that," she spat.
 
"That's all I've done, is give you chance after chance.
 
I can't keep getting hurt by you, Ian.
 
Don't you get that?
 
I am already hurting
enough.
"
 

"Okay.
 
Okay.
 
You're right.
 
I know I've been an absolute bastard."

Silence.

"Look, I was wrong tonight, everything I said was wrong.
 
If I had been more awake, I wouldn't have said any of it, but I haven't slept at all this week, I keep having these nightmares -"

"You wouldn't have
said
it?" she seethed.
 
"You would've just sat there pretending everything was okay, the whole time thinking,
'What a shitty mother'?
"

"No!
 
Let me finish!"

She snorted.
 
He could see her shaking her head.

"Look, I..."
 
He was losing her.
 
He had fucked this up so badly there was no way to save it.
 
"I was really trying, I
was.
 
I sent you that text this weekend because it was true.
 
I still love you, I
swear to god,
and I want to be the person you need.
 
I want to be strong.
 
I'm just not perfect.
 
I'm trying, but I'm not perfect.
 
But I think I'm getting better.
 
I just haven't been able to sleep and it's... it's turning me into a lunatic.
 
I'm going to get help.
 
But... I was really looking forward to tonight.
 
I was really hoping we were gonna get through this."

A long pause.
 

"Goodbye, Ian," she whispered, and hung up.

69

He sat with the phone pressed to his ear, staring at the wall as it clicked and fell silent, trying to understand what had happened.
 
Sick disbelief, heavy as an oil spill, floated on the surface of his empty thoughts.
 
Eventually the phone began blaring a warning -
BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT -
and he still stared.
 
But the noise aggravated the pain in his head, already searing.
 
To make it stop, he let the phone slip out of his hands and clatter to the floor.
 

70

The cold table pressed against his face as he woke.
 
Jagged pains crackled in his neck and back; his elbow groaned as he straightened his arm.
 

The phone had stopped its noise.
 
The clock on the microwave read
1 AM.

He stumbled to his feet, lurched toward his bedroom like the walking dead.
 
Alina's face hovered in the darkness, hurt, incriminating.
 
It made him feel like vomiting.

After he collapsed in the bed, the thick soup of his thoughts swirled.
 

He and Alina had fallen in love over the phone.
 
They'd talked every night in college.
 
Since the first night he called her, they had talked every night until the day she left. They'd fallen in love over the phone, and she had left him over the phone.

She was right - he didn't hold her anymore.
 
He used to, especially when she had nightmares.
 
He would pull her close, caress her face, whisper lovingly in her ear until she calmed.
 
He had that power over her, but he stopped using it after Alex died.
 
When she woke him with her night terrors now, he just stared at the ceiling.

He was going to be late for work tomorrow.
 
He hadn't even set his alarm.
 
There was no point in it now.
 
Who was he trying to support?

There was a gun in the closet - a .22.
 
He'd bought it after Alex had gone missing.
 
He'd never told Alina.
 
She would've flipped.
 
It was stupid, anyway.
 
There was no one to shoot.
 

Talking to Alina on the phone.
 
Her voice so inviting, so feminine, so
smart.
 
Her laugh.
 
God, he loved that laugh.
 
She thought he was funny.
 
He could make her laugh.
 
He could bring her to orgasm.
 
It was hard to say which was better.
 
They were both divine, both heaven in his ears.