Written in the Scars (4 page)

ELIN

The back door groans as I push it open into the kitchen. Letting it swing shut behind me, I sit my bag brimming with papers I need to grade on the kitchen counter. The thump resonates through the room, bouncing off the buttery-colored walls that Ty and I took forever choosing.

“I love this color!” I squeal, holding up a color swatch and flashing it in front of his face. “It would be perfect in the kitchen of our new house.”

“It looks like piss.” He grabs my wrist to stop the sample from waiving erratically.

“It does not,” I pout. “It’s beautiful.”

Instead of pulling the sample out of my hand, he tugs me closer to him. Leaning down, his lips hover inches from mine. “The color is piss, Mrs. Whitt. But if you like it, then we’ll take it, because my eyes won’t be on it when I’m in there. They’ll be on you.”

I can feel the heat of his kiss lingering on my lips, even nearly seven years later, as my heart rapid-fires in my chest. He always let me have what I wanted, always made me feel like the only person in the world that mattered.

How did things go so terribly wrong?

The room feels empty, so barren, even with the knickknacks sitting on the counters and the dishes from last night’s dinner in the sink. It’s my home, but it doesn’t feel comforting. There’s no contentment to be found here.

It’s been this way since he left. Even though I’ve purged the room of all of his physical belongings because I can’t look at them without wanting to curl up in a ball and die, that or throw them into the fire pit out back and burn them to ashes, the little nuances of him still exist and still hit me at hard.

The oil stain on the floor beside the door is still there, a tarry looking spot made by his mine boots lying there after a shift. No amount of cleaner will remove it. I’ve tried them all.

The little basket that hangs under the cabinets is now filled with ink pens and highlighters, not for any reason other than to take the place of Ty’s keys and gum packets. Even though it’s technically not empty now, it feels that way. Because what’s in it isn’t what should be.

His face from only an hour ago pops in my mind, and I squeeze my eyes shut, like somehow that will make it go away. Like the action will barricade his rich, warm voice from echoing in my ears.

The door creaks again and I jump, my eyes jerking to the door, my breath automatically ceasing. I watch and wait for it to swing open, for a knock, for a certain voice to call through the air. Because only two people use that door. Me and Ty.

The wind rattles the glass against the wood and my hopes dash.

“Damn it, Elin,” I mutter, my spirits sinking faster than I can gather them. I don’t miss the defeat in my shoulders or the squiggle in my bottom lip as I glance into the living room. The little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I stare at the back of the empty sofa.

“Guess what happened to me today?” I saunter around the sofa and stand with my hands on my hips, trying not to melt down. He looks at me again. “I went to the bank to take some money out of the savings to pay the house insurance.”

His face slips just a bit, the corners of his mouth dropping ever-so-slightly. Forcing a swallow, I suck in a breath and continue.

“There’s over a grand missing from our account.”

I watch him with bated breath, hoping to see him startle or confusion cross his features. He doesn’t look at me. He just watches the television like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.

“Ty?”

“Yeah?” His jaw is set, flexing under his grimace. “I took some cash. What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem?” I exclaim, my head spinning. “It’s a thousand dollars! It’s the money to start our family! What did you do with it?”

He swings off the sofa, cringing as his weight settles on his leg. “It’s my fuckin’ money too, Elin. I don’t have to explain shit to you.”

“If it were twenty or fifty bucks—hell, if it was a hundred dollars—I’d agree.”

Our heated gazes meet. Mine in disbelief, his in some state of defense that I don’t understand.

I think back on the past few weeks and a chill slowly twists itself through my body.

The hours he goes missing. The sudden secretiveness of his phone. The hushed conversations, the distance he’s put between us. The fights we have that start over nothing and the more than willingness on his part to sleep on the couch. My stomach hits the floor, my knees wobbling.

“Ty?” I ask, my voice shaking. “What did you do with that money?”

“It’s none of your damn business.” Although his eyes blaze, his tone is more uncertain now as the words drop, weighted with insinuations.

He stands, babying the leg that was hurt when a wall burst in the mine and snapped his fibula. He hasn’t been the same since—physically or mentally. It’s put a strain on our marriage as I’ve tried to keep up with him emotionally and financially.

“Ty?” I choke out.

He seems to understand my suggestion without me saying it, and I’m glad. I don’t think I could ask him out loud if he was planning on leaving me, if he had another woman somewhere waiting on him. I couldn’t handle that. I don’t care how bad things have been. I can’t stomach an affair. The thought alone sends bitter bile creeping up my throat.

“If that’s true,” I say, squeezing the words past the lump in my throat,“then get out.”

“Oh, you’re throwing me out now?” he asks, his voice rising. “Is that how it works?”

“Were you fucking around on me?” I cry.

“Was I fucking around on you?” he huffs. “Are you serious? What, you think maybe I wanted to have sex that wasn’t dictated by a calendar and thermometer?”

The laugh in his tone, the mockery he’s making of our attempt to have a baby incites me.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“I’d love to, but we haven’t checked the date yet,” he says, amping himself up.

“How dare you! How dare you throw that in my face!” I shout, tears stinging my eyes.

“A spade’s a spade, E.”

My face heats, my cheeks scalding as the tears wash over them. “Are you cheating on me?”

“Elin . . .” he scoffs, like my name is dirty coming out of his mouth.

“Are you?”

“You want me to? Would that make this all so much easier for you? You can hate me and feel good about blaming everything on me.”

“Yeah, I want you to. Of course I do.” I roll my eyes. “I’m so sick of this, Ty.”

“Not as sick of it as me.”

“Then go.”

He storms by, taking a wide circle so we don’t accidentally touch, so I can’t reach out and grab his arm. My jaw slams against the hardwood, words begging to be spoken, but I can’t find them. I can only watch his back flex under his shirt as he walks out of my life, the door squeaking behind him.

A full-body shiver yanks me back to reality, to a kitchen that lacks the smell of his coffee or the sound of the television in the other room. With a lump in my throat, I head into the living room. Grabbing a pillow off the sofa and pressing it to my chest, I fight back the sorrow by setting my jaw and grasping for the anger lurking just beneath the surface.

“It’s just because I saw him. That’s it. Don’t let this spiral, Elin,” I say aloud. I miss him. My God, I miss him. Tears stream, an endless testament to the emotion, the dreams, the rejection, the failure, that swirl inside my soul.

Maybe that’s why he was eager to leave. Maybe that’s why it just took a simple shot from me to go, and he hauled ass out the door. Maybe it’s because after all these years, he realizes what a joke I am of a woman, one that can’t conceive. With me, he can’t play catch in the backyard with a little boy that looks like him or tuck a little girl into bed that looks like me. There’s no hope for any of that with me, and that’s the most humiliating thing anyone can ever experience.

Yet, here I sit, spewing hate his way, secretly wanting him to return. My words say how horrible he was for not being there for me, and that’s true, but my heart misses finding the rhythm of his in the middle of the night.

“I can’t do this,” I sputter, throwing the pillow across the room. It lands at the foot of the entertainment center, brushing against it just hard enough to rattle off a metal figurine in the shape of a coal bucket Ty’s grandpa gave him right before he died—one miner to another. I watch it freefall to the floor, almost in slow motion. It falls end over end, twisting and turning in the air before it lands solidly on the carpet.

I know what I have to do. Or, rather, what I can’t do anymore. The end of a journey of my own.

Racing to the garage, maneuvering the house by memory because I can’t see through the tears stinging my eyes, I grab a box. Coming in just as quickly, I start picking up what’s left of Ty’s belongings and shoving them inside. I don’t think about it. I focus on the fact that I can’t live in this perpetual state of uncertainty anymore. I can’t live loving a man that doesn’t want me, in a situation in which I’m doomed to fail. It’s time to accept reality.

Using the tail of my shirt, I sop up the wetness from my face.

The coal bucket figurine goes into the box. It’s joined by a picture of him from high school, holding the state title up in the air. My hands shake as I pick up his grandmother’s quilt off the quilt rack and lay it on top of the other items. The pale pink linen is darkened by the fluid dripping off my chin.

Sniffing up the snot that dangles onto my lips, I start towards the bedroom where a few articles of his clothing still reside in the closet. I stomp by the room that would’ve been the nursery with the practiced “eyes straight ahead” so I don’t break down. It’s a dream that will never happen.

I grab his Tennessee Arrows hat off the hook on the closet door and dig out his favorite t-shirt from the dresser drawer. Before I can toss them into the box, I catch the scent of his cologne, and that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

I fall to my knees, the box dropping to the floor in front of me. I hold his hat to my chest and sob.

TY

I rustle through a trash bag against the wall and find a clean t-shirt. Pulling it over my head, I notice the smell of the laundry detergent. It’s some brand I picked up at the laundromat yesterday. Waves of overly perfumed, cheap flowers drench my senses. It’s not so much what it smells like that drives me nuts, but what it doesn’t.

It doesn’t smell like home.

Elin always uses the same brand, the same one her mother used. Every time I do a load at a random laundromat with a box of suds from the dispenser, I’m reminded how much I miss her and how every little part of my life goes back to her. Even my fucking laundry soap.

Collapsing on the futon in Cord McCurry’s spare room, I rest my head against the rough material and close my eyes. Bracing for the onslaught of memories that floods me every time I don’t intentionally focus on something else, I’m halfway relieved when the sound of footsteps thud through the room.

“You all right?” Cord’s voice echoes from the hallway

“Yeah.”