Learning to Stay (18 page)

The sky has turned cold and angry, as winter skies tend to do, when I pull into our driveway. I hope that Brad is sitting on the front steps waiting, or safe and warm inside our little bungalow. He is neither.

Not knowing what else to do, and where to look, I try calling him. Mere seconds later I hear his phone ringing. I trace it to the kitchen counter, where it has been this entire time.

Without taking my jacket off, I move to the couch and lie back, running my hands through my hair. It feels greasy and tangled, and I try to think of the last time I washed it—the last time I took a proper shower, which means time to wash and shave all the parts that need either in one session. I can’t remember. And now, I have lost my husband.

Images of Brad walking into a random house that looks something like ours, of waving a gun at another Margie Valhalla, flash through my head like silent movies—none with happy endings. But I have no idea where else to look, or what else to do. And so I sit, paralyzed by inaction and indecision, and rub my temples.

With a start, I remember that the gun Brad waved at Margie Valhalla, discreetly handed to me when he was released into my care this afternoon, is stowed in my purse. Or, I think it is.

Please let it still be there. Please, please, please.

I walk to the kitchen, unaware that I’m holding my breath until I spot the handgun in the bottom of my bag. I let myself exhale.
Now what?

Maybe I will try to sell it, or pawn it—whatever it is one does with a gun. I want it out of my house. I want it far, far away from both Brad and me. But it’s late and selling it is not currently an option. So I wander our house, looking for a good hiding spot until I can get rid of it for good. I finally settle on a bank of shoe boxes containing all of my summer work shoes, taped shut and stacked two deep, on a shelf at the very tip-top of my closet. I pick a box, deposit the gun, retape it, and place it in the middle of the rear row. I curse myself for still not having gotten a fireproof lockbox for our valuables—something that’s been on my to-do list for more than a year now, ever since we purchased this house. But this will work for now.

I close my closet door and sit down on our bed. My husband has attacked an old woman. He’s disappeared over a popped balloon.
And now I’m hiding a gun from him. This feels like someone else’s reality. Not mine. And acknowledging these points doesn’t make them any more real. Above the dresser in front of me is a mirror with spidered glass. Versions of me—some complete, some reflecting only my hair, or half my face, or a slice of my neck—are reflected back.

I ask myself: If I had known that my marriage would turn out like this, knowing that there’s no playbook for this kind of life, no instruction manual, and no truly right choice in sight—knowing all this, would I have signed on anyway?

“I don’t know.” I watch hundreds of different parts of my mouth say those words. “I honestly don’t know.”

I am in my office, but I am not present. I am just taking up space. I call Brad’s phone every few minutes even though I know that phone is still on our kitchen counter, where it was when I left for work. Brad didn’t come home last night, and he wasn’t there when I woke up this morning. Every time I call, I hope that this time I’ll hear his voice on the other end. I know better. But that doesn’t mean I can’t blindly hope.

At almost seven p.m., I look up the outside temperature: twenty-two degrees. Then I look up the number for the Madison police station. A man’s voice answers on the third ring. I tell him I need to report my husband missing.

“Okay, ma’am,” he says. “I can help you with that. How long has he been missing?”

“Since late yesterday afternoon,” I say.

“So what makes you think he’s missing?”

I tell the police officer about the incident at the grocery store, about Brad’s military service, and about my suspicions regarding his yet-undiagnosed TBI and PTSD. The officer asks me for a physical description of Brad: height, weight, distinguishing characteristics, and what he was wearing.

“Okay,” the officer says. “If he comes back between now and noon tomorrow, call us at this number to let us know.”

“Why noon?” I ask.

“We can’t start looking for him until then, ma’am.”

“You—what? Are you serious?”

“I’m afraid so, ma’am.”

“But it’s twenty degrees out. He could freeze out there.”

“You said he has a brain injury,” the officer says. “Is he severely impaired?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does he know who he is? Where he lives? Can he ask for directions if he gets turned around?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“Is he in danger of hurting himself or others?”

I think of Margie Valhalla and I know I should tell him yes. But I hear Jason Omar telling me that Brad has exactly one strike, which he’s already used. Putting out an all-points bulletin saying that Brad could be armed and dangerous isn’t something I imagine the good prosecutor will look kindly on.

“No,” I say. My voice wavers.

“Ma’am, I know this is scary,” the officer says, “but trust me, this happens, and it almost always turns out just fine. Most of the time the person just went for a long walk or bellied up to some bar their loved ones never thought to look in. They usually come back on home when they’re ready. If we haven’t heard from you by noon tomorrow, we’ll start looking for him, okay?”

“That’s the best you can do?” I ask.

“That’s the best I can do,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” I thank him even though I don’t mean it, and I shove the phone into the receiver.

“What did that phone ever do to you?” a voice asks from the
doorway—Zach’s voice. I manage a smile in response to his tired joke.

“How’s it going?” he asks.

“Fine,” I lie.

“I got pulled into a thing with Crane Early this afternoon and he’s a hard guy to say no to. Can we meet first thing tomorrow and go over all this?”

“Sure, no problem,” I say. The night stretches ahead of me, long and dark and marked by thick file folders that need to be reviewed and a seemingly endless stream of memos needing to be written.

“Big plans tonight with Soldier Boy?”

“Huh?” I ask.

“You know, lovers’ day? Hallmark holiday designed to make all singletons feel like crap?”

With all that’s been going on, I didn’t realize what day it is.

Always on Valentine’s Day, Brad would send me a bouquet of tulips (because roses were cliché) and have dinner waiting by the time I arrived home. Before Brad, I’d never thought much about Valentine’s Day; it had been an occasion for other people to celebrate. But Brad would pull out all the stops, turning February into a month to look forward to instead of just four more weeks in the middle of the hardest part of winter. He hated to waste what little extra money we had dining out on a night he liked to call
Amateur Hour
, so he would cook, creating homemade pasta one year, a Moroccan stew the next, and last year, only weeks before he was deployed, he made the best beef Wellington I’ve ever tasted.

“We’re not really that type,” I say to Zach. What I don’t say is that I have no idea where my husband is and that if I hadn’t remembered it was February 14, Brad was doubly unlikely to.

Zach looks boyishly handsome standing in my office doorway, his hair expertly messed and falling in little waves toward his eyes, his
shirt unbuttoned at the neck, no tie. Was he heading out for the night? On a date? Without warning, a hot flame of jealousy ignites in me.

Stop,
I tell myself.
Just stop.

But confiding in Zach came so easily the other day, and I feel a pull to tell him more. To have someone else know about Brad’s mood swings, the way he grabs my arm so hard it bruises sometimes, or the night he ordered me around like one of his subordinates—pouring cereal all over our dining room floor and telling me to march on it. To share the weight of all that’s happened. Of everything that continues to happen. I want someone else to shoulder the guilt I feel when I think of Brad, home all day alone, aimless and bored and who knows what else, and because so much of the time I feel worse when I’m there with him. I want Zach to tell me that I’m not the flimsy shell of a wife and a half-rate attorney that I feel I am most days.

“Okay, Sabatto. Well, have a good one anyway. See you tomorrow.”

“You too,” I say, and I watch him leave. I will him to turn around. Or to grab a couple of beers from the refrigerator and bring them back to my office, so we can sit here, alone together on this lovers’ holiday, and watch the sky grow dark and the Capitol dome grow bright against it.

I turn my attention back to the computer screen. I click on files and start typing nonsense in an open, unaddressed e-mail to make it look like he interrupted the important work I was doing. When I look up, he’s lingering in the doorway.

I raise my eyebrows at him as if to ask, “Can I help you?”

“Everything okay?” he asks. His body is in the hallway, but he’s leaning back inside my office.

Tell him.

“Why?” I ask.

Tell him.

He shrugs. “Just checking.”

No,
I tell myself.
I’m not going to ruin both of our nights.

“Everything’s fine,” I say. I smile for added effect.

Zach opens his mouth as though he’s going to say something else, and then closes it as if he’s thought better of the idea. He slaps his hand twice on the doorframe and nods. “Okay, then,” he says. “Later, Sabatto.”

“Later,” I say, but he’s already gone.

It takes time to gather the files I need to continue working tonight, and it’s late by the time I start home. Normally, I’d worry about leaving Brad alone so long. It’s always there, that worry—sitting in my stomach like a swallowed peach pit, a calcified organ. Who knows, though, if he’s home tonight? Who knows if he’s planning on coming home? I want to look for him. I should look for him. But I hardly know where to begin a search. With all the bars, meandering streets, parks, and bike paths in this town, he could be anywhere.

It is well past ten o’clock by the time I get home. Even in the dark, I can tell that the house is spotless. It smells like an unholy marriage between Pine-Sol and the vanilla candles scattered throughout the living room, dining room, and kitchen, their light flickering against the walls. The table is set with two place mats. On one is a plate covered with tinfoil, with silverware perfectly arranged on a cloth napkin I forgot we owned. Brad is not around.

I hang my jacket on the closet door and kick off my heels. Then I walk over to the table and sit down. A note, scrawled in Brad’s handwriting, is propped against a water glass:
Dinner for you. I tried to wait up. I’m sorry.

I lift the tinfoil and find a BLT with toasted bread, cut on the diagonal. Alongside it is a congealed mound of macaroni and cheese. It is as far from beef Wellington as a meal could get. I stifle a hitch of
breath and pinch the bridge of my nose hard between my thumb and forefinger.

I think about how I spent my afternoon and early evening and I think about how Brad must have spent his. I wonder when he came home. I think about him scouring the kitchen to make a meal like he used to and finding only these ingredients, and making do anyway because maybe he wouldn’t—couldn’t—go back to the store.

The sandwich is soggy and the macaroni cold. I could easily remedy both of these in the microwave, but I don’t. It wouldn’t feel right. Eating this dinner is a penance of sorts.

I swallow the last bite, get up, and pile the silverware and crumpled ball of tinfoil on top of my plate. When I lift it, I find something underneath: a red envelope with a large, shakily written
E
smack dab in the center. I sit back down.

Inside the envelope is a card. On the front of the card are two yellow lab puppies, each holding one side of a red paper heart printed with the words “I love you.” Inside, Brad has written,
Happy Valentine’s Day. I’m sorry for being such a burden. Don’t ever forget that you’re my world. I love you. —B
.

I don’t have a card to give him in return.

It is a cheap, cheesy card that’s popular at gas stations and grocery stores, the kind of card you’d never find gracing the aisles of Hallmark. I want to run out and frame it.

I clear the table, blow out the candles, and tuck the card into my workbag. It will go on my desk as a reminder. Even though I have hours of work left to do tonight, I turn out the lights as I move down the hall toward the bedroom I share with Brad.

He is sleeping in a tangle of blankets on the floor next to the bed. His body swims in strips of blue-black light pouring in through the slatted blinds.

I whisper, “Brad,” to see if he’s awake. He almost always is. Sometimes
he answers. Sometimes he doesn’t. Tonight, though, there isn’t a part of him that stirs at my voice. Maybe he’s asleep after all.

His sleep is precious. It doesn’t come easily to him these days. But I want to wake him, to have him crawl into bed next to me and hold me until we both fall asleep. I want to seduce him in the middle of the night, like I used to do when I woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep; to feel his body pressed up against me in the morning, strong and solid like a fortress wall. I want us to fall back into those familiar rhythms of touch that we perfected beyond words the past handful of years. I need to feel Brad’s skin on mine, the weight of his body next to me. But Brad needs to be on the floor.