Nodding her head at me the doctor wrote a few quick notes on her pad before looking at me again.
“You said you have a mountain of guilt. Why is that?”
“Because it’s my fault that he found her. I should have moved us to another state or, at the very least, moved us into another house far away from the foster home we were last in once Leah was of age and we could have moved anywhere. I should have called and checked with the prison every month to make sure that he was still there. I should have answered the door that morning instead of acting like a spoiled brat because my goddamn coffee machine needed to be cleaned. I promised to keep her safe and I failed. It’s no wonder she checked out for the last month. She doesn’t feel safe anymore and that’s on me. As her husband and her protector I flunked. If I’d done a better job, been more prepared, none of this would have happened.”
Marissa had started to cry quietly while I was unloading on the doctor and it made me feel worse. Grabbing my hand, she pulled it to her face and rubbed her cheek against it.
“Dill, none of this is your fault. Not one thing you said is true. You offered to get the door, and I said no. You have kept me safe, including that day. He didn’t get to touch me or do any of the disgusting things he had come to do because you were there to stop it. As far as the house goes, it was my choice to stay in that house and you know it. I loved our home, and we would still be there if he hadn’t shown up like he did. I couldn’t have asked for a better husband, protector or best friend. Please, you have to stop blaming yourself. I’m an adult Dillon-not a baby. I’m the only person that can really be responsible for me. You give yourself too much responsibility and it says something terrible about me that I’ve boxed you in the way that I have. You’re the best part of my life and I know that without you, I would never have known any happiness. You don’t see how unique you are and you never have. There is not one person, not our foster parents, not our teachers, not even my own mother, that has ever taken better care of me than you. Take responsibility for all the good times in my life because you created that, but as for the bad things, none of them have ever had anything to do with you.”
I wanted to punch a fucking wall, but I held it in because it wouldn’t be fair to make her feel worse than she already did. Instead I squeezed her hand in my own and simply said, “I love you.”
The doctor stayed for another hour, discussing treatment plans and goal setting with Marissa. At the conclusion of the visit she told us both that she felt that at this time hospitalization seemed unnecessary, and that if Marissa would continue on as she had today, she had great hope that we would see great progress in the months ahead. I walked the doctor to her car where she reassured me that she felt the worst was behind us.
“Marissa presented today as very self-aware. She acknowledged the issues and discussed them with me in the most candid way that she ever has. She genuinely wants to be happy. She told me several times that it’s time for her to take control of her own life and find peace and happiness. She wants to change, Dillon. Now it’s up to us to help her achieve that goal.
I got that the doctor’s words were supposed to be reassuring, but my radar was still up and I wasn’t settled as I walked back into the house. Marissa was walking out of the kitchen as I came through the front door and I was happy to see her drinking a glass of orange juice and eating a banana. The fact that she was eating was a good sign because ingesting food was another one of her issues during times when she was depressed. Many times she had told me that she couldn’t stand putting anything solid into her body when she was down because she felt so diseased inside.
Smiling at me she gestured to her bedroom. “I’m officially exhausted now so I’m going to go lay down. You should go to work for the afternoon. I saw on your work calendar that you’re supposed to be finishing the love garden today. You have to go in for that.”
I hadn’t been leaving her alone lately, and I wasn’t sure I should do so now. Either I took her to work with me or Dominique and/or Leah stayed with her. Leaving the house for a few hours would be a big step.
She watched my face as my thoughts played out in my mind. Shaking her head she said, “Dillon, you have to let go. You’re not my babysitter. The doctor told you that everything is fine. I’m going to rest you’re going to work and that’s that. I packed your lunch and put it on the counter.”
Stepping closer to me, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “You’ve been amazing but it’s time to start moving on from all this drama.”
Pulling back she turned and started walking to her room. Looking back over her shoulder at me, she smiled. “Love you!”
She looked so happy as she said it that I finally allowed myself to start to believe that things were going to improve.
“Hey,” I called out to her, “Stop for a second.”
Turning on her heel she stood by the hallway door and looked at me.
“What’s up?”
With a big stupid smile I replied, “I just wanted to tell you that I love you too and I’m very excited about becoming a father. We’re going to have a great family.”
She smiled at me as her eyes glazed over with tears.
“I know you’re going to be an amazing daddy. I can’t wait to see that. Now go to work and finish that beautiful garden for the doctor and his wife. I know being cooped up in the house so much lately is making you nuts.”
That got a chuckle out of me because she was right. Given a choice, I’d always choose to stay outdoors when the sun was shining.
“Okay, okay, you win! I’m going to work. I’ll be back in four or five hours and I’ll bring pictures of the finished product. Have a good nap honey, I’ll see you when I get home.”
Smiling as she turned back into the hall she said, “I’ll be watching out for you.”
A few hours passed at work as I put down sod and finished up the plantings my boss had brought to the work site. Working with the land has always been my favorite activity, and I graduated with a degree in landscape architecture. I was plucked up by an awesome landscape company midway through college and I’ve been very fortunate that my boss, Rick, has been so cool about me working around whatever happens with Marissa. When he met her for the first time a few weeks after he hired me, he told me that she reminded him of his cousin Leslie. “Our Les had some problems, so I understand what you’re going through, son. You’re a good kid.”
The job we were on was one of the smallest that my boss had ever taken. After getting used to working on large-scale projects, I was surprised that we were doing something so time consuming in someone’s backyard. At least, I had been surprised until my boss had explained that we were designing and installing a ‘love garden’ for his best friend as a gift to his wife. I’d never done anything like it before, and even I have to admit that it’s amazing.
Rick’s best friend was a doctor and his wife’s favorite thing to do was spend time outside. Although the timing of the creation of the love garden was off, the doctor had spared no expense in having things flown in. The garden was an anniversary gift and since their anniversary was on Halloween, it was costing a fortune to get the out of season flowers. I thought it was really cool that he loved his wife so much that he was making it happen, seasons be damned.
The guy might be a doctor but he knew how to handle tools, so he spent a lot of his spare time helping us make it happen.
“Wouldn’t be much of a love garden if I didn’t put any love into it, am I right?”
What we had put together for his wife was amazing, and I was really proud of it. Since I had Marissa with me so much for the last month, she had been here with me most of the days that I was on site.
As the garden took shape she had looked around in wonder, clearly amazed that a man would think to do such a thing for his wife. She’d been quietly thrilled the day that the doctor and his wife had come outside to help, their love for one another so clear to see.
“They’re living a fairytale in that house,” she had said wistfully. “It’s so beautiful to think that when they’re eighty, they can be back here watching their grandchildren play in their garden of love.”
Marissa had lit up inside when the doctor asked her place the garden plaque he’d had made for his wife. It was a beautifully simple saying that summed up the garden perfectly: Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow ~ John Lennon. Marissa had loved that the doctor was so romantic toward his wife, and she smiled the entire time she was setting it into place in the rose bush area of the garden.
Until yesterday, it had been the only time that I had seen her show enthusiasm for anything all month. I was planting the last flower of the day when I heard a commotion behind me. Standing up and brushing off my knees, I turned to see my boss coming toward me. Alarm bells started going off the second I saw his face because he was white as a sheet. He was coming straight for me, and I knew in that moment that I’d been incredibly stupid to leave Marissa at home.
I was shaking my head in the negative as he reached me, desperate for him to tell me anything other than the fact that my wife was gone, but his face told a very clear tale.
The sound of my own voice asking, “What did she do, what did she do, what did she do,” over and over again seemed to be coming from far away.
Tears poured down Rick’s face as he replied, “I’m sorry Dillon… I’m so fucking sorry. I got a call from the police about twenty minutes ago and I got here as fast as I could. Marissa left a bag with instructions for the police to alert me about what she had done… I lied and told them I didn’t know which job site you were on because I wanted to be the one to tell you since I think that’s what she wanted.”
My entire world just fell apart, the shock so horrible that I felt like I might lose my mind.
“WHAT. DID. SHE. DO?”
On a choked sob he said, “She walked in front of a bus as it came around a blind curve. The police told me that she was gone before the driver even got to hit the brakes. Two witnesses saw her lay the bag she had down just before she walked out. The police are waiting at your house to talk to you. I told them that as soon as I found you I would bring you right home. We need to go.”
Rick drove me and then had two workers follow us there; one to drive my truck and the other to take the driver back to work.
For the entirety of the drive home all I could think about were Marissa’s final words to me.
“I’ll be watching out for you,” she had told me. I was so stupid to have believed that meant that she would be happily waiting for me to come home from work. If only I’d realized that her words meant something so much darker. Why had I been so stupid?
The police were parked at the curb; exiting the car at the same time I got out of Rick’s truck. After making the official next of kin notification to me, they had some basic questions. I told them that Marissa had been depressed, that she had a history of suicide attempts, then instructed them to direct any further questions about her mental status to her therapist since the doctor had been at my house this morning and had given the all clear on Marissa. She fooled us all because that’s what she wanted to do, and I felt completely numb.
The entire time I was talking to the police I was mentally preparing myself to break the news to Leah and Dominique.
My sister was going to be beyond devastated; there was no doubt of that. From the day that Leah and Marissa had met, they had formed a bond that had been forged in steel. Leah was younger than Marissa by a couple of years and I think that in some way she originally had been a substitute for Marissa’s stepsister. Of course a real bond grew out of that, but I think that’s how it started.
When Marissa had arrived at the foster home we were in, she had been in horrible shape. Beaten to within an inch of her life, she had been covered in cuts and bruises along with having both a broken arm and a sprained ankle. Leah had made it her mission to get Marissa to feel better. For a week she had walked ahead of Marissa so that she could rest her hands on Leah’s shoulders for balance as she got strength back in her ankle. All these years later I know that it was that experience that made Leah’s career choice for her. Her heart is an open book and helping children regain their strength is the only thing she’s ever wanted to do.
How the hell am I going to break her heart and tell her that the girl she’s loved as her other half for more than half of her life is gone?
Before they left, the police left me with instructions on how to collect Marissa’s remains from the coroner. I was told to choose a funeral home, and my mind was completely blown by that point. Her remains? The coroner, funeral homes, services? Hell was my new reality.
After the police left I sat in silence as my boss did everything he could to help me stay calm. On the outside I think that I looked reasonably composed. Inside, I was a mess of epic proportions. My entire world had been sucked into a sinkhole that went straight down to hell and I didn’t know what to do.
The idea of telling Leah and Dominique was so overwhelming that I was paralyzed with fear. It felt like once I told them that she’s gone it would make it real. Since I was the only person that she loved that knew what she had done, right then it was only real for me. I wished that I could somehow delay the inevitable and keep it that way until I could find a way to breathe without feeling like every breath was a struggle.
Sometime later, it could have been minutes or hours, the front door opened. For just a moment I had hope that maybe it would be her, that maybe everything I’d been told was wrong. Of course it wasn’t her, it was Leah coming to check on her.
Leah took one look at me sitting on the sofa looking like god knows what, then looked over at Rick, saw his expression, and buckled. I jumped and ran for her, catching her before she could hit the ground.
She yelled incoherently for a moment as I held her against me, her breathing so fast that I worried she was going to hyperventilate. Pulling back from my chest she looked up at me, her eyes filled with the hope that, maybe, it wasn’t as bad as she suspected.