The Life List (The List Trilogy) (36 page)

“C’mon, Chrissy, what are you doing?”

“I’m moving in here so I can be alone and think.” Good girl. Stay strong.

“Think at home.”

“No.”

“Don’t you think it’s gonna be a little weird during the holidays?”

“I dunno, don’t you think it’s weird that you committed to hosting Christmas Eve at our house when I don’t even live there?”

Man, I hate doing this. I hate acting like him.

“IT’S STILL YOUR HOUSE AND YOU’RE STILL MY WIFE!  Look, I’ve been patient with all the hiding at your parents’ house and the running off to your friend’s place in the city, but getting your own apartment is plain nuts.”

“
It’s a cottage
.”

“I don’t care if it’s Trump Tower! You made a vow to love me for better or for worse, and if you lease this place, it means you stopped doing what you promised to do.”

“I DO LOVE YOU!”

“
How is this love
?!”

“I’m doing this because you can’t see what I see.”

“Oh yeah, tell me, Chrissy… what are you so aware of that I’m not?”

“Dammit, Kurt, you’re so consumed with finishing what we started that you can’t see how wrong we were for each other at the beginning! This is so much bigger than a bike race or climbing to the top of a mountain! Quitting us isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s admitting we deserve a better, more fulfilling adventure.”

“We’re not wrong!”

His resistance is killing me, but I can’t back down now.

“If I go back to Danville and pretend I’m happy for you and everyone else, what we have together won’t get better. It’ll get a hell of a lot worse, and I love you too much to end up in a hateful place. Can’t you give me credit for being strong enough to prevent that from happening?”

“If you move out of our house, the only thing I’ll give you credit for being is a quitter.”

If I really were a quitter I’d tear up my new lease and go back home.

Hard as this is, I’m NOT gonna quit myself, and I’m gonna fight this battle for the both of us. In the end, he’ll give me the credit I deserve. I think.

“Can’t you just choose to be happy?”

“What?”

“Stop
pretending
to be happy and
choose
to be happy.”

Like a genie, I bend my arms out in front of me, place my hands on opposite elbows and snap my head downward.

“Zoinks! Nope, still not happy. God, Kurt, my emotional state can’t be switched on or off like a lamp, and what brought me to this point wasn’t the result of a minor occurrence that I can choose to ignore.”

“I’m so sick of talking about bad stuff all the time. I just want to be happy and enjoy life
with a wife
that TOLD ME she wanted the same things as me.”

“I tried to want the same things as you, but it’s not who I am. This, the woman standing in front of you, this is who I am and you don’t like her. You want her to go away, and you want me to keep on pretending.  I’m sorry, I’m just not gonna do that anymore.”

“I knew I should’ve made you stop seeing that therapist.”

“
You think Dr. Maria’s to blame for this
? Give me some credit, Kurt! This separation isn’t a result of what a therapist told me to do! Maybe if
you
had continued to see Dr. Maria…”

“I don’t need a total stranger to explain my life to me.”

“Oh my God, you are so damaged! I can’t do this anymore! I can’t spend another year, another month, ANOTHER DAY, hoping you’ll get it.”

“What’s ‘it?’”

“It…it’s…everything!”

“You’re losing your mind.”

“No I’m not! And please wipe that patronizing smirk off your face.

My God, Kurt, look where I brought you! Listen to what I’m telling you!”

“I am listening, and it’s never gonna happen, you’re not moving here.”

“Yes I am.” And then it’s my turn to take steps towards him. “Kurt, you’re not afraid of losing me, you’re just afraid of losing. I wish so badly it was the other way around. I’ve
prayed
for it to be the other way around, but it’s not. I can’t hope for something that’s never gonna happen, and you can’t tell me what to do anymore. I’m moving out. It’s over.”

Admitting that to him… to myself… hurt more than I ever could’ve anticipated. His smirk is gone, and he’s silent.

“It’s my fault we’re standing here now, and I’m more sorry for that than you’ll ever know. But I have to get my life back, and I need this cottage to help me do that.”

“But we can…”

“No we can’t, Kurt. How we were worked for us for a really long time, but so many unfortunate things happened, or maybe it was that so many essential things didn’t happen…I don’t know, but either way, I don’t get us anymore. We don’t make sense to me and I’m tired of trying to figure it all out. I just want to move into this cottage and rest.  Please, can I rest?
Can we rest
? Please!”

“Stop crying, Chrissy. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“But you have to know this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“I don’t see how it can’t.”

I want him to be proud of my persistence. I want him to be grateful for my strength. I want him to be apologetic for not worshipping the woman I am. But he’s not, he’s pissed.

“I’m not a quitter, Chrissy. If you move in here, it’s all on you.”

I can argue the ownership of “it” until I’m blue in the face, but I choose not to anymore. I’m willing to take one for the team.

“I’m moving in here this weekend. It’s time you told your family.”

I try to be strong and stand up for myself

I try to speak up with the words that don’t come out

Does anyone know this heart of mine?

This heart of mine…

(This Heart of Mine, Ashley Chambliss)

Superstar

November, 1998

When I backed the U-Haul into our driveway on Saturday morning, Kurt still hadn’t told his family about our situation. I struggled with being deeply concerned about his denial, but fought the urge to question him by channeling Dr. Maria’s words of wisdom that I only have the power to control myself, and I forged on with the move. Together, Kurt and I loaded up all of the guest room furniture and everything from my closet and, like the superstar he is, Kurt did it all with a smile and a whistle. Every time we passed each other in the hallway, I wanted to slap the smile off of his face and scream at him to feel something. When we clumsily carried the mattress out to the truck, I wanted to beg him to stop joking about it and comprehend the seriousness of it. When we shared a beer after the work was done, I wanted to feel like he cared about what he was losing, but all it felt like was that he was thirsty.

Every therapist
and
self-help book says that once a spouse moves out of the house, the marriage is over, the mover-outer has officially given up. If Kurt knew this, I wonder if he would’ve been whistling. I doubt it, and so it makes me think he thinks I’m coming back. I used to want to protect that side of him, the side that’s oblivious to pain, bad and negative, but not anymore. I only have the capacity to protect myself now, and I need all the protection I can get because my heart actually breaks. And so, after two hours of oddly impressive teamwork, I said goodbye. Like a kid going off to college, Kurt gave me a kiss on the forehead, told me to be safe, and to call him when I got home. As I sat idling in the driveway, we locked eyes and for a second I thought something deep might come out of it. But I was wrong. He glanced at his watch as if I had already taken up too much of his time, shook his head, and let out a condescending chuckle accompanied by his infamous half smile and then proceeded to close the front door on me. After I wiped away what I swore to myself would really, really, really be the last tears shed over Kurt’s indifference, I put my rig in gear and headed to Lafayette.

On the drive down Highway 680, all I could hear was Kurt’s voice, and it was calling me a quitter, so I turned the music as high as it would go, and I screamed at the top of my lungs to block it out. It certainly wasn’t the liberating drive I thought it would be. And all the relief I thought I was gonna feel on my big moving day was nowhere to be found when I pulled into my parking space at the cottage. On impact, the place made me feel lonely. When I stepped inside, the freezing cold air was quick to remind me that I forgot to notify the gas company I was moving in. Then when I hit the light switch to find my way to the bathroom, it occurred to me that I also forgot to let the electric company know. For a second, I was grateful for the light coming through the French doors, but then I became horrified at how exposed I was. I thought, “Someone could easily break into this place and murder me!” I rushed back outside to get as much work done as I could before the daylight ran out, but when I opened the back of the U-Haul, the biggest shock of the day slapped me across the face. “How the hell am I supposed to unload this stuff all by myself?”

I started cursing and accusing Dr. Maria of being full of shit when she said this was gonna be easier than being a sneaky adulterer. Part of me wanted to call Kurt for help, but I knew he’d only make me feel incapable of surviving without him, so I fought off the urge. I called Slutty Co-worker and asked her for help, but she was quick to remind me that she doesn’t perform manual labor. There was no one else to call; I had cut everyone else out of my life. I didn’t feel alone, I was alone.

But I was only alone for a few hours. Once I found my CD player, I had Alanis Morissette, Jewel, and Natalie Merchant to keep me company. Nothing like having a bunch of kick ass dejected chicks to motivate you! Seriously, if it wasn’t for those girls and their angry words to keep me going, I never would’ve been able to move all of my crap into my cottage. And for the last two days, I worked like a maniac to make everything just perfect. Pictures got hung, dishes got put away, new pretty linens now decorate my bedroom, and shielding curtains are now hanging over the French doors that just two days ago scared the crap out of me. Aside from needing a few thousand more square feet attached to it, my cottage looks and feels like home.

The nights though…they’re a lot harder than I thought they’d be. And it wasn’t the exaggerated shadows of
The Blair Witch Project
like branches that swayed back and forth outside of my bedroom window that made the last two nights unbearable. It was that I couldn’t celebrate my accomplishments with Leo. I live closer to him now than I did in Danville, but he might as well be a world away. It took some heavy duty self-medicating to get me through the last two nights, and this morning I wake feeling scared of the task that lies ahead of me at work. In fact, I feel tied to my bed.

You can do this, Chrissy. No I can’t. It’s too hard.

C’mon, you’ve come this far. You should be proud of yourself.

Proud
? I’m disgusted. I’m a horrible bitch who ruins people’s lives. Stop that! You’re trying to make people’s lives better, remember?! Why couldn’t I be one of those wives to gracefully accept her fate?

You know…a wife who says her wedding vows and sticks to them no matter how crappy her marriage makes her feel?

Because you’re better than that.

I doubt that’s what everyone at work is gonna think when I tell them I’m
separated
.

C’mon…up we go, one foot at a time.

They say the hardest part about exercising is putting on your tennis shoes. Well I say the hardest part about snapping out of a love funk is making it to the shower.
You’ll be okay if you can just make it to the shower
! If you can’t do that, then you need to immediately call your best girlfriends or your therapist. Since I have none of those at the moment, I have no choice. It’s shower or die.

Luckily, I made it to the shower and managed to wash away most of my self-deprecation, and now that I’m settled at the kitchen counter with my cup of coffee, I feel ready to take on the day. Everything in my cottage is pretty and tidy, and I feel calm knowing this is exactly how it will look when I get home. In all of my grown up years, I’ve never been able to enjoy a quiet cup of coffee before I set off for a busy day at work. I’ve usually had to stuff down a breakfast I didn’t want or race out the door to avoid it. But right now, my bed is made, Page Six has been read, and my coffee cup is about to be washed and put away. Everything’s heavenly abnormal.

I wonder what Kurt’s doing. I pick up my wedding band from the bowl of stuff I have no idea where to put and slide it back and forth across the counter top.

How is this happening to me?

Chill, Chrissy. You’re regressing again.

Maybe I’ll give him a call. I should probably remind him to give the dog his medicine.

No, dumbass, the dog’s an excuse! Put the phone down! You can’t make the call! You’ve been the one to do that too many times in the relationship…and look where it’s gotten you!

As I get in my car, I congratulate myself for staying strong. Besides, I can’t be pre-occupied with Kurt right now, I have a busy day. On the agenda is to tell the biggest loud mouth at work that I’m separated and then sit back and watch the wildfire spread.

And that it did. By 9:15 the owner of my company was in my office offering his deepest condolences and,
I think,
hitting on me. By 10:15, I had emailed Courtney and Nicole and apologized for being out of touch for so many months. I gave them a status report on my marriage and my new address. Oh, and I asked them to pass the information on to Kelly. I wasn’t trying to avoid Kelly, she just didn’t have email. She thought it was like Atari and it would be obsolete as quickly as it became a sensation. Too bad she didn’t have that same point of view about the Rachael hairstyle. Anyway, I suppose I could’ve called her, but I really don’t think she cares one way or the other about what happens with my marriage.

What happened when the people at work found out about my marital status totally blew me away! Half of the people never even knew I was married and the other half had a friend they wanted to immediately introduce me to. No joke, for the past few hours there’s been a line of kiss-asses at my door who have a “really great guy” they want to set me up with. One by one I tell them, “It’s just too soon for me.”  What? It’s not like I can tell them I already have an ex-boyfriend I dream about getting back together with! They’ll figure that out for themselves when Megan starts her internship next week.