This Side of the Pacific

They married on that day in Japan when the ground quaked, the shores drowned, and the nuclear plant exploded. Thankfully, the ceremony was held in Seattle, not Sendai. Still, those in attendance came silently to the shore, to contemplate the ocean, to marvel at how serene it seemed in Washington State, knowing what they did of the situation in Tōhoku. That which happened more than four thousand miles away cast an eeriness and trepidation over the rest of the celebration. How might they sing and dance and drink with fifteen thousand dead overseas, the body responsible but a few dozen feet from where they pitched the wedding tent? A decade later, however, both Rebecca and Robert wished they had stood in defiance of that solemn tone, that they had eaten that horrifically caloric cake and that they had torn open those gifts wrapped in white paper with golden bows while the buildings drowned, the bodies crushed beneath the soaking rubble. If it had not begun tragically, it might not have had to end tragically.

Rebecca was brewing coffee when the familiar knock came at her apartment’s door.

“Robert.” Rebecca said as she opened the door.

“Rebecca.”

Both their faces immediately twisted into disgust upon seeing each other. Rebecca thought briefly about her younger self, about how long it took that stupid girl to even so much as glare with the slightest hint of disdain at her beloved Rob. Now it was an effortless exercise, the only organic response she could possibly have to seeing his dimmed eyes, his whitened hair, the thick mat of silver stubble that had come to dominate the lower region of his face.

“Come in,” Rebecca said. “I’ve made coffee.”

Robert did come in. He crept into her apartment with an altogether similar disposition to the one he had while leading Rebecca and the wedding guests outside to lay eyes upon the Pacific. As a child, he loved to splash around in Puget Sound. On that day, he approached the sea with great trepidation but also great sadness, suddenly made aware of the murderous and destructive nature of this old friend of his. And as an adult, he and Rebecca lived here, at this apartment. They ate at that table, sat on that sofa, slept in that bed. He once considered this place a home, the things in it as sacred objects, symbols that marked his personal undertaking of that grand metamorphosis from bachelor to complete human being. Now he looked at this apartment like he did the ocean that night, past memories of unrestrained bliss now soured by a present reality of disenchantment, resent, and bitterness.

As Robert took a seat, Rebecca loaded both mugs with enough sugar and cream to give the dark brown liquid inside a distinct whitish hue, a paleness that was sort of revolting in its artificiality. She didn’t have to ask if he still took his coffee the same way as she did. They didn’t agree on much, especially these days, but the one thing they might still be able to concur smilingly about is black coffee’s putrid taste.

“You have the papers ready?” Robert said, taking one of the mugs and sipping at it with palpable reluctance, evidently feeling like his lips no longer belonged upon anything belonging to her.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Another wave of uncomfortable silence overtook them as they grabbed the mugs and moved to the purple sofa. Rebecca used the opportunity to grab the nearby remote and turn on the TV, whereupon her the Food Network appeared on the CRT’s tiny, grainy screen. Her failing eyesight coupled with the picture’s exceptionally poor quality made it hard for her to see what was playing, but she soon gathered, upon hearing Ted Allen’s distinct and soothing voice, that it was a Chopped rerun. For that, she was very thankful. How many times had she sought and found some menial amount of complacency and comfort in this particular television program throughout the long and agonizing death of their marriage? It belatedly occurred to Rebecca that she ought to formulate some means of formally thanking the Food Network, that heroic institution which has saved so many soon-to-be divorcées from awkward conversation.

“The courthouse opens at nine.” Robert said.

“What?” Rebecca said, pretending not to have heard him on account of her listening with rapt attention to Ted listing off the zany foods which the two remaining contestants had to incorporate into their dessert dish (durians, General Tso’s chicken, candied yams, and a wheel of gouda cheese).

“I said that the courthouse opens at nine.”

“Oh, I know. We’ll leave in just a few minutes.”

“Let’s just leave now.”

“What?”

“I said, let’s just leave right now. What the hell are we doing just standing around here? Let’s just get it over with and move on with our lives. Don’t you agree?”

Rebecca sipped at her mug, again feigning preoccupation with the exploits of chefs Marissa and Calvin. Rebecca had come to realize that Robert was not the sort that anybody might describe as “intellectually-inclined” or even “intelligent”, but he did make a good point here. Why did she feel glued to the sofa when all she wanted was to be rid of him? Why did she even invite Robert here for coffee this morning? Would it not have been easier upon her ailing mind to minimize the tremendous influence he would certainly come to have over this most awful of days?

As she watched Chef Marissa drizzle durian juice over her yams, the reason suddenly hit Rebecca, and immediately the intensive self-loathing she had become so acquainted with these past few months reintroduced itself. Her feeble and childish psyche still believed in that mirage of hope, it still believed in that flickering light in the deep and dark distance. It was not that she wanted the marriage to work out because she genuinely loved or even cared in the slightest about Robert. At one point, that might have been true, but at this juncture, it was an entirely selfish desire. To remain Rebecca Marshall meant not only a certain, guaranteed degree of comfort and security but also a sense of victory, of overcoming, of looking the other wives she brunched with at the café down the street dead in the eye and saying, “I made it work, despite your nasty glares and whispered prophecies.” To revert back to Rebecca Sherman, that meant sheer humiliation when she joined those same wives for banana bread and English muffins next week, that is if they even decide to renew her membership after learning of her new status as a disgruntled bachelorette in no rush to marry.

“You’re not even listening,” Robert said as he stood up from the couch, evidently having discerned some answer he was at least partially satisfied with from her prolonged silence. “You never listen. That’s why all this happened. Because you never listen.”

Rebecca refused to take her eyes off the television screen. If she turned her head and let his eager eyes devour the affected and deeply wounded expression that comment had brought about upon her face, she thought she might never forgive herself. She refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that his words still had the ability to cut her open like that. She just stared ahead, trying not to focus on-

That’s when the sirens began. Rebecca and Robert suddenly looked at each other in bewilderment, all that resentment and pettiness and bitterness gone from their expressions. Frozen in place, they saw the unmistakable look of fear in the other’s eyes for only a brief moment, as the power shut off all of a sudden, plunging the room into darkness and silence, with even the immortal voice of Ted Allen getting cut off mid-sentence.

“Rebecca! Rebecca, what the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know, Robert! I don’t know!”

They were still entirely motionless until the quake came. The mugs dropped out of both of their hands. Next went the recently silenced CRT, which took a screen first suicide dive onto the coffee table.

“Rebecca! Jesus Christ, Rebecca, Jesus Christ! Where are you!?”

“Robert, where are you!? Please, God, please!”

A nearby lamp came crashing down, and it would have certainly landed square on Robert’s forehead and bludgeoned him if he had not begun to crawl towards her. Rebecca too was walking on her knees towards him, stopping only once or twice to wail with pain as the ceramic shards of her recently shattered mug drew ribbons of blood down her exposed legs. Robert couldn’t see these gushing red rivulets, but as he settled into her familiar, firm, and still somehow warm grip, his palm brushed accidentally just above her ankle and he felt the wetness there.

“You’re bleeding, Rebecca!”

“Robert, come closer! Come closer, Robert, please!”

He did. She didn’t know what to make of this sudden desire for his comfort. She had a hard time believing it was some rejuvenated fire, some rekindled yearning for him, nor too did she think it was some cold and robotic desire to find some means of being shielded from whatever apocalyptic disaster soon to befall her. No, it wasn’t either of those things. She wasn’t quite certain what it was. But as Robert’s stubble prickled and poked the left side of her face, she thought it might just be a primal urge to hold onto someone familiar in a time of crisis. Even if she didn’t want to be his wife, even if she didn’t want to be his friend, even if she didn’t want anything to do with him for as long as she lived, could all that really matter now with the blaring sirens and the quivering floor and that distant crashing sound?

Unfortunately, the Rebecca Marshall inhabiting this mortal plane never reached the caboose of that particular train of thought, for it was at the particular moment when both their streams of tears converged into a singular river right where their chins met that the tsunami came and swallowed the apartment complex whole.