Cycles

Your husband’s voice permeates your shared home with tangible rage as it seems to do every day. It has been two hours of screaming. Two painfully long hours of fighting. “Just say it,” you silently remind yourself. You know you’ll regret it if you don’t. Your future plays out in your mind like a terrible movie you’ve seen one-hundred times. You hate it, but something keeps you watching. You’re looking for something redeemable in it to cling to; something to assure you that there is always some good to be found in bad stories. You are searching for something to fight for. 

The first vision you see is the kids. You watch them grow before your eyes. They start school and find friends to bring home for sleepovers. The excited gleam in their eyes is enough for you to say yes even though there will probably be fighting tonight. There is always fighting. Screaming obscenities is not beneath him, not even in the presence of children, your own or otherwise. But you say yes to your children because how could you not? Every kid deserves to have friends over. So, they come. The start of the night isn’t bad, but eventually all decent days turn sour with him. What you are fighting about you can’t remember. You were in a good mood, so were the kids. He was not. 

You imagine the phone call from the visiting children’s parents as if you’ve heard it with your own ears. You envision holding back tears as they tell you they will not be allowing their child to come to your home again. Ever. They berate you to seemingly no end until, finally, they hang up leaving your face red-hot with embarrassment. He asks what the call was about and you tell him - you agreed a long time ago not to keep secrets from each other. He goes into an hour long rant about how other people can’t tell him how to behave in his own home. At full volume your husband assures you and the rest of the neighborhood that he is a perfectly capable father. Your own father comes to mind. His is the voice that reaches your ears next. 

“You do what I say because I am your father!”

You recall quivering beneath that voice many times. One such instance comes to mind first. You remember an incident when you were five, on a black couch eating potato chips and watching t.v. So caught up in the show, you didn’t recognize the signs saying Dad was getting annoyed. Looking back, you’re not sure if there were any signs to notice. You remember a hard object hitting the side of your face mid chew. Your eyes went wide and your heart dropped to your stomach. Dad’s voice hit you harder than the backhand.

“Chew with your mouth closed!” 

You carry Dad’s lesson into adulthood and preemptively match the faces of men with a word you’ve come to hate: unpredictable. 

Your thoughts steer back toward your husband. How could you not draw that connection? After all, there are so many resemblances. The ice cold glare when they’re displeased. The unwillingness to hear your concerns without twisting your words into an accusation. The yelling, of course, there’s always yelling. Then, the apology; a simple “I’m sorry” and a promise not to do it again. But they always do it again. And again, and again. You are forced by these thoughts to remember the cheating. Out of all other things, you want to forget that most of all. 

Dad’s discretion comes to you first, but maybe you forced that to happen; you’re not ready to see those visions of your husband yet. It’s easier on your heart to remember Dad, barely home as it was, slowly evaporating from your life over the course of a couple weeks. One day, he was there as normal - you were locked in your room, afraid of the eyes on you whenever you tried to come out. The next, he was gone. Truthfully he hadn’t left. He just never came home. Once he hopped into bed with that girl from work he just vanished. You came home from one of the two part-time jobs you had to find Mom on the couch. She was bawling. So was your little brother. You still hear his tiny voice, choked back by sobs.

“Mommy, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?” 

You were barely nineteen and kept walking to your room in the basement. Honestly, what could you have said to her? No words will ease that kind of pain. 

You know that feeling well, don’t you? The pictures on your husband’s phone took the air out of your lungs faster than if he had simply punched you in the stomach. For a moment, you almost wished he had. The subtle text messages to other women you didn’t know made your blood curdle. Rage pushed you to make a move, so you confronted him. He told you it was nothing. That’s all he said. You didn’t believe him. You worked together that day. He screamed and berated you in front of the entire warehouse. You cried for the first time in a workplace, and apologized to everyone around you for being unprofessional at work. By the end of the day you believed him. At least, that’s what you kept telling yourself. 

Now, you remember all those apologies Dad gave you; the broken promises to never hurt you again. Your face is wet with tears. The future is before your eyes again. You see, in perfect detail, all the ways your husband will do it again. You imagine yourself eighteen years into marriage, just like Mom. At forty with four children, you smile as your husband tells you he loves you. You watch as he leaves for work and then you go about your day waiting for the moment he’ll walk back through the front door. He never does. Over a text message he tells you that last night he stayed at the home of the girl he works with. You ask him if he slept with her. He says yes. Your life shatters. The scenarios your mind conjures up stab at your heart like dull daggers being intentionally shoved harder into your chest - to make sure they cut deep. You try to convince yourself that these are just visions, but you know they will not be just for long. 

You think of your kids one more time - the way they will cry out for Daddy at bedtime. You assure yourself that it will pass; trauma will not. You hear the questions they’re bound to ask you when they get older. The most frightening of all these is “why?” You know you will have to explain the darkest sides of their father to them, but that doesn’t bother you so much. You're more afraid of hearing that they have already experienced it firsthand. Christmas, Halloween, Birthdays - you know all these will pass without him in the family photos. There will always be an empty spot in your home. 

By now, the argument is settling down. Your husband's anger has dwindled to a soft roar, and he’s nearing the make-up stage. You know what will happen next. He will calm himself and try to reason with you. He will come up with an entire list of things you can change to make him feel better. If you just listen to him for once things will be great! He will apologize to you and you will apologize in return for an argument you did not cause; for words you did not say, but that he knows he heard come from your mouth. You will go to bed and fall asleep tangled up in each other. Your heart will be in your throat. 

The search for redeemable attributes has ended; the terrible movie finally rolls the credits. Once again, you have found nothing. You tell yourself for what feels like the thousandth time that you will never find anything. “Just say it,” you silently remind yourself. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.” 

“I want a divorce.” 

 Your husband’s apologies pervade the house but they are hollow words; a string of letters with no discernible meaning. His eyes are wide with grief, but you know this act. You will not fall victim to it again; your mind is made up. You promise yourself it will be better this way. You don’t break promises.