One Step at a Time

He’s dead.

Gone forever.

Disappeared, almost as if he didn’t exist at all.

I try to smile politely at the people who offer their condolences to me, but I think they have the brains to understand that I’m merely trying, that I don’t actually mean it.

None of them know what it feels like to lose your child.

Their children are happily living their lives, not having a care in the world.

While my child is very soon going to spend eternity under the ground.

It’s going to be very dark and damp.

How will he be able to get through it without me?

I was always there for him, until I wasn’t.

He left, of his own volition.

He thought that no one would care.

But he forgot about me.

His mother.

He forgot that I cared.

Jason rubs my back, trying to comfort me.

He’s taking over, talking to all the relatives that I’m supposed to, thanking them for coming and accepting the ‘sorry for your loss’s with graciousness.

But I know he’s hurting too.

******

Cecilia is not making things easy for me.

She’s being emotional.

Though that is understandable, she’s not leaving me enough room to be emotional too.

She thinks that because she’s the mother, she’s entitled to more grieving and mourning than the father.

Doesn’t she see me crying in plain sight?

Why do I have to be the one to comfort her, when I lost him too?

Sean was my son too.

She keeps forgetting that.

Our marriage was so close to shattering.

But we held on. For Sean’s sake.

Now Sean’s gone.

No reason to hold on anymore.

******

I saw them together.

At that moment, he forgot about the fact that his son had taken his own life.

He forgot that he still had a wife.

He laughed like he’d never laughed before and kissed her like she was the only one.

And here I was, thinking that Jason was hurting, that his son’s death had affected him too.

But I was so wrong.

They left in a car.

They didn’t see me.

I wait for him at home, but he doesn’t come.

He messages me at midnight, citing the reason for his absence as a late conference.

Liar.

******

The plate which my mother-in-law had gifted Cecilia before we moved to our own house, the one with the lavender flowers, is thrown in my direction as I narrowly dodge it, breaking into a million tiny pieces, and one piece lodging itself in the sole of my foot.

I stifle my pain, biting my lip hard, as she continues throwing all the crockery she can find, at me.

“Cecilia –”

“I think we can –” I duck as she throws a glass at my head, and it crashes on the wall behind me.

“Work this out.” I finish, as she looks for something else to throw.

I go over to her, wincing at the pain in my foot, and take the vase from her hands, placing it carefully on the counter.

“Non-violently.”

She is breathing hard from her anger and exertion after throwing so much at me.

I pull the piece of glass out of my foot, and as I hop awkwardly, she continues to glare at me.

Sitting down at the dining table and putting a piece of ice on my small yet painful wound, I look at her.

She’s wringing her hands in frustration, and her hair is sticking up everywhere.

“Let’s talk about this like adults, alright?” I say, patting the chair next to me.

Looking like it’s the last thing she wants to do, she sits on the chair next to me, and her face is a mixture of questions.

“You slept with another woman,” she says, her voice coming out as a mere whisper.

“How are you going to explain that? Huh?”

I don’t know what to say to her.

“Have you forgotten our wedding vows? Our promise to be with each other in sickness and in health, to be faithful to each other? Or did you just make those vows to break them?”

“You know, I quit my job today. Because I wanted to spend more time with you. Because I wanted to make this marriage work. Even though Sean is gone. I wanted it to work between us.”

Oh no she didn’t.

“You know, I thought you were hurting too. I thought that you were just good at hiding it. But you weren’t hurting at all. You were just waiting for him to die, weren’t you? So that you could go and stick your tongue down someone else’s throat, without anyone saying a word?”

I am immediately overtaken by an urge to take that vase and throw it at her.

“Shut up, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying. The truth. You were waiting for the last thing between us to break so that you could be set free.”

I run my fingers through my hair in frustration, not able to answer her.

“You’re wrong. You have no idea how it has been for me. Yes, Sean was the only thing holding us together, yes. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t love him, that I was waiting for him to die. He was my son too, and I miss him. So much. But you were grieving too. And you needed your space. I was willing to give it to you too. But there is a limit. I was always asking you how you were feeling, whether you needed anything, whether you were okay. But did you ever ask me? Did you ever walk in on me smelling his pillow and his bedsheets? Did you ever see me going to the bridge and thinking about jumping? Did you ever hear me cry out in pain in the middle of the night when I realized that he wasn’t coming back? Did you?”

She has gone deathly pale.

“So, I went out. To find someone who gets it. And I found her. But the worst part is, that it wasn’t you. It was supposed to be you. But you didn’t get it. You didn’t get it at all. I needed you. But you weren’t there for me.”

Cecilia looks at me, her eyes red-rimmed.

“I think you should go,” she says, wiping her tears and getting up.

“Go where? I don’t have anywhere to go,” I say, confused.

“Go to your mistress. The one who was there for you when I wasn’t. The one who you love more than you ever loved me.”

“Cecilia –”

“Go!” she screams.

She’s right.

I have lost the right to be here anymore.

I have lost the reason to be here anymore.

Because the two people who I stayed for are gone.

******

I sit at the table and cry soundlessly, tears falling, my mouth dry and tasting of salt.

I’m all alone.

I always thought that I was surrounded by too many people all the time.

Crowds are suffocating.

But loneliness is more fatal.

The world has played a cruel prank on me by giving the only thing I wanted in the worst way possible.

Taking away the people I could tolerate.

I need to learn to be by myself.

I need to live for the people who left, the people who had no choice but to.

I pick up the newspaper and start searching for a job.

Tomorrow, I’m going to start cleaning out Jason’s room.

Then Sean’s.

One step at a time.

******