See me

“You can see me? You CAN SEE ME?! Because I don’t feel fucking seen. I feel like I am the last thing that you see. Why do I have to tell my husband to care about me?” She wiped away a hot tear that made the bags under her forty-four-year-old eyes look even heavier.

Couples therapy. Divorce looming. The gut-wrenching weight of betrayal that Samantha carried was too much. If you had told her in 2011 that the guy who chased her out of a bar to get her number—holding both of her hands in his, looking soulfully into her eyes—would someday be the man who made her feel numb inside, she never would have believed it.

“This is a place for understanding, not blaming. Can you tell me, in your own words, what is the hardest for you today?” Andrew, the four-point-seven-star-rated therapist, asked.

The therapy room was too neat, almost staged, like a model home where no one actually lived. Beige walls, beige carpet, beige everything—like the color had been chosen to flatten feelings instead of coax them out. A clock ticked too loudly on the wall, and every second it marked felt like a hammer against her chest. The heater hummed, pushing out stale, dry air that did nothing to warm her. The tissues sat on the side table in their sharp little box, stacked with military precision, waiting for her tears like an expectation instead of comfort. Even the therapist’s leather chair groaned when he shifted, reminding her that every move, every sob, every pause in this room was being catalogued.

“What is the hardest for me? The hardest thing for me is coming to terms with the fact that you don’t consider my feelings—or that we even have a family. My son asked me this morning why mommy is always sad and crying. I don’t want this for them. I want them to have a childhood they don’t have to recover from.

“I had to recover from mine. My dad threw me away like garbage. I didn’t matter. Only what he wanted mattered. Sound familiar? Your ambition was more important than your family, Wade. I stood by you through everything.

“When you were deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, who sent the care packages and the letters? Who took care of the household? Who made sure your mom was okay? I was at one of the darkest points in my life, and I still made sure you felt loved. That you knew I was going to keep everything together at home.”

She sucked in air, chest heaving, close to hyperventilating. More tears rolled down her cheeks.

There was before Afghanistan and after Afghanistan. The before Samantha and the after Samantha. The before Wade and the after Wade.

Before Afghanistan was the man who swept her off her feet. On their first date, they brought their Labrador Retrievers hiking—her wild chocolate boy and his calm black lab. God, how she missed those dogs, long dead now. How she missed the people who once brought them hiking: that girl who ran two miles a day, loved to laugh, loved to ride horses; and that guy who was funny and sweet, who looked at her like she was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.

The little touches whispered: you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

When she shared her childhood trauma, he told her she was like a phoenix, destined to rise from ashes brighter than before. His proposal had been quite literally with a bang—while target shooting in the Nevada desert. When her shot made the target explode, he ran forward pretending something had gone wrong. By the time she reached him, he was on one knee with a diamond ring.

After Afghanistan, everything was different. He came home changed, and she felt less loved. The wedding was marred by pros and cons lists—should she still marry him? In the end, the pros outweighed the cons. She walked down the aisle in a Cinderella ballgown, hoping time would heal. Sometimes it did. He showed glimpses of the old Wade: birthday flowers, Valentine roses.

He hated his job, so she encouraged him to apply to hers. She worked overtime so he could focus on training. He graduated, posted in another unit so their marriage wouldn’t be strained by working together. Soon after, their first child came—a brown-eyed girl. Three years later, a rough-and-tumble hazel-eyed boy.

“A place for UNDERSTANDING?!” she screamed. “Not a place for blame?! Well, I blame him for the humiliation I feel. Who else is there to blame? I guess I can blame myself—I saw the red flags and ignored them.

“I never thought he would humiliate me for the entire world to see. The people I work with. My family. My friends. His family—oh, they must love it. She’s not one of us, Wade,” she mocked his mother’s voice. “Maybe you can have me left out of the family photo again—that makes your mother happy. God forbid you stuck up for me.

“What did I do that was so bad? Loved you? Supported you through an academy? Why couldn’t you ever choose me? Choose our family?”

Andrew’s hands folded in his lap. He waited the polite beats therapists wait for: a breath, a softening, some reach toward repair.

“Wade?” he said.

Wade’s laugh came out thin. He looked at the empty chair across from him as though he could still hold it between his hands.

“How do I find understanding in this, Andrew? How do I not place blame?”

The room filled with the hum of the heater and the distant traffic.

“She killed herself,” Wade said quietly. “Sam killed herself. She was forty-four. We have children who no longer have a mother.”

Andrew leaned forward. “I’m… I’m so sorry. But you are not to blame, Wade.”

Wade swallowed. “Sometimes I think I can see her while I’m in here—like she’s visiting me in the spaces I make for her.”

The chair opposite him remained empty.