Chapter Sixteen
Clove
I’m trying to assess the emotions I experienced on seeing my husband. I knew he was standing behind me even though I had my back to him, and when I heard his voice so familiar and yet so unfamiliar at the same time, I wanted to reach out to him. When I felt his touch sear my skin, I nearly came undone.
How many times I have lain awake at night aching for him to touch me, to look into my eyes and tell me he loves me and that everything will be all right? That’s the part that scares me the most. I don’t know if everything will ever be the same as it was before. How can it be?
None of them knows what it’s like to be trapped inside of your own head and feel like there is no way out. I want it to end, for all of the ugly to go away, leave me be, and let me live this life that I have been blessed with.
For a long time fear has paralyzed me, nearly destroyed me. I almost took my own life because of it. It’s manifesting inside my body, eating away at me, slowly destroying the happiness I could have that is sitting right beside me.
These are the thoughts that are running through my head right now as I feed Journey, with Turner by my side talking to her and getting to know his little girl. I should be rejoicing in this. My family is together, my daughter has her father, and he has her. I am absolutely elated to be home, to be with him, to see my family and to watch them interact as they get to know Journey and she them. So why do I feel like I can’t breathe; like I am suffocating to death?
Pain shoots through my chest, so powerful it has my head reeling back against the pillow. I hold my breath, willing it away, closing my eyes as I breathe in and out slowly until it decreases in its intensity.
“I think she looks just like me, don’t you?” Turner says with excitement, intervening in my dark thoughts. The pain in my chest is still there, but tolerable now.
“Well, I don’t know. Let’s put the two of you side by side and see.”
I’m hopeful that when I see him hold her for the first time, I am able to escape my apprehension and focus on seeing the man I love hold his child for the first time.
His eyes go wide and I chuckle.
“Oh, come on,” I urge, nudging him in the shoulder. “She’s not made of glass. Plus, look at the way she can’t take her eyes off of you. It’s like she knows who you are already. Go ahead, take her.”
I remove her from my breast, wiping her mouth with the edge of the blanket.
“Here, just put your hand under her head and the other one under her bottom.”
Turner gets out of the bed and sits in the chair next to it, and I hand Journey over to him. I laugh as he attentively does as I instruct, but holds himself stiff as a damn board when he does it.
The most priceless sight I have ever seen is sitting just a foot away from me, watching Turner swing our daughter back and forth in his arms with the biggest pushover smile on his face. He’s hooked. This picture-perfect moment will be embedded inside of me for the rest of my life.
He must be thinking the exact same thing as I am, because he looks up to me and asks me to take a picture with his phone. Carefully supporting her with one hand, he digs into the side pocket of his shorts for the phone with the other.
“Ready?” I ask as I swipe the screen.
“Go for it,” he nods.
I take several different shots of them together. He kisses her then turns her toward me, adjusting her on his lap as he beams like a little kid who just got his favorite toy as a gift.
This is exactly how our lives should be, enjoying each other and making memories to last a lifetime. We are interrupted all too quickly by a soft knock on the door. Turner gets up to go answer it while I swing my legs back onto the bed, pulling the blankets up to my waist.
“Well, who do we have here?” my mother-in-law asks as she walks into the room carrying an overnight bag in her hand.
“I’m a grandma!” She beams with pride and admiration as she observes Turner holding our baby. “Oh dear, she’s the most precious little girl. You have done so well with her, Clove.”
She drops the bag into the chair and comes over and hugs me, comforting me in her warm, motherly embrace.
“I missed you, sweetie. You need me and I am here,” she whispers in my ear so that only I can hear her.
“I went into the attic and brought a few changes of clothes, along with some other personal items I thought you might need. I hope that was okay, Turner?”
She turns toward him, her smile fading though when she sees his frozen expression. I look at both of them in confusion.
“What are you talking about? And why is my stuff in your attic?”
“Oh, shit. I am so sorry!”
Melody drops her head, obviously realizing she slipped up saying what she did. I don’t know what to think about this. Did he not think I would come back?
“Mother, it’s fine.” He stalks my way. “Clove, it’s not what you’re thinking, and we can talk about it later.”
“Here, Mother. Would you like to hold Journey?”
Acting as if he hasn’t just tilted my world on its damn axis, he passes our daughter to Melody, who immediately starts crying and holding the baby tightly to her.
The tension in the room builds rapidly as my eyes shoot daggers at my husband. Our bubble of happiness has burst instantly. He gives me a perceptive look, a look I don’t like at all and he knows it. I cross my arms over my chest and puff out my anger like a baby.
I mean, what the fuck does he expect? He’d better have a damned good reason why he would pack up my stuff and dispose of it in his mother’s attic. I am mad. I never once gave up on finding my way back home as soon as I became lucid enough to know what the hell was going on, even though I thought he was dead and wouldn’t be here when I returned. How could he give up on me so easily?
“She looks so much like Turner when he was a baby, don’t you both think?”
Her face spirals from happy to sad when she observes my stance.
“Well, I have all the time in the world now to get to know her. I’m sure the two of you are tired anyway.”
“You just got here, you don’t have to leave,” I protest.
She’s leaving because the tension has suddenly picked up in this room, choking us all like a noose.
“It’s fine, really. I have a ton of things to get done, anyway.”
Melody kisses both of Journey’s cheeks and passes her back to Turner, who takes her as if he’s a pro at holding her. Is it just me, or is she acting strange? These two are up to something. They exchange a look, giving me the impression they are hiding something from me.
Coming to the opposite side of the bed, she bends down and embraces me tightly, her eyes showing me how sorry she is when she lets go and kisses my cheek.
“Journey is a gift to the two of you; a gift to us all. I’m so glad you’re home, honey.”
“So am I, Melody.”
With one last squeeze of my hand and a wave to her son, she exits, leaving us alone again.
“I’m going to ask to take a shower. Maybe you should go and get some rest and come back later,” I say into the awkward silence, reaching for the call button for the nurse.
“No. I’m not leaving. Knowing my mother, she has stuff in the bag for me, too. Does the baby need to be changed or anything?”
She probably does, but I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to avoid me.
“Here, hand her to me and I’ll change her while you tell me why you gave up on me and packed all my stuff.”
“Jesus, Clove! Do you really think I gave up on you? Is that what you think?”
“I’m not sure what to think. All I know is, I’m lost. I feel like everyone around me is skidding past me at a thousand miles per hour. I’m trying to catch up here. You and my dad are both treating me as if I’m fragile and you’re afraid I’m going to break. But what the two of you fail to realize is, you cannot break something that is already broken.”
Instantly I see that my honesty has forced him to face the truth, and it changes his entire disposition from sadness to anger. The air around us grows so thick that it’s like trying to see across the street through a dense layer of fog.
“Look, we were fine until my mother came in here a few minutes ago-”
“We were not fine. Nothing is fine. This,” I gesture between us, “is a shield, Turner.”
“A shield for what? You are making no sense to me at all. Are you telling me that everything you just said to me about still loving me and missing me and not forgetting about me was a goddamned lie? Do you really want to know why I have all of your stuff boxed up and at my mother’s house? Come on, tell me, because the way I see it, you are looking for a fight and coming up with whatever reason you can find to have one.”
I can almost feel steam coming out of my ears.
“You’re joking, right? For the past year, I have thought you were dead. You have no idea what I have been through! I have been fighting against and arguing with the two people who I hate most in the world this whole time. It seems like all I know how to do now is fight! I don’t know anything else anymore. So the answer to both your questions is, yes!” I shout, my breathing becoming heavier.
“Why did you give up on me?” I ask bitterly. “Did you think I ran away with him on my own, that I choose him over you?”
His face contorts in anger, nostrils flaring. His piercing look makes me wish I hadn’t brought up the subject of Trent.
“I boxed up all of our stuff, Clove. Everything. There isn’t a damn thing left in that house. It’s been sitting empty for six months now. Six months, and do you know why? Because I couldn’t stand to be in there! I couldn’t look at anything in that house! Not a bath towel, because I feared he might have used it. Not our couch, because he probably sat on it! Not that shower, because he bathed himself in it, and sure as shit, especially not our bed because I know damn well he slept in it WITH YOU!”
He starts to shake, and even though I know he has hold of Journey firmly enough in his hands, I want her back, and I want him out of here. Just as my fingers curl into a fist, a fear-inducing bolt of pain hits me so strong that it takes over my body. I can’t breathe. I start to hyperventilate and the feeling inside me is as if I am being shoved inside a little ball and there is no way I can fit. My legs give out and I collapse onto the floor.
“Oh, God! What’s happening?”
I roll to my side, clenching my hands over my chest.
“Clove? Help! Somebody help us!” I hear Turner screaming as if from a distance.
Everything happens next in a blur. I feel myself being lifted onto a bed. People screaming, Journey crying. Pressure... there is so much pressure on my chest.
“Help me, please,” I manage to croak out before I drift away to where I feel nothing at all.
************
“‘Anxiety attack’ is not a psychological term, Mr. Calloway. Some people like to associate them with that category, but I assure you they are not. Your wife has suffered what we call a panic attack, which can be very stressful for the victim. Under the circumstances, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
I wake to the curtain drawn across the room and the voices of Turner discussing my meltdown with a doctor.
“Please don’t blame yourself. These attacks can be triggered by a number of things. What she needs now is rest.”
I crack my eyes open a little farther. The room is dimly lit; I see the diffused light from the early evening sky out the window.
Turner draws back the curtain, exposing his clean-shaven face and freshly changed clothes. He notices I’m awake.
“Hey.”
I clear my throat.
“Hey,” I reply.
“How long have you been up?”
“Long enough to know I’m not crazy,” I say with a faint smile.
“Here, let me help you,” he offers as I try and adjust myself to sit up a little higher in the bed.
He smooths out my pillow and sits in the chair beside me.
“Where’s Journey?” I ask.
“She’s in the nursery with my mother and your father.”
“Oh. I wonder if they will let her come back. She has to be hungry and by looks of it, I’ve been sleeping for some time now.”
My words to him are cautious. I don’t like that we are playing coy with each other. This isn’t us. We have always been a hands-on couple, not afraid to touch, hold hands, and kiss in public. This is bullshit with him sitting with his knee crossed over one leg, arms folded, and here I am with my hands clasped in my lap like some prim and proper lady. What the hell are we doing?
This isn’t my fault, and sure isn’t his. Turner is broken just like I am. I have to learn to control my temper, to put him before myself, and to try and understand what he has been through. For him I can do that, I have to in order to save our marriage, to get him to see me as the same person I was before.
Love is about putting someone else’s needs before your own. Turner has always had me on a pedestal, but now I’ve been pushed off. If I want my husband to know that I love him even more than the day before, and that I will love him even more than that tomorrow, I need to get back on there.
“We can get her whenever we want,” he says to me now. “And no, she isn’t hungry. I fed her a little while ago.”
My brows lift.
“You fed her, as in, she took a bottle from you?” I ask incredulously.
“You should have seen her. She was screaming. She’s got quite the set of lungs on her for such a tiny little thing. I don’t know why, but when I picked her up, she stopped crying. I think the nurses in there were so shocked as shit that she quieted down that they just shoved a bottle in my hand as fast as they could, and she took it. Drank the whole thing,” he shrugs and continues with the proudest look on his face. “Now, her throwing up all over me when they showed me how to burp her wasn’t fun, but God, it’s the strangest thing. It’s like she really does know who I am.”
“Of course she knows who you are. Even though she never heard your voice, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t tell her about you, about how much you would have loved her and protected her, and would always be there for her.”
He scratches the back of his head, looking down at the floor awkwardly.
“I can’t believe you’ve gone this whole time thinking I was dead, on top of everything else you have been through. I… for you to have to deal with something like that all alone... this whole fucking thing makes me want to kill your mother. She’s going to pay for what she has done. Not only did she take you away from me, but she could have killed my daughter. Our daughter.”
Uncrossing his legs, he rests his elbows on the bed.
“I feel like you’re so far away from me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act, what I’m supposed to say. I’m scared of losing you for good.”
“You will never lose me. You never did,” I say.
“I know, it’s just, it’s a mixture of everything. I just need you to hear and believe one thing- I don’t blame you for any of this. Not one thing. Nothing. If you can tell me that you believe what I am saying, then we will make it. I love you so fucking much it hurts, and I’m tired of hurting. I know you are, too.”
“Come here. Please?”
My arms go out to him, exposing my heart. I breathe within this tight embrace we share, a simple hug to show each other that we are both vulnerable, were both flayed wide open. I lean deeper into his embrace, wrapping my arms tightly around his neck. This encirclement of one another says, I see you, I’ve got you, and I swear to God, I will never stop loving you. We linger for a few moments, simply holding each other. It feels so good just to be in his arms.
“We’re going to be okay,” I whisper before letting him go.
“I’m supposed to let the doctor know when you’re awake so he can come in here and talk to you. After that, there is nothing more in this world I want than to climb into that bed and hold you all night long,” he says gently. “But first, there’s something I need to tell you. About what I said earlier... I want to apologize. I spoke out of anger, without even thinking how it might affect you. I don’t want to upset you. I shouldn’t have said what I did, and for that I am truly sorry.”
“Oh, Turner-”
“Don’t say a word. We’re not going to talk about this right now. What we are going to do is let you talk to the doctor, and then you’re going to eat and take a shower. Tonight there isn’t a damn person in this world that is going to deny the three of us our first night together as a family. I’ll be right back.”