AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE
THE NIGHT OF THE RETURN
He turns around, and when he sees me standing there, he looks scared. That’s something useful. Because I’m not going to let him go. He may think he was lying when he said all those nice things to lure me home. But I know different. I know Nick can’t lie like that. I know that as he recited those words, he realized the truth. Ping! Because you can’t be as in love as we were and not have it invade your bone marrow. Our kind of love can go into remission, but it’s always waiting to return. Like the world’s sweetest cancer.
You don’t buy it? Then how about this? He did lie. He didn’t mean a fucking thing he said. Well, then, screw him, he did too good a job, because I want him, exactly like that. The man he was pretending to be – women love that guy. I love that guy. That’s the man I want for my husband. That’s the man I signed up for. That’s the man I deserve.
So he can choose to truly love me the way he once did, or I will bring him to heel and make him be the man I married. I’m sick of dealing with his bullshit.
‘Play nice,’ I say.
He looks like a child, a furious child. He bunches his fists.
‘No, Amy.’
‘I can ruin you, Nick.’
‘You already did, Amy.’ I see the rage flash over him, a shiver. ‘Why in God’s name do you even want to be with me? I’m boring, average, uninteresting, uninspiring. I’m not up to par. You spent the last few years telling me this.’
‘Only because you stopped trying,’ I say. ‘You were so perfect, with me. We were so perfect when we started, and then you stopped trying. Why would you do that?’
‘I stopped loving you.’
‘Why?’
‘You stopped loving me. We’re a sick, fucking toxic M?bius strip, Amy. We weren’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves – surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way. You don’t really love me, Amy. You don’t even like me. Divorce me. Divorce me, and let’s try to be happy.’
‘I won’t divorce you, Nick. I won’t. And I swear to you, if you try to leave, I will devote my life to making your life as awful as I can. And you know I can make it awful.’
He begins pacing like a caged bear. ‘Think about it, Amy, how bad we are for each other: the two most needful human beings in the world stuck with each other. I’ll divorce you if you don’t divorce me.’
‘Really?’
‘I will divorce you. But you should divorce me. Because I know what you’re thinking already, Amy. You’re thinking it won’t make a good story: Amazing Amy finally kills her crazed-rapist captor and returns home to … a boring old divorce. You’re thinking it’s not triumphant.’
It’s not triumphant.
‘But think of it this way: Your story is not some drippy, earnest survivor story. TV movie circa 1992. It’s not. You are a tough, vibrant, independent woman, Amy. You killed your kidnapper, and then you kept on cleaning house: You got rid of your idiot cheat of a husband. Women would cheer you. You’re not a scared little girl. You’re a badass, take-no-prisoners woman. Think about it. You know I’m right: The era of forgiveness is over. It’s passé. Think of all the women – the politicians’ wives, the actresses – every woman in the public who’s been cheated on, they don’t stay with the cheat these days. It’s not stand by your man anymore, it’s divorce the fucker.’
I feel a rush of hate toward him, that he’s still trying to wriggle out of our marriage even though I’ve told him – three times now – that he can’t. He still thinks he has power.
‘And if I don’t divorce you, you’ll divorce me?’ I ask.
‘I don’t want to be married to a woman like you. I want to be married to a normal person.’
Piece of shit.
‘I see. You want to revert to your lame, limp loser self? You want to just walk away? No! You don’t get to go be some boring-ass middle American with some boring-ass girl next door. You tried it already – remember, baby? Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t do that now. You’ll be known as the philandering asshole who left his kidnapped, raped wife. You think any nice woman will touch you? You’ll only get—’
‘Psychos? Crazy psycho bitches?’ He’s pointing at me, jabbing the air.
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Psycho bitch?’
It’d be so easy, for him to write me off that way. He’d love that, to be able to dismiss me so simply.
‘Everything I do, I do for a reason, Nick,’ I say. ‘Everything I do takes planning and precision and discipline.’
‘You are a petty, selfish, manipulative, disciplined psycho bitch—’
‘You are a man,’ I say. ‘You are an average, lazy, boring, cowardly, woman-fearing man. Without me, that’s what you would have kept on being, ad nauseum. But I made you into something. You were the best man you’ve ever been with me. And you know it. The only time in your life you’ve ever liked yourself was pretending to be someone I might like. Without me? You’re just your dad.’
‘Don’t say that, Amy.’ He balls up his fists.
‘You think he wasn’t hurt by a woman, too, just like you?’ I say it in my most patronizing voice, as if I’m talking to a puppy. ‘You think he didn’t believe he deserved better than he got, just like you? You really think your mom was his first choice? Why do you think he hated you all so much?’
He moves toward me. ‘Shut up, Amy.’
‘Think, Nick, you know I’m right: Even if you found a nice, regular girl, you’d be thinking of me every day. Tell me you wouldn’t.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘How quickly did you forget little Able Andie once you thought I loved you again?’ I say it in my poor-baby voice. I even stick out my lower lip. ‘One love note, sweetie? Did one love note do it? Two? Two notes with me swearing I loved you and I wanted you back, and I thought you were just great after all – was that it for you? You are WITTY, you are WARM, you are BRILLIANT. You’re so pathetic. You think you can ever be a normal man again? You’ll find a nice girl, and you’ll still think of me, and you’ll be so completely dissatisfied, trapped in your boring, normal life with your regular wife and your two average kids. You’ll think of me and then you’ll look at your wife, and you’ll think: Dumb bitch.’
‘Shut up, Amy. I mean it.’
‘Just like your dad. We’re all bitches in the end, aren’t we, Nick? Dumb bitch, psycho bitch.’
He grabs me by the arm and shakes me hard.
‘I’m the bitch who makes you better, Nick.’
He stops talking then. He is using all his energy to keep his hands at his side. His eyes are wet with tears. He is shaking.
‘I’m the bitch who makes you a man.’
Then his hands are on my neck.