“Right.”
We both fall silent, the pain in the room palpable. I yearn to reach out, to have the right to hold him like I used to. I never imagined the choice I made would lead to this. But only because I assumed he would never learn the truth. The secret was meant to be hidden forever, as they all are. The voice inside my head that has become louder in recent months starts to laugh, amused at my na?veté. No secret stays hidden forever, it whispers. No secret.
“How’s work?” I ask abruptly, trying to quiet the murmuring.
He laughs bitterly, his face showing fatigue at the game. “Do you really care?”
“Yes,” I say, taken aback that he would think otherwise. “I know how much your career means to you.”
“Having a child with you meant something to me too,” he says, the pain raw. “But that apparently didn’t matter.” He stands, finished with the farce. “Why did you want to meet?”
“To say good-bye.” The words sound foreign to my ears. “To give you the keys to the house. To tell you I’m sorry.” I turn my head, staring out the window. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I try to find the words. I will myself to stop, to let it go, but I can’t. He was my husband, the man I meant to stay with forever. That I was wrong, that it was my fault, makes me feel foolish. “I never meant for this to happen, for us to say good-bye.” Wringing my hands together, I admit, “I would have done anything not to hurt you. I loved you.” Finding no reason to keep it from him, I tell him what I can barely admit to myself, “I still love you.”
“Then why?” Eric pleads, his defenses clearly gone. He comes to stand before me. Holding my shoulders, his question is ripped out. “We had everything. You were my love, my life.”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, his touch reminding me of another time. Another place. Another man.
“You are my life,” the voice whispers in the dark. She had been sleeping. She was sure she imagined it until she felt the hand on her shoulder through the thin material of her nightgown.
Without meaning to, I wrench out of Eric’s arms, wrapping my own around my much slimmer frame. There is no longer joy in food, three meals a day feeling more like a chore than anything. My body has paid the price, withering away. My clothes hang off me, my belts never tight enough.
She awakens slowly, sure it is Sonya sneaking into her bed again. At fifteen, Trisha isn’t as quick to welcome her anymore. It is the night of Marin’s marriage. Trisha feels older, more mature. Too mature to have her little sister sleep with her. “You’re the only one I love,” the voice continues, the hand moving from her shoulder down her arm.
“It’s done,” I say, trying to push him and the memory away at the same time. I shake my head, back and forth, trying to rid myself of the vision. But it holds me in its grip, refusing me a reprieve. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“That’s it?” Eric shakes his head, clearly angry for having tried.
She’s walking down the darkened hallway. No one responds to her silent cries. They are filled with horror and sadness, too loud for anyone to hear. She bangs her fists on the wall, hitting until they are raw with pain. One door after the other she tries, unsure of where she is. What was once familiar is now foreign, her home alien. Finding one door unlocked, she wrenches it open, only to discover it is a linen closet. Leaving the door ajar, she searches for another. And another until she enters a darkened bedroom. She falls to the floor, so exhausted from her search for a haven. She cries into her hands, her sobs echoing in her head.
“Trisha?” Sonya’s young voice breaks through the sound of the cries, her arms surrounding. Fear laced into every word. “What happened? Why are you crying?”