Page 90 of The Sound Of Us

Pepper is going wild in the back seat, after having spotted a few squirrels. I jump off to let her out.

Eli follows. We are far enough into the woods and close enough to his house that no one will see us. Dusk has fallen, the darkened sky offering us mercy in the form of a dark cloak, hiding us. Pepper goes racing up the grassy bank, sending small animals fleeing in every direction.

Eli leans against the truck and pulls me into his arms, my back pressed into his chest. His fingers lock together low on my abdomen. It’s perfect, this moment. It’s these moments that show me just how empty my life really is without Eli.

I tilt my head to the side, allowing Eli’s chin to nuzzle into the crook of my shoulder. He pulls my sweater back to place soft kisses to the exposed skin there. I place my hands over his and lean deep into his body.

I can’t tell you why other people cheat. I can’t tell you why people who are in happy marriages cheat.

And I can’t tell you how some people in abusive marriages have the courage to walk away before breaking their marriage vows. I don’t know how those people have that amount of integrity.

I have neither courage nor integrity. And my decision to divorce Frank with Eli’s help is motivated only by my desperate need for Eli. All I know is that this very moment is the reason I did what I did.

This moment of nothingness and everything—no tightness in my chest every time Frank’s boot drags across the floor, no constant awareness of how I eat, what I wear, when my next haircut is due, none of the alertness to when I might feel the crack of Frank’s palm across my face. That’s the nothingness I feel when I’m with Eli.

And then the everything. When I’m with Eli, the pain goes away and I can live again. However briefly, I can live when I’m with Eli. I can live and laugh and love and be loved without fear for my physical safety, my heart or my mind. All these parts of me that are alert to danger when I’m with Frank are safe here with Eli.

This moment. It’s everything I ever dreamed of for myself. Warmth. Smiles. Happiness. Safety.

I turn in Eli’s arms, wrapping myself around him. If I could have absorbed myself into him, I would have. I would hide so deeply in him no one would ever find me. He wraps his arms around me, burying my face inside his chest, kissing the top of my head.

Frank is six foot five. He could have held me just like this and kissed the top of my head a million times if he wanted to, but all Frank ever did with my head was bash it into the headboard and the kitchen table.

Pepper comes bounding down, stopping to sniff Eli’s pocket. Like magic, he pulls out a treat and hands it over to her. Then he pulls out his phone and types. Pepper’s coming with us, right?

I turn the screen to my face so he can read my lips. “You have space for her, right?”

He nods.

I hug him back to me and then pull away to ask another question. “How long will it take?”

We’ll talk to my lawyer tomorrow.

My phone pings with a text message. It must be Frank. That familiar tightness in my body returns.

Frank: You better be home in five minutes.

Eli reluctantly lets me go and when I turn around at the top of the path, he’s still standing there with his hands in his pockets, watching me. Turning away from him gets harder each time.

Pepper nuzzles my pocket several times as we walk. “I’m not Eli.” I laugh. “Don’t think I’ll fall for your tricks. Even if you’re the guard dog of the century, keeping my and Eli’s secret.”

I find Frank drunker than he was at the park when I get home and I know this by the clicking sound he makes with his tongue as he lays sprawled on the couch watching T.V. There’s a beer in his hand.

Tsk tsk.

My body closes up—my back tense, toes and fingers tingling, my heart beating at a pace I’m not comfortable with. Every nerve in my body is on high alert. It’s not Friday, but it might as well be.

Tsk. Tsk.

“… and you can get your very own robotic mop for the onetime only price of…”

Frank switches the T.V. off. I have a ridiculous thought that I would love to have my very own robotic mop at the onetime only price of—

But I don’t know the price. I might never know. Frank might put a bullet through my head right this minute and I’ll never know how much the mop would have cost.

“So, you had a good time over at the park, then?” he asks with a nasty smile. If Frank was kind, he’d be a strikingly handsome man. And I guess he is—to the people who don’t know him like I do. Frank’s politeness and kindness and gentleness are reserved for people out there.

“It was okay, I guess,” I say, keeping my voice gentle and neutral.

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