Page 32 of Thankful
“Yeah, and what did they say?”
She shrugs. “My mother thinks you’re a saint, so she was disappointed. My dad says he wants me to be happy.”
“Being without me makes you happy?” I ask.
She’s staring at me.
I’m staring back at her.
“Don’t go there, Brix.”
“Seriously. Answer the question. Does it?”
“I was happy when we got married–well for the first two and a half years of our marriage, to be exact. For the other half of year three and the entirety of year four, I was miserable, and it’s not like you didn’t know that. I told you that constantly. You weren’t hearing me.”
“So, you left so I canhearyou?”
“I left because…” she sighs heavily. “If you’re okay with being absent when I was here, then you should be okay with me being absent. I’m not a placeholder, Brix. I’m a woman with feelings, needs, and desires that were being left unfulfilled.”
“Unfulfilled?”
“Yes. Emotionally. I didn’t feel loved. I felt like someone you weresupposedto have because I fit the description of your life. The handsome doctor needed an armpiece.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. You know how I know that?”
My frown deepens.
She says, “Because even though we’re not together, you came to me and basically asked me to fill the role of your wife to appease your parents. You care how your lifeappearsto them. To the world. You don’t genuinely care about me. You need me here for appearances—not for love.”
She places her coffee mug in the sink and leaves the kitchen.
I hang my head and say quietly, “That’s not true.”
I’m a doctor. I keep my cool no matter what. However, I feel like I’m on the verge of having a meltdown – something I’ve been trying my hardest to avoid because I wouldn’t know how to recover from it. But carrying the weight of the world – of my patients, of the issues with my wife, of my parents – it’s pushing me to my breaking point.
chapter eleven.
brix
“Mmm hmm. Yes, suh! This turkey is hitting just right,” Dad says. He’s sitting next to me. The womenfolk are sitting across from us. “I don’t know who catered this, but you were right, Brix. This is some down-home country cooking right here.”
“Sure is,” Mom says. “Everything’s good. I’m going to be ten pounds heavier when I get back home.”
“You ten pounds heavier now,” Dad mumbles. I heard him clearly. I hope mom didn’t.
“What you say, Dean?” she asks.
“I said this food is so good, it’s worth gaining an extra ten pounds.”
“You got that right!”
While they converse, I sit pretending to eat, but I’m staring across the table at Cyn. Looking at her, I see our lives together play out in my mind. I see the day we met. Our marriage. Our happiness. The first time we kissed. The first time we made love. Am I to believe that it’s over and done? That all we have is pretentiousness? I know I asked her to do this, but now I see that it was a bad idea, especially after what happened last night.
She kissed me.
I didn’t make the move. She did. Something in her still wants me. That, I know for certain. Yet, when this is all said and done,she’s back to her apartment, and I’m back to the hospital as if my life isn’t in shambles.
