Idols For Writers Week Two

This week, the prompt was Broken. I battled to find an approach but in the end, the piece almost wrote itself! This week there were 41 entries compared to last week's 55 - but the standard of writing was much higher, which I think is a really Good Thing - makes it more challenging.

I was once again amazed at how many folks liked it (did I mention that I got the most votes last week?) So this week, I tied for first place and then won the tie-breaker poll 25 - 17. Squeeeee!! It's pretty unbelieveable, but really thrilling! So here is my take on Broken.

BROKEN

Shit, as they say, happens. And when shit happens, things change.

I should know. Pull up a chair and I’ll tell you my story. But be warned: it isn’t pretty.

It was a cold, snowy night in late January when I arrived home and found my wife on the kitchen floor, her head inside the oven. Now, what would you do if you walked in on a scene like that? Gasp in horror, lunge across the kitchen in a single bound, drag her out by the hair and start thumping her on the chest?

Well, I’m less Neanderthal and more Sensitive New Age Guy, so I just threw out a casual ‘Hi honey!” I also refrained from asking when dinner would be ready. I mean, it really wasn’t the time or the place, was it? Give me a little credit here.

I walked into the hallway and shed my coat, hung it on the hook. Placed my keys and phone on the table and whistled a little to demonstrate my sangfroid, (that’s French for laid-back dude in case you don’t know!) Then I poured us both a drink. Whiskey for me, gin and tonic for her. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed over the last five months.

OK, so by now you’re thinking ‘Sensitive New Age guy, my ass! Insensitive New Age jerk is more like it’. But here are a couple of things that you’re probably not aware of: One - what Julia was doing was actually a very important step forward for her. And that’s not just my opinion – my therapist agrees. Number two: we had an electric oven and it’d been broken for about a week. I just hadn’t had the time to fix it. But, back in the day, Julia had taken a couple of classes in home repair and had mastered the art of the fixing broken fuses, replacing light bulbs and so on. So, seeing her down on her knees with her head in the oven—I actually felt really proud of her for getting to grips with something for a change and at least trying to fix it.

So I wandered back in there, ready to offer her a hand, but to my surprise she was up on her feet again, a plate of pie in hand, looking like she was ready to put dinner in the oven.

Pie again, I thought. Damn. But still—one thing at a time. Small steps. Eating the elephant one tiny bite at a time and all that jazz...

“Bravo, sweetie!” I smiled and walked over to kiss her. “You managed to fix it—” That was when I realized that all was not well on the home front. She was glaring at me, her pudgy face pale and her eyes glinting. Whoops. Time for a bit of diversive action.

“Excuse me, ma’am!” I switched to my best Winston Churchill accent, which always made her laugh, and swept her a courtly bow. “Is that a pie in your hand or are you just pleased to see me?”

She slammed the pie dish down on the table, where it came to rest next to a bowl of shriveled brown apples, long past their prime. She stared at me, her eyes narrowing. “No, I did not fix it, Chris. In fact, if you would stop your goddamned joking and fooling for just one second and take a look round this house, you’d see that it’s not just the oven that’s broken. It’s everything!”

I gaped as she stalked towards the back door and grabbed the handle. The door stuck and she yanked hard two or three times before it finally creaked open. “See? Broken. And look at that!” She pointed a stubby finger at the terracotta tiles in the entryway. Lacy spiderweb cracks radiated outward from several of the tiles, hairline fractures stretching maybe a foot towards the door. “And that’s not all. The paintwork needs redoing, half the doors are falling off the cupboards upstairs, that broken window in the attic—how the hell can you expect us to live like this? This place is a dump!” Her voice rose and cracked. “And you! You don’t even care that it’s all broken. You don’t care about anything any more!”

I swear my jaw dropped at least three inches. Shocked, I stared at her, at this chubby—no, this fat woman in baggy jeans with nothing more than sweat and a smear of flour on her pale, unhappy face. Where was the poised and beautiful girl who’d danced with me in the moonlight on our honeymoon? Where was the tender young mother who’d crooned lullabies to our son while rocking him to sleep? And who was this overweight, angry cow to accuse me of not loving, not caring any more? The absolute unfairness of that took what was left of my heart and snapped it in two.

My new age sensitivity fled out the window, along with my common sense, and it shames me to tell you what I did next. I took three huge steps forward—yes, you could even say I lunged across the kitchen—and grabbed her by the wrist. I put my face close to hers and glared into her eyes. Her instinctive recoil only added fuel to the fire of my hurt and pain.

“Broken?” I said in a low voice. “Broken?” I shook my head and felt my nostrils flaring, my lips curling. “You don’t know what broken is, sweetheart.” I yanked on her arm, spun her round and pulled her out into the hallway. “I’ll show you just exactly what’s broken in this house.”

I hate myself for what I did next. My therapist says that in time I’ll be able to forgive myself, to come to terms with it, but it’s damn hard. I took my wife by the arm and I dragged her out of the kitchen and down the hall, past the door that was always shut, and into our bedroom. She protested loudly, dragging her heels but I was relentless.

“Look!” I thrust her in front of the mirror and held her there. “Look, Julia. That’s what’s broken in this house. Forget the bloody tiles and doors—it’s you. Look at what you’re doing to us, baby.”

Julia clapped a hand over her eyes, her body rigid. Her lips were a thin, bloodless line in an already pasty-white face. “This has got to stop,” I said, my voice shaking. “You’re killing yourself with all this overeating. You’re killing us. We can’t go on like this, pretending nothing has changed.”

“Don’t talk to me about kill—” She stuttered and stopped, and I knew we weren’t done yet. I tightened my grip on her wrists and turned, pulling her along with me again.

She knew. She knew right away what I was going to do. “No,” she said. “Chris, no! Don’t you dare! I won’t!”

I pulled her down the corridor and stopped in front of that other door. The one she’d locked five months ago. “Open it,” I said. “It’s been locked far too long. Open it, Julia. Now.”

She wouldn’t do it. I had no idea where she’d put the key but I knew we had to do this, had to face what lay behind that door, had to root out the cancer that was eating away at our marriage, our home, our life together. Had to fix what was really broken. And if she couldn’t do it, then it was up to me.

So I took a step back and sucked in a deep breath. Then, with all the love in my heart and all the strength in my body, I kicked the door down. Broke it open. And stepped into my dead son’s bedroom for the first time in five months.

The air smelt stale. The little bed was empty, the curtains drawn.

“Julia, it was an accident.” I kept my back to her, didn’t want her to see my face. “It could have happened to anyone, anywhere. You are not responsible. You have to let go—let him go.” I could barely breathe, as tears threatened to choke me. It felt as if I’d been mourning on my own forever. “I miss him too. So fucking much. Not a day goes by when I don’t remember him, don’t think about what he’d be doing if he was still here.”

She was still out in the hall, hadn’t moved an inch. “But—you never cry. You’re always making jokes, fooling around. You don’t care.” Her voice was almost inaudible.

I didn’t know how to explain that every joke was a diversion, another layer in the wall around my heart, a protection against loss and heartbreak and loneliness. I didn’t know how to talk about pain or grief or trying to be strong. But I did know that I needed her. I desperately needed there to be an us again, after months of it being just me, alone and broken.

“Julia, please …” I turned around. Slowly I lifted my head and finally, I let her see my tears.