To the stars

“What the fuck is wrong with us?” she said exasperatedly, seemingly disgusted as she stared off into the sky. I wasn’t sure if she was asking me or the stars.

I snorted. “Be careful where you point that thing.”

She turned and looked at me with pinched eyebrows. Her confusion made me crack a smile.

“Why is there something wrong with US? I mean, we’ve been mistreated for years. I’ve been yelled at. Called names. You’ve been ignored and forced to bear the brunt of raising the kids with absolutely no help whatsoever. You’ve been condescended to. We’ve both been treated like shit.” I was calm, but spit those last words out with anger, internally recalling the many times she and I cried to each other and shared stories of our broken marriages. “So tell me why, again, that it’s our fault? That there’s something wrong with us for wanting more? For wanting someone to treat us like the goddesses we are? I repeat, don’t point those loaded words at yourself. Or me, for that matter.”

Her pinched eyebrows transformed into high arches, and she broke out into a wide smile. “You’re right.”

Then she turned and stared back at the stars. “What the fuck is wrong with them, anyway?”

And I couldn’t help but laugh

***

There’s an art to crying unnoticed in an occupied bed. Over the past year she felt she had perfected it. Because it was only then, when the stars were out and the sky inky black that she cried. The daylight seemed to hold them prisoner. She could seamlessly manage a conference call with her charismatic yet pushy Italian engineers, help 2nd graders as they struggled to spell “chair” and “dare” and “care,” while she volunteered in her daughter’s classroom, not to mention do a load of whites and keep the house spotless, all on a punctual schedule all without breaking stride or so much as a thought of her increasingly smothering unhappiness.

But at night, that was when they came. The assault of those salty streaming tears and a chest so tight she couldn’t breathe. Months ago, when the sobbing fits started, she would go to the bathroom, take a wet washcloth and cover her face while she wept.

“Hey, you in there?” He would grunt impatiently through the door after 20 or so minutes of this, although she knew from experience that he probably only realized the last five.

“Yeah. I’ll be out in a sec.” She would take a moment to breathe deep, wipe her face, take a quick look in the mirror and emerge, ready for bed. That was always her cover for her long time in there, although he never asked or noticed, so she never did have to mumble those defensive words, “I was just getting ready for bed.”

But the fits had gotten worse over the past few weeks. Even after emerging from the bathroom somewhat composed, after she would lay down, the tightness would begin again and tears would return with the accompanying onslaught of sobs.

He wasn’t always in bed during those periods, thankfully. But she knew from his work spot just down the hall from the bedroom, he would be able to hear the residual sniffles and occasional choke as her body tried to fight back the emotion. So she learned, somewhat quickly because she had always been a fast learner, how to sob silently, because she knew it was only a matter of time that he would be on the other side of the bed when the crying began.

And so it was tonight. He on his side and she on hers. Her back was to him, as usual, and she breathed calmly and smoothly as she had practiced, while the tears cascaded from her left eye over the bridge of her nose into her right and the tears of her right wetting the pillow. At times it tickled, really, but she was so consumed with concentrating on tightening her shoulders to mask the small occasional jerks of her chest she barely noticed.

It wasn’t long before she heard his familiar snore. Relief. She silently grabbed a tissue from her bedside table and wiped her nose. She stared off into the distance, at the starlight coming through the skylight in the hall.

“Why? Why?” she asked them silently as she grew increasingly angry. She was desperate for answers. She had an amazing life by most standards. A solid job. Beautiful children. A comfortable house in the suburbs. Two dogs. I mean, so what if her relationship with her husband wasn’t what it used to be. That happens to every couple after they have children, right?

But she knew. In her gut she knew. She didn’t want to repair her long worn out relationship with him. Will. Mr. Solid. The years had extinguished his already barely there sense of adventure, seemingly replaced by anger. And a lot of it. Sometimes she felt he was so far from the man she had married that she felt like she was living with a stranger. The resentment grew and grew, for both him and her, until it was palpable. And apparently sob inducing come nightfall.

She had never felt so lost. She wanted guidance, needed answers desperately.

“Help,” she whispered aloud to the silent stars through her sobs. “Please help me. I don’t know what to do.” She closed her wet swollen eyes and eventually drifted off to a fitful sleep.