Helen lasted a year and a half without leaving her bedroom. I had to force feed her for the last months, she was painfully thin. Her eyes had lost the ferocity of hatred and were dull and listless. She stared through me as I shovelled thin gruel into her mouth, massaging her throat to make her swallow. I hated her for having given up, unwilling to see that her apathy had saved me, helped me to see beyond my selfishness. In the end, I had her admitted to hospital and placed on suicide watch. She gained more weight and with it more vitality, when I visited, her eyes flashed once more with resentment, hate and anger. But she never spoke. She hadn’t uttered a word for at least a year, not one word to me, at any rate. Her hatred provoked the only reaction I could muster in my unhappiness, I hated her equally in return, duty alone made me keep up the caring charade. Fuck, I wanted to kill her, would have relished the chance to leave her to die. Maybe I could have conquered my own shame then; she prevented escape from contrition, impeded a cathartic re-invention of me.
She was released from hospital after three months and into my care. I cringed at my cowardly acceptance of responsibility, conscious that I was the least qualified to fulfil this duty, aware that I was the only one who would feel compelled to bother. I wheeled her out into the sunshine and, on the way to the car, asked her whether she would ever forgive me. She spoke finally - Fuck you, Nat, nothing absolves you. I recoiled as if slapped. The venom in her tone threatened to wrench open that carefully sealed container of grief and self-loathing. We spent the rest of our time together in pugnacious silence.
The days blurred into a continual agony for each of us. We both reminded each other of how guilty we were, the well of despair was never allowed to drain, constantly brimming with bile and loathing. In our inescapable solitude, we constantly replenished the vitriol, nurturing it and expanding it to use against one another. I maintained my pretence and cared for her with pseudo-piety to the utmost of my ability. My acrimonious service left her speechless with rage and she glared balefully whenever I entered her lair, gathering the bedclothes around her like an armour, coiled and ready to strike if I threatened her too nearly.
At night, I could hear her sobbing through the ceiling and I was compelled to reach for the vestiges of a memory of compassion guiding me. With an ever increasing ease of will, I managed to suppress these contrary feelings and, at the end, felt emboldened and strengthened by my callousness. My weakness was hidden from me by a veil of revulsion. I doubted that even had I gone to her, she would have rejected me with equal ferocity. Our very hatred sustained us, preventing us from breaking free and seeing beyond the confines that we had constructed in our misery.
Indeed, I felt a curious positive buoyancy of spirit when at the hospital and I lavished attention and care on all my patients, masterfully disguising what lay inside of me with a treacly manner. I had hired a nurse to come in and care for Helen, while I was at work, to her I continued my guise, showing over-effusive concern on the state of my estranged wife’s mental health and her moods. I duped everyone. Before the whisperings of concern and pity had whipped me into a frenzy of self-flagellatory disgust, now their admiration and respect at the paragon I had become acted as a similar goad. I masked my hasty retreats in self-effacement.
The schism in my character took its toll and, by the end of the working week, I was reduced to a somnolent wreck as I desperately tried to shore up my creaking facade. The strain was apparent around my eyes, they sank and retracted even further into my skull, giving me a hollow, skeletal appearance. I went to my doctor and complained of insomnia. He indicated that I had a deep depression and prescribed Xanax as relief. On reflection, though my thoughts forever shy away from it, the idea’s inception was much earlier in the chain. My battered personality sought a viable escape, my will to survive rose to the fore and guided my hand unerringly. However, I continued to deny this on a conscious level.
As I left the surgery, I clutched the prescription securely, nervous but ebullient and resolute. Upon my return that evening, I ventured quietly to her domain, creeping cursingly up those creaking stairs - mentally shushing their accusing protest. I entered what was now her bathroom, I had long since abandoned it, preferring to do my ablutions at work. Stealthily, I entered the code and eased the container onto the lower shelf. It would now be at eye-level. Swinging the door to, I paused in thought and instead left it ajar, its contents clearly apparent at a glance. I dithered a moment longer, stricken with indecision, then returned the way that I had come. Once again, my schizoid personalities roiled against one another, I halted and breathlessly waited for the turmoil to abate. Mentally, I rallied my defences and repelled any doubt which assailed. Assertively, I retraced my steps to the safe and furtively, shook two of the peach tablets into my palm. I marched back down the stairs, this time with confidence, ignoring the previously strident groans, aware that curiosity at my imposition would eventually drag her out of bed to examine the reason for my extraordinary intrusion.
Absentmindedly, I grabbed a bottle of irish as I passed the drinks cabinet and slopped some into a glass. My shaky hand was that of a palsied old man as I raised it to my lips. The enormity of the machiavellian actions pressed in about me and the peaty, acrid potency of the whiskey was all that steadied my resolve. Now, we wait, I thought - calmness restored.
I assumed my normal position on the couch, this time, rather than the slovenly attitude that I normally adopted, I was alert. I laid the Xanax tablets cautiously on the low table before me. All was ready, the trap was set. I had to remind myself to release my breath when the throbbing in my ears became audible. I was tensed, mechanically bringing the glass to my lips at regular intervals, undeterred by the fiery sensation in my chest. I was unprepared for the length of time that it took for her to respond to my blatant challenge. Nonetheless, I was resolute and held firm. I had thrown myself with murderous abandon at this solution and now all that remained was for my wife to take up the gauntlet. My role had been played out, hers was before her now. Her death would bring her much desired escape; the only thing that might prevent this mutually beneficial result would be spite. Either way, I was patiently resigned to await her decision.
Above me, the creaking of her mattress heralded the end gambit. Her heavy, dragging tread passed overhead and I arose, following the shuffling until she came to a rest in the corner of the room. I strained my hearing, staring at the blank white ceiling above me and waited. I felt the beginnings of a headache gather at my temples.
A full five minutes passed and then the footfalls retraced themselves, I spun to follow them, head cocked in a foment of nervous tension. Her door clacked shut and a few moments later the mattress pinged as her body flopped down heavily. I collapsed onto the couch again and groped for the glass before me. I gulped greedily and then refilled, burping fumes through my nose, causing my nostrils to prickle. I checked my wrist watch and noted the time, it was 9.23. With a deep breath, I gave up my vigil and swallowed the two tablets, washed down with the whiskey. I flopped back on the couch waiting for the effects of the drug to take hold. I felt an unfamiliar sensation of peace long before the drowsy numbness dimmed my awareness.
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