"After You've Gone" by Shannon Lucy

After You’ve Gone

by

Shannon T Lucy

Avery- Now

I never wanted to leave Riley. People think about broken hearts like they think about broken pottery. Maybe you cry a little, but you sweep it up and start again. In reality, it’s like being the offering in an Aztec sacrifice. Your beating heart is ripped from your chest, pulsating and bloody as you suffocate from the inside. For what seems like an eternity, you’re in helpless agony, neither alive nor dead. Heartbreak is spending forever in that liminal torment. People call me callous for what I did. Even if they don’t say it, I know they’re thinking it. But they don’t get to judge. I love Riley, but he couldn’t protect me from the entity. The entity. My therapist taught me to label my inner turmoil, to externalize painful situations to gain perspective. The entity was bigger than Riley, bigger than me. Bigger than us. My past and present were on a fateful, cataclysmic collision course. I promised myself I would never be hurt again. So, I chose safety. I chose life. And I know he’ll never forgive me.

Riley-Now

I awake to a steady beeping. My limbs are concrete. My head is cloudy. My parched mouth tastes of sand and cotton. Somehow, I manage to open my heavy eyelids and fear washes over me. Nothing about this place is familiar. The glare from the sun striking impossibly white walls nearly blinds my tired eyes. I smell rubbing alcohol and further away, the stench of stale urine and cafeteria gravy. The air wafts with the sickening scents of sterility and suffering. I must be in a hospital. But where? Why? I wrack my brain, but everything is blank. I feel my heart racing, blood rushing through my veins, thundering in my ears as I begin to panic. The beeping that woke me escalates in time with my racing heart, echoing the scream that’s trapped inside me. 

A middle-aged woman in neon pink scrubs rushes in, pushes a button on a machine next to my bed, and the alarm stops. She stares at the display on the machine and frowns. “Heart rate, 120. You’ve really worked yourself up.” She turns to face me, and I notice that her dark eyebrows clash with her bleach-blond hair. She pulls a penlight from her pocket and shines it into my eyes. Apparently relieved by what she sees, she continues, “Can you tell me your name, hon?”

“Riley Jones,” I croak.

“Good. And do you know where you are?”

I clear my throat. “The hospital.”

“Exactly. Do you know which one?”

I don’t, but I hazard a guess. “St. Anthony’s,” I answer with feigned confidence naming the hospital across the street from the university library. On my way to class or work I’ve seen patients in wheelchairs, listless in the sun like comforters airing out after a winter packed in mothballs.

“Do you know what day it is?”

“Monday,” I say with a certainty I don’t entirely feel.

“Close. Tuesday,” she chirps in a sing-song voice. I recognize the tone, both patronizing and compassionate. I fight back an urge to roll my eyes as I recall the many times I’d admonished Avery to not use her “nurse’s voice” on me.

Oh, God! Avery. Where is she? A chill ripples through me and a haze separates me from a vague recollection of last night. I glimpse the outline of a memory beyond the mist. No matter how hard I strain, I can’t quite bring it into focus. My chest tightens and my stomach lurches as the reality of my situation hits me. I suddenly feel hopelessly alone and untethered, small, and helpless. A mote of dust whipped by a passing comet. The image, although unsettling, gives my mind something to grasp. With a jolt of relief, I recall that on Tuesdays I meet with my thesis advisor. Bits of starlight peek from the black hole that threatens to drag my memory into oblivion. On Monday I was frantically alternating between grading undergraduate lab reports and working on my PhD thesis: Beyond Pluto: further applications for the blink comparator. This dissertation and one more semester as a teaching assistant are all that stand between me and a PhD in astrophysics. A thread now tethers me to the Earth. Tenuous and fragile, but a tether nonetheless. However, that thread snaps in an instant as raw, primal fear severs all reason. Monday was 24 hours ago, and on Monday Avery was gone.

Riley-Then

When I woke up alone that morning, I wasn’t worried. Avery’s side of the bed was already cold and made with precision. If I didn’t know better, it would have seemed like no one had slept there at all. But that was Avery, an early riser and meticulous to a fault. I found her fastidiousness both endearing and aggravating, a mix of emotion that only a long-term partner can elicit. We had met three years ago when she was in nursing school, and I had just started my doctorate. Too shy to ask her on a proper date, I instead offered to help her study for her upcoming medical terminology exam. Love blossomed in time to the rhythmic call and response of flashcard drills. Iatrogenic: relating to illness caused by medical examination or treatment. I blushed, flustered by her beauty. Confabulation: to fill in gaps in memory by fabrication. My heart skipped a beat. Terminal: incurable. I was certain I would never recover from plunging into love with this captivating woman. Nor did I want to.

One night between sips of bitter black coffee, Avery looked up from her copy of Psychiatric Nursing and announced she had learned a new term: anal retentive. When Freud coined this term to describe an excessively orderly person, he likely had someone like Avery in mind. The spices in the pantry were alphabetized and lined up like soldiers, she never had a hair out of place, and stickers graced the outside of our cabinets with their contents labeled in perfect cursive. Just this morning I noticed that she had affixed new labels in the bathroom announcing that the drawer contained “Riley’s toiletries.” Her orderliness tested the patience of a slovenly bachelor like me. But even this maddening quality was part of Avery, and I loved every fiber of her.

Besides, now that we were planning a wedding, her scrupulousness was crucial. I shook my head in amusement at the wedding invitations stacked neatly on the dining room table until I noticed with dismay how several were marred by dog-eared corners, faded lettering, and frayed edges. The disarray was unlike Avery. A seed of apprehension took root in my gut. Picking up the elegant cardstock, a painful nostalgia pooled in my chest for the wedding that had yet to happen. A dying firefly of realization flickered and burned out before I could bring it into focus. It seemed as though there was something I was supposed to know, something I was supposed to understand. But I was just being silly. The disorganization was just a sign that there was work to be done, and Avery wasn’t one to shirk a duty. She wouldn’t be away long.

Except she was. The day slipped away from me, so deceptively mundane that it was entirely forgettable. Before I knew it, I was watching the sky darken through the window, blissfully unaware that I was basking in the illusion of peace moments before an asteroid impact. Blue sky succumbed slowly to fiery bursts of coral, lighting the trees from behind like paper silhouettes. Dark blues and grays crawled like snails across the sky and it was impossible to know where day ended and night began. Until with a final languid wave, the sun yawned its way below the horizon and all was dark. Still no Avery. Surely there was an explanation, but something about her absence and the oppressive darkness filled me with trepidation. She would never have left without even leaving a note. I scanned the blackness outside, as though searching for the sun from the surface of Pluto. I had felt grounded in the daylight. But now I was hopelessly alone and disoriented, the lone lifeform on a frozen pebble hurtling through space. I was stunned by an iciness in my veins and a thunderclap of certainty that something was terribly wrong.

The realization sent me into a frenzy. I raced to the hall closet and rummaged frantically for her purse, for any sign of her. Coats, hats, and scarves landed on the hardwood floor with a resounding thud as I tossed them frantically from their hangers. My pulse pounded in my ears, and I was exhausted and panting like a rabid dog. The contents of the closet were piled on the floor, and there was nothing of Avery’s. It made no sense, but there was no other explanation. She had somehow slipped out of my life in the early morning hours before I woke.

A stubborn pit in my stomach built into a monstrous crescendo that threatened to shake me apart. My skin erupted into rivulets of sweat as I stared into the empty closet. Or rather, almost empty. A shoe box sat in the darkness like the lone remaining tooth in an old man’s jaw. I pulled the box gingerly from the void. It struck me as odd that the cardboard, although worn, was free of the grime that caked the shelf it had rested on. It had been stowed in its secret spot recently. The box slipped from my trembling grasp and in the moment before it crashed to the floor, morbid curiosity for what had been so carefully hidden hijacked my mind. Polaroids tumbled out and I grasped one with trembling fingers. A face met my gaze through the blanched film. A man slightly older than me, slightly more muscular gazed defiantly into the camera. He looked eerily familiar, but I couldn’t place him. A bubble of recognition gurgled up before it was sucked back into the quicksand of my subconscious. His arm snaked casually around a woman to his right. My eyes traced the direction of his outstretched arm somehow knowing but also dreading who I would find there. Avery. My Avery looked adoringly in his direction as though her heart would burst from happiness. I recoiled and dropped the photograph as though burned.

As I watched the picture flutter to the floor, my chest bowed under the massive weight of realization that Avery had carefully preserved these clandestine memories. Here was proof that I had been excised like a tumor from her secret, joyous life. A hot poker pierced my heart, the white-hot pain momentarily stunning me, and I slumped to the floor in agony. It was then that I saw an unassuming envelope peeking out from beneath the faded snapshots. There was no stamp. No return address. Just Avery’s name penciled on haphazardly. Again, I felt a fizz of recognition. The effervescence of memory tickled the recesses of my brain then dissipated almost as soon as it began. I knew I had seen this handwriting somewhere before. Pangs of foreboding crept up my spine as I read.

You don’t know who I am, but I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. I’d like to say I strode into the library that day, driven by an inherent sense of studiousness. I’m sure I had some exam to study for. It was September and unseasonably warm, and I only ducked in to escape the sun while I girded myself for the remainder of the trek across the quad. I definitely didn’t stride in. I cringe to recall how timid I was back then. It’s no wonder you didn’t notice me. But I couldn’t help but notice you. There you were with an armful of tomes. A mountain stacked on top of your petite frame. It was a wonder that those shapely little arms could carry the weight of it, but you always were deceptively strong. Scrappy. You were in a hurry, and your cheeks were painted with an alluring flush from the heat and the exertion. I watched, awestruck, as your arms wobbled under the weight, and the volume on top slid to the marble tiles with a thud that echoed through the lobby. “Shit,” you cursed under your breath. To you, it was an outburst of frustration. But to me, it was an incantation. I was enchanted by the contradiction of hearing such a vulgar word pass through those pert, rosy lips. Just as suddenly, the spell was broken as a preppy young man picked up the book and placed it gingerly back on the stack. Your lively laugh at his mock bow filled me with jealousy. The jazzy notes of your laughter might have well as been a requiem since they were not bestowed on me. For the first time in my life, I was overcome with true resolve. One day, you would be mine. Curious? Meet me at the water fountain in front of the library at midnight and all will be revealed.

I gaped at the page, anger and fear rising like fire in my chest. There was no name, no signature. It was the work of a spineless coward. It was creepy, unhinged. Had she gone to meet this lunatic? Was he the one in the photographs? Avery and I never spoke frankly about our past relationships. We were each other’s future and that’s what mattered. But the way she shrank from my touch at times, the way loud noises startled her like jump scares in a horror movie told me more than words could that someone had hurt her. And then there were the night terrors. She would inexplicably bolt up in bed in the middle of the night sobbing inconsolably but have no memory of it the next day. My skin prickled as goosebumps erupted over my whole body. I checked my watch. 11:30. It wasn’t too late to stop this, whatever it was. Without stopping to grab my coat, shoved the letter into my pocket, opened the front door, and raced into the night. I didn’t see the car hurtling toward me until it was too late.

Avery-Now

My heart stayed behind that cold morning when I left Riley, my grief so profound I had no tears. He had no way of knowing that I watched his sleeping form through the window growing smaller and smaller as the taxi sped away. It was torture, but I forced myself to keep looking until I could no longer discern his shape. I deserved the self-flagellation.

I can’t say I was surprised when I got the call from the hospital. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. The doctor who called said Riley had been hit by a car after he’d run into the street in the middle of the night. He had no coat. Just a thin T-shirt and pajama pants. No wallet, no ID. Just a letter and picture in his pocket. I could see the picture in my mind’s eye, the one he always carried. A young man and woman, vowing their eternal love. But whoever came up with ‘Til Death Do Us Part never accounted for the entity: Alzheimer’s Disease. No one ever thinks they’ll put their loved one in a nursing home, and I swore I wouldn’t either. Until the day he hit me. He didn’t mean to. Of course he didn’t, but the disease had erased any memory of the way I am now. He was expecting to see his young bride and instead saw an old stranger he needed to chase out of his house. Long before Riley, I’d experienced my share of physical abuse, and I refused to live in that fear again. So, I put him in the best facility I could afford. The guilt devoured me.

When I took a tour of the facility, the staff assured me he would settle in as all the other patients eventually had. As proof, the young medical director pointed out a wizened former priest in the communal dining room contentedly performing a blessing over his cranberry juice, mistaking it for communion wine. My days as a psychiatric nurse taught me that there was a term for this phenomenon. Confabulation. The mind is so desperate for a cohesive narrative that when things don’t make sense, it fills in the gaps with falsified memories. Like the poor old priest believing he was saying mass, if I left reminders of home, maybe Riley’s mind would convince him he was still there. So, I carefully labeled his belongings. I left our wedding invitations on the table as a memento of our life together. And maybe it was futile, but I stashed away photos of happier times, hoping that someday I would visit, and he would remember the man in the pictures. The man he once was.

I looked down at the letter in my hand, the one Riley had been carrying in his pocket. The first letter he ever wrote me when he was a just gawky astrophysics student. You don’t know who I am, but I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. It had come across as a little creepy at first, but ultimately curiosity won out and I went to meet my secret admirer. The man I met wasn’t disturbed, just socially awkward. Today he might be diagnosed as “on the spectrum.” But I soon learned that what he lacked in social skills, he made up for by his kind heart and generosity. I fell in love quickly and deeply. I pictured the young couple we were, standing at the altar that bright spring day, my heart aching. The couple looked radiant. I hope he remembers.

~END~