Unhinge

  Third: I’m inside a hospital. I’m dressed in scrubs. An unknown blonde is standing next to me. I’m leaning against a counter, looking exhausted but extremely happy.

  True to her words the process speeds up. One after the other, the images appear until I feel like I’m looking at a flipbook. Soon the colors start to bleed together until I don’t know when one picture ends and the next begins.

  My head’s starting to spin. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster, seconds away from making a hairpin curve. My stomach drops. I think I’m going to be sick.

  “Stop,” I say. The pictures move faster. “I said stop.”

  Dr. Calloway stops at the picture of Wes and me, but my mind doesn’t. It’s latched on to all those memories, clinging to them like starving animals. My heart is pounding a mile a minute. I can barely take a deep breath. I feel trapped, as the walls slowly close in on me.

  I’m pulled into the memory, getting smaller each second, while the picture grows larger, slowly surrounding me. Dr. Calloway’s office fades. She’s still talking but her words are impossible to make out.

  My ears start to ring and a bright, searing light surrounds the edge of my vision before it’s all I can see. I feel myself detaching from the present and merging into the past. My clothes dissolve and are replaced by a cotton summer dress. My hair shines and my skin begins to glow. A breeze brushes against my skin. And in front of my very eyes, Evelyn starts to disappear. I cry out for her but it’s too late….I’m already gone.

  May 2012

  I had no idea how my life would unfold the day I met Wesley Donovan.

  I met him a year ago. We ran into each other on the street. Literally. I was in a rush, carrying a bouquet of flowers I had picked up from the florist. I hurried to my car and glanced down at my watch. I wanted to get back to my apartment and clean up some more before I had dinner with my mother. I wanted to put the flowers in a vase and display them on the table. It would be one less thing that my mother would tut about. I should’ve done this earlier. I know that. Five o’clock is the worst time to try to get things done, but I had a late shift at the hospital and got home around six this morning. I told myself I was going to get a few hours of sleep and ended up sleeping until three in the afternoon.

  Cars waited in traffic. Horns honked. Radios were blasted so loud the ground seemed to shake beneath me. It was all annoying me, distracting me.

  And then I walked straight into him. He was in a rush, talking on his cellphone. His BlackBerry fell out of his hand and onto the ground, skidding across the concrete before it stopped next to the storm drain. The flowers scattered everywhere.

  “I’m sorry,” he lamented and kneeled down to help me pick up all twenty of the long-stemmed roses.

  One by one they were placed back inside the kraft paper. Here was this gorgeous man gently handling flowers. It left me in a daze. I watched him carefully. His blond hair was cut short on the sides and longer on the top. Not a single strand of hair was out of place. Light brown lashes touched his cheeks, concealing his hazel eyes. He was freshly shaved, making his cheekbones stand out. He glanced at me from beneath his lashes and my world shifted.

  Just like that.

  The look in his eyes showed me he wanted to own every single part of me. The crazy part was that I would let him.

  Flustered, I grabbed his phone and handed it over to him the same time he gave me back the flowers.

  “Is your phone broken?”

  He slid it back into his pocket and shrugged and gave me a lazy smile. “Doesn’t matter. I can replace it.”

  My voice was shaky as I said thank you and when I started to walk away he gently grabbed my hand. It looked so small and delicate in his grasp. “I’m Wes Donovan,” he said.

  “Victoria Aldridge.”

  His hand drifted away from my wrist, fingers lingering on my skin, and shook my hand. My heart was in overdrive from one simple handshake. I knew then that I had to see Wes again.

  Then he said to me, “You’re bleeding.”

  I blinked away the fog that Wes had placed around me. “Huh?”

  He extended my pointer finger and I saw bright red blood slowly traveling down its edge. “Must have been pricked by a thorn,” he said.

  “I guess so,” I replied, my voice slightly breathless.

  Without asking, he gently grasped my hand and wrapped it in a monogrammed handkerchief. He carried my flowers for me and walked me to my car. And when I was ready to get into the car he rested his shoulder against the side of it and dipped his head close to me. He told me he wanted to see me again.

  I said yes. Of course I said yes. I thought that any woman who would say no to a man like Wes Donovan was a fool.

  That was the prologue to our relationship.

  Wes was ten years older than my twenty-three. At the time, the age difference didn’t bother me. If anything, it was one more point in Wes’s favor. Very quickly, I was pulled in by his unshakable self-assurance. I thought he was mature. Wise. He knew what he wanted and when he wanted it.

  We had so many things in common: Books, even our childhoods matched up just right.

  He was so perfect.

  I wanted to be the woman who snagged the unattainable Wes. When I talked, he listened with rapt attention, soaking in every word. He handed out information about his life sporadically and when he did, it always made me feel special.

  Wes grew up in McLean, Virginia. He told me he was an only child. His parents devoted all their time to him. He studied hard, graduating from Penn State. He came back to Falls Church to work at the law firm Hutchins & Kelly. His goal was to become partner.

  It was through friends that I found out that before me, there had been a string of women. Did that bother me? No. If anything, it made me more proud that he chose me. Me.

  Six months later, we were engaged. I loved being his fiancée. It was bliss. Knowing that I’d spend the rest of my life married to him felt surreal. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop or for someone to tell me this was all a dream.

  We set the date for May 18.

  I would show off my engagement ring, displaying it to people with a sense of pride. I felt victorious. Maybe even a little smug—I had done what no other female had done before. I had Wes. And better yet, I had his love.

  I always wanted to have my wedding outdoors in my mother’s backyard at sunset. With white chairs and sheer material connecting the rows. At the end of the aisle would be an archway of flowers. The large oak trees that lined the property would have lights draped across their branches.

  And I got just that.

  With one hundred of our closest friends and family we said “I do” to each other behind two live oaks. Hand in hand, we walked down the aisle. The smile on my face wouldn’t disappear. I don’t know if I’d ever been happier in my entire life.

  Married.

  We were married. I couldn’t believe it.

  Extended family on my side smiled at us. Also in the crowds were friends of mine: some that I grew up with, others that I met in college. Of course my mother’s society friends were there. Quite a few of Wes’s friends showed up, but very few family members bothered to come.

  I nodded and smiled at everyone. Inside, my heart was pounding. I was running on pure adrenaline and happiness.

  I counted the steps I took as I walked down the aisle.

  Twenty-four steps.

  At the end of the aisle, Wes lifted our linked hands in the air. The photographer snapped picture after picture.

  Wes gazed down at me. His blond hair appeared golden in the sunlight. A stray piece fell onto his forehead. His hazel eyes sparkled.

  We were both so happy and neither one of us tried to hide it.

  What the photographer didn’t catch was the moment we walked up the pathway and turned toward the patio. Rosebushes and shrubbery hid us from plain sight. Secretly, I loved it. A single shared moment just between the two of us. My foot touched the first step when Wes grabbed my arm, holding me
in place, and whispered into my ear, “I’ll love you till the day I die.”

  June 2012

  “So, how is the happy couple?”

  I took a long drink of my lemonade and smiled softly. “We’re good.”

  “Oh, Victoria, don’t blush,” my mother said as she rifled through the pictures. “You’re married now.”

  Married.

  Just a few days ago, Wes and I returned from our honeymoon. We spent two wonderful weeks in Paris. It was amazing to relax and spend every waking moment together without a care in the world. We left our worries behind the second we stepped into the plane. Even though we were home now, back to work and settling into a routine, there was still this electric charge around us. I watched the clock constantly while I was on shift, counting down the hours and minutes until I could see him again.

  “Look at this one.” My mother pushed a picture toward me. “I love this picture of you.”

  I picked it up and stared at myself. I looked so happy. “I love it too.”

  “Can you get it in an eighteen-by-twenty-four?”

  “Mom, there’s a whole other stack that you haven’t gone through.”

  “Doesn’t matter. That one’s my favorite. I can already tell.”

  My mother was on cloud nine. She was the quintessential wife, born in the wrong era. When women were burning bras and fighting for equal rights, she was dreaming up the kind of family she’d have. And she got it: husband, son, and daughter. The perfect family. She loved living a hidebound life and she expected me to want the same thing. She looked at my years in college as some act of rebellion, as though it were some terrible black smear on my life record. She didn’t understand why I wasn’t willing to enjoy the imprimatur of married life. I didn’t understand why she didn’t recognize that I was already happy with what I had.

  But marrying Wes put a fresh coat of white paint on that smear.

  I continued to skim through the photos, smiling at every single shot. My mother was pickier. With her glasses perched on her nose, she would peer carefully at a photo, muttering underneath her breath: “Who is that person? Why would I want a picture of a stranger?”

  “Oh! This one is gorgeous!” She held up the picture. I leaned forward to get a better look. It was a black-and-white close-up of Wes and me. He was kissing my cheek, while my eyes were closed, head slightly shifted to the left. “I want this one too.”

  I held up the previous photo. “You just said that you didn’t need to see the rest because this one is your favorite.”

  She shrugged. “I changed my mind.”

  She continued to flip through each photograph but it was hard for me to focus. I looked out into my mother’s immaculate backyard. A gardener trimmed the shrubs in the distance. The sprinklers went on. Beads of water were suspended in air before they fell to the ground. Directly off the deck was a pool with clear, blue water that sparkled in the sun.

  I could count on one hand the number of times the pool and backyard have been used. My mother, she’s a collector—gathering beautiful people and things around her, but never really using them. She was born into the echelons of the elite and never had to work for a thing. She’s vivacious and outgoing. She goes from one event to the next and when there’s no event, she creates one. As a child I used to watch her in awe; she was so different from me. I was okay sitting back and living in my imagination.

  But for all her outgoing ways, she was never a hands-on parent. She watched from the sidelines: always there but a few steps away. I think it had to be that way. She was always on the lookout, always protecting me and my older brother, Mitchell. My father died when I was seven.

  “Now that you two have settled in, when are you going to give me a grandchild?”

  I choked on my lemonade. “Grandchild? We’ve barely been married for a month!”

  The look on my mother’s face said: And your point is?

  “Babies are in the distant future,” I elaborated. “Like, light-years away distant.”

  “Victoria, all I’m saying is that pretty soon you’ll be dreaming of pink and blue onesies. It’ll be all you can think about. Plus, babies make everything wonderful.”

  “So does alcohol but that doesn’t mean I should run out and start drinking,” I said smartly, a cheeky smile on my face.

  My mother didn’t look amused. “I’m being serious right now.”

  “I know, I know.”

  All kidding aside, I did want kids. I wanted two girls. I could see myself loving on them as babies, wiping runny noses, breaking up fights when they were young, and handing out curfews when they were teenagers. I had all these waiting memories on hold for my future kids. But that was the thing: Those memories were in waiting and I had no desire to reach for them now.

  I reached across the table and held my mother’s hand. “It’s not happening right now.”

  She shook her head. “Well, that’s disappointing.”

  “I’m not saying it’s not in the cards. I want a family. But right now I want to enjoy my husband. I’m selfish and I want him all to myself.” I smiled. “Can’t I be selfish just for a moment?”

  My mother smiled back. “Of course you can. Of course.” We slipped back into a silence, scanning the photos, when my mother spoke up once again. “I forgot what it’s like in the beginning.”

  I lifted my head. “Huh?”

  She leaned forward and ground the butt of her cigarette into the ashtray. “Oh, you know…fresh love. Newlywed life.” She sighed and tilted her head back so the sun shined down on her. “It’s a beautiful time.”

  “It is,” I agreed softly.

  During our honeymoon, Wes and I made promises to each other. On how the future would be and how we would do things right. In a few years, we would break ground and build our dream house. If we had an argument we would work things out and we would never go to bed angry. We had plans and I was determined to keep every single one.

  I glanced back at my mother and realized that she had been talking this entire time. “…And then you’ll have a family and house like the one you grew up in.” She gestured to the English, country-style monstrosity of a house beside us. Growing up in this house had been like growing up in a maze. I constantly found new places and dead ends. I think my active imagination was born from this place. There was such a wide age gap between my brother and me and on the days where my friends couldn’t come over and play, I would create imaginary friends. They never complained. Or fussed. To them, all my games and ideas were brilliant.

  If only imaginary friends stuck with you during adulthood. Maybe then things wouldn’t be so rough.

  I didn’t know why she still lived here. I moved out after college and my brother had left three years before me. I suppose she stayed here for the memories. I know she wanted the same for me but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had no desire to have a home so big that I could get lost inside it.

  “What are you two talking about?”

  At the sound of Wes’s voice I turned around. He shut the patio door behind him and smiled at me. His black dress shirt was tucked into an equally dark pair of slacks. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Sunlight reflected off the watch strapped around his left wrist. He came up behind me, his hands curving around my shoulders. My head rested against the hard muscles of his stomach.

  “Oh, nothing,” my mother answered breezily. “Just talking about how lucky you are to have my daughter.”

  Wes grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to me. He gave me that signature smirk of his. The one that pulled me under and never let go. “I’m lucky, all right.”

  December 2012

  Her bruises were severe.

  Her lip was busted.

  The fluorescent lights didn’t help her much; they highlighted each mark. She cradled her right hand close to her chest, refusing to let me or Dr. Pelletier look at it. I was pretty sure it was sprained.

  Dr. Pelletier was an older, gruff man. But if you looked past his demeano
r, you saw he truly was a caring man. I’d worked with him on and off for the past year. Whenever he was on shift I knew the time would fly by.

  For the sixth time he asked her how she had gotten hurt. Every time, though, he asked the question differently. Her answer was always the same: She fell down the stairs. She slipped on some water one of her kids had spilled. Just an accident, really.

  I’d heard so many explanations for bruises and broken bones, I could write a book on it. From Dr. Pelletier’s scowl I knew he felt the same. His eyes gave away nothing, but his shoulders drooped slightly.

  Dr. Pelletier told her to get some rest and left the room. I stayed behind and waited for the door to close, before I gave her a comforting smile.

  Her name was Alex.

  She couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me. But life hadn’t been kind to her. Her skin was sallow, eyes blank, hair limp around her shoulders. If I could, I’d have locked her in that room until she finally agreed to leave him for good.

  There was always a “him.”

  I should have been used to situations like hers, but I wasn’t. It was just as painful to see as the first time. Mostly because I tried to help them, to fix the damage, but I knew that they’d go right back into the arms of violence. It was an awful feeling.

  “You don’t have to stay with him,” I said quietly.

  Alex didn’t lift her head. It was almost as if she was used to this statement.

  “There are shelters you can go to. Hotlines you can call. There’s so much support waiting for you.”

  She sighed. “It’s not that simple.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. I had to lean in to hear her. “We have three kids. I can’t just leave.”

  Lined up on the small counter was an array of pamphlets ranging from how to quit smoking, to depression, pregnancy, domestic violence.

  “Yes, you can,” I said vehemently.

  The woman snorted and slid down off the exam table. She put the pamphlet in her purse but I knew she wouldn’t look through it. More than likely it would end up in the trash can by the exit.