Chapter One
An unenthused chuckle left Sadie Munoz as the video she watched played a joke she’d heard more times than she could count. She could cite it word-for-word, but it no longer registered. The whole video had become nonsense a long time ago, yet she couldn’t pinpoint when that had been.
Sadie was vaguely aware that her feet had gone numb from being tucked underneath her thighs, but she wouldn’t move. She’d have to be on the verge of pissing herself until she got out of bed, and even then, she might not move. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d wet the bedding, though that had been the only time she’d rushed to do the laundry in six months.
Through the uncaring barrier that encased her, shame had managed to break through at that moment. Or maybe it was fear of what her husband, Caleb, would say or do. He didn’t know how deep her lack of giving a fuck went, and Sadie didn’t want him to know.
If he discovered how little anything mattered to her, it would break him. As detached as she felt from the world around her, she didn’t want to make that Caleb’s problem. He deserved better than that, and if that was the only thing she could give him right now, at least it was something.
The movie reviewer in the video, Mr. Goblin or whatever, continued his breakdown of the horror movie or romantic comedy that played before her. His low-pitched voice had lost its amusement after two videos, but that hadn’t stopped Sadie from watching every upload on his YouTube channel. It’d become a ritual for her whenever she was in her bedroom. As soon as her ass hit her bed, she pulled up one of his reviews. Sometimes she replayed one five or six times before she moved on to another one, repeating the cycle from the moment Caleb left for work until he came home.
If he came home.
Lately, he’d been staying over at a friend’s house. Sadie couldn’t remember which friend it was or even how many nights a week he did it. She knew he slept next to her at least once every seven days, but God himself couldn’t get her to say more than that.
The low-battery icon appeared at the top of her cell phone, telling her she had only ten percent battery left. That meant fifteen more minutes, if she was lucky, before her cell phone was useless. Her charger was on the nightstand on Sadie’s side of the bed, which was less than two feet away. The charging cord was long enough for her to return to her current position while the cell phone charged. All she had to do was take thirty seconds to set it all up.
Sadie didn’t move.
So what if her cell phone died? What did she need it for besides it being a distraction? Friends had stopped calling and texting months ago. Her parents dropped by several times a month to check on her, but they no longer bothered asking. They just let themselves in using the spare key she’d given them.
A year ago, that would have violated her peace and led to a discussion about boundaries (not the first one she’d had to have with her mother). Now, though, she couldn’t fault them for not respecting her. Sadie hadn’t given them any reason to not think that one day her depression might swallow her whole, leading to her permanently deleting herself.
The idea tantalized her more often than she wanted to admit, even to herself. The agony she hid from would be gone. The fresh heartbreak she felt each morning she woke up not to the sound of a fussy baby but to her alarm, which she hadn’t bothered to change, would cease.
Yet, Sadie hadn’t attempted anything. She fantasized about all the ways she could take her life. Sometimes, the method was on the gentler side, mostly resulting in her simply going to sleep with no intention of ever waking again. At other times, Sadie pictured gruesome ends for herself.
If she was ever asked and honest, she’d say that the horror-like ways were what she deserved. She’d failed the one person she was never supposed to. And because of that failure, she’d lost her. Sadie should perish in the most terrible way possible. It was the only fitting end for someone like her.
Soft knocking came from her open bedroom door. Sadie didn’t respond. The disappointment wafting from the visitor told her that it wasn’t her parents. The visitor was, in fact, the last person she wanted to see right now, which hadn’t been that way four months ago. Back then, he’d been one of the two people her entire life revolved around.
Caleb shuffled into their bedroom, making as much noise as the thick carpet would allow. Sadie didn’t look away from her cell phone. From the corner of her eye, she saw the defeated slump of his once-powerful shoulders. When he stood by their bed and she still didn’t acknowledge him, she didn’t miss him shaking his head.
They stayed like that for a long moment: Caleb waiting for her to notice him and Sadie feigning complete interest in YouTube. This wasn’t the first standstill they’d had, and Sadie doubted it’d be their last.
Before their tragedy in August, they’d never let a tense situation get to this point. One of them always backed down before a disagreement or misunderstanding escalated to a fight, but not in a way that forced them to bury their true feelings. That used to be the one thing Sadie appreciated most about their relationship. They’d been partners who appreciated the other enough to not let stubbornness destroy them.
“We need to talk,” Caleb finally said.
Sadie let one shoulder rise and fall. Her attention was still locked on the screen.
“Put the phone down.”
“I’m listening.”
“Put it down.”
“N—”
Right then, the cell phone chimed as the battery died. It fell silent, no longer a convenient distraction. Without it, Sadie would have a more challenging time finding a reasonable excuse for not looking her husband in the face. Not having one in the past had never stopped her before, but she didn’t like the dispute that followed. Those were the times that Caleb looked the most dejected, giving her yet another reminder of how horribly her life had fallen apart.
“Don’t,” Caleb said when she started looking around the room. “Not today. Please.”
What made today different? Why did it suddenly matter so much if she stared at him or not? Why had Caleb come to pull her away from her avoidance of reality?
His tone told her he wasn’t leaving her alone until he had his say. If she paced the upstairs hallway like she was prone to do, he’d be right behind her. If she tried to hide in the nursery, Caleb wouldn’t respect the sanctuary she’d turned it into.
Today, he was through with her tactics to stay locked away inside herself. Today, he wouldn’t back off if she kicked and screamed. Today, what he needed to get off his chest trumped anything she felt.
Sadie turned toward her husband. Her gaze bored into his hooded one. She didn’t speak but made it clear that she was listening, or as much as she was willing to.
Caleb appraised her for a minute. When he was done, he frowned, which turned his thin lips into a faint line. “You didn’t shower like you promised this morning, did you?”
Had she made that promise? She recalled him talking to her while she bumbled around the kitchen, pretending to make coffee. Sadie knew she’d said things back to him, almost like a genuine conversation, but she’d only been speaking to get him off to work so he would stop bothering her. When she was in that mood, she agreed with anything he said. Very rarely did she ever follow through.
“No,” she said.
“Do you even know when the last time was you took one?”
Sadie did not. From the scent wafting off her, she figured it’d at least been a week, maybe almost two weeks. She didn’t take pride in her hygiene as she once had, nor did she have the energy to do it as frequently as before. If she took three showers a month, Sadie considered she was doing well.
“No.”
Caleb’s frown deepened. “Then I doubt you called a therapist.”
She knew he hadn’t mentioned that this morning because she would have locked in on the conversation as soon as he said ‘therapist.’ It wasn’t a word that was said often, but when it was, it always led to hours of them going round and round on the topic. In the end, Sadie always swore she’d make that call, but she hadn’t in the three months they’d discussed it.
“No.”
Red colored Caleb’s hollow cheeks (had he lost weight?). “It’s almost the end of January. You said—”
“I don’t need one.”
“Yes, you do. Yes, we do! We need to move on.”
Anger poked through the disinterested shell Sadie wore. “And forget about Aleena?”
“I will never forget her,” Caleb yelled. His forest green eyes bulged.
Surprise overshadowed Sadie’s fury. Her retort died on her tongue. Caleb never raised his voice anymore. Even when he was visibly pissed off, he didn’t let more than irritation come through his voice. Often, he was gentle with her, even when she didn’t deserve it.
“You act like you’re the only one who lost a part of yourself when she died,” Caleb continued, quieter but no less furious. “Every night I dream of her. Every day I ache to hold her. Do you know how many times I wake up, crying, knowing that what happened in August wasn’t a horrible nightmare, that this is the reality I’m forced to live? Do you even care how she haunts me?”
Sadie knew she should have automatically said ‘yes.’ She was his wife. They’d made vows before God and family, and she’d sworn that his pain would be hers. That they were a team from that moment forward.
All of that had disappeared when their six-month-old, Aleena, had died after catching RSV. Sadie hadn’t had room in her heart to let more than her own grief live there. Had she tried to shoulder anyone else’s, she would have shattered.
Silence met Caleb’s question. He stared at her, wide-eyed and baffled. This was the first time he’d been this direct with her since they buried Aleena. Until their loss, she wouldn’t have let the stillness linger this long.
“You don’t,” he whispered. “How I feel doesn’t even register with you, does it?” He didn’t leave an opportunity for Sadie to not respond. “You think you’re alone in all this.”
But wasn’t she? Only another mother who’d lost their baby would understand the razor-sharp needle of hurt that drove itself deeper into her each day. Yes, a father could feel a bit of that pain, but he hadn’t carried that child. He hadn’t nurtured a bond with it from the moment the baby was known to exist. From the very beginning, everything about the mother, both inside and out, changed for the new life.
Caleb peered at her closely. “Sadie, do you blame me?”
Oh, that was a question she’d avoided answering every time it entered her mind, and it visited her more often than anything else. If she gave it too much attention—if she finally was honest with herself—everything would change, and Sadie didn’t think it’d be for the better.
Aleena had fallen sick on the weekend that Caleb had insisted Sadie join him for a work conference. He’d said that outside of work, they’d treat it like a mini getaway since they hadn’t had any alone time since the baby was born. Sadie had only agreed to do it if her parents could babysit, but at the last minute, they’d canceled because their dog had needed emergency surgery.
Caleb’s mother, the last person Sadie had wanted to step in, had offered her services. She hadn’t had Aleena alone for more than an hour, unsupervised, but she’d promised that at the littlest upset she would call. She’d said this with a deep sigh and several rolls of her eyes, but Caleb had convinced Sadie to believe that his mother would do what was best for Aleena.
Like the nervous wreck she’d told everyone she’d be, Sadie had called multiple times Friday and Saturday to check up on her daughter. Every time, Caleb’s mother had sworn that Aleena was fine, the perfect image of a happy and healthy baby.
Then came the call from the hospital at three in the morning on Sunday. It hadn’t even been Caleb’s mother, but a nurse who’d informed Sadie that Aleena was deathly ill, and her chances weren’t looking good. When they got to the hospital, Caleb’s mother was nowhere in sight, and Sadie and Caleb found out that Aleena had been sick for days. When they asked, the doctor had told them that there was no way that Aleena hadn’t been visibly getting sicker by each passing hour. Only someone who was blind or absolutely against medical intervention would have missed the signs.
Two days later, Aleena had passed. Not even six months old yet, and she was gone. And it all could have been avoided if her grandmother had put aside her uneducated mistrust of modern medicine and done what was right for her. Or if her grandmother had just been honest when Sadie called. Or if Caleb had never pushed his wife to go on the weekend trip, thus never needing a babysitter. If Aleena had been with her mother that weekend, she would have still gotten sick, but she would have been in the hospital long before the illness turned fatal.
If not for Caleb and his ilk, their daughter would still be here, about to turn a year old.
“I haven’t spoken to her, not once,” he said into the silence. “All her calls, texts, everything goes unanswered. I want nothing to do with her, never again. She’s as dead to me as—”
Caleb’s mouth clamped shut before he uttered the rest, but Sadie still flinched.
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded, but she didn’t know how to comment. He’d never discussed Aleena’s death like that, at least not around her. If Sadie needed more proof that their daughter dying had affected them differently, here it was.
An awkward quietness followed his apology. During that time, Caleb avoided her eyes, while Sadie pondered her next move. Should she get up and leave the room? Would that end this torture?
Yet wasn’t now the best time to get off her chest all the thoughts she’d kept locked inside? Even the truly uncomfortable ones that left nothing but shame in their wake? That’s why Caleb had started this conversation, right? Isn’t that what he wanted?
“I can’t forgive you,” Sadie finally said. She held up her hand when her husband’s lips parted. “Not about the comment,” she added.
“About Aleena’s death?”
“Every time I look at you, I hate you a bit more for coercing me into that trip.”
“I didn’t—”
“I never wanted to go!”
Sadie’s shout surprised them both. Since her initial breakdown after Aleena’s heart stopped, Sadie’s voice hadn’t risen over a dull murmur. Even when they argued, she never got loud. Usually, she couldn’t muster the energy.
Today was different. Today was a day for truths to be laid bare, regardless of how they were relayed.
“How many times did I tell you I wanted to stay home? You knew I didn’t like the idea, yet you still pushed me to change my mind.”
“I thought we would have fun. We deserved some time for ourselves.”
“You swore she’d be safe!” Tears, unceremonious and bitter, gushed from her eyes. “You promised your mom wasn’t like that anymore.”
“I… I honestly thought she wasn’t. She said all the right things. She acted better.”
That his mother had deceived him didn’t matter. In the end, her deluded stubbornness had taken the best thing in Sadie’s life. He was guilty by association.
“I can say that for eternity, though, and it wouldn’t change how you feel,” Caleb said. He wasn’t mad, just dejected. “I’m as guilty as my mother, at least to you.”
Sadie didn’t nod or verbally agree, but she didn’t have to. He hadn’t been questioning her.
“There’s no point in trying anymore, is there?”
“What?”
“In our marriage. If you can’t move on—if I’m always going to be at fault—our relationship doesn’t work. We’re done.”
We’re done.
The finality of the statement should have sparked fear, sadness, or even a desperation to prove him wrong. Instead, it left Sadie feeling oddly satisfied. Oddly free.
“We’re getting divorced,” she said.
Caleb bobbed his head. Something akin to relief sparkled in his gaze. “I guess we are.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
