Hearing the Farewell, No Return

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The day I found out Nat James had cheated on me, at least emotionally, I was six months pregnant and started hemorrhaging. They took one of my fallopian tubes.

When my best friend found out, she picked up a chair and broke one of his legs.

Afterward she wrote a program just for me, one that synced his location and his phone messages straight to my phone.

From that day on, Nat was all guilt and remorse. Work and home, nothing in between. He took care of me down to the smallest detail.

The elders took turns talking me around, saying he never actually crossed that line, and life has to move forward.

I swallowed every bit of the pain, tried to let the past go, and start over with him.

Just when I thought this marriage might mend itself back together, I found out that the husband supposedly away on a business trip overseas had his location pinned abroad, while his food delivery order was placed one floor up.

I used the excuse of walking into the wrong unit to see for myself, and through the door left ajar I saw Nat gripping a woman by the waist, his eyes full of wanting.

"I've been good and done everything you said for four whole years. Don't I get a reward now?"

The woman leaned into his arms, her voice trembling.

"Fine. One month."

"After one month, we're done. Nothing between us."

"What do you mean, nothing between us?"

He pinned her against the wall.

"Mia, if you hadn't married someone else just to spite me, I never would have rushed into marrying her!"

My ears were ringing. The hand at my side wouldn't stop shaking.

So the woman whose face I could never make out in a thousand-odd nights of dreams was my best friend.

So my marriage to the man I loved most was nothing but the product of the two of them getting even with each other.

Fine, then. This laughable love and this laughable friendship, I didn't want either of them anymore.

The elevator doors opened, and the delivery guy came down the hall with a bag, checking door numbers as he went.

"Hi there, delivery."

I reached out and took it. It was that brand Nat always used, the extra-large size, plus a pair of S-size stockings.

The delivery guy's eyes drifted toward the gap in the door on their own, and when they came back to my face, whatever he'd been sizing up turned into pity.

I thanked him with a bitter little laugh at myself, then turned and pushed the door open.

"Your delivery's here."

The air in the living room froze all at once, the temperature dropping to zero.

Mia's lips were still red and swollen, glossy with wetness, her chest still heaving fast.

Almost on instinct, Nat swept her behind him, panic in his eyes.

"Gerry."

His voice was rough in a way he couldn't hide.

"You were asleep, weren't you? How did you"

I shook my phone at him, cutting him off.

"Your delivery order synced to my phone. And you two didn't even shut the door."

I set the bag on the table and turned to go.

"Don't let me interrupt."

Mia snapped out of it, shoved Nat off her, and caught up in a few steps to grab my wrist.

"Gerry, listen to me! My drain was clogged, Nat's flight got delayed, he just came back to help me fix it, that's all."

The words came fast and frantic, her eyes going red.

"If you don't believe me, I'll swear on it!"

I turned my head, my gaze passing over her rumpled collar, and I picked the takeout up off the table and hurled it hard at her face, my throat aching, choked shut.

"Mia, do you think I'm an idiot?"

"A clogged drain! Since when does that need any of this?"

The sharp edge of the paper box caught her forehead and cut a line of blood across it.

Nat's face went white in a flash. He rushed over in a few strides and slammed his palm into my shoulder, hard enough that I stumbled backward.

"Geraldine, you touch her one more time and see what happens!"

The next instant, a glass of water splashed across his face.

Mia threw the cup down on the table, tipped her head up, and stared at him, her lips shaking.

"Nat, what do you think you're doing?"

"Did you forget she's the reason I'm even alive?!"

"If anything happens to her, I'll never forgive you for the rest of my life!"

Cold drops of water ran down Nat's jaw and dripped off. He pressed his lips together, his fist clenched and trembling.

A few seconds later his knee bent and he dropped down hard on the floor in front of me, the gentleness I knew so well settled over his face.

"Gerry, don't be angry. I'm just under too much pressure, I lost my head for a second."

As he spoke, he slapped himself across the face over and over, a dozen times, until his cheeks were red and swollen.

I clenched my palm shut as that familiar feeling came crashing over me, the suffocation closing around my throat like a hand.

Eight years of knowing Nat, six years of marriage, and even in his worst moments I had never once seen him bow his head to anyone.

Let alone kneel, or hit himself.

Yet here he was, on his knees in front of me, apologizing this humbly.

And all just because he was afraid Mia would hate him.

A voice rose up in my head. I grabbed the fruit knife off the table, a bitter smile pulling at the corner of my mouth.

"You two are disgusting!"

"Gerry!"

Mia rushed forward crying, snatching at the knife in my hand, and in the struggle it cut across her back.

The pain drained the color from her face and she toppled backward, shaking.

"Mia!"

Nat cried out, and, at a total loss, pulled off his jacket and closed it around her, holding her, his voice shaking hard, panic all over his face.

"I'll take you to the hospital, don't be scared, I've got you."

Then he rushed out the door with hurried, stumbling steps.

I stood there, dazed, my eyes empty and unfocused.

It wasn't until a shrill ringing went off that the knife clanged out of my hand onto the floor and I came back to myself.

The little robot in the corner blinked, and a mechanical voice came out.

"Mr. James, happy 7,400th day anniversary of meeting Miss Mia Hughes."

The robot's body was covered in cute cartoon stickers, and beneath its round little belly was a heart-shaped serial number, the code made up of Nat's and Mia's birthdays.

I reached out to touch it, and a piercing alarm went off.

"A third party has been detected. Program self-destructing!"

The next second, points of light flickered and the database began to empty out.

I grabbed the robot hard, hard enough that my fingertips went white, tears falling in big heavy drops.

"I'm not a third party! I'm his wife, Geraldine Simmons!"

The robot tilted its head, its voice puzzled.

"If you're not a third party, then why is there never any record of you in the database Mr. James created?"

"And why isn't there the slightest trace of you anywhere in this whole house?"

I stood frozen where I was, my gaze crawling over the room inch by inch.

In the vase on the dining table were balloon flowers, Mia's favorite.

The little chalkboard in the kitchen was crammed full with the dishes she liked.

The bare stretch of wall on the balcony held every photo of them, from grade school all the way to their college graduation.

The sticky notes packed thick across the entryway were their handwritten conversations.

Every date scrawled in the bottom right corner lined up with these four years.

The night I was saved from killing myself and finally slept. The days the pills left me sick with side effects. Or the times he used work as an excuse and slipped away while she wrote her code.

In Nat's handwriting there was love he couldn't hide, and regret, all of it frantic.

In Mia's handwriting there was nothing but coaxing, restraint, and pain.

In all those scattered stretches of time when they were "taking care" of me, this was how they poured out their love to each other.

A sharp sting spread out from my chest, and in an instant a bitter ache flooded every limb, every bone.

Everything from these years surfaced slowly in my mind.

The only reason Nat and I ever met was Mia.

My first year of college, there was a string of violent assaults in the city.

The attacker struck again and again, and he only went after women with long hair.

My mother was gravely ill back then. To ease the burden, I cut off the long hair I'd grown out for years and went to work part-time jobs.

One rainy night, the drains on the main road were backed up, and my rented scooter couldn't be driven through standing water, so I took a detour back to campus.

The moment I turned into the alley, I saw a man in black with his hands clamped on Mia's legs.

She was crying, begging, and it only seemed to excite him more.

I didn't hesitate. I flicked on my high beams, laid on the horn again and again, cranked the throttle, and drove straight at him.

I grabbed the wrench from my bag and brought it down on his head, then pulled off my jacket and covered her with it.

Just as I was about to call the police, the man drove a knife into me with everything he had.

Mia stayed by my bed at the hospital for two weeks, her eyes swollen from crying until they looked like walnuts.

And that was where the friendship between the two of us took root.

After that, right or wrong, she stood by my side. She treated me as her best friend and introduced me to everyone she knew, all her family and friends.

Nat included, the boy she'd grown up with.

Back then I was poor, full of self-doubt, carrying more responsibility than anyone my age.

Even after falling for him at first sight, all I could do was bury the feeling quietly.

Until the night of our graduation party, when everyone started playing truth or dare.

The bottle spun three times and finally pointed at Mia.

The one asking wore a delighted grin and asked her who she'd given her first kiss and her first time to.

Without a second's hesitation she named the campus heartthrob, her eyes bright with laughter.

"Charles James. And we're going abroad next month to make it official."

Everyone cheered and egged them on. Only Nat sat in the corner, his eyes dark and unreadable.

When we broke up in the small hours, I was the one still clear-headed, since Mia had kept me from drinking all night.

After I'd seen them off into their cars one by one, I went back for my bag, and Nat, reeking of alcohol, pulled me into his arms.

He leaned into my shoulder, slurring my name.

"Geraldine, you like me, don't you?"

"Do you want to marry me first and fall in love after?"

I went stiff, feeling the warmth of his breath, and it was as though every cell in my body had stopped moving.

A moment later I remembered I had my earbuds in, so I answered as if I'd heard something else entirely.

"They're all in their cars already, don't worry."

"Come on, let's go, it's about to rain."

After that night, I kept my distance from Nat on purpose, avoiding every place he'd be.

I poured everything I had into two things: my internship and taking care of my mother.

Until one day, hurrying home from work, I found the whole building sealed off behind police tape.

A gas leak next door, and old wiring, had started a fire.

I was losing my mind, ready to run into the flames, when I saw Nat carrying my mother out of the building on his back.

He was covered head to toe in soot and vomit.

Once my mother had been pulled through, I couldn't hold back anymore. I threw my arms around him and sobbed.

Over the next week, we rushed through it all: announcing it, getting the license, holding the wedding.

On the wedding day, Mia, who was supposed to be abroad, showed up at the very last moment to warn Nat to treat me well, or she'd never forgive him for stealing her best friend as long as she lived.

Back then I was drowning in an overwhelming happiness, and I never once noticed the strange air between them.

Now that I think it through, the happiness I'd been so sure of was nothing more than a byproduct of their game of spite.

My heart felt like a huge hand had clenched it all at once, the pain making my breath tremble.

Slowly I curled up on the floor and let the tears roll from the corners of my eyes into my hair.

Maybe it was the way my emotions had swung so hard, but by the time I got home, I'd spiked a fever.

After the miscarriage, after the depression that followed, I'd tried to kill myself more times than I could count.

Every sharp knife in the apartment, every kind of medication, Nat had hidden them all away where I couldn't reach them.

I searched through the haze in my head for a long time before I finally dug out a single fever pill.

I swallowed it with cold water, turned the TV up as loud as it would go, and lay down on the couch, drifting slowly into sleep.

By the time the sky was going pale and the fever had broken, I sat up and took the signed divorce papers out of the drawer.

I was about to call Nat when he punched in the code and shoved the door open, storming in.

He grabbed my scarred wrist, and his voice came out low and cold.

"Geraldine, putting Mia in the hospital wasn't enough for you?"

"From start to finish, the only person who wronged you is me. I'm the one who wouldn't leave her alone while I was married to you. None of it has anything to do with her!"

"However disgusted you are, however much you hate me, take it out on me!"

"Why would you go online and smear her when she's this fragile?!"

"Do you have any idea? That project she worked so hard on for so long, someone took the whole thing out from under her!"

His grip was shocking, like he wanted to crush the bones in my wrist, and the pain drained what little color was left in my face.

I forced back the tears and shook my head, choking on the words.

"I didn't. I had a fever last night. I slept the whole night through."

He flung my hand away, contempt all over his face, and shoved his phone in front of me.

The alumni group chat was full of it, messages about how Mia had repaid kindness with betrayal, how she'd wormed her way into our marriage.

And there was more, a piece written in my voice, in my writing style, posted for everyone to see.

Nat's lab had felt the fallout too.

Seeing me with nothing to say, Nat let out a scornful little laugh, his eyes full of mockery.

"Still won't admit it? Isn't this exactly the whiny little style you use in that diary of yours?"

I stood frozen, at a loss, my head swimming, and tried to explain.

"I really didn't!"

I held the divorce agreement out to him as I spoke.

"If I really wanted to put all of that online for everyone to see, I wouldn't have this divorce agreement ready!"

"I'd just cling to you the way I have all these years"

"Geraldine, would you stop putting on an act!"

Nat cut me off sharply, snatched the papers out of my hand, and tore them to pieces.

"Do you have any idea how much I hate you like this?!"

"I actually used to think you were a kind person, and now you want nothing more than to drive Mia out of her mind!"

"If I'd known you'd turn into this, I should have just let you die together with that baby!"

My head snapped up, my eyes locking onto his.

My heart felt like it was being kneaded and crushed apart, the pain so total I couldn't breathe.

I lifted my hand and, with everything I had, slapped him hard across the face, screaming it out.

"Nat! You bastard, that was your child too!"

As if he couldn't feel the sting at all, he stared at my flat stomach and sneered.

"If my child really had come from you, then he'd have gone his whole life without a father's love."

My ears rang, and everything around me seemed to slow.

I forced down the metallic taste rising in my throat, pressed out a bitter smile, and looked at him, taunting.

"Right. Your child with Mia will get your love."

"Except his mother is a mistress, and he'll be an illegitimate child no one can acknowledge!"

Nat looked at me quietly, let out a long sigh, and a faint, unreadable smile crossed his face.

"Gerry, did you forget? That grandmother of yours with dementia, she's still living in the nursing home."

A shudder went through me, and my arms and legs went weak.

After my mother died and I sank into the worst of it, Nat had brought my sick grandmother from my aunt's house into the city.

He found the best nursing home, took care of her down to the smallest detail, and little by little she could even recognize me again.

From then on, my grandmother had been the one thing keeping me alive.

But it had never once occurred to me that he would use her against me.

When I said nothing, he pulled out an invitation and tossed it on the table.

"The day after tomorrow, come be the bridesmaid at my wedding to Mia."

"Then tell everyone that you were the third person who came between us."

"Do that, and whether you want the divorce or the money, we can talk."

I looked at that invitation, bit down on the tip of my tongue, and nodded, hard.

On the wedding day, the friends who had once come to my celebration with Nat all showed up.

They gathered around Mia, handing over their wedding-night gifts.

"Mia, congratulations to you and Nat. Two people meant for each other, finally together!"

"Right? Watching the wrong answer get corrected feels so good!"

"You have no idea how much we've all had to swallow these past few years!"

Someone's eyes flicked toward me, the tone thick with mockery.

"Anyone with eyes could see it back then. The one Nat loved was Mia."

"And then someone waited until the two of them had a falling-out and turned right around to marry the man her best friend loved. Truly disgusting."

The smile drained from Mia's face, her brows knitting as she cut them off.

"Are you all drunk before you've even had a drink?"

"If you keep talking nonsense, don't blame me for turning cold on you."

Their expressions stiffened, then they laughed it off and drifted out of the dressing room, putting on a show for the makeup artist.

"Do our bride and bridesmaid up nice. We're going to get some killer photos later!"

The makeup artist nodded with a smile and went to fetch the hairpins.

Mia, in her wedding gown, the wound on her back already scabbed over, looked at me with reddened eyes.

"Gerry, I know I've wronged you."

"But love isn't something you can control. I couldn't just treat Nat like he was invisible."

"After tonight, I'll leave this place. You and he can have a good life together."

She held my hand, her voice earnest.

"We said it, didn't we? That we'd witness each other's happiest moments."

"So this wedding, you won't blame me for it, will you?"

I looked at the red string on her wrist, the one my mother had braided by hand, and my lips curved.

"I did say that."

"But I never said it would be over the same man."

Just as I moved to pull my hand free, she toppled backward without warning, her back slamming into the corner of the table, and the scabbed wound split open, blood seeping through at once.

I reached out on instinct, but Nat came rushing in from outside.

"Mia! Are you all right?"

Mia shook her head and gripped his hand.

"Don't blame Gerry. She just loves you too much. She got a little worked up."

Nat shot me a hard glare.

"Look at what point we're at, and you're still defending her."

Watching him shield her as they walked out, I forced the explanation stuck in my throat back down.

Maybe to get even for Mia, Nat piled a mountain of petty, pointless tasks on me.

In my heels, I ran back and forth until my ankles were rubbed raw and bloody.

Half an hour before the ceremony, I was locked in the utility closet.

I tried to smash the lock and realized the door was being braced shut from the outside.

I pulled out my phone to call for help, but there was no signal.

I set the stool on the table and leaned my upper body out the window.

The moment a signal appeared, a call came through.

"Ms. Simmons, I finally reached you."

"I have some very unfortunate news. Please stay calm."

"Your grandmother passed away half an hour ago. A brain hemorrhage. They couldn't save her."

The world went black in front of me, my head spinning in waves.

"Are you sure there hasn't been a mistake? I went to see her just yesterday, and she was perfectly fine!"

The voice on the line explained with regret.

"This morning a local delivery came in. The courier said it was an old film her granddaughter had specially tracked down."

"The old lady only watched two minutes of it before she was gone..."

Grief crushed the breath out of me, and yet Nat's messages came flooding in one after another.

"Geraldine, I'm warning you, don't try anything!"

"The bridesmaid's speech is coming up any minute!"

A single yellowed leaf drifted down from the air, and smiling, I threw myself from the window.

Nat, who had come storming up the stairs looking for me, glanced over, and his pupils shrank all at once.

"Gerry, no!"