Edited by Pat
Their last resource was an unusual therapist.
* * * * *
CHAPTER 1
Linda leaned over the counter and checked the clock again. She had made it another day in a job she hated. Her marriage wouldn't.
I love you.
When was the last time she'd heard those words out of her husband's mouth? She couldn't even remember.
Her husband, Dennis and she had been married for six years, but the last two she had been miserable.
"What happened to us? We used to love each other so hard. We used to be one,"
she thought as she drove back home.
Linda pulled her car into the garage and shut off the engine, keeping her hands on the steering wheel as she breathed in and out. Dennis's truck was parked at the curb outside their house, so Linda knew he was inside the house, probably nursing a beer in front of the evening news.
Tuesday was the night they made love. No, scratch that. It was their scheduled night to fuck like the world was ending. Sex was the only thing keeping them together. Their marriage might be cold, but the bedroom was not. Yes, sex between them was that powerful, but it wasn't enough anymore.
Well, there would be no sex today. Instead of that, Linda would tell her husband it was over.
She'd walk into the house and the fist around her heart would tighten. She'd kick off her heels, and figure out dinner. Her own dinner. Dennis would have already eaten alone. Separate meals. Just another part of their marriage that should have signaled the end long before now.
With her heart pounding in her ears, Linda left the car and paused with her hand on the kitchen doorknob.
Dennis had changed so much since he quit his job at the mines. It was as if an important part of him was left behind. The part that made her feel loved and cared for. The part that made her feel like the most important person in the whole world. This new Dennis was not the warm, caring, and supportive person he used to be.
Letting out a long sigh, Linda opened the door and stepped over the threshold into the house, the familiar sounds of the news reaching her ears. There was already an empty beer bottle sitting by the toaster.
"You're late. I'm waiting," he grunted.
Dennis sat shirtless on the couch, leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees. Ironic that a man who showed so little awareness of her would keep such close tabs on her schedule.
She slipped her feet into her running sneakers, nylons, and all, her heart starting to slam loudly in her ears. "
This is it. I'm doing it. I can't take the lack of love anymore when it used to be so abundant. What happened to us?"
Even though her stomach was growling for something to eat, Linda bypassed the refrigerator, stepping into the living room.
Dennis was a good provider. He worked his ass off all day with the local contractor, Percy Wittmore. He had never been late paying a bill or delayed the repair of something around the house.
Linda also knew Dennis was faithful. She didn't have a single doubt about that. He might be the perfect husband if only he'd give her the time of day.
He knew she was there and hadn't gotten up to greet her. Hadn't even said hello. Just sitting there like a king, waiting for his queen to climb on his lap and fuck him silly, so they could start the clock again. Another night of sex. Another week of silence.
A cycle that would never end. Unless she broke it. She was done waiting for the old Dennis to come back.
Instead of starting to make dinner she took a framed picture of a younger version of them and looked at it with envy.
"What are you doing?" Dennis asked her.
"We need to talk, Dennis."
He turned his head to look at her for the first time.
"I'm not happy. I haven't been happy in a long time. Your body is here but your head seems to be someplace else. We don't talk anymore."
"Why are you bringing this up again? I don't want to talk about it."
"You refuse to talk about our problems? What a surprise!"
Dennis just looked back at the TV.
"We haven't really communicated for two years! You avoid talking with me about our issues and when I ask you what's wrong with you, you change the subject. It's obvious that something is wrong between us, but what? Talk to me, Goddamit!"
Dennis just shrugged. "Things are not perfect, but we're good. I'm working, I bring money. I take care of the house. What the heck is wrong?"
"WE are NOT good," she moved her finger repeatedly between him and her. "We don't talk anymore. We don't share activities together. All you do is work and sit at home watching TV barely acknowledging my existence. I asked you to go to see a marriage counselor. I asked you to talk with a therapist..."
"I'm not crazy, Linda," Dennis took a deep breath.
"There you go! There is this gap between us and I have no idea how to reach you anymore. We keep drifting apart. The truth is we're more like roommates or fuck buddies these days."
Dennis kept looking at the TV. Linda wasn't even sure if he was still listening to her.
"Why do I bother?" Linda said raising her arms in desperation.
Her sense of self-preservation kicked in and she turned, avoiding him on her way through the living room, down the hallway to the back bedroom.
Fighting the tears, Linda started packing a suitcase. In it she placed two drawer's worth of clothes, her toiletries, her cell phone and charger, and her laptop. Everything went into the bag. She zipped it up with sickening finality. Tears falling down her cheeks.
"What the hell are you doing?" Her husband stood outlined in the bedroom doorway. "Are you leaving me?"
A strangled laugh found its way out of Linda's mouth.
"Are you really this surprised?"
"Yeah, I am!" he shouted. "Put the goddamn suitcase away."
"No."
That was the moment Dennis recognized she meant business. This wasn't a fight. It was THEfight. Even fights had been few and far between, hadn't they? There wasn't enough passion for one.
"I don't love you anymore," Linda said in a whisper.
Air rushed out of him, carried on an awful, wounded sound.
Linda did love Dennis. She just wanted to tell him how hurt she'd been when he had shut her out, and stopped communicating with her. How she had felt like a failure when she couldn't reach him even though they shared a bed, a house, a life.
"I'm going to Laura's. I'll stay at the inn till we have this settled."
He rounded the bed in her direction. "No."
"Don't try to stop me."
"You're staying. End of discussion."
"I'm leaving," she breathed. "Accept it. I am more than your weekly gratification."
With all the willpower she housed inside her, Linda pressed both hands against Dennis's shoulders and pushed him out of her way.
"I'll come to get the rest of my things when I find a place for myself."
Dennis looked at his wife, panic beginning to creep into his usually stoic expression. For a brief moment in time, they locked eyes and she saw him. The Dennis who'd sworn to love her until the day she died. The man who'd asked her to marry him.
And then he disappeared in the blink of an eye, a shutter slamming down into place, hiding his every emotion. She knew this man well. Too well.
"Go, then. No one's stopping you."
The cool fall air kissed Linda's damp cheeks when she walked into the garage.
She'd almost backed out to the end of the driveway when Dennis appeared in the garage, still shirtless.
What? He wanted to talk now?
"Linda. Don't go. Please."
Her heart seized as he shouted her name a second time, striding toward the car. No. No more. She couldn't take it anymore. Before she could change her mind, she stepped on the gas and drove away, Dennis's voice booming through the dust she left behind.
CHAPTER 2
Dennis caught his reflection in the door of his truck as he slammed it. His face was unshaven, eyes and cheeks sunken in.
His fucking life was over.
He closed his eyes and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the cool metal of his truck, breathing in and out through his nose, trying to quell incessant nausea.
He'd started drinking on Tuesday night after Linda left and now it was Friday. He'd remembered to send a text to Percy, the contractor he worked with, saying, "I'm sick."
That's all Dennis had had the presence of mind to type.
Since he left the mines, Dennis started working as an engineer for the local contractor.
Linda was... gone... She was the girl who had held his heart since middle school. It was still that way. Nothing had changed in that regard. Never would.
In his mind, he could see Linda packing her suitcase on their bed. He could still hear the words that had split him wide open.
I don't love you anymore.
The woman he was supposed to care for forever was gone, she didn't love him anymore.
Was she cheating on him? Was there another man?
No, Linda would never do that.
A knock on the door brought him back to reality.
Paul Olson's face was the last thing Dennis wanted to see right now. He was the foreman of his crew and a good friend.
"You still sick, buddy?" Paul patted Dennis on the shoulder. "What the hell did you catch? Food poisoning?"
"I don't have time for this, Paul," Dennis said, pressing a row of fingers to the center of his splitting forehead. "Don't act like you don't know Linda is staying at the inn."
"I... Oh. Shit, man," Paul's hand dropped away. "I heard something about it, but I thought it was just town gossip. I knew things between you two were not well but I never thought they were that bad. Do you need to talk?"
"All the town knew it was coming except me?"
"Nope." Dennis shook his head.
"You sure? You know I lived a similar situation with my first wife."
"Yes, I remember. She was cheating on you with a surgeon. Linda is not like that."
"What happened, Dennis?"
Dennis just shrugged. "Linda said she doesn't love me anymore. Said she wasn't happy with me."
"Damn! Do you want her back?"
"Of course I want her back!" Dennis snapped in a rusted voice, shocking himself by saying the words out loud, instead of letting them ricochet around inside his skull. "She's my wife. She's supposed to stay. We said vows."
Paul made wishy-washy sounds as if he disagreed.
"What?"
"Marriages have ups and downs," Paul said, obviously treading carefully. "But if a woman isn't happy for a long period of time..." He trailed off.
