Unraveling

A short story about secrets, lies, and the stories we tell ourselves.

“Same Walk, Different Shoes” is a community writing project thatBen Wakeman organised as a practical exercise in empathy. The premise is simple. A group of writers anonymously contribute a personal story of an experience that changed their life. Each participating writer is randomly assigned one of these story prompts to turn into a short story. The story you are about to read is one from this collection. You can find all the stories from the participating writers at Catch & Release. Enjoy the walk with us.

Mine is below.
xoxo Jo

Unravelling

I can't live like this anymore, I announce on the third day of the trip as I swallow my third bittersweet coffee of the day. I hold the tiny cup to my lips, sticky sweet droplets of poorly stirred sugar drips onto my eager tongue.

Like this, how, you say. 

Like this, with you passed out every night, bottles hidden in the linen closet, you with your own credit card so I don’t know where you spend your money. Yet there it was, the telltale receipt from the shop. You sniff them out, the bottle shops. Even when we’re in some remote fishing village overlooking the Mediterranean, or is it the Ionian Sea? You sniff them out and make excuses.

We’re on holiday, you say. It’s meant to be fun, it’s just ten days, don’t spoil it with your drama.

Do you know what it’s like to wake up one day, any day really, and learn that you have been betrayed? I'll tell what it's like.

I’ll tell you what it’s like, but I will only tell you because I’m contrarian. My mother warns me to be private, to avoid telling others what I have going on in the dusty corners of the room, behind the sofa, where the vacuum never goes. Why can’t you be private, like me, she says. For forty-three years, she has told me to be private. But I am not a private person. I’m a writer, my stories are tattooed on my arms, my legs, my belly, my laptop, on the insides of my eyelids. I deposit my dirty laundry everywhere, draped over the shower screen, the smog-encrusted balcony railing, the iron balustrade. I reveal enough, because I like to tell a good story, to work through it all. It’s quite a lavish amount that I divulge.

Do you remember the first visit we went to the marriage counsellor, who we saw three times in total? Remember how she said, in that first session, I don’t know what the outcome will be of all this. You may end up stronger, together; or you may decide it’s not working and will split. That’s exactly what you want to hear from a marriage counsellor. At her rates! I think it was our third and final session when you pulled out that purple vape pen, took a few puffs that surrounded the three of us in synthetic strawberry that reminded me of that stick gum I used to chew when I was young.

When did you start vaping? I asked.

It’s nothing, you said, surrounded by a strawberry halo.

I should have known then. Instead, we planned a trip to the beach. To eat lemon granita for breakfast, sleep in the air-conditioned apartment during those dreadfully hot afternoons, waking up sweaty and confused before an aperitivo in the piazza, ending the day with late dinners of freshly fried fish in paper cones and a walk along the water. Some people decide to have babies when their marriage is in trouble. We go on holiday to the beach.

I found the receipt this morning, on the third day of the trip. €43.27. A bottle of wine, and that Japanese whisky I like to sip after dinner, like a mint. It helps me digest and loosens the tongue. Because after ten years of this, we still have a lot to disentangle. Like those messages on your phone. I know, I know, you’ll ask how I managed to see those messages on your phone but that’s beside the point (you were passed out, I used your face id to unlock it, go ahead and judge me).

The photos make sense. I was never your lover. We hurtled right towards what every couple becomes eventually— devoted, dependable, competent, married, the perfect hosts, even better guests. We became all these things from the start. We were never lovers.

You, it seems, miss that. Do you want me to sext? To send upskirt pics? I never take clandestine photos in the toilet at work. Is that it? You’ve never asked and, in all fairness, you’ve never sent me a dick pic. Instead, you send them to her. I can’t even say her name it repulses me so much. I knew a bully by that name when I was in middle school. She brandished her sexuality over the rest of us girls and brought porn magazines to school, which we pored over during recess. And then Sister Paulina caught us, she pointed at me, the girl with the same name as your lover. Those nuns moved with unexpected stealth, protected by God who told them where we were hiding with our filth. God sees everything, Sister Paulina warned.

My mother was just like God, and Sister Paulina. I know everything, I have eyes at the back of my head so don’t even think of doing anything of which I don’t approve.

I ignore them, the virgins and widow who knew more about me than I knew about myself. If I had eyes at the back of my head, maybe you would not have sent a dick pic to a woman you barely know. She was never a stranger, was she? She materialised one day, fake blonde and fake tits, plumped up lips and Botoxed brow, puffed up cheeks, and a husband with a lush head of hair that must have cost a fortune.

You invited her to that dinner party just before Christmas last year, you showed her around the house, slid past our holiday photos that line the stairs. She sat beside you, I beside her husband, ten years her senior and showing it, despite the expensive hair.

I haven’t been able to travel in years, the husband told me while plunging a forkful of dauphinoise potatoes into a slot in his beard where I supposed his mouth to be. My spine, he continued. I can’t sit long.

Perhaps if you would spring for seats up the pointy end, she said tapping her wine glass and shaking her head. Life is a disappointment, isn’t it?” She smiled in a way that said, you know about life’s disappointments, don’t you, honey?

Capped teeth, for sure. Maybe dentures, so she can take them out to give blow jobs. Because I imagine her giving many blow jobs. Multiple men lining up. She would probably need to get her stomach pumped what with all the jizz in her belly, like Rod Stewart or was it Richard Gere? Because that’s what lovers do. They are always fucking, giving blow jobs, sending graphic photos that end up in the cloud and when some hacker finds and shares them, they wonder how it could have happened. It happened because fake tittied, fat lipped women like you are stupid.

Of course I recognise the tits on your phone. She showed them to me that night after dinner. While you, her husband, and the other guests were on the terrace cradling your whiskies, I was preparing coffee, and she trapped me as I came from the pantry.

Do you want to see my boobs? she asked, preparing to untie her wrap top. I got them in Turkey a few months ago. They have the best aestheticians. Everyone wants to see them. I’m not even wearing a bra, she whispered. No bra, at my age, can you imagine?

I wear a bra to bed so, no, I cannot imagine. She unwrapped her top and there they were.

Just over four thousand euro, and that included an arm tuck and his hair. Look. She lifted her arms and flicked the skin beneath her bicep. Aren’t they incredible? If you want to know where I went, I could give you the details. It’s five stars all the way. Actually, it’s a six-star self-care sanctuary. All the stars go there.

Remember how my mother got a boob job after her mastectomy? At least she never offered to show me. They took fat from her belly and filled her chest. I never understood why she bothered. Widowed, not dating, and 73, why does she need with new tits?

I asked her, how long until the scars fade, my eyes flickering from the floor to the ceiling, anywhere but her boobs or the long scars on her arms. It was horrifying. You would have loved it.

Do you want to know my clinic’s number?

The one in Turkey?

Yes. The one in Turkey.

I recognise those tits like they are my own because it’s not every day that someone corners you in your kitchen and shows you the work she just had done in Turkey. Also, her left nipple is slightly darker than her right. Of course you know that.

Three days into the holiday, Brownie is licking my ankles while I think, then she licks my toes. Casper is sleeping on the couch, dreaming of cats and balls. Three days into the ten-day trip and the dogs are settled as though they’re at home. They eat, take countless pee stops when we walk them, slurp water over the kitchen tiles that I have to clean up, run across the sand on the empty beach, and drag themselves back to the house exhausted with tongues lolling. I envy them their complete lack of fucks, knowing someone will feed them and pick up after them. If I believed in reincarnation, I would want to come back as a small dog with someone at my disposal, whipped.

I told you I would stop drinking after the trip, you say, eyeing the empty bottle I found that morning tucked into the couch and was now using as a water bottle.

Actually, you said you would stop while on this trip.

You tell me not to be ridiculous, that you can’t stop drinking while you’re on holiday. Especially not an expensive holiday. But, I want to shout, you said you were done with it. You said it was over.

Why can’t you just be the type of woman who doesn’t worry about this sort of shit? you say.

Do you mean the sort of woman like her? Is she the type of woman you want me to be like? Does she like it when you leave empty bottles inside your hiking boots? What about when you say you’re taking the dogs for a walk but you’re sneaking to the park to drink? Of course she doesn’t know about that because you wouldn’t bore her with the mundane, the quotidian. I’m the one who frets when you stop breathing at night, sleep apnoea just another one of those pleasures you share only with me, like shared grocery lists and phone data. Do you get in a quick fuck before work like we used to? Or while watching TV? Or is it all silky lingerie and city hotels where nobody knows you? See? See how I think. It’s no wonder you want to be with her, and not me. She has children, a fertile playground, unlike me, a wide alley, with overflowing rubbish bins and cobwebs stretched from wall to wall. I bet she doesn’t read the letters to the editor to you in the weekend paper. She probably plays with her hair.

Look, I just can’t live like this anymore, I repeat, raising my voice to convey, more accurately, all the meaning you will never fully understand from my words alone. I see you, I see your waxed chest, how you wear Speedos now, not board shorts. I see an omelette and no bread. How long have you been wearing those new glasses?

It’s not that bad, you say.

The glasses?

The drinking.

I don’t know how it could get any worse, other than if you start drinking at work and lose your job, or you run someone over when you drink and drive, or you might drown. So, yes, it could be worse.

You see? It’s not that bad.

I stick my finger in the cup, determined to dislodge all the crystallised sugar and pop it in my mouth, savouring the final sweet dregs of coffee. I suppose I could get a bit of work. What would be the harm? I would look better. Who doesn’t want that? My mother is right; I am horribly judgemental. No wonder you drink and cheat. No wonder you never want to take me to your work functions, with friends.

I created this with my criticism and nagging - when are you getting home so I can plan dinner? Are you wearing that? Your hair’s getting long, don’t you think? Oh my god, will you turn off that music! Even the dogs prefer to sit beside you when we watch TV. I’m a frigid, sarcastic, humourless bitch; no wonder you lie.

I am a frigid, sarcastic, humourless bitch. Am I premenstrual? Menopausal?

You think I’m a cruel. Remember that time you said I was cruel? My mother was having chemo and I left her at the hospital with poison flooding her veins. I remember how you looked at me and I sobbed and said that it was only for an hour. I needed a break. She’s heavy, my mother.

You’re a cruel one, you said. You wanted to say, you’re a cruel bitch, but you know how I feel about that word. I’m not so fond of cruel, either. It hit me, thwack, a bird smashing into my (flat) chest.

Now I could say to you, you know what’s cruel? Finding photos of fake boobs on your husband’s phone, his dick all over his sent messages. Of course I don’t say any of that, you can never know that I found my way into your phone while you were black out drunk, that I scrolled through your messages, that I forwarded them to myself and deleted them from the sent folder. I didn’t go there looking. You had a missed call from the guy about our broken air-conditioner. You left me no choice. The air-conditioner is BROKEN.

Your abs look different, more defined. They reminded me of a time, more than a few years ago now, that time when they were defined for me, when you slept naked, when we slept in the same bed, in the same room, maybe I wore slinky lingerie. Except I didn’t. I have never been that woman. I will never be that woman, the one who goes to Turkey to have work done and then shows that work to people when they’re making coffee for dinner party guests.

Are we done with this drama? you say, taking a bite of an unwashed apple.

I can’t take my eyes off the wall behind your left ear, the pierced one. Brownie is sleeping on top of my feet. Casper is snoring on the couch. Waves crash gently against limestone, seagulls sing to one another, and a pair of welcome swallows dance for me. When time slows, I can’t think, just watch, observe. I hear your voice on the edge of my reasoning.

So are we done with it? You repeat.

Your phone beeps. A message. I smile and stick my finger back into the remaining sugar at the bottom of my coffee cup. You take your omelette and phone into the kitchen.