Cuts Like Glass Read online

  “That’s not what I was going to say,” he says, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

  “What were you going to say then?” I ask, daring him to think quick and come up with something good.

  “This would be too much for anyone, even someone with all their faculties.”

  Off my offended look, he adds, “That didn’t come out quite right. There is lasting damage due to the head injury that you suffered. There was some swelling to the brain for two months. That cannot be ignored.”

  I don’t say anything. I look over and watch as my fifteen minutes run out. The last of the shiny red sand funnels through the glass neck completely emptying the top bulb of the hourglass figurine. I pick it up off the pristine maple desk. I turn it over one more time, hoping that I’m out of here before the sand runs out again. I turn it over four times each session. Dr. Bryer doesn’t have a clock on the wall in his office. He feels that it’s disruptive to his patients and he insists that I turn my phone off. So, other than the egg timer that he uses, which I cannot see, there’s no other way for me to know just how much longer I have to endure this whole thing.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy, Ella,” he says, eyeing the hourglass atop his shiny, perfectly organized desk. He leans over and straightens a MontBlanc that is barely a hair out of place with the precision of a surgeon. Three of them sit just to the left of a crystal paperweight. The incoming light of the sun as it peeks furtively through the clouds hits it in just the right way and I watch intently as a rainbow of light dances across the ceiling just above.

  “I suppose that one could accurately say that I have issues with believing you when you say that,” I respond, as I catch his eye twitch nervously. “I have issues with trust, I mean,” I add, serious now, the truth in jest not lost on this man. “But you were right. Just talking about things can help.”

  “I could just tell that something was bothering you when you came here today, more than usual, I mean. I think we’ve all had a sleepless night and can relate,” he says, shifting once again in his chair, now leaning his elbow on the grand desk just beside him. I stare at the glass figurine as the sand begins to once again commence its descent from the now full top bulb into the empty bottom one. Exactly fifteen minutes from now and the top bulb will once again be sans the red sand, a sign that another increment of time has run its course. This time, when it’s empty, I’ll be able to leave.

  “Time,” he says, watching me curiously. “It doesn’t ever stop to allow us to catch up to it.”

  “No, it doesn’t. The things I’d do differently if it did. The things I would fix,” I say, not bothering to hide the melancholy in my voice. Pretending to be happy simply isn’t on my list of priorities these days.

  He clears his throat before speaking. “I want you to know Ella, that I’m here for you for the long haul. I believe that together, we can figure this out, put the pieces of the puzzle back into place.”

  “Thank you,” I say, wondering just how long this haul will be.

  “Have you spoken with your attorney?” he asks, knowing full well that I have.

  “Yes,” I say, pulling the fine, beige-toned monogrammed stationary from my purse. I hand it to him so that he can read it. “Gabe always had this particular style in stock. His attorney let me know that he had wanted to make sure that I’d be well taken care of.”

  He reaches over the coffee table to take it from me.

  “What is this?” he asks and stands. He walks over towards his desk and sits behind the massive block of maple.

  “He’d asked his attorney to hold onto this for him. He’d apparently written and rewritten this letter over the years that we were together. He must have written twenty or so versions of it, or so I was told.”

  “You think that Mr. Edwards is lying to you about this letter that Gabe wrote to you?” he asks, looking at me pensively.

  “You know me, your patient that trusts no one,” I respond.

  “Ah, yes, well I suppose that we’ll need to start looking into that,” he replies, a kind smile now crossing his face.

  “Mr. Edwards said that Gabe always insisted that he shred the older drafts and replace them with the new. This one is the latest. He gave it to me just this week,” I say, my mind wandering, my voice trailing off. He asks that I finish my thought, his fingers coursing through the beginning of a beard that’s slowly turning from a dark brown into gray. I’d be too afraid to ask him what he is thinking right now.

  “I just wondered why he took so long to give it to me,” I say. If only you knew the truth about my husband, you’d know why this letter is so disturbing.

  “Well, it’ll be a year this week. I think that most people are assuming that he isn’t coming back,” he says.

  According to the latest news reports on things, my husband of three years had simply vanished into thin air. Speculations running the gamut of foul play during a robbery, to murder by me, have littered my reality for three hundred and sixty two days and ten hours now. I’ve been at the center of both scenarios, as both innocent victim and ruthless victimizer.

  The one fact that many find difficult to argue is that I was obviously in a fight for my life that night. The tennis ball-sized lump on the back of my bloody head is a hard detail to discount. There were also defensive wounds covering my arms and my legs. No one could reasonably argue that I wasn’t in a fight for my life that night on the boat. I’ve yet to be charged with any crime. The belief is that whatever it was that happened that night, it was obviously self-defense.

  I still have recurrent flashbacks on almost a daily basis of waking up in a pool of my own blood. I was so cold. My body shivered and my head ached with a sharpness that I never thought I’d survive at the time.

  Recently another memory has come back to me: this one jolts me awake at night, often covered in sweat and shaking. I relive these moments over and over again until the agony of it all makes me want to die.

  I feel it. Something very cold and solid smashes into the back of my skull. I feel as my body falls forward and hits the hard surface of the deck of the boat with such a force that for a second, I wonder if I’ve broken every bone in my body. I had relived this dozens of times before the memory of what he’d said to me also came back. No one leaves him, he’d repeatedly warned me.

  “No one walks out on me, Ella. No one.” The voice of my husband, a man that I had at one time found so intoxicating would now forever only illicit fear. I hoped that I’d never have to hear that voice again, but something in my gut kept telling me that I would.

  I remember struggling to lift my head but the effort was pointless. And then everything went black. I look up and see Dr. Bryer returning the thick envelope to me. I reach out for it, my hand shaking as I grab it from him.

  I study the fine beige stationary in my hands. It smells like Gabe when I first take hold of it. I breathe him in. Everything he touched always smelled like him and at one time I found comfort in this. Not now. I used to breathe in the patchouli and soap and relish in his scent. Now it only serves as a horrible and cruel reminder of my past. I’d watched as he read the letter that I’d already read a dozen or more times.

  I close my eyes and go back in time to a place where I was happy and in love. I try to remember why I fell so hard for him. I remind myself that there were also happy times, times when we were deeply in love. It wasn’t always bad. It couldn’t have been. I’d never have stayed. I dig deep in my memory and find the reasons that I once loved this man. I breathe in and out several times and will myself back in time.

  I can see Gabe in my mind now. I prefer to think of the version of him that I first fell in love with. His salt and pepper hair blows in the wind. He’s staring at me, laughing at something or other that I’d said. He was so beautiful when he looked at me that way. He’d just given me a single red rose, something he did often in those days. He used to leave these for me in unusual places. It was something that he used to do in the very beginning of our relationship.
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  There really was a time that we were both so in love that it was as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. It was just the two of us sailing, conquering the waves. Sunglasses and baseball hats to shield us from the rays of the sun as it shone above us and reflected off the water below, we’d work together as a team. A unit of two, we’d navigate the Pacific knowing that if we just stayed together we could conquer the world. Those early times with him were the best of my life.

  That day, the day, was one of perfection. The choppy waves were nothing that we couldn’t handle. We’d done so before, many times, in fact. Gabe had joked, as he often did, that I’d been a pirate in another life.

  “Bear away,” he’d warned, as the wind picked up. I’d listened and steered the boat away from the wind. We righted immediately. All was good again. We’d gotten much closer than that to disaster before. Much closer. As always, we’d worked together and made things right. And then there was that one split second that changed everything, a moment in time, one that I wish I could take back but I know that I cannot.

  “If it’s worth anything, I believe you,” Dr. Bryer says, interrupting my thoughts. “I believe that you really don’t remember.” He knows the rumors surrounding me have been ruthless, and that’s on a good day.

  “Thank you,” I reply, struggling for words, finding only those two rather generic ones to work with. The fact of the matter is that there are sections of that day that are a complete blank. I was unconscious for an uncertain amount of time. It was daylight and then it was night. I’m in a constant search for those lost hours.

  “And it is worth a lot,” I say, after a beat. “I keep trying to put that day together in my mind. I keep taking the bits and pieces that I can remember, trying to put them in order, one that makes some semblance of sense,” I add after a few awkward seconds.

  “I know you have. And it will come back to you. We won’t stop until it does,” he says, looking at me with genuine concern.

  Fragments of images come to me at various times. They don’t seem to be in any particular order and as quickly as they come upon me, they leave me just as abruptly. I have shared some of this with Dr. Bryer but I never tell him everything. I never tell any one person everything. That would leave me too vulnerable.

  I decide to try and leave that day in my mind for now, filed in my memory for safekeeping, minus the lost hours. As quickly as I came upon it I’m able to neatly tuck it away. For now, that is. I’m still not able to fully go back there. Not yet, anyhow. The harder I try to organize my thoughts, the further they all slip away from me. I focus back on the here and now.

  “Did I tell you about the money he left me?” I ask as I shift uncomfortably in my chair.

  “No, you have not,” he answers, sitting upright in his chair, his interest clearly piqued.

  “He wanted a different life for me, from the one I had growing up,” I manage. “He made sure that if anything were to happen, that I’d be taken care of.”

  His eyes are looking into mine as if he’s searching for something. It’s as if he is looking for some secret compartment in my brain, one with all the answers. “You think I will judge you in some way because you’ve gotten money from all this?” he asks, less challenging than concerned.

  “I think that a lot of people will judge me for this. Not that they haven’t been already but I’m expecting it to only get worse. It’ll come out in court if there’s a trial.”

  “Is it that much that you’re concerned?” he asks, now standing, pacing the room. He’s stopped taking notes.

  “Well, the life insurance company still hasn’t settled so I don’t have the three million from the policy,” I start, clearing my throat. “But there’s what Gabe left me in his will. He was in quite a bit of debt at the time of his,” I stop. I just cannot say the word ‘death’ out loud. “Disappearance,” I say finally. “All of his assets were sold to pay the debt off. All the real estate and his car collection,” I explain. “And the boat. Everything was sold at auction during the estate sale. That came out to just over ten million.”

  “If I may ask, how much was the debt?” he asks now sitting across from me again.

  “Roughly six million. So, I’m left with about four, not including the life insurance policy.”

  We both watch as the last of the red sand funnels down into the bottom of the glass figurine. My time is up. I’ve survived another session. I’m now free to go.

  “Well, it looks like you’ve gotten out of answering any further questions,” he teases, now standing again and walking towards me. I also stand and he escorts me to the door. He puts his hand on the knob but doesn’t open it. “Ella, I’d keep this to yourself for now.”

  “I know,” I agree. “I plan to. I haven’t told anyone but you. I just needed to get it out. You’re one of the few people who believe me.”

  “As I said before and I’ll continue to say, I do believe you, Ella,” he says, now turning the doorknob and opening the door. I can see through the windows in the lobby the most beautiful blue sky. Traffic whizzes by on Wilshire Boulevard. Rush hour. I cannot wait to get out there and be in the madness. I need to hear the noises of life surround me.

  I suddenly feel so completely alone and I need to be around people, even if I’m just in my car, sitting in traffic.

  “Thank you, Dr. Bryer,” I say, as I walk quickly to the front door of the office. I see only blurs of people sitting in the lobby as I brush by them. On wobbly knees, I start to run towards the main door of the building to the street where my car is parked close by.

  As I step outside, the heat hits me. I wait for the light so that I can cross the street. I suddenly feel very exposed. I look around at all the faces. People driving in their cars, sitting at traffic lights. All clear. People walking on the sidewalk near me, those across the street from me. Clear. As the light turns, allowing us all to cross, I take another look. No one looks familiar.

  I automatically check over my shoulder for the one-hundredth or so time today. I’m waiting for the day that I turn around and see him standing there, waiting for me.

  I’ve been telling everyone the truth; I didn’t kill my husband. The one thing I can’t tell everyone is why. If they knew that, if the truth came out, I’d have a whole new slew of questions to answer.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE LETTER

  February 11, 2014

  My Dearest Ella,

  If you’re reading this, then something has happened to me. I’ve instructed Mr. Edwards to handle things for me. I’ve ensured that you’ll be well taken care of. You will never know how much I cherished every day that I was lucky enough to be your husband. From the moment I set eyes on you, all I ever wanted to do was to take care of you and to protect you. Perhaps I took that too far. Perhaps I held on to you too tightly.

  You’ll no doubt come to learn things about me. Things that I’ve done, people that I let down. All I can say is that I’ve admittedly made mistakes, and if I could take much of it back, I would. You’ll have questions, many I’m sure.

  My hope is that you’ll understand the decisions that I made and can one day learn to forgive me. Despite everything, no other man has loved a woman more. Everything I did was for you.

  Love always,

  Gabe

  My heart thumps loudly as I sit in my car reading the letter again, searching for some hidden meaning in his words, some message meant for only me to understand. I’m feeling everything from love to hate for my now-missing husband. I remember how I felt in the beginning and I can’t deny that there were some wonderful times. But then I saw the ugly side of him. I have a hard time believing that one person could be capable of such kindness and such cruelty. But that was, is, my husband for you.

  The thing is, I believe what he’s saying. I know that he loved me in his sick and twisted way. I also know that his and my definition of love, are vastly different ideals. Mine doesn’t include holding onto someone so tightly that they cannot breathe. I made so many mista
kes, ones that I wish every day that I could go back in time and fix.

  I suspect that I know what at least a few of these admitted mistakes could possibly be; the main one is that I stayed. Though I thought that I’d seen it all, I now realize that I only saw what I chose to see and the rest, I ignored. If Gabe taught me anything it was to never underestimate your enemy. At least when I shared a bed with mine, I knew where he was. Now I have no idea. I’m out here alone, trying to navigate the world on my own.

  I look at the paper now shaking in my hand. I squeeze it as tightly as I can until it’s in a tight, compact little ball. I open it up again as I pull a lighter from my purse. I watch as a corner burns. I feel some sort of satisfaction. His words can no longer have a hold on me. I grab my thermos from the center console and twist off the cap. There’s just a bit of my coffee from this morning left at the very bottom. It’s cold now, the cream floating on top.

  I put the still-burning piece of paper inside and watch as the flames burn out. I can smell it. I look at the charred black mixed in with my coffee. I feel relief wash over me. It was the only way to stop myself from reading the letter over and over again. There is no way to figure out what he’s trying to tell me. Even when we spoke in person I had a hard time understanding what exactly he wanted from me. It was always a test, one that I failed miserably, time and time again.

  What do you want from me, Gabe? I know you’re out there. I wish that I understood what you’re doing and why. Why this game of hide and seek?

  I look around and scan my surroundings. I’m half-expecting to see him lurking somewhere in the vicinity. He’s too smart for that. He’ll never resurface when I’m expecting him to. He’ll catch me off-guard when I’m least prepared for him, when it’s too late for me to save myself.

  As he so clearly stated, no one walks out on him. No one. I always did find it interesting that I never met any of the women from his past. Now it all makes sense. They’re all dead.