Chapter 6 - Final - Metamorphosis
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My hands were wringing themselves of their own accord under her stare. I couldn't hold her gaze. I had laid bare the full extent of my actions in that torrid year for Rachael to examine. All at the same time, her eyes were mystifyingly hard with both rage and sadness. She'd been mad at me before, but this was different. In her eyes was disappointment of the final degree.
I wanted to reach out to her, and...what? Take it back? Ask her to put it all aside and we could just be my Rachael and I, her Jonathan again? Like I even could. I sighed when I couldn't take it any longer. My Rachael. She hadn't been that in months. Longer.
"Well." Her voice came to me like it was coming from above the surface of the water, and I was lurking below. "That's...really...." She pursed his lips together. "I have no words."
"I didn't think you would," I managed to squeak out.
She tilted her head to examine me further, like a mouse in a maze. "And...do you regret any of it? Sorry--just curious."
It was in that moment that I felt a distant urge to prostrate before her, throw myself at her feet and beg for the second chance I didn't deserve. In a short, desperate and feverish moment I imagined us, and our Bailey, sitting on the couch on a Friday evening. We were watching Bailey's shows, singing along to the same stupid fucking Disney songs that she always insisted we sang with her. We were tired. We were happy. Everything was still normal.
For a long, terrible second, the image of us in our domestic normalcy lingered in my head. Then it shuddered out of existence.
"Of course I do," I said finally. "I regret hurting you. Hurting Bailey. Ruining us." I swallowed. "But...truth will out, Rach. I don't...I don't deserve you."
Her frown was frigid. "No. And you only had to destroy your family to find out."
"...yeah." My fingers knotted themselves into loose balls. Rachael nodded, and reached into her purse. She produced a cut-out piece of paper with writing on it. Rachael Loev--and my breath caught at the sight of her unmarried name--Markham, ON L3X 0X0. 905-XXX-XXXX. "What...?" I started to say.
"My new address," he explained. Her new address...five hours away. "If you want to touch base again, this is where you can find me. You could even see Bailey again. If she'll let you."
"What d'you mean, if she'll let me?" The image of our daughter, my daughter, so heartbreakingly like her mother, drifted up in my mind. To imagine her pushing me away felt like a dull, churning pain in my gut. "Rachael...Bailey, I can't not see--"
"I don't want to hear it," she cut me off. "This is what you are, right? A fucking cheater? What need do you have for a wife, or a daughter? A family? You made that part clear--"
"Rachael, I didn't want to give up Bailey."
"You made that part clear when you destroyed what we had, and now you're showing up here to tell me you regret what you did? So long after the fact?" Nothing would come out of my mouth to defend me. I watched my life shatter again for the second time. She has divorce papers in her hands, she's taking Bailey, it's really over--those were the only thoughts going through my head. "I wanted to be nice about it, Jon," she was saying, "but just knowing you did all that--planned all that--not once, but over a full year? That fucking hurts."
Rachael held my stare with such painful magnetism, I couldn't tear myself away. Miniscule tears welled up at the corners of her eyes, and I knew she hated that. She brushed them clear, as if they were pinpricks that stung and humiliated.
"We can...discuss the custody situation at a later date." She said it quietly, no longer looking at me. "We can discuss everything at a later date. For now, I've had enough."
"Sure, I get it," I muttered, like a dope. She nodded, and she slid the card closer to me. "Rachael...I'm sorry." I had nothing else left to say but the obvious. She had turned away from me, eyes vivid and beautiful with her rage.
She stood up, smoothing out the folds in her skirt. "Maybe one day I'll accept your apology, Jonathan." Her voice came across hollowly, but demure. "For now...you stay safe out there. I know I will."
I stared at her card, at her curling writing. And I kept on staring at it until I heard her walk away. The dull clacking of her high heel shoes disappeared as the door to the café opened and shut, swallowed by the sounds of the city that was no longer hers.
For what felt like hours I sat at that table, watching my half-drunk coffee cool down. At some point I'd stuffed the card in my wallet, even paid the bill. Still, I sat there, trying to absorb the fragments of what my life was now. Rachael had made up her mind. She had taken our Bailey and left for Ottawa, hours away. We'd discuss the custody situation, but it already seemed grim. She was five hours away now, far away from the home we had together.
It was hers to forget, to throw into the fire, if she wanted. That much, I owed her. Rain started to hit the city by the time I sorted through my thoughts enough to look out the window. It was a brief drive home. If I got wet, so be it.
When I got back home, there was the emptiness of the space, still newly-ripped apart that greeted me. A living room that didn't look lived in at all. A gaping void where the dining area once was, taken by Rachael to her new home. Not a single one of Bailey's things.... I left the lights off.
The TV served as background noise while I sat at my laptop, inattentively starting the grim job of sorting through the assets I had. I had a strong feeling Rachael would tear me apart in the settlement. Would she do it gladly? Or would she still feel some sort of regret? This had been our home for the last seven years; we'd seen Bailey live a thus-far huge fraction of her life in this home. I took a long look around, committing it to memory. God knew I could never afford this on my own afterwards.
My phone buzzed underneath me. I didn't care who it was. Minutes passed and it buzzed again, so I chanced an irritated look.
Aaron Rodriguez
Aaron Rodriguez (12:59): hey Jon. am I free to come over?
(13:08) please?