For a month straight, she pumped herself with pills, alcohol and any other kind of medicine to numb the pain of her breaking heart. As she laid in the darkness of their room staring at the ceiling, the closet doors, the floor or her man’s back because he wouldn’t even face her anymore. The pain in the middle of her chest, back and head would grow so tight, she thought at any given moment her head would explode. Her heart would come out of her chest and her back would detach itself from the rest of her body. She’d lay there awake for hours because she couldn’t sleep without him nor could she could sleep with him just laying there unresponsive to her. As much as she tried nothing seemed to work. So she’d lay there night after night contemplating and perfecting a grand plan to end her existence. She had to do it without her kids knowing but bold enough to make a statement to the man she was hopelessly in love with. It had to be something to shake his world completely up side down. As if the act of suicide wasn’t enough. It had to be something to finally make him understand. She tried to imagine a world without her in it. Who would miss her, would it even matter that she was gone? How would her kids turn out? Would they hate her for leaving them or would they understand that her heart had been broken beyond repair and she just couldn’t go on? Then for a brief moment the fight would bubble up to the surface and she’d say, “Fuck that! I’m not gonna’ leave my kids to be raised by someone else. No one knows them like I do!” Then she’d glance at the shiftless body next to her, but so many miles away in the same bed and feel the vibration from the intake of his snore and it would plummet her right back into that numb state of defeat watching the ceiling for another two hours until the alarm clock goes off.
At 5:00 a.m. her first thoughts are Maybe today will be the day. She gets out of bed and gets the kids up but silently goes over the plan in her head. Maybe carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage, or swallowing ten ounces of drain cleaner to disintegrate her insides on contact (CSI NY taught her that one) She’d already taken a barrage of pills so that wouldn’t work but maybe something more spectacular like hanging herself over the balcony so the perfect neighbors in her suburban neighborhood could see. Then her daughter calls her and she’s snapped back to reality. She puts on her best “mommy face” and “wife demeanor” assuring the kids that everything was A-ok. All of these thoughts occurred in her head and he had no clue. No one knew except God. Morning after morning he’d just lie there sleeping peacefully, unaffected by her nightly insomnia. The endless tossing and turning that brought on the worse migraines. Not realizing that each morning from the lack of sleep she was barely coherent but relentlessly she still drove the kids to school. What she wanted was simple just some attention and affection without having to initiate it or execute a sneak attack to get it. To hear I love you out of the blue or for him to roll over and wrap his arms around her and hold her through the night. Maybe then she could get a restful night’s sleep. What she thought was the simplest things seem to be the hardest for him. When she dropped the kids off she welcomed that alone time. Driving alone gave her time to reflect and think about whatever. Today there were more suicidal thoughts than usual. She thought, “What if I was in an accident, would he rush to my side at the hospital or would he finish out a days work first?” She often talked to God on these trips back to the house and today was no different. She had asked God:
