“Once upon a time, my dad gave me some great advice. He said ‘Son, if anything gets through to you today, make it this: Creedence Clearwater Revival is the greatest band of all time. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’” The child giggled behind him.
Carl turned up the car stereo a little bit louder and smiled. If Janet found out about the fact he played anything other than classical music with the boy she would have a conniption. Oh well, he reasoned. I turned out alright, so a little rock couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like Simon could understand the words anyway.
He enjoyed these little moments. Carl didn’t know how much fun being a dad would be. All he ever heard from his friends was that life became torture when you get kids. All the screaming and the pooping and the fighting would take over his life and there would be nothing but misery. Nine months of dread lead to one of the greatest things that ever happened to him.
Over the past year, Carl eased into the father role quite nicely. Sure it was tough at first, until he quit his job. He didn’t make as much as Janet anyways, so him being the stay-at-home was an easy decision. He hated working anyways. Janet didn’t seem to mind, and she was all the more genial with her boys when she got home. He figured it was a trade-off. She had nine months of weird biology and intense emotional and physical pain, so he gets to make sure the aftermath turns out alright until he hits preschool. Once you get past the screaming and pooping, it wasn’t so bad.
Carl drifted into the passing lane, watching the eighteen-wheeler wobble a little to his right. He didn’t pay it much attention; this was Houston, bad truckers were a fact of life.
The truck wobbled a bit more.
***
Janet, briefcase in hand, walked through the glass doors. Out of one world into another, she thought. Outside it was quite warm and sunny, a perfect day. Of all the days of the year, why did she come today? Part of her didn’t want to go through with it. Every time she came here she just got angry. The other part of her still missed him. She felt partly responsible, anyways. He didn’t exactly come here on purpose.
“Hello there, ma’am, how can I help you?” chirped the matronly nurse at the front desk.
“Hi, yes, I’m Janet Schwarzwald. I’m here to see my… I’m here to see Carl?”
“Of course you are.” Janet hated this nurse. Hated. She reminded Janet of her aunt Imogene, the one with the dolls and the powder and the house that felt like a big, pink, fluffy tomb. “Here’s your visitor’s pass. You know where to go?”
“Yes. Thank you.” As she started walking away, Janet got the sudden urge to leave. She wanted to leave this big white maze and never see it again. She never wanted to see HER again. However, she did want to see Carl again. She wasn’t going to run away from this.
Down, down, down she went through the twisty white corridors of the psych ward.
***
Carl was sitting at the table he usually had whenever she visited him, writing on some construction paper with a bright orange crayon. Her heels clicked louder in here than it did in the halls. A few orderlies monitoring the room nodded to her as she approached him. Carl looked up at her and smiled.
“Janet!” he squealed.
She couldn’t help but smile. This was the easy part.
“Hey there. How are you?”
“About as usual. There’s never enough paper around to write that novel I always talked about. Oh well. If they keep me here a few more years I’ll have the most colorful crayon novel ever written. Well, scrawled. My fingers don’t work so well anymore, but you already knew that.”
“Well you seem in good spirits,” said Janet.
“What can I say? I’m supposed to be crazy. Why not change things up a bit.”
Maybe this won’t be so hard. I’ll just say it when he’s rambling and maybe he won’t notice.
“You’re obviously not that crazy,” she said.
“Oh really? Then why won’t they let me go home?”
Oops. Janet cursed herself for saying that. No going back now.
“So what brings you here today? Anything new? Or are you just checking in on your favorite psycho? Let me guess, you want crazy crazy-person sex in the crazy house, don’t you? Don’t worry, I do to. Just think of fun we could have in the padded rooms…”
Janet started laughing. He always could make her laugh. Even after the accident and before… Damn it. Keep it together, and say it. Take a deep breath and say it. Here it goes.
“I’ve been thinking.”
All of the light left Carl’s eyes. He put down the crayon he’d been fidgeting with.
“Don’t say it,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking about—“
“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it. Just a few more months, I’ll be out, and things will be just like it was.”
“No it won’t Carl, and that’s the point. It won’t be the same. Nothing is the same. We could never be the same. Not after what happened to him. Not after what happened to you.”
Carl sat there and started looking down again. Janet pulled the briefcase onto the table and opened it.
“Please don’t do this.”
“I have to, Carl. I want a divorce.”
She said it.
“So you don’t love me anymore, is that it Janet? Is that what you came here to say?”
Janet continued to rifle through her briefcase. “Of course I still love you, Carl.”
“Than… okay, now that just doesn’t make any sense. If you still love me, why do you want a divorce? I thought we were going to stick this out. I thought you would be there for me.”
Silence from Janet.
“It’s because I killed him, isn’t it? It’s…”
Janet found the papers and placed them in from of Carl. She had to say it. I don’t care if it destroys him, she thought, I need to say it.
“Carl, you know you didn’t kill him” she said. “You and your doctors, you’ve been through all that. Whether you want to accept it or not, that is up to you. Simon’s death wasn’t your fault. What is your fault is that you left me first.”
Carl looked up.
“That’s right, you left me. When you put that knife to your wrist, you were leaving me. You were going to leave me without anyone. You think I didn’t think about it too? You think I didn’t want out? He was my son, too. You weren’t the only person that lost him.”
“You didn’t see him though,” said Carl “You didn’t see how that truck’s axle sliced through his... his…” Carl held in a sob and took a breath. “You weren’t there.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t there Carl. But I was there afterwards. I was there with you for the funeral. I cried for months, or don’t you remember? I was there for you, damn it. I thought you would do the same. You were going to hold me up when I needed it. But no. One day, you just decided to leave me alone.”
Carl just kept looking down.
“I’ve been keeping this in for a long time, Carl. Yeah, I was going to keep it in. I didn’t know you’d be in here for this long. I didn’t know it would be this bad. I talked to your doctor before I walked in. He said you keep on trying to kill yourself. That you tried to bash your head in against this very table. That you constantly try to choke yourself with these crayons. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t wait for you. Especially since you haven’t made any effort to get better.”
Silence hung over the table. Carl fidgeted with the orange crayon. Janet tried to take in what she just said.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m not trying to get away from you,” he said.
“I know that,” she replied. “God, I’m sorry. It wasn’t fair of me to say that. It sounded a hell of a lot less selfish in my head.”
“Sure it did,” he quipped. “A lot of crazy things sound better in our heads. Remember, you’re talking to someone with suicidal tendencies.”
Janet smiled, hoping the anger in his voice would go away if she cooled off. “Yeah. I know. God, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said it like that. The truth is, I-“
“No,” snapped Carl. “No need. I get it. You’re tired of it.” Carl took the divorce papers and signed them with the orange crayon. “Well, Janet, it was nice seeing you.”
“Carl, don’t—I said it wrong, I didn’t mean it like I said. I just—“
“You just want me to go away so you can live a normal life, I get it. One of us has to, right? It might as well be the one who didn’t try to commit suicide. I’ll see you later. Until next time, eh Jan?”
“Carl I—“ Janet started to protest, but figured the damage had been done.
Janet got her briefcase and walked away. Through the halls and past the chirpy nurse into the parking lot. She got to her car, and cried.
