Chloe De Lancie

Period 5

Blue Eyes

I can’t sleep again. Like every other night for the past year. I’ve tried everything from counting, sleeping pills, and meditating, to hot showers and warm milk, but nothing works. I used to sleep great. I would put my head down on my pillow and, just like that, I’d be gone. But those were the days when I was happy, the days when life was good to me. Things are different now. My son’s dead and my wife and I barely speak anymore. I feel like I’ve been buried alive, trapped in a world of darkness.

When my wife and I moved in together, we thought it would be a nice idea to keep our old twin beds and simply put them together to make one big one. Over the years, the space between our beds has grown slightly, but neither of us has bothered pushing them back to how they once were, when not even a sheet of paper could slip through them.

I lay on my side of the bed now, head rested on my black pillow, huddled under the navy blue flannel covers. My wife is sound asleep next to me, with her long, dark hair spread across her white pillow. I can feel her cold toes on my leg. Since spending the night silently staring at a gloomy ceiling does not particularly interest me, I decide to catch up on current events. I begin reading the front page: “Gasoline prices are finally dropping in California, but unless they drop further…” Boring. Next. “A suicide truck bombing severely injures seven and kills eleven…” Have I read this before?

I look over to my wooden nighttable. There is a picture of my wife and me on our third date at the beach, taken by a random passerby. Her beautiful blue eyes shimmer in the sunlight, hair dripping wet down her sandy, tan skin. I am to her left, with my short brown hair and my matching brown eyes. We look overjoyed, huge smiles spread across our young faces.

As I continue flipping through the pages, black newspaper ink on my fingertips, a headline in the personals column catches my eye: “Looking for escape?” Yes. The letter reads:

If you like candlelit dinners,

Taking walks on the beach.

If you like adventure,

And eating chocolate treats.

If you like reading poems,

And taking chances too,

Then let’s escape together,

Just me and you. 

I gaze over at my dormant wife. A pang of guilt hits me, but it does not stop me from doing what I am about to do. I slowly and gently remove the covers from on top of me and tiptoe out of the room toward our joint study. With every step I take, the wood lightly creaks. I sit down at my desk, pick up a pen, and open the drawer where I keep my paper, but it is empty. Hmm. I guess I need to buy some more. I walk over to my wife’s desk in search of a fresh sheet. What a mess. How does she find anything in this pile of junk? Geez. I rummage through her mound of stuff and notice a paper with my wife’s lovely handwriting on it, titled “Wilting Away.”

Darkness has wrapped itself around my decaying corpse.

I am dying, little by little as time warps

The meaning of life, now murky and dim

Like a river run dry, empty and grim.

My eyes are open, I look but cannot see.

“Show me light,” I continuously plea.

I am trapped in this hole, alone and afraid.

My time on this earth has been outstayed.

When will it be over? When will the pain stop?

Who will wipe away my flowing teardrop?

            Wow. It’s been ages since I’ve read one of her poems, which she writes in her spare time. She used to share all of her poems with me and always asked me what I thought of them. I had forgotten how good she was.

            When I finally manage to find a blank piece of paper, I rush back over to my desk and push my wife’s sad words out of my head so that I can focus on my letter to the newspaper. The problem is, I don’t know where to begin. The letter in the ad rhymed. What if she thinks I don’t write well? What if she thinks I’m boring and won’t want to meet me?

            I’m no poet, so I decide that the best way to go is to just work off of her poem. What I come up with isn’t half-bad:

Yes, I like candlelit dinners,

The feeling of sand on my toes.

I like getting lost in words,

Something no one else knows.

I must meet you by tomorrow night

Since I can’t wait another day

At a restaurant called Giovanni’s

Where we’ll plan our getaway. 

I immediately take out a personal ad in the paper, and then I quietly crawl back into bed. Now all I have to do is wait to see what happens.

The next morning I wake up and, as usual, I do not feel rested. It is eight o’clock, meaning I only got about two or three hours of sleep, certainly not enough. My wife has already gotten out of bed. She’s probably gone by now; she usually leaves early in the morning so as to avoid running into me as much as possible.

I get out of bed and feel my stomach rumble. Hungry, I go straight to the kitchen. To my surprise, my wife is sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. When she sees me, she promptly folds the long pages together and pushes the paper off to the side of the table.

My throat feels like it is closing up, but I sense that I should say something, anything. “Good morning.”

My wife looks up at me. That’s when it hurts the most; when I can see my son in her blue eyes. Those eyes remind me of the terrible day when our lives changed forever. The day when my wife and I were in Tijuana, after having decided to take a weekend trip together. I could tell my wife needed a little break from raising Sammy. We both did. We called my mom and asked her if she would be willing to take care of him for a couple days. Of course, she said yes right away. We dropped him off at her house the next day, the biggest mistake of our lives. The doctors said that nothing could have been done to stop what happened; SIDS strikes without warning, usually in healthy-looking infants. Even so, I always find myself wondering whether Sammy would still be with us today if we had not so selfishly left him. Ten months of life was all he got.

My wife’s eyes fill with tears, and it makes me want to cry too. I turn away from her. It’s too painful. I just can’t handle it. She gets up from the table, turns to me, and says, “I don’t know when I’ll be home.” She runs out of the house and I hear the engine start as she drives off.

I’m in my nicest black pants with a white shirt and green tie. It is now almost seven o’clock and my wife hasn’t come back home all day. I am about to leave for the restaurant. I go around the house and take one last glance at everything. I know I must not take anything with me; there are too many memories attached. Walking down the stairs for the last time, I look at myself in the square mirror hanging on the wall. Oh no. I look terrible. My once short brown hair is now long and messy. There are huge bags under my half-closed eyes, wrinkles that weren’t there before. I do not look thirty-two at all. I hope I don’t scare her off. One look and she’ll be gone. I shake my head then continue walking down the rest of the stairs, out the door, and into my black car.

Fortunately, there’s an open parking space directly in front of the restaurant, so I pull in. As I enter through the large glass doors, I look at my watch. It is seven-thirty exactly. Right on time. I start to feel very nervous but, even though I know it’s not too late to turn back, something is telling me to keep going. So I do.

The lights inside Giovanni’s are dim and it smells delicious. The walls are covered with posters of old movies and rock bands. A woman in a green apron walks up to me and asks, “How many?”

I ignore her as I casually scan the room for my mystery woman, recognizing her in an instant. No, it can’t be. Must be a trick of the light. But it isn’t. It’s really her. Her tan skin, long dark hair, and stunning blue eyes are all right in front of me. She is sitting alone at a brown round table with a candle at the center, in a white blouse and black dress pants.  At first I am confused as to what is going on, but then it hits me. A part of me is stunned and a part of me is laughing. A part of me is angry and a part of me feels guilty. She stares at me, clearly shocked, as I walk over to her table and take a seat.

“Nathalie.” It’s all I can think of to say at the moment.

Her face softens and she smiles. “Derek.”

“So it was you that—”

“Yeah.” She looks down in shame and starts fiddling with her napkin.

“Oh.”

“I’m so sorry, I know I shouldn’t have, I just didn’t know what to do anymore. I miss him so much. Everything reminds me of him. Everyday I wonder what our lives would have been like if Sammy hadn’t died. I just, I don’t know. I was desperate. I should have talked to you.”

I don’t know what to think. I want to hate her. I should. She was trying to betray me and run away with another man. How can I forgive her for that? But, how can I be mad at her either, since I tried doing the same thing? We’re both at fault. I take a deep breath. She is gazing at me with her sorrowful eyes, truly sorry, and I can see that she’s waiting for me to say something.

“I’m sorry too.” Once I say it, I realize that I truly mean it. We have been given a chance to try again, and I’m not going to ruin that. It’s time to finally move on. It’ll take time, but it can be done. I smile at Nathalie, and for the first time in a long time, it isn’t forced. “What do you say we get out of here and go home?”

“I would love that.” I’m not sure what’s so funny, but we both start laughing. It feels nice to laugh again, like we used to. I stand up and stretch out my hand to Nathalie. She places hers on top of mine, a perfect fit, and we walk out of the restaurant.

“What are we going to do about the cars? I guess I’ll meet you back at the house.”

“No, let’s take yours. We can come get mine tomorrow. I just—I just don’t want to be alone right now. I want to be with you.”

I’m happy she feels the same way. I don’t want to let go of her hand. I’m scared that if I do, I will lose her again. I can’t let that happen. So we walk back over to my car and drive home.  It’s been a while since the thought of going home hasn’t been so depressing.

We are both upstairs; Nathalie is in the bathroom brushing her teeth as I change into my green plaid boxers and throw on a grey shirt. I sit on the edge of the bed but then immediately get back up. I bend over and push my side of the bed over toward Nathalie’s. Ah, much better. The bed only moves about an inch, but that one inch seems to make all the difference.  I crawl into bed and prepare myself for my usual night of reading. I’ve got the newspaper to my left and my sports magazines to my right.

Nathalie slides into bed next to me. “There’s something I’ve been needing to tell you.”

I look over at her, concerned. “What is it?”

“You have got to get a haircut.” We both laugh and she gives me a soft kiss on the forehead. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight. I love you.” Maybe it’s too soon to say it, given what has happened, but it’s how I feel.

I rummage through my pile of magazines, pull out my Sports Illustrated, and start reading, but my eyelids begin to feel heavy. That’s weird. For some reason I try to keep them open, but they keep closing again. So I turn off my lamp and wrap my arm around Nathalie. Finally, sleep.