Lament Ch. 01

It had been a challenging couple of years, and recently it had only gotten worse. I wasn't sure what had caused our problems, what had caused my once loving and devoted husband to begin distancing himself from me, both physically and emotionally, but it had been happening. I could feel it like a layer of frost developing between us, and I was unable to thaw it. Oh I had tried, God how I had tried.

At first, when I noticed that he seemed to be pulling away from me, I had put it down to stress. James has a difficult and demanding job, I knew that. But he had always had challenges in his work life and yet they had never encroached upon our marriage before. Not like this. Perhaps the issues lay with me then? Had I changed, had I given him pause for concern? I had always loved him, ever since our first date.

He had taken me out to lunch because I was new to Sydney, having arrived only a week before from Perth, without family and without friends. He took pity on me he said, felt sorry because I was so alone and lost. He worked in the same office as me, and had been the IT guy that came to help me out when I had the ubiquitous issues a new starter normally has, and as we sat at the pub for a counter lunch and he chatted about the massive and new city I found myself in, I heard nothing of it, saw nothing but his eyes and his smile. I was instantly smitten.

With James pulling away from me more and more, with our tender caresses becoming fewer, and our time between the sheets dropping to alarming levels, I must admit that I feared he was having an affair. We had been together for close to twenty years by now and in my shame, I doubted him. I confessed to our daughter that I thought her father might be stepping out on me, and I wore a slap from her for my troubles. So, after talking with some friends, and even sending in an anonymous letter to one of those newspaper relationship columns, I did what everyone seemed to be advising me to do. I talked to him and tried to simultaneously up my game.

James, though, dismissed my concerns. "There's nothing to worry about Nikki," he had said, with his voice even tempered, some might say devoid of emotion. Yet his eyes spoke volumes to me. There was something, and it indeed was something to worry about. Every attempt I made to get him to open up was rebuffed, gently but firmly. My attempts to woo him back physically also seemed doomed to failure. I had returned to the gym, I had trimmed up, toned up, gotten a new wardrobe of lingerie and tried to tantalize and titillate my man. Yet for the first time ever, he began to turn down my approaches. I was crushed, I was embarrassed, I was hurt. Yet I never gave up.

I had tried to tempt him with dates, with trips to places that I knew he loved to do things I knew he liked. And though we went on many, they always seemed to be dispassionate and lacking.

Finally, at wits end, and though I knew my daughter Olive would be offended and angry, I again started to think that James was visiting his charms upon another. James is a smart man, so I had to go cap in hand to my parents for help, both financially and logistically. Private Investigators aren't cheap, and James would certainly know something was amiss. My parents and James had never really gotten along. And as I spoke to my mother in particular, she seemed to take a form of guilty pleasure in the fact that he might be, or as she said "Is definitely," cheating on me. But though the PI firm was tasked twice with tracking him over a period of twelve months, it came back clean. He was not having an affair, even though he did travel a great deal for work now and had plenty of opportunity.

Then, since Olive's eighteenth birthday a couple of weeks ago, James was barely speaking to me. He was spending more and more time away from the house and away from me. If he wasn't on trips for work, it was time with his friends, or visiting relatives and extended family, or who knows what. My husband was now a part-time room mate, and nothing more. It broke my heart. It devastated me.

And now, here I was, forty one years old, sitting in my office at work, with tears glistening in my eyes, threatening at any minute to break their dam and rush down my cheeks in an unending torrent.

"Are you ok, Nikki?"

It was Cheryl, a work colleague and close friend. She had stuck her head into my office earlier in the day to enquire about lunch, but I'd only mumbled a half-answer back to her. Now it seemed she was checking in again as the lunch break was approaching rapidly.

"Nikki?"

I looked up and tried to smile. But it must have been horrible to see. Cheryl's face scrunched up, the worry evident on her round but pretty face.

"Oh Nikki."

She raced to my side as the dam broke and I wept openly, suddenly choking back large gulps of air in my misery as I struggled to find rhythm in my breathing.

"He's left me."

It was all I could get out. I heard, more than saw the door close with a firm thud. The world was blurry as I tried to see past the tears, past my misery. A shape that must have been Cheryl settled in by my side, and I soon had a tissue wiping at my face. Cheryl knew of the problems that I had been having with James, she was one of the few friends that I confided in previously. She and her husband, Mattias, were friends of ours, and she had begged me to speak to James, to get him to "Unburden his soul and whatever is eating at him." She didn't believe that he could or would cheat, or that he had fallen out of love with me.

Now the tissue wiped at my nose, and I realised that it had filled with snot. I tried to blow it out when Cheryl told me, it was running down my face onto my lips and into my mouth, and cascading down over my chin. I could barely clear it. The tears, the sadness, the great bursts of sobbing became wailing.

I heard something else, a door? Then Cheryl mumbled something to someone and it closed again.

"He left me Cher, he's gone."

And the tears didn't stop flowing.

She held me, gripped me tight and rocked me back and forth, whispering something, I'm not sure what the words were, but it was clear they were an attempt to sooth me, to assuage my pain, as though I was a toddler who'd scraped my knee and everything was going to be alright. But it wasn't. It never would be again.

I reached for the letter, and clumsily, I pushed it into her hand. I hadn't read it all, I had stopped almost as soon as I started, when the tears stole my ability to read more than the first few words.

"What's this?" she asked quietly, concern in her voice.

"Letter," I sobbed. "Came this morning, with this." I held up the small circle of gold. James' wedding band. And the tears came again. "Read it to me, please. I can't.. I can't do it, I can't."

Cheryl took the letter and I think she put it back on the desk. I'm not sure, I buried my face into her shoulder and clung on for dear life, as though she were my only floatation device and I risked drowning in an ocean of despair and self pity.

"Later Nikki," she started.

"Now!"

My single word response was hoarse, my voice muffled by her embrace. "Now." I said again, quieter, pleading, begging.

"Nikki," she appealed, "please, this is personal. I shouldn't." she continued, trying perhaps to save me some dignity. But I had none. Not anymore.

"Read it. Please."

And so she did.

"Nikki," she started after picking the letter back up, and trying to both hold me close, and manipulate the letter such that she could read it easily. "I'll stop anytime." I nodded.

"Nikki," her voice was shaking as she read the missive of my marriage's demise. "I am leaving, something I thought I'd never say, write or consider, but here it is. In fact, leaving is not the correct phrase, I have already left. I'm gone and I am not coming back. You broke my heart." Cheryl stopped as I gasped.

"Broke his heart? How?" I asked. What had I done to make my James leave and leave broken-hearted? I was the one whose heart had been broken, broken by the decline of my marriage, and then his sudden departure. He hadn't even considered doing it in person, to be honest and open with me. I had received a letter at work, and his ring. It was cold, and it was cruel.

"I don't know Nikki. Do you want me to continue?" She hugged me tighter against her and I heard the door open once more, followed by a masculine voice. It sounded like our boss, Lincoln, but I couldn't be sure. He was concerned. But the door soon closed again and we were alone once more.

"Yes," the tears had begun to dry up now. My breathing was more measured.

Her voice stammered a little as she continued, with emotions I guess. "I'm gone and I am not coming back. You broke my heart. You stole from me what is most precious and ground it into nothing. I can't be bothered divorcing you, but I will no longer be your husband except in name only. I want nothing to do with you ever again, and to divorce you would require some future correspondence, even if only through solicitors."

She stopped. "Do you want me to continue?" she asked once more. "I don't think you want me to read this next bit."

Why? Clearly she had skimmed it to know that I didn't want her to read it, but that meant she had already read it, and understood it. Maybe it was the reading aloud that she thought would hurt.

"Read it," I said, my voice cracking.

Cheryl sighed, gripped me tightly once more, adjusted the letter, and continued.

"I loved you Nikki, with all my heart. With everything I had. You were my world until Olive was born. Then you had to share it with her, but I know you didn't mind. We were great together, or so I thought. My wonderful wife and my little angel. But then, Olive started getting older and growing up. She became less the little girl and more a young woman. And I noticed things, things that still tear me inside. Olive looked nothing like me, nothing like my family. Everything seemed wrong.

"I have included in this letter the four, yes four, paternity tests I have had done. They were all sent to different labs in different parts of the country, to ensure different testing processes. All of them returned the same irrefutable proof. Olive is not my child."

At this Cheryl stopped reading. I couldn't breathe. I felt faint. Suddenly there was a commotion above me and faces, lots of faces, and I realised I was on the ground. I don't know how I got there, I don't know what happened, but my head hurt, as did my heart. I reached out a searching hand, clamoring for anyone to hold onto. I was falling into an abyss, and soon, like my breathing, my vision went as well.

I woke. I knew not know where I was. Lights were muted, my breathing ragged, and I had a splitting headache. My stomach and chest hurt as I laboured to try and make sense of what had happened, of where I was. It was soon that I realised I had a hand holding my own. A strong hand, yet it was gentle. The other was soothing my hair back, rubbing my head. Lincoln whispered to me in a soothing voice, but it was clear that he was distressed and anxious for me.

"What?" I began.

"Rest."

His voice was authoritative. I closed my eyes and tried to remember what had happened.

"We'll help you through this Nikki."

But that was as far as he got, as memory returned like a freight train. I sat up urgently, casting his hand aside. I had been laying down in his office with my head on his lap. Cheryl was there as well, I could see her talking in hushed tones upon the phone, but she begged off and hung up when I bolted upright.

"No Nikki," she began.

"The letter?"

She gestured to Lincoln's desk. "Everyone is worried for you Nikki, I've left a message for Olive."

"Noooo!" I screamed. "No, please. No."

She looked sad. Lincoln gripped me firmly by the shoulders and turned me to face him. His piercing steel-grey eyes bore into me. He was an older man, handsome with grey receding hair, his square jaw rocked back and forth as though he was chewing away, a tic he had when upset.

"Nikki," he said "please, Nikki. We've also called for an ambulance, and they're on their way. You collapsed, you're in pain." He nodded his head grimly, "I get it, I've been there when Grant left me," Grant was his younger boyfriend, whom Lincoln had hoped to marry once same-sex marriage was legalised in Australia. But it was never to be for Linc. Grant rejected the proposal, and walked out that same day. It crushed Lincoln and he was inconsolable for months.

"You have had a physical reaction to an emotional trauma. You need to let people help you."

I shook my head. They were worried, I could see it on their faces. I could see the congregated group outside Lincoln's office, through the frosted glass and hear their troubled voices.

"No."

I shook him off and stood, my legs wobbling, my head spinning.

"I need to go."

"You cannot drive like this," Cheryl and Lincoln both tried to steer me back to the couch, but I fought them, trying to extricate myself from their grasp.

"No."

I was more forceful, and their attempts to be gentle had meant that their grasp was weaker than otherwise it would, and I was successful in freeing myself from their clutches.

"I have to go," my words were earnest and demanding, but my voice wavered with doubt.

Suddenly there was commotion at the door, and it opened to release a couple of paramedics into the room. I had not even heard the sirens approach. They were firmer with me, and I was laid back onto the couch. It was like I had no say in what was happening to me. Cheryl and Lincoln stood back as the two men began to examine me, asking me questions, asking my colleague and boss questions. I barely heard anything, or at least, it didn't register. I know I answered, but I was on auto-pilot.

My mind reeled.

Olive was not James' daughter.

But how? I was faithful. I had been faithful. Hadn't I?

Lincoln drove me home after the paramedics had finished with me. He or Cheryl, I'm not sure exactly who, had been given some information after I refused to go to hospital for observation. I was fine, I told them, though my smile hardly did anything to convince anyone of that fact, least of all myself. Cheryl said she would follow us, and that Mattias would meet us there with something for dinner.

"You can't be alone tonight."

That was her promise to me. Olive, my daughter, was away with friends. She had flown to Brisbane only a couple of days prior to my life unraveling. The look on Cheryl's face told me enough, she was worried for me. Worried what I might do if left alone now that my soul had been crushed. To be truthful, the thought of self-harm hadn't entered into the equation until that point, but now, who knows. When you've been crushed, who knows what you might do to ease the suffering.

The house was quiet and dark when we arrived. As soon as Lincoln opened the front door for me, I rushed past him, pushing him to the side as I hurtled from room to room. A little thing here, a small thing there. They were missing. Only small things, but they mattered. What was most egregious was the study. Usually it was a mass of computer gear, network equipment and James' nerdy junk but now, it was empty, void of any trace of my husband. Filing cabinets were opened and a few sheafs and folders were on the floor, with papers obviously now taken from them.

Even though I knew that he had left, this hit me in the gut, taking the wind right out of me. This was his sanctuary, his little place of happiness. Now it was devoid of life, of spark, of anything that marked his presence.

The tears came once more. Almost immediately Cheryl was there with me, hugging me.

"It will be ok."

Her words were empty, hollow.. I knew it. She knew it. She knew I knew.

I sat down in a chair with a heavy thud, almost falling in defeat. I pulled the letter, now crumpled and tear stained, from my pocket and started scanning it. I had been unable to look at it since Cheryl read James' declaration that Olive was not his. My heart raced and my mouth watered, but I held back the sudden need to vomit.

"Olive is not my child."

I read it aloud. My tongue struggled to help articulate the words, it felt thick in my mouth and heavy.

"Olive is not my child."

It didn't make sense. It couldn't make sense. Since the day that I had moved from Perth to Sydney, I had only had one lover, and that man was James.

"Do you need anything Nikki?"

Lincoln was looking down on me, no judgment in his eyes, only compassion and fear. He was scared for me and broken for me and my pain.

"No. Thanks. I will be fine."

I lied. How could I be fine? My husband was gone, and somehow, our daughter, my daughter was not his. My eyes began to tear up once more, and I nodded mournfully.

"You are on paid sick leave until further notice, do you hear me young lady?"

I nodded. The tears started to fall again, and he came to me, grabbing at me and pulling me into an embrace. I cried. He cried.

"I mean it. Don't come into work until you speak to me in a couple days and we work out what's going on."

Cheryl was soon with me, replacing Lincoln in holding me. "Shoo, go on," she said warmly but staunchly, waving him away with a free arm. "You can't do anything more here, but, thank you Lincoln." He nodded, and it seemed like he was about to say something again, but words failed him momentarily. Then he steeled himself,

"Has anyone actually tried to call that bastard?"

Nobody answered. I moaned, and Cheryl gripped me tighter. I could vaguely see him reaching for his phone, but Cheryl shook her head.

"I tried."

Her voice was quiet, whispered.

"His number is no longer in service."

I howled and tried to crush Cheryl in my misery, but she was strong, she was stoic, and she took my clinching hug with an altruistic grace.

"I never cheated Cheryl. I never cheated." My words felt empty, hollow. If I had never cheated, how had four tests all returned the same result? How was it that James was not Olive's father?

"I don't know Nikki, but we'll get to the bottom of it. I promise."

Her husband arrived not long after Lincoln had left, still worried. Mattias had left work early and rushed here making only a slight detour to pick up some Chinese take-away. And now he busied himself finding cutlery and crockery for dinner. He clanged away in the kitchen, bringing a faint smile to both mine and Cheryl's faces. He was a brute of a man, standing just shy of two meters tall, and weighing probably 120 kilos, with barely any fat upon him. He wasn't what one would call clumsy, but he wasn't elegant and dexterous.

Eventually, he returned with bowls of food and some glasses of water. I tried to eat, at Cheryl's behest, but the food tasted like cardboard in my mouth and I struggled to get it down.

"What's all this about then?" he asked, with a mouthful of food. He'd never really gotten the hang of chewing with his mouth closed or speaking when it was empty, something that Cheryl always seemed to harangue him about.

Wordlessly, I just handed him the letter.

After a couple minutes, he whistled a low, solemn whistle and put the letter back down.

"So you cheated, and Olive isn't James'. He's left you and now what?"

It seemed that any form of conciliation was not on Mattias' agenda. He liked James, and was a good friend to him. Did he know something already? If he did, it didn't show as he shoveled another heaping spoonful of food into his mouth and started mushing it up. Cheryl glared at him, and shook her head menacingly.

"She said she didn't cheat!" Cheryl's words were cutting, causing Mattias to pause mid chew. His mouth hung open and the mess inside was clearly visible, a line of saliva caught between the top and bottom jaws still had a grain of rice suspended in it. Slowly, definitely, he closed his mouth and chewed the rest of his mouthful in a refined manner, gulping it down loudly as he stared back at his wife.