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From WikiStory

A Heartbreak Suicide

Matthew Bettinger

          The rain was heavy and fell hard that afternoon. The sky wept gunmetal grey. He ran his hands across the worn leather and felt the cool metal. His father had worn this everyday of his professional life, and Chris was now realizing that he had never really seen it. A testament to his father's ability to separate work from family. Left, right, over under, it took two attempts before his tie went on correctly. Hands too shaky and anxious for resolution. Belt fastened, shoes slipped on, hands groomed, hair manicured, stomach in knots.

          For all practical purposes the home would have been his for a full year tomorrow. Although maybe he should have listened to his wife and sold it a year ago. How can you ask a man to relinquish his connection to the past just as he begins to understand how he lost it years ago? How can you ask someone to sell his home? It is in the glowing halo of loss that we realize what is truly expendable and what is truly irreplaceable. The home would have never graced the cover of a magazine and was never the apple of the neighborhood eye. An out of place pink door, grey-scale paint scheme, and overzealous landscaping – true labors of love. Projects which filled long weekends and brought smiles of accomplishment only after sighs of exasperation.

          Chris' mother died three years ago. Kurt, Chris' father, had planned his retirement for late August so that the couple could travel for the holidays. She began to get tired three days after the plans were decided. Everyone traveled to see her that holiday. The plan had been too well-deserved to work out. Kurt was going to retire. Between the two retirements and some properly ignored decade-old investments the couple would be comfortable. They would spend the holidays entertaining friends and family, tossing out their welcome mat, greeting their guests with a smile, a hug, and a drink at the door. The boys' rooms would be filled once again, but still undisturbed because they were her boys' rooms for when her boys came home. She always dreamt of having her family at home once again, not for a day, a week, or even a month, but for them to truly come home. She understood that life had rendered them more opportunities away, and that a return would be indicative of failure or extreme hardship. And she really did want their success. Still, it pained her to have the empty house.

          The first two years would be spent traveling and enjoying each other's smile against a different sunset, and sharing breaths of a foreign breeze as often as possible. After the stereotypical golden year travels, they would be able to awaken each morning in the warmth of contentment as the simplicities of life washed over them and filled their lives to the brim. To be young of heart and in love. It has been my experience that few things proceed as they are intended.

          Chris wore shorts that Christmas morning as he went to get the paper, it was abnormally warm. Mom wasn't there to toast that year, bid adieu. Kurt got angry that New Year's Eve. The house was full of people, stories flew across the room, smiles met cries and the house filled with life. It felt almost like a home again. His wife was forever desirous of this, she would have beamed with joy and contentment.

          "I hope all of you enjoy this." The words were brittle and jagged as Kurt spoke.

          "She would sit awake at night and wonder when you were coming, if you were coming and why the fuck you had to think about it. All she wanted was to spend her time with you, all she wanted was to be worth something to you. But you're here now! I guess she really wasn't important enough then!" The volume of his voice rose as he spoke.           "Dammit, she was right, she was too easy to forget. I used to say over and over that you were busy and you'd come as soon as ya could, I lied! I lied to my fucking wife for twelve years! Her smile when you'd finally show up was the happiest I'd ever be or she'd ever been." His voice shook, sentences began to loose cohesion. Anger of this sort cannot be truly expressed with words or actions; it gnaws at the core and only leaks out in fragments. No one argued with him, no one tried to calm him.

          This was the last gasp of a man who would never return, his final shot of adrenaline. He spent that evening driving in his wife's car. No one knew where he went. He just drove and wept.

          Everyone expected him to move, hoped he would move. But not so much as a picture frame moved. Kurt knew that if he stayed in the house it would kill him, which is why I believe he stayed. A heartbreak suicide. He died a year ago. The same people who had come for his wife's passing returned and the house filled. Stories arose and pictures were passed. After everyone left, it came time to settle the estate and matters of the family as they were, an affair that was as easy as one could ask for. All items had been accounted for in a will and the remaining issues were handled in the most civil of manners. Some bills remained but debt was not the dominating legacy left, as it often is. Four days after the funeral, family and friends began to leave town and it appeared as if the story of the home was near its end. Chris would contact a local agent to handle the property in accordance to his wife's suggestions and within a few years it would in all likelihood fall to the urban sprawl style expansion that was eking through suburbia like kudzu unleashed upon an open sidewalk. But things rarely go as planned.

          On the fifth morning after Kurt's funeral, Chris sat at the bottom of the carpeted stairs where they met a worn hardwood floor, elbows on knees, hands woven together, chin nestled on his knuckles. Chris's wife had carried the last of the bags to the car, eager to leave. She was wearing dark designer jeans and a well fitted white short sleeve polo. She was built for this attire. Chris watched as his wife moved around the house, falling in love with her looks and demeanor. There are a few things about love at first sight that no one ever tells you. First, when you look at someone as they are doing the same thing for the hundredth time, and you watch with the same intensity as when they first caught your gaze, that's love at first sight. It's not finding and knowing its forever, it's finding and falling for it twenty times a day. It's when the millionth glance feels like the first one. Second, it hardly ever lasts. This petite, dark haired, well dressed woman eager to return to a life more comfortable and familiar is the woman he married and the woman he wishes to remember. Few things go as planned, this marriage had been no exception.

          She walked in the front door, the last of her bags crammed into a the compact trunk, and saw her husband sitting on the stairs, sullen. The color had left his face a week ago when the call about his father had come. He had been drinking a Manhattan on the rocks and didn't mention the call till after he finished his cocktail, that's the type of person he was. Always capable of enjoying the serenity of a moment. She knelt in front of her husband, manicured red toe nails were fiery embers against the dull hardwood floor. Her lips were moist against his dry pale cheek. Hands ran through his hair accompanied by a tingle in his spine, she walked out the door. They didn't speak. The plan had been for her to return that afternoon and he would follow in a day or two. Upon his request, the opportunity to fully indulge in the intense melancholy of the situation was something he could not ignore. Chris sat where the stairs meet the floor for a long time, then he got up and went to his bed where his feet hung off the end and his pillow filled with tears.

          Chris did not go home the next day or the day after that or the day after that. His contract job had ended before his father's passing and the thought of returning to his wife in her vicious social element was a daunting task to say the least. So he stayed.

          "I understand you're having a hard time with this but we need you back here."

          "The lease is ending on the apartment in less than a month and we don't have a clue what we are going to do."

          "This is getting a little ridiculous, everyone here is saying you've lost it. What the hell are you doing down there anyway? Whatever it is, your not doing it for shit because you haven't made a deposit in months."

          "I shouldn't have to deal with this bullshit from my husband."

          "I got a new place with Natalie, when you figure out what it is you're doing and if there is 'we' in it you let me know"

          "I miss you"

          Fragments of conversations, voice mails, emails, all increasingly frustrated. She was right, she didn't deserve this. All she wanted was for him to come home. Some lessons are hard to learn.

          The year after Kurt died had been long. The summer was as hot as anyone could remember. The drought had only gotten worse, a problem that intensified each year. Autumn was non-existent, leaves fell before they were given the chance to change. The winter presented an omnipresent grey haze and a constant tease of rain without delivery.

          Collegiate success was not the key to employment in a small town. Public opinion reigned supreme in a place where whispers and rumors were gospel. The public opinion of a son who appeared just for the wake was not exceptional. But he had been away for a reason. The employment options in an area of fleeing industrial expansion were not on par with what the metropolis that Chris had so eagerly sought years ago had to offer. Unfortunately, local white collar work never presented itself, bar guests dwindled and handy-man jobs became scarce. Finances became financial issues, which became financial problems, which became envelopes unopened.

          A skillet drops onto a stove top, an oven radiates heat and something percolates. Ding, the microwave has finished its molecular warming. Chris' stomach hurts and he is ready for dinner. His mother hollers for him to come and eat. Down the steps. Dad's just walking in the side door and looks tired. Chris leans against the door frame leading toward an undisturbed dining room. A tic-mark time line runs along his spine, his shoulders are broad and slumped forward protruding from the sides of the frame. He looks up and sees that he is just short of the last mark, etched 18 years ago. A chopping block is an impromptu kitchen island that serves as a resting place for keys and mail. Chris picks up a manila folder. It's heavy. Mom's car still runs, 'though it's been on its last legs for some time now.

          A spot right by the front door is available. Shoes sound gritty against wet asphalt. Inside a couple sits waiting to talk to a banker about their IRA, an attractive woman in white and dark holds a deposit. She looks amazing. I reach into my jacket. This is going exactly as planned. The trigger is light and I send Chris home. Mom, your boys are home.

          Red leaks around the grooves of a white marble floor encircling a heavy manila envelope. The edge of a legal document is peeking around the corner to see what happened. Across the top is one word: foreclosure.