can't let go

04

simon |

With every ring of the phone, I feel my heart sink lower and lower. She has to answer this time.

On the sixth ring, a beautifully calming motherly voice answers, "Simon?"

"Hi Adele." I say, at a loss for words. I had gotten so used to hearing the beep to leave a message because she had either declined me right away or ignored me altogether.

"Hey." She says, her voice sounding tired.

"Listen, I know it's late and that this is really probably not the best time-" I start.

"Simon, it's fine. Really." She interrupts.

I can feel my heart aching. The woman I am talking to is a woman I hardly know at all anymore, and that hurts more than anything. To not even recognize someone who I used to know inside and out. "Listen, I'm just calling to ask you a question."

She sighs. "Why do you sound afraid?"

Silence. Why do I sound afraid? It's a question I can't answer myself. "I-"

"That was an awful question. I know the answer. You're afraid of me. You're afraid of being hurt again, of being rejected, of me telling you I don't love you anymore and have already found your replacement. Don't be afraid. None of those things will happen."

Suddenly, the woman I know and love is becoming visible. There's another silence before I say, "Do you remember the night you told me you had been diagnosed with postpartum depression?"

"I could never forget."

"I had a dream about it. It was an exact reenactment of that night. But something about it stood out to me."

"I know what you're talking about." She says.

"You do?"

"I was crying in your arms and I begged you to stay, to never leave me even though I was failing as a wife and mother." Her voice cracks as if she wants to sob but is fighting so hard to hold back.

"That's exactly it." I say, looking behind a tree in the front yard for the key to the door. "I told you that the fact that you cared so much about being a good wife and mother that you got depression because of it proved just how good you are, you care way more than you have to."

She sniffles. "I asked you if you still loved me as much as you did before it all happened. I asked if you would ever think of leaving me or wished you hadn't met me in the first place, because I was so convinced I had let everything crumble into dust."

"And I assured you with tears in my eyes that I still loved you, that I ask myself every day what I did to deserve you, that I have never thought about leaving you and could only hope you never would either."

She is crying and it is too hard to hide. I open the front door and walk into the dark house, finding the hall and walking straight towards the bedroom. She says through a broken, raspy voice, "Your exact words have never left me."

"The image of your dark eyes and tear stained cheeks has never left me."

She lets out a sob that lasts for a few seconds, breaking the last unbroken piece of my so damaged heart. It has always pained me to hear or see her hurting, and even after all that's happened, it still does.

"I have always loved you from the moment I met you and I will continue to love you forever." She recites as if it's a poem she's memorized. "You're an incredible wife and mother, and your strength and love has always blown me away. When you are weak and broken, I don't want to do anything but comfort you until you're mended. And I promise to do that always."

"You remembered it word for word." I say softly, placing my hand on the cool handle of the door and turning it.

As she cries she says, "It's always calmed me down. Even during all these years away from you. But the last words we shared that night before you comforted me to sleep are the ones that hurt the most."

I can feel a numbing pain in my heart. I know exactly what words she is going to say because I have replayed them again and again in my mind on all those painful nights away from her.

In an oddly calm voice, she says, "I told you, 'Hold me and hold this love we have and never let it go.'"

I hang up the phone. But before it registers for her, I place my hand softly on her shoulder as she sits at the edge of her bed and say, just like I did that night, "I won't let go."