Stepping closer to the rack of Aiden’s immaculate, wrinkle-free button-ups, I press my nose into the collar of his favorite one.
Winter-skies blue, Freya. The color of your eyes.
I feel a twisty blend of rage and longing as I breathe him in. Ocean water and mint, the warm, familiar scent of his body. I fist the fabric until it crumples and watch it relax when I let go, as if I never even touched it. That’s how I feel about my husband lately. Like he walks around our house and I could be a ghost for all it matters. Or maybe he’s the ghost.
Maybe we both are.
Slapping a palm on the closet door and slamming it shut, I hit the wine bottle again. One last gulp and it’s gone. Freya: 1. Wine: 0.
“Take that, alcohol,” I tell the bottle, setting it on my dresser with a hollow thunk.
“Is he still in Washington?” Mai asks, tiptoeing her way around my tipsy rambling.
I stare at his empty side of the bed. “Yep.”
My husband is, at my request, one thousand miles north of me, licking his wounds with my brother and duly freaking out because I put my foot down and told him this shit would not stand. I’m home, with the cats, freaking out, too, because I miss my husband, because I want to throttle this imposter and demand the guy I married back.
I want Aiden’s ocean-blue eyes sparkling as they settle on me. I want his long, hard hugs and no-bullshit musings on life, the kind of pragmatism born of struggle and resilience. I want his tall frame pressing me against the shower tiles, his rough hands wandering my curves. I want his sighs and groans, his dirty talk filling my ears as he fills me with every inch of him.
Distracted with that vivid mental image, I stub my toe on the bedframe.
“Fuckety shit tits!” Flopping onto the mattress, I stare up at the ceiling and try not to cry.
“You okay?” Mai asks. “I mean I know you’re not. But…you know what I mean.”
“Stubbed my toe,” I squeak.
“Aw. Let it out, Frey. Let it goooo,” she singsongs. “You are, according to my kids, Elsa, Queen of Arendelle, after all.”
“But with hips,” we say in unison.
I laugh through tears that I furiously wipe away. Crying isn’t weak. I know this. Rationally. But I also know the world doesn’t reward tears or see emotionality as strength. I’m an empowered, no-nonsense woman who feels all her feelings and battles the cultural pressure to contain them, to have my emotional shit in order. Even when all I want to do sometimes is indulge in a teary explosion of hugging my condiment-named cats while cry-singing along to my nineties emo playlist. For example. Like I might have been doing earlier. When I opened and started chugging the wine.
In a world that says feelings like mine are “too much,” singing has always helped. In a houseful of mostly stoics who loved my big heart but handled their feelings so differently from me, singing was an outlet for all I felt and couldn’t—or wouldn’t—hide. That’s why, last week, when I realized I’d stopped singing, I got scared. Because that’s when I understood how numb I’d become, how dangerously deep I was burying my pain.
“Freya?” Mai says carefully.
“I’m okay,” I tell her hoarsely. I wipe my eyes again. “Or…I will be. I just wish I knew what to do. Aiden said, whatever it was, he wanted to fix it, but how do you fix something when you don’t even know what’s broken? Or when it feels so broken you don’t even recognize it anymore? How can he make that promise when he acts like he has no fucking clue why I’m feeling this way?”
Horseradish, ever the empath, senses my upset and jumps onto the bed, meowing loudly, then kneading my boob, which hurts. I shove him away gently, until he moves to my stomach, which feels better. I have cramps like a bitch. Pickles is slower on the uptick but finally jumps and joins her brother, then begins licking my face.
“I don’t know, Frey,” Mai says. “But what I do know is, you have to talk to him. I understand why you’re hurt, why the last thing you want to do is be the initiator when he’s been so withdrawn, but you’re not going to get answers if you don’t talk.” She hesitates a beat, then says, “Marriage counseling would be wise to try. If you’re willing…if