Chapter 14
Hotdog
I was alone. Waves crashed, sea spray hissed, jagged rocky earth jutted out from the sea like harpoons. My fear was surreal and terrifyingly intense. Unyielding tears saturated my eyes and rolled down my cheeks to my quivering lips, my weakened knees tottered with each step I took. I was marching to my death, surrendering my soul. I had been betrayed. Desperate and frantic, I filled my mind with images of her – her lips, her eyes, her soft blushing cheeks, her smile, her warm touch and soothing smell, and at last, when she filled and consumed every corner of my mind and heart, I sucked in a last breath of salty sea air and jumped. My fate was the water, not the rocks. The jealous sea was angry with me and grabbed hold of my ankles, pulling me down and swallowing me whole. Cold water trickled past my mouth, slipping down my throat and into my frantic lungs. Suddenly something ignited deep inside me and in a panic I kicked and struggled and fought for my life.
“No!” I yelled and jerked violently awake. My body was pressed flat to the mattress, I was hot and the air of my parents' guest room smelled stale, like warm bodies. Ava lay draped across me with one leg tucked under my own and the other kicked over me. Her belly pushed into my side and I could feel the gentle nudging kicks of our unborn child. Half asleep, I somehow managed to liberate one foot from the tangled sheets, providing cool air for my toes. Ava’s head was heavy on my arm and my fingers were tingly from the loss of blood flow. I turned my head in search of cool air and tickled my nose against the top of Max’s springy hair. He was spread out across my chest with his arms wrapped around my neck and his head tucked just under my chin. My free arm enveloped him in a secure hug. My palm and spread fingers covered his tiny back completely.
“Ava?” I whispered after sucking in a breath for my pleading lungs. “Baby?” my voice was nothing more than a throaty croak in the darkness of our room. My brain tried to talk my arm into moving so I could nudge her awake but the tingling limb was heavy and unresponsive.
A mix of our sweat suctioned my shirt to my dampened skin. My heart continued to race from the fear caused by my nightmare. In it, I had taken my own life -- that was clearly what I had been doing. I jumped over the rocks and into the sea, allowing the tide take me under. There was no fight left in me until my final moment. Only one tragedy could motivate me to end my life, and that was not only losing Ava, but all of them – my wife, my baby and my son. Something was happening. I could feel the change, the pressure of panic deep inside my chest. The anxiety was so strong that it controlled everything. It orbited and settled like a cloud around my belief that Ava was keeping something from me -- a secret that would inevitably lead to our deaths.
“Ave… Baby?” I gave her a gentle bump and coaxed her with my shoulder until she whimpered and squeezed me even tighter.
“Hey,” I said louder in her ear at the risk of waking Max, and Ava blinked her wet eyes at me. She had also been having a nightmare -- the one that made her sad.
“Hey,” I said again, but she was still half asleep and did not answer. “Ava. Try to wake up. I need to talk to you.” My voice was rough, my mouth bone dry and scratchy.
Ava arched her back in a stretch and I slipped my pinned arm out from underneath her. She peeled her legs from mine and my thigh felt as though its tender skin was being pulled away from a leather car seat on a hot summer day.
Ava rolled onto a pillow, kicked more blankets away from her body and went straight back to sleep.
“Ava?” Disappointed, I nudged her again, but got no response.
My lips brushed the top of Max’s head and I rolled with him to my side, easing him to the mattress beside Ava. He went willingly, probably just as hot as the two of us, and embraced the dry and unused pillow beside me.
Staring straight ahead at the dark ceiling above me, I tried to examine and thus dismiss what I had seen in the nightmare, to find some other excuse for what I had done. I had given my life to the sea but as soon as my body started to die and it was too late to save my own life, I uncovered the will to fight. The regret over what I had done was unbearably fierce.
My head spun, the room felt like a tilt-a-whirl ride. My vision blurred and a dizzying nausea hit me like a ton of bricks. Bitter bile tossed up by my stomach burned when the fluid shot up my esophagus. I kicked at the sheet in desperation to free my tangled foot, ran down the hall to the guest bathroom and shoved my head face first into the toilet. The sick sound of half-digested hotdog chunks splashing into the toilet water only made me puke more violently. A new tidal wave of sweat stung my pores and in between my gags, I pulled the wet shirt from my back. My fingers clung to the edge of the bowl and I emptied my stomach completely. Swear words muttered from my lips between my heaving, spewing and panting.
“God damn it.” I cursed and spit mustard flavored stomach acid from my mouth. “Shit.”
“Watch your language!”
Moaning, I pushed my hot sticky back against the smooth, cool bathtub, bringing my knees to my chest, my elbows to my knees, then buried my face in my hands between my legs.
My father kicked the lid down on the toilet and flushed. He grabbed a hand towel, ran it under the sink faucet and dropped it on the back of my bare neck. The first contact with the cold terry cloth on my skin was a shock to my system. My nerves shuttered and gave a jolt, then relaxed as the cool sensation brought down my body temperature.
“What are you doing up?” I coughed.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Isn’t it obvious? I am puking my damn guts out.”
“Again with the language. What’s your deal?”
“What do you want?” I was too sick and annoyed to put up with being chastised.
“I thought I’d come in here to help you out, but I'm starting to regret my decision.” My dad smeared a glob of toothpaste onto a brush. He stuck his hand out, helped me to my feet and handed the toothbrush over to me. I shoved the bristles into my mouth greedily and scrubbed the nasty grit from my tongue and the back of my teeth.
“Was it something you ate?”
“Next time remind me that I don’t like hotdogs, would you?”
“I think that is what your mother was trying to do.”
I nodded then turned the faucet back on, spitting toothpaste and grime into the sink. Sucking water from the faucet, the cool liquid soothed my burning throat. My stomach protested at being filled again and I gagged.
“Take it easy,” my dad warned and he turned the faucet off. “You'll just throw it back up.”
The bathroom door handle turned and my father jumped to the side and shoved his palm against the wooden panel, keeping the door from being opened by whoever was on the other side.
“Oh. Andy?” A mouse-like voice called from beyond the bathroom door and my father tugged at the handle, opening it only a crack.
“I’ll be back out in a sec,” he said quickly and quietly.
“Uh … I think I’m just going to head home now.”
“I’ll see you out, then,” he said to Julia and then turned to speak to me. “We can have a talk in my office, Ari.”
I blinked in complete shock at sound of Julia’s voice.
For the first time that late night -- or early morning -- I looked down at my watch to check the time. I hadn’t removed my watch that evening as I usually do because Ava and I had been up for hours fighting in my old bedroom at my parent’s house. I had accused her again about keeping something from me. I yelled and blamed her for what was happening. She vehemently denied keeping secrets but I wouldn’t let the topic rest. Eventually, she turned away from me and closed her eyes, and I crashed right after, without brushing my teeth, washing my face or removing the watch. We made up in our sleep by curling our bodies together and snuggling close. Later, we were joined in bed by Max who stumbled down the hall in a sleepy state from the guest room. After all that, then my nightmare and then the toilet full of hotdog vomit,
it was only three a.m. and Julia and my father were awake together in the middle of the night.