Our Wicked Lies by Gledé Kabongo (story read aloud TXT) 📗

and then turned away from him. It was too late, however. His son was gone and never coming back. A picture was emerging for him, though. And he was beginning to see Alicia’s deepest fear. She didn’t want to go back, couldn’t go back to the struggles of her childhood and early adulthood. Joan was a symbolic reminder of what could happen.

Eliot had the power to send her back into poverty. At least temporarily. That was the way she’d seen it. She’d interpreted his behavior as signs of things to come. Another baby would have cemented her fate. With the girls off to college, she would have been at his mercy if his unsavory behavior had continued. She didn’t have any resources to raise a baby on her own, so in essence, she would have been stuck.

He hadn’t realized how much his actions hurt his wife, wasn’t even aware of it. A sinking thought occurred to him. Was he partially to blame for what she did? He knew how sensitive she was about her past, her father leaving when she was still a young child, her mother doing the best she could, but never having enough of anything. But that still didn’t justify what she’d done. Nothing did.

“Alicia, why didn’t you come to me? We could have talked. I would have listened… But what you did—I can’t forgive you for it. He was my son, too.”

She let out a mirthless laugh and then turned to face him. “Don’t pretend you would have listened or taken me seriously. You talked to me like I was beneath you, Eliot. Frankly, you were emotionally abusive.”

He shook his head. “Alicia, stop this. Tell me the whole truth. Now!”

CHAPTER 35

She rocked back and forth as the raw, savage agony ripped through her, overwhelming her fury over Eliot and Kat’s betrayal.

It all came roaring back. The months leading up to the event. The daily struggle to appear like the happy, contented housewife. Hiding the prescription pills in a vitamin supplement bottle so neither Eliot nor the girls would uncover the truth.

At times, it had been easy to hide. While Eliot and the girls were away at work and school, she had seen a therapist twice a week. On the days when feelings of worthlessness and despair had consumed her and she’d become too fatigued to function, she simply slept. The excessive worrying had been more difficult to control, however—the fear that Eliot’s behavior had signaled that he was growing tired of her and would soon kick her to the curb. Whether or not those thoughts had a single grain of truth to them, she had had no way of knowing.

“I scheduled the appointment with Jack to have it done,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I didn’t think about it much. I lived on autopilot during that time. An impenetrable fog had swallowed me whole, and I couldn’t find my way out. The medication helped most days, but sometimes it didn’t work. I couldn’t stop feeling awful about myself and worrying that you would leave me.”

Eliot plopped down on the sofa across from her as if his legs couldn’t support him anymore. “What are you talking about? What medication? Where did you get the idea that I was leaving?” He blinked rapidly, then his gaze swept around the room, as though searching for answers.

“It got worse after I found out I was pregnant. I was struggling, Eliot.”

“Struggling with what? Why did you need medication? I don’t understand”

She lowered her gaze, and pinned her arms against her stomach again, and said, “At first I tried to brush it off, thought I was being too sensitive—your behavior, the belittling, put downs, making me feel like I wasn’t worth much. I’m not saying you were responsible for my feelings. I’m just telling you how it started.”

Eliot sat perfectly still, his eyes glued to her face.

She continued, “After a while, I couldn’t shake it… Day in and day out, the self-loathing, doubt, fatigue. All I wanted to do was sleep, so I wouldn’t feel anything, so I went to see Dr. Randolph. She diagnosed me with depression.”

He just stared at her. They both sat still. The revelation hung heavy in the air, unabashed in its ugliness.

Eliot broke the silence. “I don’t understand how I missed it. Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me you were suffering so I could help you?” Tears pooled in his eyes.

“Depression doesn’t work like that, Eliot. In my mind, another baby would only make things worse. I didn’t think about the consequences until afterward.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“After the procedure, Jack drove me to the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston and reserved a suite under his name. He told the staff not to disturb ‘Ms. Sarah Thomas’, throughout her stay. But when the loneliness, guilt, and pain, both physical and emotional had threatened to completely wreck my existence, I reached out to Kat in desperation.”

Eliot continued to stare at Alicia, silent, and as she recounted the story, she was simultaneously taken back into the time and place from the moment she’d opened the door of the suite to let Kat in. Alicia had almost collapsed on the floor, but Kat had caught her in time and had slowly walked her to the bed.

“Alicia, what the hell is going on? You look like you’re dying.”

“I should be so lucky.”

“Are you insane? What happened? Where is Eliot?”

“Eliot’s at work. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

As she lay on the bed, she laid out the whole tragic tale through bouts of inconsolable wailing and hiccups. When she was done, Kat showered Alicia with kindness, brought her water, wiped her face with a warm cloth, and told her to take a nap.

When she awoke, thirty minutes late, Kat was still there, seated in an armchair across the room, looking out the window to views of Boston Common.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said, turning to