A/N: Forgive me for this. I've written it in about an hour, in the early hours of the morning and with a sore arm - basically, I'm sure it's really bad. But anyway. The song is "She Can't Save Him" by Reba McEntire and Trisha Yearwood.
She can hear his car, as it pulls in the drive
She can whisper a prayer: "Thank God, he's alive"
She can meet him at the door, catch him when he falls
She can even believe that it isn't his fault
But she can't save him
Still awake at three in the morning, she hears the rumbling of the car with a bad exhaust – the exhaust he could not afford to fix – and wearily gets out of their bed. "Thank Christ for that," she mutters as she steps into her slippers and pulls on his hoody. How cold it is exactly she is not sure, but it's December and sheet ice has been lying on their front yard all month.
She carefully makes her way past their daughter's bedroom, cautious not to wake her and let her see her dad in whatever state he may be in. She hears the slamming of a door and remembers last week, when he had slept in her mother's bath tub. To tell herself he is only letting his hair down is to lie to herself, because there can be no way he can find this much fun.
She opens the front door to see the stars above telling her it is colder than she first thought; she pulls the zip of his sweater higher and watches him try and make it safely from the car to the house. Lit by the floodlight above the front door, she sees he is dazed and barely aware yet again after a night out with his so-called friends.
She gasps as he falls on the ice halfway up the path, and she hastily runs to help him, holding onto the frozen fence for support before she ends up on the ground with him. How he drove home in this state was a mystery to her. On her knees, she orders him, "Come on, darling. Get up." He tries but fails, so she lifts him to his feet, struggling with the weight of him as he fails to cooperate. The fact he can't isn't his fault, and the reason he can't isn't his fault either. Not really. He has a slight issue when it comes to alcohol. He can't help himself. He's either sober or legless, but never on any moderate middle ground.
She drags him up the stairs and manages to get him into bed, too exhausted with carrying up the stairs to even attempt to change him into pyjamas. As she falls asleep next to him she smells another woman's perfume mixed with the alcohol, yet more evidence to what she had long known: he drinks, he lies and he cheats. And she can't do a single thing to stop him.
She can make his coffee, in the cold light of day
She can make his excuses, tell the boss he'll be late
She can wave at the neighbours, then kiss him goodbye
And not say a word 'bout what happened last night
But she can't save him
It's nine that same morning when she stands in the kitchen, her daughter in one arm, handing her husband coffee with the other and the house phone trapped between her right ear and shoulder. "Yes, Mr. Hendry," she says quickly as the child begins to cry with hunger. "He'll be in soon. He's struggling to get the car started in the cold," she lies.
She only half-listens to her husband's boss as she picks up the baby's bottle with her now free hand, hanging up automatically; she doesn't even have to really listen to have a conversation with his boss now. She has actually done it that often. Yawning, she starts feeding her baby. Their baby, though he seems to forget he has a child as his life becomes a haze.
The smell of bacon just beginning to burn catches her attention and she hastily puts the bottle down, much to her daughter's displeasure, and throws the slightly crispy meat onto the roll ready on a plate. She places it in front of him. She turns to retrieve the bottle and hears his muttered thanks. She resists the urge to make a smart comment about hangover cures in the knowledge that last time it caused a massive argument.
It's almost like having a second child, she realises as she orders him upstairs to brush his teeth. He thinks this life is normal, but it can't be. Can it?
She waits at the door for him with his coat in her hand. He quickly returns and takes it from her, putting it on while she opens the door. He steps out into the cold. "Careful with the ice," she reminds him. She kisses him quickly, glad to taste only mint and mouthwash on his breath, masking last night's antics.
When he's in the car, she feels exhaustion catch up with her as she smiles at their next door neighbour, a young man working on a motorbike in his front garden.
She gets back inside and finishes feeding the baby, so tired by the time she's done that she succumbs and falls asleep on the sofa.
Sometimes she dreams that he's caught in a stream
And the water keeps pulling him down
She reaches for him, as he pulls her in
She wakes just before she drowns
The ice he walks on cracks as he tries to stumble to the bank towards her. Only she is not alone on the bank. Next to her stands a woman in her twenties, hair black as the night sky above and skin as cold and white as the frost below. She only vaguely recognises her husband's second temptress, the one that would not be found in a glass bottle. She is a registrar at his hospital she has only ever met once at last year's Christmas party, and yet in her heart she knows this is the woman he is seeing in secret.
Her heart sinks as he stumbles across to the younger woman, choosing his mistress over his wife. The nameless woman steps back as he reaches out to her, proving that she doesn't really love him. The ice breaks and he falls without control into the freezing water. She hears him shout to her and she instinctively lunges forward and takes his hand. He is not even trying to save himself, relying solely on a strength his wife does not possess to keep him from dying.
His weight proves too much and she falls, crashing through the ice and into the water with him. She struggles for her own survival as she tries to endure his too, and a baby cries from the bank. A baby who needs both her parents alive.
But she cannot hold on any longer and she sinks with him, her daughter's cries muffled by the rushing water.
The darkness of the river transforms without warning into her familiar living room, the baby crying upstairs.
She can remember the man that he was
And still shed a tear for what he's become
She can live in that house until the day
She sees that it's only herself she can save
But she can't save him
Hopelessly groaning, she gets up and tends to her child, the weight of her marriage crushing her when she realises she is already alone. He's there but he might as well be gone, for all the good he really does.
For the first time she finds herself crying in the harsh realisation that she no longer lives with the man she married, and that he cannot be helped. He can only be propped up and kept alive for so long. Her heart can only bear that burden for so long. The happy-go-lucky, funny, slightly arrogant young man she married no longer exists, replaced instead by a man who pretends to have fun in the pub when he is there for the drink rather than the company.
She stands in the landing hushing the baby back into silence, gazing down the stairs. She watches herself pulling him up the stairs, so drunk he cannot do so himself. She stares at the front door and sees herself kissing him goodbye before work, smiling a false beam for the rest of the world as her husband slaughters her hope and extinguishes her light.
He doesn't do it with intent; she knows that. She knows he doesn't intend to hurt her when he drunkenly goes home with another woman, but to try and stop him would be an act in vain, bordering on self-punishment as she watches her attempts fail over and over again.
She feels her child in her arms, finally quiet, and remembers it won't be long before the madness of the family home would be made aware to the infant. No child should have to watch their parents' relationship fall apart at a pace so agonisingly slow. A child should not have to watch its mother try constantly and without success to save its father. It wasn't fair.
She can't save her husband. She can't save her marriage. But there are two things she can save: her daughter and herself.
And that day she'll know she hasn't failed
'Cause nothing can change until he saves himself
It isn't failure, she realises, to pack a suitcase and the baby bag and head to her mother's house. She is only doing what she needs to do. She is looking at the reality in front of her and accepting it. He is the only one who can help himself. She can't do it for him. She can't stop him going to the pub. She can't stop him seeing his friends. She can't stop him cheating on her.
To save him can only destroy her, and that isn't a price she can afford to pay.
'Cause, she can't save him
No, she can't save him
No, she can't save him
Hope this is alright!
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!
Sarah x