It was the quiet that woke him. The house was never quiet. Olivia was usually up. Watching the news, running the dishwasher, listening to music while she worked out, taking a shower. But not today. Today was different. He didn't hear Chris Cimino with the weather, or pots and pans clinking together before being shoved into the dish washer. He didn't hear Hamilton turn on so she could do her lifts, or the sound of running water against their marble bath tile.
That morning there was nothing but silence.
It felt more like an attack than an alarm at first. He had woken with a start. His eyes flipping open mechanically like the rebirth of Bella Swan in the last Twilight movie. (He had two tiny nieces, that were obsessed with the franchise.) He found the red digital lights of the clock staring back at him from the nightstand. It was a quarter before six. It was still early…
With his body still heavy with sleep or lack there of he had turned on his side to kiss her good morning. To ask how she was feeling. What she was thinking. To come up with a plan. But she wasn't there. Her side of the bed was cold and empty. There hadn't even been an indent as if she lain there an hour before.
"Liv?" He called out, groggily.
It was a shit attempt. He doubted she would've heard him if she had been in the bathroom. He cleared his throat, and called louder.
"Liv?" Nothing.
He exhaled deeply, hoping to shake the last of his sleep laden bones off of him. She'd probably got called into work.
That would've been convenient.
It was too early to start thinking about what that meant though. He needed coffee. Juice. Something to kill the knot in his chest.
He padded all the way down to the third floor and walked into the kitchen. There was still glass on the ground. The sharp broken side of one cup sat straight up in front of him, and across the room was the other with the rigid part resting on it's side. The photos of them from their wedding were still on the living room floor. The frames cracked and broken. And the TV was still on. He walked over to the fire place and picked up one of the photos of the two of them together.
They were joined together, forehead to forehead. Newly wedded in France. The green hedges behind them and the blonde dirt road a dead giveaway. It was her favorite photo from the wedding, and his too. He shook out as much broken glass as he could from the frame and walked it back over to the kitchen. It was then that he saw it.
Carefully lit, as if it were staged for a house viewing, was an 8 by 4 stationary card. Scribbled on it in her penmanship were the words "Don't try and find me."
He reread it again. As if he missed something else. Something more crucial. Half expecting it to say, "I'm at the grocery store. Went to pick up milk." But there was nothing. Just, "Don't try and find me." Five words. That's all. He knew what this was about. Last night. They fought. They hurt each other. He more than her, but this? David crunched the note on top of the kitchen counter.
Bitch.
Even if she did leave, he doubted she'd gone far. Olivia was wounded in that way. Spent most of her life looking for commitment in people that denied her over and over again. Every person she loved all turned out to be the same until he came along. He was the first person she'd ever been able to trust. The first to tell her that he loved her and mean it. The first that saw her for who she was and wanted her for it. The first to love her the way she could love him. They were a perfect match. She was beautiful. Smart. Strong hearted. He was dominant, protective, and ruthless with his heart. He thought she was passionate and fearless. She thought he was charming and fierce. That he had a streak for truth and loyalty. She liked that he never cared about her past or her job. She could talk to him about it all. He was that in love with her. And he wanted her. God did he want her. For him, what drew most people away, kept him in the game. He was fascinated with her. And even though they'd been married for three years, he still loved her as fiercely as the day they met.
Women like Olivia didn't just walk away from that kind of security. That kind of love and care.
Last night was pretty rough though. If she needed space, he was going to give it to her. If she left without saying anything to him, then he suspected she probably wasn't going to come home and planned on staying at Alex's.
He rolled his eyes.
Predictable.
He walked over to the fridge to get a glass of juice when her cell phone sounded behind him. He turned around and found it buzzing on the floor. The vibrations so hard that it started to turn in a circle. He knelt down and saw that it was Amanda calling. He frowned. Did it fall when she left? Hadn't she gone into work? Maybe she asked her to call it in attempt to find it. Good, he thought. She should look. Later on she'd be forced to come back home to get it. That's when they'd talk.
He threw her phone on the counter with the note and went on to get a glass of juice. It was 6am now. He was starting to run late. After fixing toast, he went upstairs to use the shower, but the silence had started to thicken and chew at him. The air was so still. He could feel it in his chest. As if he were driving down a road of fog into a terror he couldn't see. Something was wrong. Off. Women had left him in the past, he knew the feeling. It was nothing compared to this. This was different. Perhaps it was because she had left like a thief in the night. He hadn't physically seen her go, and she had made no mention of leaving him in the first place before that note. He frowned underneath the water. Had she really gone?
It was in poor taste to be in denial.
Olivia was a direct woman. It was one of the things he loved about her. She didn't dance around the obvious. She never looked for permission to do anything. If she said she left, then she left.
But David couldn't shake the weight on his heart.
Maybe it was wrong to wait, he thought. Maybe it would be better if he took the phone to her and they spoke at work. She was heartbroken last night because of what he said. If he wanted her to come home than it would be up to him to fix things between them. His Italian masculine pride wasn't going to woo her over this time. It was foolish and immature to think it was her place to come back to him when it was his stubbornness that had set them off in the first place. He turned the water off, driven to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. Last night, things had gone too far. It was a mistake. She was still his wife. He shouldn't have said the things he said.
He didn't mean them. Last night was just about hurting her the way she hurt him everyday. But hurting her was exhausting. He wasn't built to hurt her. To hate her. He was built to love her. When things started to get bad, he quickly grew over it. The fighting. The tension. He was thankful at least, that they still had sex. The only thing that kept them alive was the sex. It was healing. Making love had become the foundation of their marriage. It was the only thing that was left for it to stand on, and while it kept things interesting he knew it wouldn't be enough to make it last.
He just couldn't for the life of him understand how things got so bad between them.
Everything was perfect until he bought her the house. Even then though, they had months of bliss before things took a turn. Olivia was so excited to have a real home. He remembered surprising her after dinner one night. She wept in his arms staring at the town house, all lit up for her to go inside. It was one of the best moments in their marriage. One of his proudest in life. Getting to see that look on her face.
He wanted nothing short of the best for her. So naturally it was a six story, state of the art, luxury home. The kind of place that made you forget that you were in a hustling, bustling city. The kind of place she'd probably dreamed of living in as a kid, desperate to get away from her mother. When they first moved in she was in love with the home but he knew she thought it was too grand. Too new. He of course, gave her the freedom to do whatever she wanted with the place and in months, Olivia had ended up turning it into something else that was warm and inviting. Almost every detail from floor to ceiling was hers. She made it a home that she would and did love.
"I want something else, too." Her first words as she stared up at it's grandeur in his arms. For now though, what she asked of him was better off staying secret and hidden for his sake and sanity. Four years together. Three years of marriage, it was the only thing she'd ever asked of him. It was the only thing she wanted. But life had other plans, he had other plans. It was the right thing to do, but Olivia didn't see it that way. To her, David was holding her against her will. Controlling her by offering happiness and denying her when she wanted to claim it.
She hated him for that, but he refused to take the blame. There were a million other things in the world that were meant to carry that weight, and he was not one of them. He was the CEO of an international law firm. He graduated top of his class at Harvard, cut his first million dollar deal less than a year after graduating. By the time he was in his late twenties he had the cockiness of a forty year old, and was totally fed up with taking orders from someone else, so he started his own firm. His own very demanding, very unpredictable firm. The last thing on his mind was her distaste for what he knew was the right decision
He'd been in law for fifteen years. He knew how to assess a situation. He made a living off of it. He loved her and respected her enough to consult and look into what she wanted but after seeing what it could do to her he didn't think it was worth it. Now he wondered if his negligence had been what had caused all of this. If he somehow could've prevented her from going. He couldn't believe that. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself.
He exhaled.
Today was not a day for second-guessing.
He walked out into the hallway, bothered that he could hear the birds chirping outside. The air was so settled, his stomach started to knot. He passed the library and saw Olivia lounging in one of the chairs. Her dark wavy hair was splayed out on her shoulders, the smooth, long, curvy softness of her body was cloaked in form fitting silk pajamas, and the black rims of her glasses sat elegantly on her arrowed nose. She was in deep, reading books on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but she peered up from the page to look at him.
For a moment they both sat in silence. Knowing the instant that either one of them said anything the beauty of that moment, the moment when they loved each other as fiercely as the day they met, would vanish. And something else. Something stronger, colder, more painful would take it's place.
She broke the ice. "What?"
If he took her in his arms, she'd smell like orchids. He'd want to kiss her, but she'd push him away. Place the book on the table and leave the room.
That's how they lived with one another. How they loved. They coexisted in the same space, hoping that they didn't have to run into each other or speak to one another. Systematically avoiding themselves until the sexual tension was too strong to ignore.
Then she'd let him hold her. Then she'd let him kiss her.
But they had made love the night before.
For hours. Wildly. Passionately. And again in the early hours of that morning.
It would be weeks before she felt that fire for him return.
In the end David had said nothing and walked away. Not wanting to take any more joy from her.
That episode was a month ago to the day he realized as he mimicked his steps from the past, turning away, taking the stairs two by two, as he pinned his cufflinks on his way to the car. He grabbed her phone from the kitchen, turned off the TV and walked out into the foyer to grab his keys. It wasn't until he looked away from his wrist that he noticed that hers were there too. Her purse bundled on the sitting bench with her coat. Exactly how she left it last night.
Odd.
Out of curiosity he opened her bag and found her wallet sticking up in the middle. He opened it.
Her license.
Her credit cards.
Her insurance.
Her social security.
Her badge.
All of it.
He put the bag down carefully, as if it were a bomb that might go off.
"Liv?" He called out.
And when she didn't answer, the silence swallowed him whole.
