Chapter Two: The Marital Barrier

Frank was a typical redneck minus the racial bias implications. He was lanky, redheaded, and he frequently wore plaid shirts and torn, worn-out blue jeans. While his style didn't say much about him, his mannerisms did.

His bar was cop-friendly; the only people who ever seemed to come here were cops. Officers—on and off duty—came here because it was out of the way, far from the Metropolis area they regularly policed, and it was refreshing to have a bartender-owner who kept the alcohol on tap.

The cops weren't the only people that benefited from the last point of interest.

My restaurant had its busiest day yet. It had been full of rude ass customers who prioritized their time over quality service, full of entitled dicks who were readily disrespecting anyone that didn't fit their timetable, and after one customer had been kicked out by yours truly, he had broken one of the glass windows with a chair. By the end of the duty day, I'd sent all my employees home early. After I was told the window wouldn't be fixed for a few days, Cody Jensen (one of my security guards) and I put up the caution tape, called it a day, and I went to the best bar I could find.

"Let me know if you need anything else, ladies." Frank sounded magnanimous, placing the ordered double vodka and martini down on the table before he left to greet the new customers.

Detective Kerry sat across from me. She looked more like a civilian in her elbow-length bright orange shirt, worn capris, and simple white flats. As she took a sip from her martini, she warily watched me down my double vodka.

"That bad of a day, huh?" She guessed.

I placed my empty glass in the middle of the table, answering flatly, "The worst."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"What good is talking about it? My restaurant has a broken window and I'm down one employee."

Kerry's eyebrow raised in question: "What's wrong with your people?"

"The fight scared Cat." I twirled my empty shot glass slowly between my index finger and thumb, noticing that some of my lipstick had left the smallest trace around the brim. "She was really shaken up when she left."

"She'll feel better once she's home."

"Or she won't come back." I clicked my tongue thoughtfully, adding, "The place hasn't been what it used to be."

"A broken window is reparable."

"Yeah, but the clientele isn't."

Kerry lifted her feet off the floor, tucking them beneath her as she leaned forward, concerned: "What are you talking about?"

"Darla and Todd were my Regulars." I explained, gesticulating to no one in particular. "They were an elderly couple, cute. They used to come every day. Now, they don't. It's like the atmosphere has changed. It's more of a nightclub than a restaurant. There have been more fights this year than ever before."

She tilted her head to the side: "Maybe you need more security."

"Or I just need to close up shop."

"You don't mean that."

"Maybe I do." I admitted, leaning back in my seat. "I thought when I got the Grotto off the ground, I'd be happy. Minus a few, the reviews have been phenomenally good, and I can't complain about the profits either. But since it's come into the spotlight, there have been more fights than I can imagine. Ever since the first."

"The first?"

"Ever since Martin—"

"—That wasn't your fault." Kerry reminded. "Remember? Grady killed him."

"It might not be my fault that he died, but if he hadn't been in that position, he wouldn't have been in the wrong place at the wrong time to die. Since then, it's like the Grotto's been cursed. I feel like I've had more brawls than Frank has ever seen—and that's saying something!"

"That's why I said you should get more security guards. That would reduce the number of fights, at least."

"It's not just the fights." I let out a deep sigh, as if I'd been holding in that breath for a while. "It's everything."

Kerry considered my downtrodden tone, and she gave me a once-over before she said softly, "Alexis, this is something you used to be enthusiastic about."

"Yeah, and..?"

"So, for you to say you don't want it anymore, it's very concerning."

"Can you blame me?"

Kerry blinked as if she didn't comprehend.

So, I elaborated.

"There's always something happening. If it's not a fight breaking out, then it's some asshole who wants to sue me for negligent behavior all because they trip on a puddle that has a wet floor sign attached to it," I said irritably, gesturing to the floor to indicate an invisible walking hazard. "If I'm not dealing with fucking civil suit lawyers, I'm dealing with temperamental customers forever whining about the wait time. And then at the end of the day, I'm going home to a husband who's either too drunk or too moody to talk to me."

Kerry's eyebrows furrowed in concern: "I thought things were getting better between you two."

"Define 'better'."

"I'm just saying, at work, he seems put together."

"Does he, really."

"Seems like he's back to normal—or as normal as he could get after what happened."

"Well, that's certainly news to me."

"Okay. So, what is he like at home, then?"

"Depends." I put my hands on the table, unconscientiously spinning the stone of my wedding ring around my finger. "If he's drunk, he's more talkative, but I don't understand anything he says, or he just blacks out on the couch. If he's sober, he's normally locked up in the second bedroom. Either way, we're low on the communication chain."

"You're not sleeping in the same bed?"

I looked at her oddly. "Of course, we are."

It was her turn to look at me funny as she said slowly, "So…why is he in a second bedroom?"

I let out a small laugh, "Oh, it's not a bedroom anymore. It was turned into an office."

"Oh." Kerry took another sip before asking, "Whose idea was that?"

"Mine. It's just that he spent so much time at work, I had this funny idea that if he had an office at home, then he'd spend half the time at the precinct and the other half with me. That was the expectation, of course." I raised my eyebrows ironically, saying, "The reality is that if he's not at the precinct with you all—or at a bar—he's in his office."

"Ah."

"Yeah, I guess I didn't think that shit through," I said unhappily. "At least not all the way."

Kerry took a longer sip from her martini; her jaw torqued at the after taste and I smiled genuinely.

"Are you alright there?"

She half-choked, "Damn, Frank knows how to make 'em, doesn't he?"

There was a pause as Kerry stirred her drink, filling the silence with more than just the meandering chatter of those around us, the occasional tick from the stereo system above when the song changed.

Concerned, I asked, "So…Mark's doing alright at work then?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "Stays on task, isn't easily distracted—just his normal routine. Doesn't talk much, but you know how he is."

"Hmm. Well, I know how he used to be."

The uncomfortable silence that met those words welcomed Frank's intrusion as he moved back to the table, smiling at the two of us in his usual warm way as he asked, "What'll it be: refill or a new one?"

"Still working on mine," Kerry said pleasantly, lifting her half-filled martini glass.

Frank looked at me: "What about you, love?"

"Mimosa."

He snickered, "Fine, but try to take it easy, alright?"

"No promises." I offered a small smile when he took my shot glass and left to fetch my drink.

Kerry had been subtly watching me, noticing how I'd been twirling my wedding ring, observing how that despite my building resentment towards Mark's drinking habits, there was still love there for that man.

I was still very attracted to him, even when he was moody or coming home drunk as a skunk, staggering through the living room before hitting the bed. Even three weeks ago where a small conversation about dinner had exploded into an all-out shouting match between us, I found myself hoping that argument would turn into hate sex. Anything to feel and be close to him again.

I loved Mark more than anything or anyone else in the world. And what was more was that I knew the way he managed grief was by throwing himself into his work. Filling the void Angelina used to occupy with work or booze, not unlike the way I'd thrown myself into my projects after I'd lost my father.

People did anything to distract themselves from the pain.

After dealing with his mood swings for the past few years, I thought the sun would shine on us again and we'd go back to the way things were like we had after I'd bounced back from losing my dad.

Soon, I learned Mark did not process things in the same way or in the same amount of time that I did. He internalized everything. And it was just frustrating to see him suffer while he resisted feeling better. Not that it was his fault.

Depression was a sadistic son-of-a-bitch.

"Are you sure you want to shut down the restaurant?" Kerry returned the subject back to its original topic.

"I wasn't sure at first, but I'm slowly getting there. I step through the door, and it just drains the life out of me. I used to like going to work. Used to be fun."

"Don't I know," She joked.

I leaned back in my seat, crossing one leg over the other as I said ostentatiously, "I used to like being there, at the Grotto. Nurtured it when it was just a small bar, watched it grow into whatever it is now, and I used to love being there for hours on end—sometimes, I even slept there."

"And now?"

"And now…" I watched Frank laugh with some of the newer regulars he'd procured over the years. "Now, I feel like it's a chore."

"Maybe it's time to redecorate?" Kerry suggested lightly.

I looked at her. "Huh?"

"You have the same decorations lying around when Angelina was still alive. Maybe if you redecorated, it wouldn't be such a constant reminder."

"Yeah, but it hurts to forget."

"So don't forget. Just learn how to remember her in a way that doesn't hurt."

"How do I do that?" I asked pathetically.

She shrugged. "It's different for everyone."

"Have you done it before?"

"Couple of times."

"Like when for example."

"Well, when my parents passed away, I tried forgetting them. It was easier to pretend they never existed than acknowledge that they were gone," said Kerry understandingly. "My mom liked to collect dog plates and I used to hate seeing them because it would remind me of her. But now I have them because it reminds me of her in a good way…once the pain went away."

I ran my hands through my hair, finding its soft texture to be something of a comfort and thought back to the days when Angelina was still alive. Thinking back, I felt a soft pang in my chest for not having made the time to have more memories with her.

I began carefully, "It's going to sound horrible, me saying this…" (She indicated for me to continue without judgement.) "I don't miss her as much as I miss what Mark and I were like when she was still alive."

"What do you mean?"

"It's like Mark and I don't know how to be together anymore." I clasped my hands together to illustrate our former intimacy and let them fall apart with the attempt of an explanation. "It's like there's some type of barrier between us. When it looks like he might be reconnecting with me, he just…stops."

"Because he doesn't want to?"

"No." I shook my head. "It feels like he wants to, but something just keeps pulling him back."

Kerry nodded empathetically before she said, "Have you two ever considered marriage counseling?"

"Tried it. Didn't work."

"Why didn't it work?"

I chuckled, "Have you ever tried convincing a cop to seek out marriage counseling? It doesn't work. You all will take every 911 call, every homicide case, every late-night summons to avoid telling a stranger why your relationship isn't all that you hoped it would be." (I waved my hand dismissively). "Not that I can blame him. I spoke to a counselor the other day, and she instantly recommended a divorce."

Kerry's eyes narrowed: "Have you considered…?"

"Of course not." I smiled wholeheartedly. "I'll more likely kill him before I leave him."

"So, if grief counseling didn't work and marriage counseling didn't work, what are you doing now?"

"What can I do? I'm lucky if I see him longer than a few minutes before we go to bed or he's leaving for work. For the last year or so, it feels like he's been going out of his way to avoid me. I mean, I expected it the first six months after she'd passed away, but I didn't expect it to last this long."

"It has been a long time," Kerry agreed.

"No shit. I just want to know how long I'm supposed to deal with this before I reach my own breaking point."

The corner of Kerry's lips had started turning upward.

I continued, "It'd be one thing if he were only emotionally unavailable but it's affecting my sex life on top of everything else. We've only ever been intimate when he's just too drunk to care or just—What the fuck are you grinning at!"

Kerry was smiling and I wasn't sure why, so that made me angrier. She said evenly, "I think I know why Hoffman has been avoiding you."

My temper flared. "How could you possibly know this when I don't!"

"Because I'm not trapped inside the box. You are."

I started to lash out again, but she waved away my retort before she took the final drink of her martini. She got to the point in the very straightforward fashion that befitted her profession: "If I had to guess, Hoffman avoids you because you remind him of her."

"That's ridiculous. I'm nothing like Angelina."

"I wouldn't say that. You have the same temper—"

"—Yeah, but—"

"And you both are openly expressive with your emotions. That much has always been clear."

My lips pursed into a flat line: "So I may act like her sometimes. We're still very different people. She has never been accused of doing a third of what I've been guilty of."

"Then, it's not your likeness. So, he associates you with his memories of her. Since I've known them, Angelina has only ever approved of one person Hoffman has dated and that was you. I think anytime he starts connecting with you, he's reminded of her."

"So…?"

"So, to avoid that pain, he avoids you."

"You honestly think that?" I asked quietly.

She smiled ironically, adding, "More comfortable spending hours undercover, at a drug bust, or interrogating sleazy suspects than at home, talking to his wife."

Admittedly enough, that sounded more like Mark.

"Case solved." Kerry decided triumphantly. "I think I've earned another martini."

On cue, Frank came by with my mimosa and a second martini, even before Kerry had ordered it. The reasoning behind this came shortly after Frank had noticed her bewildered expression.

He leaned forward and said cleverly, "You're becoming predictable, Allison" before he winked at the two of us and headed back to the bar to stock up as new customers entered through the front door.

"As great as it is to finally understand the source, I don't consider it a comfort," I said uncertainly.

"Why not?"

"How am I supposed to compete with a memory?"

Kerry sighed again, more in defeat than exasperation as she said sympathetically, "I'm not sure. But I know you'll figure it out."

I ran my hands over the edge of the table, wistfully waiting for an answer to appear in its old wooden surface.

Kerry broke through my reverie to center the topic of discussion around something else.

"What have you been doing to get through this?" She asked conversationally. "To pass the time."

"A few things, here and there."

"That's not vague or anything."

"I've just been invested in other creative projects."

"Such as?"

I shrugged again, not wanting to give her any specifics.

Telling this brilliant detective how I'd filled the void by spending my time building self-aware robots never seemed like a clever idea. I hadn't wanted to tell her how those projects had upscaled in size and intricacy for the long-term benefits of a distraction.

Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum' had been an inspiration for my next architectural outlet—particularly when I thought of putting assholes in the same position for my own sadistic satisfaction. Showing a curious Kerry those blueprints would not have put me in a most shimmering light.

To pacify her curiosity, I said, "I've started drawing."

Kerry's head tilted to the side in its usual fashion when she heard something peculiar: "You draw?"

"Very well, actually."

"What can you do?"

"Animals, some buildings…"

Kerry drank a few sips from her martini, pondering this added information, before she said amusedly, "Can you draw people?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"We've recently had to let go one of our forensic artists."

"Oh?"

"He liked drawing naked people."

"Oh, well, that's just something to do, isn't it?"

Kerry's tone sobered: "They were all kids."

"Ah. Well, good riddance, then."

"At this point, we only have one sketch artist and he's been doing the work of 10 people. We could use another."

I joked, "What's the pay?"

"At our precinct, it's 60 dollars an hour," she said seriously.

I was flummoxed and nearly choked on my mimosa. "Really?"

"Yep."

"I'm going to have to rethink my career choices if a customer breaks another window, won't I."

Kerry grinned: "If I could draw, I'd probably do it."

"I mean, there's probably a whole hiring process involved—qualifications, portfolios, blah, blah, blah…"

"Well, sure, but look at this way: You're married to a cop, who's also one of us, so odds are it'd be an in-house hiring. There's some qualifications at the pre-hire stage, but you never know…" She trailed off, leaving the implication glaringly obvious, with a sly little smirk to boot.

"I'll keep that feather in my hat for later," I decided.

"Now…" Kerry cleared her throat and gesticulated to the bar in general—clearly influenced by the alcohol at this point—as she said confidently, "Let's start figuring out which one of these assholes is coming home with me tonight."

The house was too small to incorporate an invention this size, so I'd taken to finding an abandoned warehouse, setting up an alarm around the perimeter, and a few video cameras in any case some homeless eager McBeaver tried to make it their next squatting place.

Kerry left Frank's with a charming man who had a thing for cops, so I came back to the warehouse shortly after they departed.

After a few cryptic beeps from the alarm, I opened the steel-rusted door, and turned on the lights.

In the middle of the room was a large, heavy, black, metal-rusted pendulum hooked to the highest horizontal beam overhead. Attached to the pendulum was a saw blade; it was a placeholder for stainless steel—once I had the time to make another trip to Home Depot. The mechanism that held the pendulum blade to the ceiling was wirelessly attached to a Bluetooth remote. One push of the button and it would begin swinging, its hinges lowering it from the beam above, allowing the blade to cut through whatever was slapped onto the metal slab below.

There was still plenty of work to do. The swing wasn't as flawless as I liked; every fifth swing or so, the hinges groaned before they dropped the blade two inches lower than what was planned.

Not the most perfect engine.

The last thing I needed was for my blouse to get stuck on the rigging when I was on the ladder or for my ponytail to get caught in a wire, so I wore a black jumpsuit and tied my hair up into a messy bun. (Although that would have made for a sick story to tell at my funeral.)

Time moved different here. Working on obscure projects in the middle of the night, I barely realized how fast the last three hours had flown by! When I looked at my watch, it was close to midnight. Just when I'd noticed the time, someone else had noticed my absence.

My phone started ringing; the vibrations made for a nice little massage in my back pocket. Taking it out, I expected it to be Mr. Lockhart, who'd started asking me more frequently to babysit his eight-year-old daughter, Kate. At some point, Sarah, the girl's ill-tempered mother and Lockhart's uncouth ex-wife, had long ago abandoned the idea of motherhood; her visits had become less often. By Lockhart's account, Sarah hadn't seen Kate in 10 months; recalling my first and last confrontation with the woman, I honestly believed this was for the best.

Momentarily tinkering with the axel from which the pendulum swung, I placed the phone between my shoulder and ear, answering, "Hello."

"Where are you."

My eyebrows raised when I heard Mark's demanding question, coming in loud and clear as a bell.

"I'm almost surprised to hear you at this hour," I said evenly.

"Alexis."

"Mark."

"Where are you?"

"Out."

"Kerry said you left the bar hours ago."

I said coolly, rolling my eyes. "You know, this is the longest we've spoken in months. I'm surprised you're not finding some reason to end this call."

He sighed quietly on the phone.

"For what it's worth, just because I don't spend all night at a bar doesn't mean I'm not still 'out'." (I stepped off the ladder, moving out of the blade's swinging path.) "Since we're talking, I should tell you that it's probably now my turn to come home late."

Mark wasn't going to entertain my passive-aggressive comments for long, but it was nice to get some of the bile out before it poisoned me.

"When are you coming home?" His words were slightly slurred as though he were trying to keep his elusive consciousness intact. The effort of sounding sober could have fooled any one of his coworkers, but not me.

"Whenever I feel like it."

I could hear his scowl through the phone.

I continued, "Frankly, I'm tired of coming home just so you can turn around and avoid me or get drunk enough to be anywhere near me before you black out. And for the love of God, please don't deny it. We both know that's what you've been doing."

There was silence on his end. Like he'd been caught red-handed.

At first, I thought he had either hung up or the signal had gotten lost. Instead, I heard him sigh, not in exasperation, but in defeat.

"Fine. You don't have to tell me where you are." He uttered. "At least tell me you're alone." (He sighed when I hadn't said anything.) "Or lie to me, if you're not."

This was the reason Mark had called me. He thought I was out, falling in love with someone else, giving my heart to someone else. God, how did it ever come to this?

"Do you really think that little of me?" I asked, sitting on the metal slab, peering up at the pendulum.

"I don't know what to think anymore," he mumbled, really starting to slur his words. "I don't know what I'm doing."

It was, by the far, the most honest words to have come out of his mouth in a long while. There was no hiding behind passive responses, no expressions with which he could use to stone his silence. Mark was finally drunk but lucid enough to communicate; alcohol could lower a person's inhibitions to the point of doing the most humiliating acts, but it also made them emotionally vulnerable.

"I'm sorry." He whispered.

"Sorry for what?"

"It's just…When I see you—"

"—I know."

He was startled as he asked, "You know?"

"Yeah. I know. You see me, you think of her. You don't mean to, but you do."

I could hear the wince in his voice: "Something to that affect."

"What would it take to change that?"

He didn't say anything. I doubted that he knew the answer either. I crossed one arm over my stomach, standing and holding the phone to my ear.

"Mark, just so you're aware, I am not with anyone else right now. You've been driving me crazy, but there's no one else that could do that as well as you can."

"Likewise." He returned—his uncertainty had been replaced with a beaming satisfaction.

What Mark needed was a reminder of just how different Angelina and I really were. In that moment, I knew what I had to do.

"I could tell you where I'm at," I said cryptically, "but I think it's best if I just showed you myself."

"That's not suspicious at all." Mark muttered.

"Are you at the house?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be there in 10. I love you."

"I love you too."

He hung up just as I did.

Being a sketch artist for the police department sounded better by the minute since my heart was no longer in it to continue managing the Grotto. My marriage on the other hand could still be saved, or so I hoped.