Chapter Five
Sacrifice
Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need to know of hell.
-Emily Dickinson, "Parting"
"That was Olivia who called just before the movie, wasn't it?" Kathy asked as she climbed into bed beside her husband for the first time in over two years.
"Yeah." Elliot didn't know what else to say, so he kept quiet waiting for Kathy to speak again.
"I want you to know that I'm not jealous of your friendship with her anymore," Kathy said. "I know how much you care for her, and I know it's totally different from the love you feel for me. I want you two to stay friends, because I can tell how much you need each other."
He nodded. "I appreciate that."
They were silent for a long time. He knew she wanted him to speak, but he just didn't know what to say. He'd been working on that ever since they'd started back to couples counseling, but so many times, he just didn't have the vocabulary to express what he was feeling. His shrink, Rebecca Hendrix, and Father McKay, the priest they saw together twice a week, both said it was because he'd been taught from a young age that it was unmanly to express tender feelings or neediness. Personally, he thought it was much more likely that words were simply inadequate to express his emotions. At least counseling had taught Kathy that she didn't have to compete with Olivia for his affections, so it wasn't a total loss.
"Elliot?"
"Hmm?" He turned toward her voice, and seeing her there beside him pulled him out of his reverie.
"I know it hurt a lot to say goodbye to them, and I'm sorry; but I have to be honest and say that I'm really grateful to you for what you did."
Case in point, he thought. "It hurt a lot" doesn't even begin to describe what this morning was like. It isn't even from the same planet as what I'm feeling now, and if she had any clue what it did to me to walk out of that squad room today, she would sure as hell be more than "really grateful."
He lowered his gaze to give himself time to think before he responded, and though he wouldn't call it a miracle, there was something divine about the sight that met his eyes. It was so emblematic of everything he had become, everything he had done for the past twenty-odd years.
Shrugging his left shoulder to draw her attention to it, he asked, "Do you remember when I got this tattoo?"
"Yeah, it was just before our wedding, and my mom flipped out about it." She laughed at the memory, but he didn't.
He couldn't look at her and continue talking, so he stared at the crucifix on his arm instead, upside down from his perspective, like Saint Peter, Peter the Rock, the foundation on which the Roman Catholic Church was built. Christ Himself called Peter His rock. God was often called the Rock, and in the parable of the foolish man and the wise man, the wise man built his house upon the Rock and it stood firm. The Bible used rocks a lot as metaphors for strength and stability. Interesting how it was all coming back to him. Stabler, his own name called him the exact opposite of what he had been for so long. His family had provided him stability, not the other way around, which was why he had gone to pieces when they left. He was a walking oxymoron!
And then there was the pain of getting the tattoo. He had been young and romantic and enthralled with the sybolism of it all, but mostly, he just needed the physical pain to help him deal with his emotional hurt. He had always coped better with physical pain than with the emotional variety, so often in his life, when he felt like crying, he would resort to bleeding. Nowadays, he just pounded the shit out of the lockers. Since he didn't user razor blades or burning cigarettes to hurt himself, it looked like a temper tantrum and not even the astute Dr. George Huang could see him for what he was.
Now that was a revelation. He hurt himself. When he was suffering emotionally, he deliberately and intentionally hurt himself. He was a self-injurer, just like thousands of troubled adolescents, over stressed women, and abused victims he worked with every day of his professional life. How had he gone this long without ever realizing it? His next conversation with Dr. Hendrix was going to be very interesting.
He had to stop thinking for a moment, or he would become lost in all the layers of meaning in that tattoo.
"Elliot?" Kathy's tone implied that is was not the first time she had said his name.
He gazed into her eyes for a moment, and it took away his power of speech. So, looking down at his hands folded across his belly, he watched his thumbs twiddle almost as if they had minds of their own, and finally he began to speak softly.
"When I was a kid, I had so many dreams, Kath. Things I never told you about. I wanted to be somebody. I wanted people to know my name. I wanted to have a building or a park named after me. I wanted to do something with my life!"
He could hear that his voice had taken on a slightly hysterical cadence, and he stopped himself for a moment.
Self-consciously, he took a deep breath. "Then you got pregnant."
He looked at her and saw the shock on her face. Maybe she wasn't ready for this much honesty, but he really didn't know any other way to tell her what he was feeling. If there were names for his emotions, he'd never heard them.
"I would have married you anyway," he said. "Eventually, but . . ."
When her expression didn't change, he could hold her gaze no longer. Staring back down at his hands, he said, "When I proposed, I was praying that you would say no. When you didn't . . ."
Tears started to fall, and he just couldn't speak.
"I remember you crying," she finally said. "I always thought they were tears of joy."
He shook his head. "No. I'm sorry! It was like everything inside of me died. All my dreams, everything I'd ever hoped to be. It was just gone in a puff of smoke, and I thought it was the biggest mistake of my life."
He reached up and brushed away the moisture from his cheeks. "I knew it was the right thing to do, and I tried to trust that God would bless me, but I felt like I was making this huge, unimaginable sacrifice."
"And that's why you got the crucifix tattoo?" she asked, gently rubbing her hand over the ink on his flesh.
He nodded and sniffled slightly. "Over the years, though, it came to mean something entirely different. By the time Kathleen was born, it didn't represent what I had to give up anymore; it was what I was willing to give up. It took a little while, but I realized that you and the kids, my family, were the greatest blessing I could ever receive. There was nothing, nothing, I wouldn't do for you."
She slid her hand down his arm and intertwined their fingers. "Elliot, I want you to look at me," she said compassionately.
It took him a long minute, but finally he did.
"What was it today, Elliot?" she asked tenderly. "Something you had to do, or something you were willing to do?"
"Both," he whispered. And he looked down to where their fingers were laced together. "I didn't want to do it. I prayed to God to show me another way, but He didn't. There's nothing in this world I would want to hold on to if it meant letting go of you and the kids. So in the end, I willingly did what I had to do."
The tears were back, streaming down his face now, dripping off his chin, coming so quickly he couldn't keep them wiped away, so he gave up trying.
"I know it was the right thing to do, Kath, and I know I'll never regret it, but it hurts, Kathy. Oh, God, it hurts!"
He fell into her, his upper body curled in her lap, his face pressed against her stomach, sobbing hard and trying to keep it quiet so he didn't wake the children. Totally oblivious to the tears streaming down her own face, she draped her arms around him, shushing him, smoothing down his soft dark hair, and rubbing slow, gentle circles on his back. They sat that way until he finally cried himself out.
After a few quiet minutes, Elliot rolled over and positioned himself so he was lying across the bed with his head in her lap. His eyes were closed, but she knew he was still awake because he hadn't reached that state of limp relaxation that came with sleep.
"Elliot?"
"Hmm?"
"I can't say that I understand what you are going through, because I've never really had to sacrifice anything. You and the kids are all I ever really wanted, but I want you to know that . . ."
She began to choke up and had to struggle for her words.
"I am very humbled and . . . deeply moved . . . by what you've done for us."
He opened his eyes. They were bloodshot from crying, but they shone with love. He reached up and wiped her tears away, and she brushed away the last of his.
"Tell me what I can do to help you," she pleaded softly.
He sighed and his gaze shifted off of her as his eyes came unfocused in thought. Slowly, he formulated an answer.
"I guess, all you can do is be patient," he began with a shrug, struggling already to keep his voice even. "Recognize that there is a hole in me that only time can fill and there's a pain that you can't even reach to soothe it."
"If it hurts so much, how could you just walk away from it?"
He smiled up at her and his whole face brightened. "It's not what I was walking away from, Kathy, it's what I was walking to." He raised his hands in a gesture that encompassed the whole house and everyone and everything in it. "I need this more than I need my next breath."
He scooted off her lap and snuggled under the covers. "Would you lie down here beside me so I can hold onto you tonight?"
She did as he asked, but put her arms around him, too, and said, "Why don't we hold onto each other?"
