Chapter 12: All Fall Down


"I can't believe you're pregnant," he smiled.

"Why's that?"

"I don't know, I guess I just never thought I'd get to hear that kind of news again."

"Are you scared?" With this question he looked at me as if I'd asked something odd, and only let his hand meet the slight of my stomach over my sweater.

"It's the first time I've been unafraid in fifteen years actually."

"You don't think it's too soon for this?"

"Do you?"

"I asked you first."

He rolled his eyes at me shortly before focusing back on the road and thinking. I too dwelled on it, while waiting for his reply.

"No, I don't," he finally responded, "Life's supposed to be about surprises right? The unexpected…? Like a Rolling Stone journalist…in a black bikini…" he licked his lips at this and I shook my head, "…inheriting the house next door?"

He was good. I could always give Mort that much. And resting my hand over his at my stomach I nodded with a grin, looking to see the yellow flash on the fuel meter.

"We need gas."


I woke up to the same sounds as the morning before; people, water, and close breathing. The people were loud but sweet sounding with their calls of daily chores and work in this place, the water was the background music to the people who fished and swam and lived upon it, and the breathing, well, the breathing was what I swam and lived upon, so it was equally as harmonious.

I turned over and fell right into his arms. Mort's brow creased and his body twitched to somehow, subconsciously and in practice, wrap around me. It felt good, to be awake and aware of the world while he was at peace, especially after what had come of the afternoon and evening before.

We'd left that incredible field of sunflowers, that perfect spot that can never come again, and there was silence and music only on our drive back here, to the villa. I wanted to keep telling him that it was alright and that he didn't need to think anything of it, since I didn't. But then I'd only be lying, because it wasn't alright and I did think plenty of it.

I had come upon that table in the café yesterday, after the beautiful girl had left, and I very clearly saw the desire welling up within his jeans. It wasn't from thinking about me while he was talking with her, I'm sure. The girl in the restaurant had done something to my husband that I was sure any woman in the world could, to any man, anywhere. It wasn't a difficult task to accomplish. But for me, his wife, the woman who's carrying his child and would literally kill for him, it was. He had me completely nude in a valley of wildflowers on the coast of Italy in broad daylight, and he froze.

Unfair or not, one time or not, I took it as a warning sign and I let him see as much.

In fact for the rest of the night, while he went back and forth between titles for his book and finished off almost an entire bottle of wine by alone, I sat curled up in a blanket on the veranda, trying my hardest to count the stars in the sky instead of think about what had gone so wrong. It didn't work though, as you might well have guessed. I ended up blaming myself for it entirely. If I wasn't so needy, if I didn't take up so much of his time with issues over the kids, if I looked more like that girl, maybe I wouldn't have cause to worry.

I looked at him then, now, while he slept and I stared, and I watched the way his nostrils flared as he dreamed, like Max's do, and I saw the way his brow creased down in distant awareness of my being there, the way Madeline's does. I saw so much of my kids and our life back at home there, on his peaceful face, that I eventually couldn't take it anymore and I slid out of bed, got dressed, and went down to the kitchen.

I made coffee, I ate a muffin and I pondered for a long time. And when I was tired of pondering nothing but uncertainty, I found a scrap of paper and I wrote a note. Then I decided to go for a walk, and yeah, you guessed it, ponder some more.


"I'll go get him…"

Was I really mumbling? Was she there? I reached out in my sleep, and felt nothing beside me.

"…you sleep, I'll get Max…"

Yes, I was definitely out of it. Proven just as soon as I opened my eyes and saw the same bed, in the same blue room as the night before. This wasn't home and there were no five year olds to wrangle and tie to their beds. No baths, no bedtime stories or monsters in the closet.

It was just me.

"Rox…?" I questioned, half dazed as I stretched.

There was no answer and I saw again, more coherent, no one else in the bed with me. I sat up, looked around and out to the balcony, but she wasn't in the room at all. The villa was dead silent, but I got up and threw on a pair of jeans anyway, rubbing my sweaty, growling stomach all the way downstairs to the living room and then the kitchen.

"Roxanne?"

Nothing but John Mayer playing softly from the nearby stereo. Something about slow dances and burning rooms, things I didn't want to think about with a wine induced headache and blurry eyes. I shut it off and stumbled around the kitchen some more, thinking that she might pop out of a cupboard and come running in from the veranda, or the foyer, or at the very least from right behind me.

I rubbed my eyes and muttered, "Where did she--" but was stopped when I saw the note.

She was good at these. She wrote the simplest notes like they were pure poetry. Roxanne wrote notes in lunchboxes, on the car dashboards, in my office, on the bathroom mirror with markers, and even on my hands with black sharpie some days.

Like Shakespeare, I smiled, thinking about those sharpie ones the most, the trick she'd gotten from me, and then I lifted the note off the counter.

Went for a walk, needed some fresh air.

I'll be fine. Call me if you need me.

Be back soon.

R

"Call me if you need me…" I shook my head, threw down the note and turned for the coffee pot, mumbling as I poured a cup. "No, why ever would I need you, baby?"

The answer wasn't so far away and I hated that it had only managed to come a day late. Rubbing away the tightness in my jeans, I gulped at the hot, black liquid and headed for the villa's main balcony. I wondered and attempted to see her walking somewhere below, on one of the visible corner streets or along the faraway beach, but I found nothing. So I reached into the back pocket of my jeans, pulled out my cell phone, and began to do something that I rarely do and which takes me a good twenty, pathetic minutes to type and spell check.

I texted her.


Stumbling along the rocky path in my well worn Converse and an iPod that was blaring Edith Piaf in and out of my ear drums, I was focused, I was driven to this walk and this air and this seclusion back here, where I didn't know which way to go. I was just going, to get somewhere.

Vines made a canopy overhead and the sound of waves were coming on closer as I pushed my way through the thick, wild rose bushes at the end of the dark part of the path. The sun came out then and a smile fell on my face when I saw the aqua water down below in the isolated harbor.

I breathed in deep, took one more step, and while the music was coursing through my veins perfectly, a single vibration in back pocket of my jeans stopped me. I pulled out my cell phone, flipped it open and saw a text message waiting to be read from a name I wasn't expecting.

MORT

He hates texting, I told myself as I drew up the message and read it, what's gotten into him?

Bring back some of that fresh air for me!

Don't get lost.

Love you, baby.

I know I shouldn't have, but the first thing I thought was, how much? Now how much air should I bring back, but how much do you love me, really? I couldn't shake the jealousy and I didn't know why. Women stared at him all the time back at home, every woman in town wanted him for their lover. He got kisses and hugs and touches from countless fans at his book signings and it never bothered me, ever. But now, this girl, this romantic kind of atmosphere around me and us and them the day before, was killing me.

I thought for a single second about what to type back to him. I let the scratchy, French lyrics in my ear sweetened by time drown my conscious mind until I started to move my fingers over the buttons of the phone.

My bad, just didn't want to wake you up.

Think…think…be normal. My fingertips started pushing down again vigorously.

And don't worry, I brought a map.

What? No. I quickened my pace on the delete key and changed my words. Don't be sarcastic.

I wish I had though, the view from here is beautiful.

Okay, that's better. I lifted my phone, snapped a photo of the bay surrounding me and the few sailboats tied down below, and then attached it to the message with a final, I love you too.

Send…sending…sent.

I figured it would be awhile before I heard back from him, mostly because he can't text to save his life, so I walked ahead on the rocky plateau above the harbor and sat down towards the edge of a jetting cliff. There were only two boats in the water 100 feet below, one was blue and one was red, both with sails drawn up and one person, probably fisherman, on board each.

Nothing could have taken me from that spot though, not as I began to relax and breathe well again, and especially not when I pulled my wallet out of my woven messenger bag and found the photo I knew so well, of two children, right in the middle.

Bug and Rocky, I sighed in deep thought, relishing in the nicknames we'd given them along the way, respectfully and rightfully so. I moved my index finger over each of their tiny, smiling faces and laughed a little to myself as the music wore on in my ears and the sun grew warmer on my bare back.

God, I wish I making you guys breakfast right now…

And just as soon as I spoke the words in my mind, I felt the shake of something near my foot and saw my phone light up beneath me. Another text, faster than I expected but for an obvious reason when I opened it and read simply:

Roxanne, I'm sorry about yesterday.

Oh yeah, that one hit me like a fair sized brick. I immediately went through a list of things I could send as reply.

It's okay, Mort, really. I understand.

No.

It happens to everyone, I'm not upset.

Can't.

It's not you, it's probably me.

Hell no.

I began typing before I even knew what I was saying and finished when I wasn't sure I could even read it.

Never happened. I saw nothing, honey.

Good enough. I sent it, got up, changed my music to something a little more enthusiastic, The Shins, Sea Legs…yeah, that works, and began to venture down further on the rocks.

It wasn't easy to do, especially since I'm not the most coordinated pregnant woman in the world, but I had a good enough handle on the stony slopes as I tumbled down onto the lower level of the cliffs. My bag swung at my side with every move I made, almost too heavy for comfort, but I carried on with the beat flowing in and out of my cerebellum. And it wasn't long before I felt another vibration in my jeans and realized that it was a phone call this time, not a text. I pulled my headphones out and answered.

"Hey."

"Rox, don't say anything okay. Just let me talk."

I stayed silent and turned toward the water again, watching carefully as one of the fishermen below hauled up a large crate cage of what looked like crabs.

"You know I didn't mean for that to happen yesterday, and it wasn't you baby, don't think that 'cause I know you and I know that's what you're thinking." Alright, so he knew me. Damn it all for having a husband who knows me. "You want proof, I've got proof right now, still." He started laughing into the phone and I stood confused, listening and watching the man down near the water, tossing his catch around his boat. "I woke up needing you. I woke up harder than I think I've been in twenty years, just from a dream. I'm dying 'cause you're not here."

He still laughed and I still listened intently, a little amused but not much.

"We can't pretend yesterday didn't happen, but I'm going to make it up to you."

"Mort…" I tried to bargain, but he cut me off.

"No, I'm serious. I owe it to you. I was supposed to be showing you how much fun you can be, and I ruined it."

"You don't have to--"

"Just let me."

I sighed, but the half comfort didn't last long. Only a second later, as I heard him begin to speak again, something about how I 'made good coffee', there was a loud ring of what sounded like gunfire from above my head and I stumbled back in a turn toward the noise, looking up.

Yet no sooner did I hear a shout and then Mort say, 'Sweetheart?', than did I feel my shoes slipping on the rocks. I tried to grab the cliff in front of me, but it was no use. The phone fell out of my hand, my body tilted, my jaw broke into a gasp then a shrill scream that even I had grown freakishly accustomed to, and I started to drop down, quickly, without resistance in the hot, moving air…

There was no knowing where it would end, until it did and I broke the surface of the water fifty or so feet below. It felt like a million knives striking me all at once and I distinctly remember hitting my arm on something rough, a rock I think, and then my knee, once I was under the crash of water. I thought I was dead before I even began to drown, so I didn't try to move or swim or save myself. I was sure it was too late this time.

I'd survived too much already.