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Just like an erratic wave taking me under, none of this was in my control.
Her best friend was pressed against my chest, holding on for dear life. And if it wasn’t for the fact that she needed me to hold her up, I’d have fallen straight to my knees.
Tears hadn’t broken through my body just yet. Only confusion and complete and udder shock.
Sprinkled around her body were the remnants of what were once in the now empty pill bottle. It was obvious that she’d taken her life. But why? Why, Sarah?
We had such a good life, baby, what went wrong? Why did you have to take matters into your own hands?
“This isn’t your fault,” I choked out, finally gathering the courage to muster up a few words to the sweet girl who found her lying this way.
My tears wavered on the edge of falling over as I felt my own words turn around and point a finger at me. If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine.
My fault for not listening better if she ever tried to tell me anything.
My fault for making our entire lives revolve around hockey.
My fault for not knowing my wife well enough to know she was in agonizing pain.
My fault for not reading between the lines of her last text message she sent me before my game.
Sarah: I love you, baby, and I miss you already. You’ve been working for this all season long, and I know it will be you holding the cup by the end of the night.
My fault. My fault. My. Fucking. Fault.
What kind of idiot did I have to be to not question why she told me she ‘missed me already?’
Playoff season was always a harsh schedule. Time spent together was rare, so of course, I thought she was telling me she missed me because we’d barely seen each other for the last stretch of games. Not because she wasn’t going to be at the game at all, and this was how my night was going to end.
After her best friend left, and the coroner’s office zipped up her lifeless frame into a body bag, it was just me. Standing in my apartment, I stared at the spot where my wife took her last breath, wondering how such a good day could turn so shitty so fast, and how the hell I’d ever be able to think of anything else other than this very moment.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Mom walked in. She refused to let me be alone, but even with her around, I still felt trapped inside my own mind with a million questions on a repeating loop. Immediately, she went into action, cleaning up the tapes she recorded for me from my coffee table, throwing clothes into the wash, lighting candles, and doing everything she could to make the space around me feel even an ounce lighter.
But no amount of vanilla scented candles or a freshly cleaned floor could remove the image of what I’d walked into hours ago.
Unable to move, stuck in place, the sob I’d been holding in for hours now finally crept up my throat. Bursting like a damn, and me on the other side, I was drowning, unable to control my body’s agony as the water pushed me further down.
“I miss you already.” Were the only words that managed to escape.
The clock ticking above my fireplace told me it was three in the morning. I couldn’t tell you what day it was or how long I’d been sitting in the same spot. Only that every time the videotape finished, I’d been alert enough to rewind it and start it back from the beginning again.
This process repeated over and over again to the point where I had every word of Sarah’s memorized. Her voice that I’d almost forgotten was the only thing I heard now.
I vowed to never forget it again.
As the time passed, my phone buzzed more and more.
If I had to guess, someone at work had been trying to get ahold of me, but I didn’t care enough to answer. Or maybe it was Andi…
Fuck.
I’d forgotten all about her, and I hated myself for it. It was me causing all the damage and pain to any woman I came into contact with. I was the common denominator.
A stupid, self-centered man only concerned about my own problems.
I worked hard in therapy over the years to not tear myself down with self-hate. It took years not to blame myself, only for it all to come crashing down at my feet in the form of an old VHS tape.
I’d spent a better part of my adult life healing from all of the loss. First, my wife, then my father. My father’s death was expected. He’d been in and out of hospitals for years until the cancer eventually took him.
