To The Point Of Shatter Novel – During 12 years marriage, I have it all: a strong love for one another, a beautiful daughter, a happy home. But my unfaithful husband ruined it all. He was having an affair with the new neighbor behind my back. I had seen it with my eyes. When I questioned him, he admitted it. No wonder he keeps showing up at neighbors’ houses, helping fix things. I thought our marriage was perfect, but it turned out to be a lie. Everything suffocated me yet left me powerless. It’s time to end up this painful relationship. I want to leave here and find my own life again.
Abby I roll over and eye the glowing face of the digital clock on my bedside table. It reads 4:30am. Dang it. I have to get up in an hour for work but know that I’ll never fall back to sleep with that kind of pressure. I sigh and try to settle onto my back but am jarred by a kick to my hip. A little kick from a little foot. Knowingly, I reach behind me and take hold of a leg and ease it back. Looking, I see Ava blissfully asleep between Aiden and I. Again. Her blonde hair is mussed around her face, her thumb screwed securely in her rosebud mouth, her Dora pajamas hiked up around her torso. More nights than not she ends up here, cuddled between her daddy and I. Sometimes it was nice having my whole family in our big bed together. This morning it is a nuisance because what I want to do is slide over and cuddle with my husband without obstacle.
No dice. I ease out of bed, trying not to wake them. The fan I have for it’s white noise whirs soothingly. I tuck the blanket around Ava’s peaceful form and glance at Aiden. He sleeps like the dead, flat on his back, one arm tossed over his head, lips a little parted, boxers and no shirt. I watch the easy rise and fall of his chest in the glow of the LED clock. Just enough chest hair. I smile to myself. He is a blatantly handsome man with lots of dark, wavy hair, not long but still managing to be unruly, and ice blue eyes. A wicked smile, a quick laugh, a mischievous sense of humor. Plus, he is an outstanding father. He could build forts and glue construction paper and wipe Ava’s little butt all day, yet still bring me to my knees with one buss when I get home at night. Lucky girl, me. I pad around the enormous bed, get my robe blindly from the hook on the back of our bathroom door, and tiptoe out of the room. I follow, heading for the kitchen and my first cup of coffee.
I let her out of the back door onto the patio and she bounds off into the darkness. When I got the job I have now and Aiden and I moved South with newborn Ava in tow, we specifically searched for a house that reminded us of home: two stories, a big kitchen, a front porch, a fireplace. It was hard to find one that fit the bill. The development we finally moved into has this type of house and thought the yard is negligible, there is a pool- a serious luxury for us Northerners. We were sold. A wash of headlights across the windows of the living room at the front of the house catches my eye. I peek between the vertical blinds- the same kind that seem to be in every house I’ve ever seen down here- and look onto the street. Across the street, a moving van slowly pulls into the driveway. I watch then as two men hop out and address a woman who stands next to a sporty silver car. She speaks to them briefly, then dangles a bunch of keys in front of them. They follow her to the garage door, which she lifts after unlocking it. I hope it’s a family with a child Ava’s age.
When I get home that evening I let myself in and am surprised by the silence that greets me. I am usually met by a chorus of “mommy, mommy, mommy!” the minute I step over the threshold. I listen for movement as I dump the mail and my bag on the small table near the front door. I walk back by the kitchen and look into the pool area but it’s deserted, a lone beach ball floating on the surface of the water. Curious. I look for a note on the wipe-off board we have on the side of the fridge and there it is. “Went across the street to help new neighbor” is written in Aiden’s impossibly proper block lettering. I am tired. I am really not in the mood to meet this new family today but remembering that I was hopeful to get a friend out of the deal, I take out a pan of frozen homemade lasagna I had made last week and head back out the front door after discarding my lab coat. The house across the street is single story, painted an olive green with white trim to our periwinkle blue.
These homes are concrete block to stave off hurricane force winds, but have siding that looks like wood for a Victorian feel. I hadn’t really known the last owner so had never been in this house and didn’t know anyone with this particular floor plan. I was interested to get a peek at it. I pick across the driveway, strewn with boxes and padding blankets, and bypass the open garage door for the front one, plain and painted red. There is a small entrance but no wide porch like ours. I ring the bell. From inside, I can hear my own daughter’s distinctive voice call out, “Door!” and it makes me smile. After a moment, the door swings open and I am greeted by a pretty ebony haired woman. She’s a head shorter than I, with green eyes, wearing a tank top smudged with dirt and rolled up denim shorts. “Can I help you?” she smiles at me. I hold out my free hand.
“I’m Abby Dempsey. I live across the street. Welcome.” I present her with the lasagna. She accepts it with a wide grin. “Oh! Thank you so much! I’m Chloe Franklin. Please come in. I believe some people you know are here.” She leads me inside and down a tiled hall to the great room at the back of the house. Here, I find my husband in a plain white tshirt fooling with the wiring of electronics. “Hey!” he greets, standing and brushing his hands on his jeans. He walks over and busses me quickly. “So, you met Chloe.” He motions to the new homeowner who is putting the pan I have handed her into the freezer. She returns to where we stand. “Yes,” I nod, smiling at our new neighbor. “I’m sorry I stole your husband. I was having a time of it trying to get the bed set up on my own. I spotted him with this little beauty-” she touches Ava’s nose- “out front. He was kind enough to help and then offered to look at that mess.” She motions to the wall unit where the sound system and television sit. I laugh a little.
I did become friends with the new neighbor. She showed up on our doorstep every now and then with questions easily answered: closest movie theater, best local doctor, the number of a good lawn service. I work a lot during the week so she’d often have to ask Aiden these questions and they became friendly as well. Ava seems to take to her, calling out a hello whenever we see Chloe as we come and go. She is quirky and witty, something I am definitely not. We find out she is single, no kids, a photographer that works things like weddings and those portraits families do at the beach, everyone in jeans and white shirts, barefoot. She was gone most weekend evenings and when I asked her to show me a sample of her work she directs me to her website, which is, indeed, full of fantastic shots. Really beautiful work. So that’s how, on a balmy evening in June when the light is just right, Aiden, Ava, and I end up on the local beach, Aiden and I in, you guessed it, matching faded jeans and white oxfords and Ava in a white dress with a full skirt. Chloe takes so many pictures and has us in so many poses I really think it’s overkill. But when she comes by to show us the proofs, I end up all choked up. It is nearly impossible to choose just one.
The one of us where Aiden leans on his right hand, one knee up, me sitting in front of his hip, Ava in my lap all sincerely smiling? Or the one where Ava and I are both looking up at him as he gazes down at us? Or the one where we are all laughing, Ava’s head thrown back in glee? Or even the one of our backs, Ava between us holding our hands, our feet in the surf? Of course, I get prints of everything but the one I choose to blow up and hang over the couch in a beautiful frame is the one of Aiden looking down at us. I think it captures so much about us as a family. We are adoring and adored. And nothing matches the expression on Aiden’s face when he’s looking at us. It is love. Chloe did a wonderful job capturing it. So maybe one night a week we hung out.
Sometimes we’d have her over on a Sunday night for burgers off the grill, other times she’d cook when I worked all day and I’d come home to find my family at her house playing Jenga and waiting for me. She is lonely, I think. She doens’t seem to have a lot going on socially. Most nights during the week her car is in the drive and the lights in her house are out if she isn’t at work. And we enjoy her. She has a quick laugh and has no problem getting on the floor and playing with Ava and her Barbies…the Aunt she never had. After she’d been living there about two and a half months, she knocks on our door just as I am tucking in Ava for the night. I hear her voice from upstairs, a little on edge, and Aiden’s baritone full of concern. I can’t make out words so I finish smooching my baby and go down. I find Aiden and Chloe in an embrace standing in the middle of the kitchen.