He bought a house and a car and a dog and had money to spare. His friends were shocked with his success. His boss was stunned and still chuckling whenever he got to tell the story about how the kid, who was dropping off his mail, had saved his ass.
It had been two years, probably the best in his life, but Kyle felt a little empty until she was there, on a random afternoon in June. Sitting on his porch.
Kyle sat in his driveway, car still running, just looking at her for the longest time. She tried to call him once, about a month after their breakup. He let the call go to voice mail. He deleted her message before he listened to it.
He let her into his house, without saying a word. Kyle poured her a glass of orange juice and grabbed a glass of ice water for himself. They sat down at the kitchen table and sipped their drinks, neither saying a word for a painfully long time. Kyle didn’t have a clue what to say. Dana had a couple of false starts before she was able to speak.
“It was the stupidest thing I have ever done, Kyle. I dated, a couple of times. One guy, twice. But, I swear I never, ever let anyone else…. I’m so sorry, Kyle. I never…”
He was across the table and kissing her with a passion suppressed for far too long before she could finish. Dana tried to apologize several more times during the next 48 hours, but never quite got around to finishing her thought.
They were married in less than nine months. Emily arrived a year later.
***
It had been three months since that embarrassing kiss and things had been better. It was as if Dana was presenting Kyle with a glimpse of their former marriage. She was attentive and loving and playful and happy. But she wouldn’t talk. Not about anything real. Not about anything that mattered.
Maybe she didn’t know Kyle could hear her crying while she was in the shower. Maybe she didn’t know that she would sometimes stare at the wall or lose her train of thought mid-conversation. But Kyle could hear her and he could see her. He knew that all his hopes were based on a facade and it scared him.
***
“I need your help, Doc.”
There had been a few moments of silence after Dana had stormed out of the office and ended the session.
“It was just a fucking kiss! It didn’t mean anything then and it doesn’t mean anything now. I said I was sorry and I meant it. Grow the fuck up!”
At least they were talking about it. That had to mean something. But the longer Kyle thought about it, the more he panicked.
“I am doing my best help both you and your wife, Kyle.”
“I know that, Doc. And I appreciate it. I really do. And we are here and we are talking. And that’s a good thing, or at least I hope it is. And I can live with it. I can hold on, by my fingernails if I have too. I can hang in there and be supportive and get treated like shit and watch and wait, and be patient and anything else, for that matter. I love her and I want her back. But, I need your help.”
Kyle wasn’t a crier and he wasn’t a baby and wasn’t used to begging, but it was all he had left.
“If you tell me that she is getting better. I’ll believe you. Anything, a tiny breakthrough.. a… a… glimmer of hope. Anything. Tell me you’ve seen it. Please, if you have, tell me. She’s been coming to your office every week for three months. So there has to be something, right? Some sign. Maybe she has said something or done something? I’ll take anything. Anything at all. But, please, I need something. I need your help.”
Desperation wasn’t a good look for Kyle and Dr. Harris was conflicted. If there was ever a reason to break doctor patient confidentiality, this would have been it. But he couldn’t offer the broken man sitting in his office any comfort. The year’s had brought any number of cases through his door. Addictions, infidelities, mental illness, but never one quite as heart breaking as this one.
“I’m sorry I can’t do that, I’m ethically…”
The sigh from Kyle was so long and came from such depth that it was as if his soul was trying to escape his body.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t share those things with you…. and even if I could, I wouldn’t be able to give you what you are asking for.”
Kyle knew what the doctor was trying to tell him without telling him and he tried to hold back the tears and his frustration and after a flash of failure, that is exactly what he did.
“Yeah, OK, Doc. Thanks. I guess I’ll just have to be patient. So, we’ll see you next week.”
***
The facade came crumbling down after their last session. Dana was late coming home from work almost every night, stopping for drinks with her “co-workers” on a daily basis. Kyle rarely knew where she was or who she was with. It had been two weeks of more hurtful comments and general disdain that reared its ugly head one more time on that Friday night.
“I’m drunk. Come pick me up. I’m at the Station.”
The Station was a college bar. The favorite hangout of the frat boy’s spending daddy’s money. Kyle had taken a cab downtown and was standing next to Dana’s minivan when he spotted her coming out of the bar, hanging on the arm of some playboy wanna be.
They stopped about twenty feet from Kyle and Dana handed the boy a piece of paper.
“Call me.”
“You bet, baby.”
The show was meant for Kyle, and he knew it, and it hurt. They drove in relative silence back to their home. Dana was drunkenly giggling in the passenger seat while Kyle just stared at the road and the darkness that was in front of him. A darkness that was surrounding him in every possible way.
***
Manny was surprised to see Kyle, and even more surprised to see him grabbing his sparing gear out of his locker and changing quietly on one of the benches. But he couldn’t stop and talk. There was a new group of bad boys that wanted a daily pass waiting for him at the counter.