Women have done this before. They simply packed their bag and left. Started their life from zero. Without their better halves, if they can be called this way.
She stood on the edge of the couch, biting her nails and thinking about making a run for it. Taking only a few things and going somewhere new, far away, so that he could not find her. She had no other choice to escape his grip, which had begun to turn her into a lifeless creature.
Dana had met Davy twenty years ago when they were just teenagers. At first, it was just puppy love but, with the passing of time, they became a couple. They went to college, finished their studies and moved in together. Soon, they were married and everyone envied their life.
While she was working as a lawyer, representing the rights of wealthy entrepreneurs, he had chosen to be an architect, designing high-rise buildings for absurd sums of money. They both earned well, vacationing in exotic locations and throwing classy parties when they were at home. From the outside, it did seem like they were living the dream.
Their relationship was not ruined in a day. It eroded over time, very much like a rock that is constantly touched by the waves of the sea. Trapped in a life none of them wanted or even enjoyed, they ended up hating each other.
Looking back to everything that happened in their relationship, Dana realized she had been living in the middle of a cliché and not actual life. She had everything others would have wanted, but not was she needed. It was an existence that almost left her breathless, and she had a hard time seeing a way to make things better.
For the longest time, Dana had pushed the desire to have a baby to the back of her mind. As the smart woman that she was, she knew it was almost impossible to have both. It was either the career or the baby. She kept coming back to a quote she once read: “women were expected to raise babies as if they didn’t have to work, and to work as if they didn’t have babies to raise.”
Women simply had to choose, they could not have both. Men, on the other hand, had all the freedom in the world to be fathers and pursue the career they desired. It was something they took as granted and Dana doubted there were many men who contemplated the duality of parenthood. Their wives, on the other hand, probably spent a lot of time thinking about the choice they had made.
If you choose the career, they called you obsessed and said you lacked the maternal instinct. By opting to be a stay-at-home mom, you were considered to have chosen the easier path, leaving your husband – the poor guy – to do all the hard work.
For those less fortunate, who wanted a career and children, the judgment came from both sides. Look at her, she works until night comes, and her poor children have to suffer because of her incessant desire to get a promotion. They miss their mother. I heard she refused to take on another project because she wanted to spend more time with her kids. How will that woman get the promotion she wants, if she is the first to leave the office? It was the worst of both worlds.
Dana did not know the exact moment she had chosen the career, entering the category of career-obsessed women who men feared so much, though not willingly. It simply happened. She liked being a lawyer and worked hard to become a partner in her firm.
Some of her colleagues joked that she was the man in her marriage but she had never told Davy about those hurtful remarks. His pride would have been wounded, leading to a new argument between them. If she could prevent a fight from happening, she would do anything. She simply could not bear another tension-filled afternoon, with him storming out when he felt like he could not control her.
She had always wanted children but, somehow, she was afraid to recognize it. When asked, Dana responded that nothing beat the thrill law gave her. Deep down, she envied her colleagues who had children, sharing stories about them and exchanging parenting advice. She felt left out and preferred to retreat to her office, saying she had to work. Moms were not kind to childless women, she noticed. In fact, they were quite mean – if you did not have children, your opinion did not matter.
Every time she passed by a store that sold baby clothes, she could not help going in. She found the shop assistants, who were often female, to be irritating. They always asked the same thing – “are you expecting?” Why did they jump to conclusions? She felt forced to answer as if she was graded – “no”.
The moment she uttered that word, they offered her a polite smile and went on to approach other customers. She was relieved to be left on her own, as she could finally go to the section for girls and look around. Tiny socks, blouses with funny prints, dresses in the cutest designs – everything drew her attention, she would have wanted to purchase the entire store. But there was no baby to wear all of those beautiful clothes.
At home, under the box spring bed which had cost a fortune, she had a yellow box in which she held the baby clothes purchased from various stores. Davy did not know about its existence.
When she was alone, she listened to soft music and drank expensive wine from his private collection. She went to the bedroom and took the box from under the bed, looking at the tiny clothes that waited patiently to be worn. Her favorite was a pink dress, which she had bought from a cute little boutique, during a business trip to France. It had ruffles and tiny roses on the hem, and it came with a matching headband that had golden dots. Tears filled her eyes as she stroked the delicate fabric of the dress, while Blake Shelton sang in the background: “Who are you when no one is looking?” Who was she? She was not certain.
It was hard for her to determine how Davy actually felt on the subject of having children. He wasn’t exactly the kind of man to open up and tell you everything that was in his heart. In their marriage, Dana had often been forced to act like a detective – picking up clues on his behavior, offering subtle hints to elicit a response and creating different scenarios to see how he would react.
Being his wife took a lot of effort, and she could never feel like she could let her guard down. She had to try and find out how he felt, otherwise this not knowing would have driven her crazy. Confronting him face-to-face was out of the question, as he would all of a sudden become defensive and find a way to place all the blame on her.
When they had a fight, whether it was about who had left the light on or something more serious, such as starting a family, he would turn into a crusader. She was the enemy, just a bug to be crushed or a woman who needed to understand that he was the boss.
Dana was not the kind of woman to be immediately brought into submission; she resisted her husband for as long as she could, as she too wanted to win the fight. What they both miserably failed to understand was that relationships should never be about winning.
She had become very critical of him over the years, finding any reason to highlight how dissatisfied she was. Davy, in response, said she believed herself to be Miss Perfect – no man could have met the high standards she imposed.
Each fight would begin in the same manner – she would criticize him for something he had not done right, and he would implode. Immediately, he would come up with excuses to save himself, and, upon hearing him pleading his case, Dana thought he was the lawyer and not her. But Davy had always been very convincing with his clients, and he did not hesitate to use his power of persuasion on his wife.
Armed with contempt and disregarding her feelings all the way, he did what he knew best: made her doubt herself. Dana dated the power Davy had over her. She was a successful attorney, who was well-liked in the community. From time to time, she volunteered at an NGO, helping children from poor families. And, yet, when she fought with her husband, she felt tiny, insignificant. Like a little girl, who was put down by her father. The fight would always end with Dana crying and retreating to the bedroom, while he shouted that she was crazy and it would be best if she underwent a psychiatric examination.
She had her moments of victory as well. In all of those years, she had learned to say things that she knew for a fact they would hurt him. She called these ice picks and, upon releasing them from her mouth, she imagined that they pierced his heart, leaving him to suffer in pain. For a lawyer, she had quite a rich imagination.
As he did not realize how much he was hurting her, she wanted to attack his self-esteem and pay him back. Revenge tasted sweet and it had an addictive effect on her. She wanted more, enjoying the dejected look on his face. What a difference it would have made, had she realized that she was part of the problem.
Carefully considering her every move, Dana began to make fun of Davy in front of his friends. Her favorite thing was to tell everyone how he struggled to use a computer, preferring to draw the plans for any new project by hand. She used a sarcastic, condescending tone, calling her husband outdated. No one draws on paper, she said, except perhaps for old grannies.
At home, she would pay the price for making such remarks. His face would become lobster red, as he furiously tried to tell her she had no right to say the things she said. She would try to appear all relaxed and even detached, but her heart galloped miles per minute.
Fighting evoked something primal in her – as the cortisol rushed throughout her body, she wanted for things to escalate. She could not bring herself to acknowledge that fighting with him gave her a thrill. If she won the argument, that was only the cherry on top of a delicious sundae.
Repeated frequently, such remarks served their purpose. The foundation on which his self-confidence was built had been affected, and he now doubted everything he said or did. Davy was well aware of the damage his wife had caused and he hated her for it. But he did not intend to show her how successful she had been in her endeavors. Instead, he would make her suffer, concentrating on each of her weaknesses and exploiting them to the max.
It was easy for him to take her anxiety and turn it into an advantage. He drilled certain notions into her brain as she would never manage to live on her own or how no other man would want to be with such a crazy woman. A skilled manipulator, he made her doubt herself, very much as she had done to him. They had become experts in hurting each other, drowning in the toxicity of their relationship.
Each moment spent together presented an opportunity for establishing domination. They had forgotten to have fun – even when they threw a party or went on a holiday, they preferred to stay away from each other.
Keeping appearances, though, was hard. They had to maintain the image of the perfect couple, as they both thrived from being envied by others. People would come into their home, admiring their impeccable taste in design. Her friends were jealous of her clothes, jewelry and other material possessions she did not even bother to consider. Davy was also a subject of gossip among his friends, not only because he was rich, but also on the grounds he had a gorgeous wife.
He no longer saw her as beautiful and he was quite angry when other men looked at her, the way he used to look at other women passing on the street. His anger did not come from being jealous – he simply could not understand what his friends saw in her. All those years of fighting had caused him to see her in a different light. It was a fine filter of hatred but it had changed everything.
In the beginning, when they still loved each other, they talked about having a baby. It started as a thought, then materialized into a project – unfortunately, one that was permanently put on hold. There was one more case to solve, one more building to design, one more holiday to go on. Years passed and the subject of starting a family became taboo; every time she tried to bring it up, he shut her down.
When they met friends who had children, he looked bored, as if he could not wait to leave. Dana, on the other hand, played with the kids, having the time of her life. He would throw her angry looks, gesturing her that it was time to go. She pretended not to see him and kept having fun. Deep down, she dreaded the conversation or rather the fight they would have at home.
At one point, she not could no longer deny the desire for a baby. Her arguments were solid – she had become a partner at work, so there was finally time to care for a child.
Why did he hesitate? Despite all of his faults, he was the one who realized a baby would not solve their problems. In fact, it would only make things worse. People who were in toxic relationships had babies all the time, thinking it was a magical solution for all of their problems to go away. They were wrong and the only one to suffer was the child, who had to grow up in a dysfunctional family.
Davy knew best, as he was the product of such a relationship. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why his marriage had failed to work. He had grown to see his parents fighting all the time, with him being used as a pawn, as both mom and dad tried to get the little boy to be on their side.
Even though he believed Dana would be a good mother, he no longer wanted to share such a responsibility with her. And, as they were always fighting, he did not know how to communicate with her anymore. To be honest, to actually tell her how he felt. Deep down, he still cared about her, and he knew that refusing her desire to be a mother would be too hard a blow to handle.
He remembered how his parents used to fight about everything, and especially blame one another for having had him and his sister. What was the use of bringing a child into the world, if you ended up resenting him or her? Davy spent many hours thinking about such issues, and also tried to find a way to divorce Dana and not lose all of his wealth as a result.
One day, she came home from work and asked Davy to sit down on the couch. She wanted to talk. He looked at her, hardly recognizing the woman he had fallen in love with. Dana was now a stranger to him, and he found it difficult to spend even one minute with her. He swallowed hard and waited for her to speak.
She had been to the doctor, for a fertility consultation. His heart beat fast, as he could not believe that she would do something like that behind his back. If he was man enough, he would have taught her a lesson. But, for the last weeks, he felt like he did not know who he was. He battled low self-esteem and was angry to see her so in control, and sure of herself.
On the way home, Dana had prepared an entire speech, on how the doctor had told her that her ovarian reserve was low and the window to motherhood was slowly closing. She had to try soon otherwise she might not have a chance to get pregnant. If a pregnancy was not obtained in six months, the specialist would advise for IVF to be pursued.
When she saw Davy and asked him to talk, she forgot half of the things she wanted to say. Her hands were shaking but she tried to remain composed, fearing that he will not agree with her actions. She saw how angry he was, and feared the worst. But he remained calm and asked for more information. Perhaps there was a chance for them.
While Dana continued to explain what the doctor had told her, Davy sat absent-mindedly on the couch and thought about a way out. He felt miserable, as he did not have enough courage to get up and run. Run from a life he hated, from a wife he no longer loved. Start new, just him and his work. Maybe in another city, where he could go anywhere, without constantly being reminded of her.
He was a coward. Dana was proposing to try and have a baby, and he did not say no. He agreed they should give it a chance. The outside Davy fought the man on the inside, who felt like he was drowning. If she were to have a baby, things would become so much more complicated. He would have to wait before getting a divorce, and he will always be the bad guy. The one who left the mother, and the child. The one to pay alimony and visit only when allowed. He saw his entire future ahead and hated himself for not speaking up, for not being honest.
Dana was prepared for him to say no, and finally tell her how he felt suffocated in that marriage. She did want a baby and the doctor had recommended her to conceive soon, but she was more and more convinced that it was necessary to get out of her dead marriage first. The last thing she expected was for him to agree to her proposal. She needed to carefully consider her next steps.
Soon after their talk, he heard him getting dressed and leaving. She did not attempt to stop Davy, as she needed time to think as well. Her plan had been to provoke her husband and force him be the one who asked for separation or divorce. She had already talked to a colleague of her, presenting her situation and discussing a potential representation. Now, everything was upside down. What would happen if she actually got pregnant? Would Davy want to stay together just for the sake of the child?
So many questions rushed through her mind. She paced back and forth, in the overlarge living room, trying to calm herself and put her thoughts in order. Motherhood had been her greatest desire but it came crashing against a marriage that contained only emptiness. She was prepared for Davy to be her ex-husband but not the father of her child. It was baffling that he would consent to have a baby. Perhaps she did not know him that well altogether.
As soon as they finished their discussion and Dana went to change her clothes, Davy had rushed to the door and left. He needed to be away from her, and think. Looking back to the time when they were first married, and so in love, the decision to have a baby would have been great news. Now, it was like a blow to the head, close to leaving him unconscious. Did she really want a baby with him? Or was it just a tactic to scare him into acknowledging the death of their marriage first? He did not know. Her wife, once the love of his life, had become a mystery – and he lacked both the patience and the desire to solve it.
For the next days, they were civilized to each other. They even attempted to make small talk, and a few jokes on the upcoming parenthood. Soon, they went back to the tension-filled atmosphere they had become so used to, placing the blame on each other for not getting pregnant. With each negative test, they became angrier, having fights the entire neighborhood could hear. It was no longer possible to maintain the image of the perfect couple, and they did not want for that to happen.
At parties, they flirted with others and made cruel jokes about each other. They fought in public, and often left in separate cars. While Dana went home to cry, he drove around, until it was two o’clock and it was safe to go back to the house. He did not want to fight in the middle of the night - he preferred arguing during the day when he felt more confident of himself. Whenever he was tempted to go home, he remembered an article that said people are more vulnerable at night. The quiet, along with the darkness, can lead to their biggest fears coming out.
Sometimes, he would stand outside the house, in his car, and listen to music. Davy loved music just as much as Dana, but, in the midst of all that fighting, they had forgotten how many things they had in common. It was easier to forget than think about the passions that might have brought them together. When he would finally muster the courage to get inside, he preferred to sleep on the couch. The TV would remain open until morning, as it gave him a vague sensation of comfort. Even since he was little, he had used it to feel better, especially when his parents kept arguing.
He felt relieved that Dana did not become pregnant – with each test that failed to show those two blue lines, he breathed more easily. Perhaps infertility was the solution to his problem. Nonetheless, she never seemed to want to give up, and, when the six months were close to passing, she began to approach him about IVF.
If he had dreaded the discussion about pregnancy in the first place, thinking about in-vitro fertilization caused him to become sick. He was overcome by nausea at the thought that there would be no way out, and that Dana would trap him in that marriage forever. And what would happen if she would have twins or, worse, triplets? There would be more children that would suffer from their failed marriage, more complications to overcome.
During those six months, Dana had considered telling him the truth and finally asking for a divorce. But she could not escape the feeling that he did not deserve to be let down so easily. In the late hours of the night, when he did not come home, she thought about her future. And Davy was not a part of it.
She was furious that she could not get pregnant, and prayed for even one test to show her what she wanted to see. The trash can in the bathroom was filled with negative tests, and she could not believe how angry infertility made her feel. She had delayed having a baby, choosing the career, and ended up dissatisfied with her life.
In the corner of her mind, she always kept a positive attitude, considering she will be fertile when she would want to start a family. It was hard now to acknowledge that IVF might be her only possibility, and even harder to convince Davy to go through with it.
Her plan was to get pregnant and then ask him to finally end the charade they were both involved in, getting a divorce before anyone suffered unnecessarily. She did want his genes, she thought selfishly, because he was a strong man, with excellent features. He was smart, a good problem solver and she knew his health and family history. Even though she hated him, having a baby with him was infinitely better than resorting to an anonymous donor. In her opinion, it was the sacrifice she needed to make, to become a mother.
She took him by surprise, approaching the subject of IVF at a cocktail party they attended at her law firm. It might have seemed that she approached the subject casually, but she had planned her every move. He would not have the courage to cause a scene there, especially since he was good friends with her boss. It was her territory, and she had a better chance of convincing him that it was worth pursuing IVF when he had had a few drinks.
Throughout their marriage, there had been few times when Dana had the courage to pull a stunt like the one she pulled that night. Davy was enraged when she backed him into a corner and started to speak about fertilization. He tried to say it was not the place for such a discussion, but she did not seem to hear him. A conversation with her doctor had already taken place, and they had to go to the practice on Monday, to discuss the steps to be taken.
Once again, she had gone through with a decision, without actually involving him. More often than not, he was let in, after everything was decided. She talked smoothly, with such discussions bringing out the lawyer in her. The six months had passed without a baby in sight, so there was no reason to delay the procedure. Knowing very well that he hated the idea, she asked him if he thought there would be a reason not to go through with it. Davy did not suddenly graduate from a coward to someone who had the courage to speak his mind, so he said no. They would try IVF, said he, giving her the answer she wanted. At that point, he would have said anything, only to escape her.
For the rest of the party, they each talked to different people and found various reasons to stay away from each other. They drank copious amounts of expensive liquor, laughed at poorly-made jokes and even took part in the boring games everyone found interesting once drunk. A taxi took them home late at night, where they both passed out.
Dana’s head throbbed as she woke up the next morning, feeling like even the slightest sound was too powerful. She noticed that Davy was already dressed, waiting for her. The doctor’s appointment was in less than an hour. She got dressed fast and had a black coffee, which revived her spirits. It was the first day of the rest of her life, and she hoped IVF would give her the baby she had wanted in so long.
While his wife was getting dressed, Davy searched for IVF failures on his phone. He needed to know what the chance of failure was and wanted proof. How did he reach that point in his life, in a loveless marriage, trying to have a baby with a woman he could no longer stand? Life was funny that way. He might have succeeded in becoming the architect he dreamed, but, on a personal level, he was a complete disaster.
He came back to a memory that haunted him, with his dad hitting his mom until she was left in a pool of blood. They were arguing and, when his dad felt like she was out of line, he would become physically aggressive. Davy had witnessed the scene from the top of the stairs, and he was the one who called a neighbor. She asked the woman to call the police and say there was a domestic disturbance in the house next door. The little boy was afraid to make the call himself, as he was scared his dad might hurt him as well.
That night, he had slept very little, wondering how his mother felt. She was taken to the hospital and his dad to the police. He remained with the old lady who did indeed make the call he wanted. It was a defining moment in his life, as his parents finally decided to end a marriage that hadn’t been alive in decades. They divorced, and he saw his father very little for the next years.
When he met Dana and started to consider marriage, he promised to himself he will never hit her. And he stayed true to his promise. But he could not refrain from becoming verbally abusive, which was just as worse. After every fight, he would swear that would be the last time he would talk to her in that manner. He would find excuses, saying that she had provoked him – why could she not be like other wives, accepting her husband as he was? Why did she always want more, why wasn’t she satisfied with him?
In time, the verbal abuse only aggravated, and he no longer sought excuses for his behavior. They started a fight and he could feel the pressure building, resorting to name-calling to feel better. It was a feeble attempt to maintain control, as he was far from successive. Dana was good in a fight, and it took a lot of time to bring her in a submissive position. As an abuser, he enjoyed seeing her suffer and never thought that their marriage was slowly sinking.
In abusive relationships, Dana had read, the victim might often turn into an aggressor herself. It was exactly what had happened to her. She counteracted Davy’s verbal aggression with the same behavior, using her experience as a lawyer to gain an advantage. If someone were to look at them from the outside, they would have seen two people biting at each other. Both Davy and Dana were unwilling to accept how they felt, and, more importantly, they did not want to let their partner in on how they felt.
She began to withhold information, as she took delight in seeing him unpleasantly surprised. When he confronted her, she simply raised her shoulders and pretended to be surprised herself. If he pursued the matter further, she would become argumentative, trying to convince him that he had been wrong in the first place. He dismissed her feelings as well, going back to her mental health. The moment he called her “crazy”, she exploded – she immediately began to excuse herself, saying that he should not mistake her anxiety for insanity.
In order to gain an argument, Davy had become to exploit Dana’s greatest weakness – her sensitive soul. It was a paradox for him how their marriage evolved; he once loved how sensitive she was, it was one of her most attractive features. Now, after so many fights and terrible things that had happened between the two of them, he became used to telling her she was too sensitive.
He went on and on, saying that she could not tell a good joke from a bad one, or that she tended to exaggerate in every given situation. It was important for her to be denied how she felt, and to convince her that his reality was actually how things were. Once again, he was telling her that her feelings did not matter, and anything that interested her was not of importance.
The years of being in an unhappy marriage led to him disguising verbal abuse in the form of jokes. He would say something to upset her, then watch intently for her reaction. Upon noticing the desired effect, he would say that he was just joking and she had no reason to overreact. In time, making jokes that hurt had become just another way to keep himself entertained.
Even though she did not accept that she had become an abuser herself, Dana had gotten used to accusing Davy of everything. She blamed her husband for things that he could not control and constantly found reasons to pick a fight. When he failed to obtain the promotion he had worked so hard for, she had the perfect opportunity to attack him.
When the IVF failed as well, the atmosphere in the house became unbearable. They were two people who no longer had any reason to be together, and yet none of them were brave enough to say those words out loud. Dana was more judgmental than ever, while her husband explored every inch of the abusive criticism universe. “You” sentences were thrown around until they both got tired and went to bed.
The failure to get pregnant through in-vitro fertilization had brought Dana on the verge of despair. One afternoon, when they had just finished a fight that left them exhausted, she threatened she would leave him. It was the first time when those words were said, and it felt so good to get them out. Once again, she was trying to provoke Davy, as she knew that he would never agree to her terms.
He finally gave in. They needed to accept reality and get divorced. He simply could not go on, not even for a minute. While she was surprised to hear Davy own up to what was happening, she also smiled – it was the first time in long, but she could not help it. She would finally be free, and life suddenly seemed so much more beautiful.
When Davy left the house to cool off, she listened to some old vinyl discs and tried to imagine her future. Even though she did not have a baby in it, it was full of promise. A new beginning, a new part of her life – she did not know what lied ahead but she was excited to find out.
She did not know where he had been, or who he had seen. But Davy came back and said that he had thought about things, and he did not want to divorce. How could he have changed his mind so fast? She asked for an explanation but he refused to give any. It was not worth destroying a marriage, he said as if there really was a marriage to care about.
Was he in denial? She had read about people who had refused to get divorced, as they simply had become used to their life as it was. They could not handle the idea of change, even if it was a good thing. So, they preferred to stay in a relationship that no longer worked, enduring physical and verbal abuse. Did Davy fear the idea of being on his own or having to look for someone new?
While she considered packing her bag and disappearing from his life forever, he came into the room and said he will never leave her. That, no matter how hard she would try, he would be in her life. They were connected through their unhappiness and no one could break their bond.
In the morning, she was gone. Scared of what she might do to her, she had woken up before sunrise. She packed a small bag, taking all of the baby clothes she had collected with the passing of time. On the dresser, Dana left a message for her husband. She was out.
April found her in a new city, starting a new life. She had rented a small apartment, with a view of the lake and decorated it to her taste. Instead of finding a job with a big law firm, she preferred to work as a public defender. She was finally helping those less fortunate, and she felt really good about her decision.
Thanks to the help of her former partners, she had managed to go through a clean divorce. He had repeatedly tried to get in touch with her but she refused. It brought her peace of mind that he did not know her new address or telephone number, and the only contact they had was through their lawyers.
He had talked to her lawyer, asking her about Dana’s whereabouts and mentioning he wanted to send her things. His former wife did not want anything, he was informed. She had left that life behind, and she worked hard to forget the last twenty years. He could donate everything that belonged to her. Or burn them, she did not care.
All of a sudden, Davy was alone in a house that was bigger than he realized. He had opened his eyes that morning, only to see that her side of the bed was empty. At first, he thought that she might have gone out for a run, as this was often part of her morning routine. He then saw the note on the dresser and understood she had really left. Without even realizing, he got what he had wanted. Then why did he feel so awful?
With tears in his eyes, he went to her wardrobe and caressed the soft fabric of her clothes. They smelled of the perfume she had been using since her youth, with delicate hints of lemon and vanilla. He buried his head in her clothes and cried like a baby. All the hate, anger and resentment had melted away, and he missed her like a mad man. He went from one room to the other, bumping into things and falling on the floor. Her absence was supposed to be liberating, yet it crushed him.
It was not easy to erase her life up to that point. Memories from the time spent with Davy kept flooding her brain, keeping her up at night. She got up from her bed and opened the window, taking in the crisp air. At times, she was angry that she could not erase the memory of him altogether. As if he had never existed.
The friends she had met in the city encouraged her to start dating but she felt anything but prepared. Davy had managed to destroy all the faith she had in the male species. After the divorce, she swore she would never allow another man to ever define her. She did not feel the need to be with someone else; in fact, she enjoyed her solitude.
At first, she found the silence of her apartment to be discomforting. Even though she was in a new city, and lived in a home that was just as new, she kept waiting for him to appear. Her brain craved the excitement fighting brought on, and it took a lot of self-education to overcome this desire. Silence is good, fighting is bad, she would mutter to herself as if she was a child who needed to be taught a lesson.
One year passed, bringing a lot of changes for both Dana and Davy. She had given another round of IVF a try, and now she was three months pregnant with twins. When the doctor had given her the news, she forgot the formality of their relationship and jumped to hug him.
Twins! Life suddenly seemed so much more beautiful, even if she was going to be a single mother. It did not matter, as she had prepared for that moment for close to two decades. She did imagine having a partner to share the impending joy of parenthood with, but if there was one thing she learned was that life rarely turned out as you expected or planned.
She did not regret using an anonymous donor, as she had waited enough for Prince Charming. Well past her prime, Dana was no longer interested in a fairytale romance. She had rediscovered her independent spirit and fought to stay that way.
When her anxiety skyrocketed, she felt like she would have liked to be around Davy. Shocked by that desire, she replayed the film of their marriage in her mind. Too little love and empathy, too much fighting and judgment. They had been in a relationship that could have been described in a multitude of ways, but not even once using the word healthy.
For Davy, life had taken the wrong turn. He did not enjoy the freedom the divorce has brought him, and he constantly pined for Dana. The entire house remained as she had left it, and he had not thrown even one single thing away. He often missed work, staying in bed and looking at photographs of her. The man who was once a master manipulator turned into something he could not even find the words to describe – without her, he was nothing.
Days passed, and friends kept calling him but he refused to answer. He forgot to shower, and he grew a beard, starting to look like a homeless person and not the architect who had designed half of the city buildings. It did not take long before he was fired; as his boss had told me, he needed someone who lived in the present, and not in the past.
As he could not cover the mortgage of the house on his own, he decided to sell it and purchase an apartment in the area where they used to live as a young couple. Every day, he went by the building in which they shared their first moments together. It looked the same but how different their lives where. He did not even know where Dana was, or if she was alright.
Her lawyers had kept him at a distance, and any attempt of contact had been downright cast down. She had no interest in seeing him, as she had moved on. Davy had written her letters, using the address of her firm but they came back unopened. He was asked to stop the correspondence otherwise they will be forced to take legal action. Fearing a suit, he backed away, and let them be.
The most difficult thing for him was to acknowledge how much he had hurt the woman he loved. He started going to therapy, learning all about toxic relationships, verbal abuse, and miscommunication within a couple. The therapist taught him that no marriage erodes because only one person is guilty. More often than not, they are both at fault for things not going well.
Davy found in the weekly therapy sessions all of the answers he had been searching for his entire life. He listened to the advice of the therapist, and went through every stage of his marriage – he analyzed his behavior and was shocked to finally see how much damage he had caused. At home, he looked at himself in the mirror and screamed. He had been a fool, wasting all of those years on fighting, instead of loving her as she deserved.
Slowly, things got better. He started to take care of himself, found a new job and got rid of the beard. Even if he was no longer depressed, he kept going to therapy – he needed to heal and get to the root of his issues. It was excruciatingly difficult to talk about his parents but he knew that their relationship had defined his own marriage and, in the end, its failure.
He wasn’t interested in other women, despite the fact that his friends always tried to set him up. Dana remained on his mind, no matter how much he tried to separate himself from her. She was present in everything he did, and he had brought most of her things in the new apartment. He had organized their photographs and spent many nights looking at them.
It was a risky move but Dana decided to return to her former city of residence six months after she had given birth to two beautiful girls. She wanted to see her old friends and get a glimpse of the places she missed so much. The last thing she expected was to bump right into Davy on the street.
In thinking about her, Davy imagined his ex-wife to have changed her appearance. She probably had a new hairstyle, bought different clothes and wore makeup. When he saw her, it was like a breath of fresh air. She looked very much the same, and so, so beautiful. He remained dumbfounded to see the two little girls and kept waiting for a man to appear by her side.
Dana had thought about Davy as well, no matter how much she had tried to deny it. She missed his smile, the way his hair smelled and the way he talked. Now, looking at him, she realized it was impossible for her to ever forget his existence. They were still connected, regardless of the distance that separated them.
He timidly asked her to go to a café and talk for a little bit. Much to his surprise, she agreed. They ordered lattes and looked at each other while waiting for the waiter to come as if they had just met. She felt obliged to tell him the whole story of how she became a mother, and he felt relieved to hear there was no guy in the picture.
Hours passed and none of them seemed intent to leave. She fed her daughters and looked at them with the warmth of a mother, while they slept in their prams. They talked about everything, laughing and having a great time. Davy was spontaneous and charming, and she felt like the past twenty years had not even existed.
When they said goodbye, he had asked to see her again. She refused, as she did not want to complicated matters. As planned, she would stay in town for a couple of days, then return home. Davy did not want to pressure her, but he could not let her slip out of his life again. He pleaded with her to go to his therapist, and talk. Nothing more. She said yes, though he could notice the hesitation in her eyes.
They were back together in less than six months, but their relationship was not like anything it had been before. It might have sounded like a cliché but therapy did really help them. They continued to go once a week, for maintenance, as Davy joked.
Not all stories have a happy ending and it would have been foolish to believe that every marriage lasts forever. But Dana had been willing to take a risk and return to the man who she still loved, hoping he had changed. Their relationship was different because they had both understood that one should not change for another person, but for the benefit that change brings to his or her own self.
If you were to see them walking down the street, you would envy them. You could not know that, once upon a time, things were not that rosy and fighting dominated their existence. Yet, we are often quick to judge, forgetting that everyone has their story, which might not be the fairytale we imagine.
It takes two to make a marriage work, the therapist kept repeating to them. This had become their motto, which they discussed every Thursday, on date night. In the past, they were reluctant to open themselves up, fearing that they might be judged or criticized. Now, they allowed themselves to feel vulnerable and it felt great.
She still kept the yellow box under the bed, but it was no longer filled with baby clothes. It contained small treasures, as she called them: the ticket from the first movie they saw together after reuniting, the letters he had written her while they were apart and the box from the new wedding gift. She kept adding things into it, just as she enriched her life with the moments they spent together.
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