The Pendant

A short story about a husbands sacrificial love.

James Willis had been married to his beautiful wife Alice, for an astounding forty-two years. Their two children, Ben and Brian, now grown with children of their own.

Since Ben and Brian moved out of their two-story home on Long Island, things began to slowly deteriorate for Alice. She spent nights without uttering a word to him while the television blared Wheel of Fortune, captivating her in a deep state of thought. Without as much as flickering eye contact, she could feel him watching her and cursed him for it.

I love you’s never said. The space between them in bed never filled. Perhaps it was due to not having the kids around, the empty house was getting to her and her resentment for him was growing. Not having the pressure and responsibility of raising kids left their souls a groaning empty stomach; with no food in the pantry, no money in their wallets.

Empty

The stiffening coolness cast shadows, squeezing the life from the love they once knew.

“Alice?”

Silence.                                     

“Alice honey?”

“Yes?” she answered with mild annoyance without looking.

James sighed at the implication and bowed his head. His lips in a frown. “What’s going on? Since Ben and Brian left you’ve been distant. I know you miss them. I miss them too. But you need to talk to me, this isn’t healthy.” He looked longingly at her hoping for a response, ruffling the sleeve of his plaid pajama shirt nervously.

Silence

His shirt-ruffling now becoming more vigorous, the button had worked out of the hole leaving the tail-ends hanging like the conversation, he opened his mouth to speak again.

“Alice…” She cut him off with a shout.

“What James?” this time she locked onto his eyes with a flaring irritation.

He opened his mouth to speak again but thought better of it. Maybe in the morning, she would be more willing to talk. He huffed an exasperated sigh and pushed himself up out of the chair, her gaze once again settling back on the television to Pat Sajak taking the ½ car from a contestant. Oddly enough, James too felt like he just had the ½ car taken away from him. The soft plush carpet under his feet they had installed last year was warm but offered no comfort.

Retreating, he mounted the stairs calling it a night. Not that he would get much sleep with the elephant blocking up most of the room, but he had to try. The worst part of it all was not knowing. Not being able to help or console her. His stomach growled loudly in complaint but he was too tired to care. Slipping out of his pajama pants and button up pajama shirt with one cuff unhasped, he laid them on the dresser. Ordinarily, he would have done up all the buttons before he folded them, but tonight he had let them fall in a crumpled pile. It was hours later before he drifted. Still no sign of Alice, only the tv singing the theme song of “Three’s Company.”

In the morning, rolling over to look at his sleeping wife laying beside him, he attempted to come up with solutions...wishing there were something he could do to right the wrongs between them. Despite the recent arguing and ill feelings they sometimes feel for one another-as all married couples do from time to time-he loved his wife very much, hoping she still loved him as well. He placed a hand on her shoulder and softly shook her.

“Alice honey, are you going to church with me?” Once again she never responded.

A flint of disappointment washed over him, but receded a little in remembering she had a late night. Looking at her tangled hair, matted on the pillow from a restless night, he wanted to hold her in his arms more than anything. He was desperate for answers and would pray for them at church. Reverend Hapscomb was a close friend of his so perhaps he could ask for advice after the service. James often asked for advice from Rev. Hapscomb. Everything from a color of paint for the bathroom, to marriage advice. His advice was sound but fair. He didn’t bullshit just because he didn’t want to hurt you. His motto was “if you're brave enough to ask, you’re brave enough to take it.”

James whispered I love you and slowly rolled out of bed to shower and slip into his church clothes. Before leaving, he stuck his head in the bedroom saying I love you again, but she still didn’t reply.

               # # # # #                        

When James got home an hour or so afterward the house was quiet, which had been odd she wasn’t awake by now.

Checking the bedroom, he found she wasn’t there. The bedsheets in shambles, half hanging on the floor like a soldier in war hanging face down in a trench. Her toothbrush in the bathroom had been used, with the cap left off the toothpaste, quickly developing into a crust at the opening. He normally hated when she done that, and then suddenly realized it wasn’t all that bad in light of things, but snapped it shut just the same and started for the stairs. The living room was left untouched and silent except for the ticking of the clock, adding an odd sense of loneliness. Entering the kitchen he found a note left on the counter. A beam of sunlight, zeroed in directly onto the note, lighting it up like a beacon, making it warm to the touch. Picking it up with a shaking hand, he hesitated a moment before looking at the words. A sickening feeling, forming in his now desolate stomach.

“James, when you get home I won’t be here. I’m leaving town and won’t be returning. I feel like I don’t love you anymore. Something has changed with us...me...and has for some time. Please, don’t come looking for me, there’s nothing you can do to change my mind. I’ve done a lot of thinking about this, my mind is made up. I’m sorry.”

James laid the note down on the counter with his wrinkled fingers still touching it and tears began filling his eyes, doubling his vision. The feeling of a hard knot where his stomach was suppose to be, had been like he swallowed a baseball. He didn’t know what to do. For the past forty-five years since he’d known her-even before they were married-she had been his rock. His soul purpose in life and the very ground that he walked upon. Now she was gone.

Alice had been diagnosed with cancer last year, and had decided against going through with chemotherapy treatments. After watching helplessly a friend of hers nose-diving into debilitating sickness, she swore up and down, it would never be her. She wasn’t going to lay in a hospital bed as her hair fell out and weight dropped off her bones in an eerily swift fashion.

Could he have done something different?

He knew he couldn’t.

You can’t help somebody that won’t let you in.

Should he have stayed home and tried talking to her about what was on her mind?

You can’t help somebody that won’t let you in.

The results were all the same. His mind was playing guilt trips, somehow relaying the blame to himself even though there was nothing he could do. She had to deal with this in her own time. Time she didn’t have.

James had been burdened with guilt that it was somehow his fault.

Slowly walking over to the chest in the hallway, barely able to see from the tears filling his eyes and soaking his cheeks. James knelt and opened the small chest holding a gift he had purchased for Alice’s upcoming birthday. A mother of pearl with turquoise teardrop necklace. The same type her mother had given her, that had been lost in a fire some years ago, and had been agonizingly difficult to come by. But he had found one and had wanted to give it to her at just the right moment. Now the moment may never come...it wouldn’t come…

Smiling at the pendant in his hand, realizing just how true those words were, he broke down in heaving sobs that hiccuped his breath. He knew that it wouldn’t be long, before he would get word of his wife’s passing. News he wouldn’t be able to handle, knowing he wasn’t there for her. So he was going to be there waiting for her when she got to heaven.

Climbing the stairs one final time, he took the bottle of heart medication from the bathroom cabinet and watched the tiny white pills ticking noisily off the ceramic, before disappearing down the drain. He wouldn’t be needing them anymore. Not where he was going. Then he took a handful of his sleeping pills, with a glass of water that had been laid on the sink, lukewarm from sitting too long, and swallowed them all at once.

James hoped Jesus could find forgiveness in his actions. Hoping he would understand it was all for the love of his wife. Vows that were made on their wedding day he was determined to keep.

In sickness and in health, till death do us part.

So death it was. If he couldn’t be with her in life, he would be with her in death. Waiting for her in heaven, and greeting her with open arms when she arrived. James didn’t think of it as a selfish act. He merely wanted to go home and make sure the place was ready for when she arrived. Not knowing what was going through her mind right now was irrelevant. He only knew that in her heart she loved him and always will. Whatever it was, blocking her willingness to let him help her, neither James nor Jesus could fix that. Only Alice.

Retreating to the bedroom, he laid with the casualty hanging face down in the trench-the side she had always slept on-with the pendant still clasped in his hand, he waited for the lord to take him home. He would explain then, why he did what he did.                                

He kissed the small heart feeling the cool turquoise on his dry lips and whispered I love you. The ticking of the clock reverberating into an echoey reminder of his passage of time coming to a misty end.

Waiting for the darkness to take over, a bright white light started to fill the center of his vision, radiating outwards growing in size. Filling with vivid pictures of Alice during their vacation to Hawaii last spring.  When she had hurled a handful of poached eggs at him in anger for something silly that quickly vanished, and, when they fell to the floor laughing on the morning of their first year anniversary, about how James stuttered at their wedding reading out his vows. Her reddened, tear filled face during the day of their children's birth when the doctor placed them in her arms, that seamlessly transitioned to their proud graduation day following a flipbook style of visions, of them growing up through the years. The memories were warm and lonely. It’s funny how happy memories can feel so sad, and it brought forth fresh tears which rolled down over his cheekbones, soaking into the white pillow sham.

Sleep slowly closed in, pinching off the movies of his life, creating the black box that enveloped his mind, and tugged greedingly at his soul. It was more peaceful than he thought. Never had he felt so warm and calm.  Just before the darkness claimed him completely he smiled, and prayed he made the right choice. At his last moments, his breathing weakened to a stop, and his fingers relaxed to the pendant slipping from them and clanked on the floor with an unexpected grace. But there was nothing he could do about that now. They would find it…and the poem. They will give it to her…

Darkness.

# # # # # # #

They wrapped our love in soft red silk

Made from the stuff of my heart.

So when you left I couldn’t deal

It tore my life apart.

But I’ll wait for you when you come up

Keep it warm for my bride.

And the light will be on over the door

When St. Peter lets you inside.

Author's Note

I have edited this only myself a few times now, so forgive the grammar error. But feel free to point them out so I can make adjustments.
This is the first short story I have written, and I enjoyed the process. Many more to come in the future.