The Death of the Whole

This short story depicts the metaphorical death of an entity; in this case, a marriage. Much like a physical death, these are the final sputtering moments of something that used to be whole.

“And I vow to take you, Abbey Carolyn Stewart, as my wife. The promises I commit to today are not of the nature of what I will do, but rather of what I will not. I will never betray you, I will never abandon you, and I will never harm you. And…I will never love another. Today we become a union, and anything done to you will be done to me. And should we ever part, it will truly only be by death.”

*****

Martin stared at the glass shards on the floor of their apartment as if willing them to put themselves back together. Abbey had just destroyed her own plaque that she received that night for her fundraiser organization. Martin was standing at the kitchen counter fully suited in his tuxedo and the glass in his hand was trembling ever so slightly. Abbey was livid, her previously sophisticated appearance now an unkempt mess.

"No. No. You can't do that, Martin."

Martin’s eyes were blank as the weight of his own previously spoken words settled into his heart.

"Do what? Settle this? Finally just settle it?"

"Don't think for a second that that is what you are doing. Separating is not going to settle anything. This is how things fall apart, Martin. When you start thinking you are a part on your own. Separate. See, this is what most people don't understand. People don't understand that when you're in a marriage, you don't think of yourself as a part anymore, Martin. We are a whole. Like a body. You cannot think of leaving because it is best for you, Martin, without thinking about what is best for the whole. Do you think of cutting off your hand because it hurts one day? No, because obviously you need your hand. Despite it being painful, you know that dismembering your own body is not the way to solve things. You try to save every part of yourself that you can, Martin, because it’s you. It’s all you’ve got.”

By this time, Abbey wasn’t speaking to anyone anymore despite her sniping Martin’s name like an angry dart. She had ended up sitting on the floor, blouse disheveled; a loose button hung only by a thread at the collar. Her palms were wet with the mix of sweat and tears as she fiddled�"quite violently�"at the hem of her skirt. All of a sudden, the view of Martin’s feet became blurry as new tears welled up at her eye rims and her heart decided to race again.

Martin’s hand was frozen on his glass and he could feel it sticking to his fingers from grasping it so tightly. At the moment, his mind was focused on how incredibly tense his body was that his muscles were starting to ache. Otherwise…he didn’t know what to think. The moment was so silent and incredibly stiff that he felt�"no, he knew�"that any one movement could shatter something vital. Literally thin ice. It was only moments later that he registered Abbey’s heavy breathing.

“Abbey calm down.” Martin uttered in a low voice. He needed to calm her or else�"

“Abbey, please.” His eyes finally shifted from his trembling fingers to her face, and it had become pale white. He immediately went over to where she sat and knelt down beside her. Her eyes kept a constant gaze at a spot on the floor, her chest heaving more and more violently.

“Abbey. Abbey, stop. Calm down. You know what happens when you get like this.” Martin slipped his hands into hers, wrenching the torn cloth of her skirt from her fingers. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say. Usually, of course, he knew best how to calm her, but something had taken a strict hold on his heart and he could not get to the words that she needed.

So instead, he just looked away from her, hands still clutched, and said ever so quietly, “Please. I don’t want your life endangered.”

“What, so you can leave me with a clean conscience, Martin? You don’t want me dying on your watch, Martin?” The way her voice escaped�"starting off low and escalating to such a high shrill�"and how her eyes became possessed with a wild anger he had never seen before was quite alarming to Martin. What he didn’t observe was the slightest tinge of blue that was forming around her lips.

There was little time for him to react, for she was on her feet at once, and headed towards the bedroom. Martin followed her and expected her to reach under the bed for the luggage, but instead she went straight into the ensuite. The door slammed so hard, that he heard the doorframe tremble and felt the entire wall vibrate lightly.

Abbey had no idea what had happened to her. She had never felt so out of control by an emotion she could not even name, for she was far beyond anger in that moment. She could not even deny that she held a murderous intent for Martin in that small time frame in which their eyes locked. But it was not even murder she wished upon him…she just wanted to erase him.

She finally looked upon her stained face in the mirror, her makeup blots and exposed blemishes scattered her face like war wounds.

Martin stood in the bedroom outside and he turned his head to find himself in the mirror still in his tuxedo, though his raw face contrasted obscenely with the classy manner in which he meant to present himself.

            As Abbey looked into her own wild eyes, she thought an idea was forming somewhere in her mind, but instead she found her hands tightly grip her hair and suddenly she was stifling a severe scream that was fighting to leave her body. It was then that darkness finally clouded her eyes and her body fell to the cold floor.

Martin started to pace in slight panic, unable to formulate any plans of action or intents of what he wanted to do. Quite frankly, he was both afraid and relieved that this night felt like an eternity, because he had no idea�"not even an inkling of what would happen tomorrow. Just the idea of the sun rising upon them now, scattered and in irreparable shards, seemed an impossibility in his mind.

He looked toward the door. Why is it silent in there? He moved swiftly toward it.

“Abbey, what have you done?  Are you alright?” No answer. If there was anything, anything she was doing in there, he hoped she wasn’t�"

“Abbey!” He knocked on the door loudly. “Abbey, get out of there now. What are you doing?”

Martin wasted no time listening for an answer. He stepped back from the door, removed his coat and uncuffed his wrists, rolling back his sleeves. Martin was very experienced in knowing that waiting never led to a good ending. Had he not waited for those four minutes as a fearful 8-year-old, he may have been able to save his mother who had fallen off a ladder having a convulsive seizure. Because of it, he grew to be instinctive of these things (and of many things really, it was one of the reasons Abbey had fallen in love with him according to her) and in this instant he knew something was wrong.

Abbey, as Martin discovered when he met her, was born with a defective heart. Tricuspid atresia or Blue baby syndrome. Her heart was not constructed as well as one should be and in high stress situations, her body had a dangerous difficulty receiving oxygen.

Martin set his body lower to the ground and prepared to charge. In three quick paces, his body made contact with the door and he barged into their ensuite. His panicked eyes flitted to her unconscious body at once and he frantically crawled to her side.

“Abbey!” he cried, voice breaking. He tried to shake her awake, despite him knowing it would be useless.

The next few moments for Martin will always be fragmented in his memory, split apart by sheer terror and alarm. First, there was the sound of sirens quickly approaching down their lane as he held Abbey in one arm, and tried to dial the emergency number with the other. A knock at the door brought Martin to the small entranceway of their flat and where he was expecting a paramedic, stood instead an officer who reported that he was called about a disturbance. The officer took note of Martin’s alarming appearance and made his way into their home.

Minutes were passing and Martin knew Abbey did not have time. The brain can only last so long without oxygen before severe and irreversible damage was done. But his ears seemed to go deaf and the floor and the walls and the world were tilting sideways, making it frustratingly difficult for Martin to stand straight. Fighting through his sudden cloudiness, Martin managed to reach out and grab the officer’s shoulder. It still wasn’t clear to Martin why the officer was here now, but he needed to get Abbey to the hospital.

The officer, however, had already contextualized Martin as a violent drunkard and interpreted his hand as an attack. Before either of them could even think, Martin found himself flat on his face with his hands behind his back.

“No! No!” he mumbled into his linoleum floor. “Please! Abbey needs to go to the hospital!” He managed to prop himself up on his chin. “She’s been hypoxic for several minutes now. She has a heart condition.”

“Where is she?” The officer prompted.

From his position on the floor, he could see the broken glass strewn all over. He closed his eyes as he responded, “In the bathroom.”

******

Abbey awoke to the sunlight dancing on her eyelids and when she opened them, she did not find herself in her bedroom. Instead, she was staring out a large window whose curtains were being opened by a rather plump woman in uniform. She watched as the woman proceeded to set a tray on her bedside table and adjust a machine at her side.

Abbey knew nothing of her current situation, and the first thought in her mind came out through her lips.

 “Where’s Martin?”

The woman was startled as she realized Abbey was awake, and then pleased that she was, of all things, responsive. But Abbey asked again, “Where’s Martin?” 

She saw the woman’s eyes look to the other side of the bed in response and then she heard, “I’m here.”

Abbey turned over to see Martin in the seat beside her, still in his tuxedo and looking like he had just been in a scuffle outside a pub. The morning light exposed his filthy, roughed up suit and it was in this wasted appearance that she saw his true exhaustion. He was beaten. They were beaten. Defeated by their own fights, their own pain and their own hate. Abbey knew she loved this man, but she also hated him.

And there was no place for hate in a marriage.

“Martin.” She whispered, and she just looked at him for a long time…then nodded.

Martin simply took her hand in response and thought, Should we ever part, it will truly only be by death.

*****

A marriage is a life, Martin, his mother said to him, you become one entity with the one you love, and you function together as a body. Fighting illness at times, but fighting to thrive at most. And with every life, there is a death. Sometimes the death of its parts…and sometimes the death of the whole. And you must be careful, dear Martin, for these things happen slowly at first, then quickly all at once. At eight years old, Martin was confused, but he listened on at his mother’s words. What you want…is to find a long life. That’s what you want.