Fly...

I stood on the back porch, leaning against the old wooden rail. There were a lot of memories here, but a memory could never be enough. I still remember when we first met, and I remember the moment I knew I was in love with her. I remember the moment I proposed, the moment she said “yes”, the moment we said “I do.” I even remember the moment when she said the most painful words I had ever heard in my life… It’s over. I begged and pleaded with her, promised to do whatever I could fix whatever it was that I had done. I cried.

“It’s nothing you’ve done, Taylor,” she said softly. “I just… I can’t do this anymore.” Her bags were packed, and they waited by the door. It was clear that her mind was made up, and all I wanted to do was change it.

“Can’t do what? I love you,” I whispered, taking her hands in mine.

“Don’t do this to yourself,” she said softly. “People fall out of love, Jordan.”

“I don’t believe that. I can’t believe that. When you fall in love, Sarah, you fall in love forever. You don’t just wake-up one day and realize you’re not in love with someone anymore.” I reasoned. “If that’s the way it really is, then everything I’ve grown-up believing was a lie. My whole life was a lie.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’ve spent seven years here with you, and we’ve made memories that are impossible to forget, but… I need more. I need something else. The love of your life is your music, not me,” she finished softly. She reached up and gently touched my cheek with her fingertips.

“You’re wrong,” I pleaded, my voice desperate and threatened by the tears that burned my eyes. “I love you more than anything in this world. If you want me to stop doing music, I’ll stop.”

“I could never do that to you.” She looked out, away from my face, letting her hand fall to her side. “Music was your first love, Jordan. It’s your true love, and you and I both know that. I have to leave. I have to find myself. I’ve spent seven years being your wife, seven years as Mrs. Taylor Hanson. I need to find out who I am… without you.”

“God, you’re… you’re Sarah. You’re a beautiful woman with amazing talents. You have a beautiful heart and soul. You have a remarkable voice that you hide from the world, you’re incredibly smart, you write poetry like no one I’ve ever known, you’re an artist, and you’re…” my voice grew so quiet, “…my wife.”

“I don’t want to be someone’s wife anymore,” she said softly, sadly. “I want to be me, whoever that is. All I’ve ever known is you. I don’t know who I am without you, and I can’t live like that. There has to be more to me than you.”

“I love you,” I said, my voice choked with emotion, my throat so tight I could barely get the words out at all.

“I know you do,” she whispered tenderly. She stood on her tiptoes and gently touched her lips to mine. I never wanted to let go; I never wanted lose the feeling of her. My whole body ached with the thought of waking-up without her beside me in the morning. How could I sleep without her head resting on my shoulder as it had for seven years, her hair across my skin, feeling nothing less than like silk? How could I face a day without knowing she was there to catch me if I fell? She took my arms gently from around her, taking a step back.

“There’s really nothing I can do to make you stay, is there?” I asked softly, lowering my head and staring at the deck. The wind blew gently, stirring our hair, caressing my skin gently like I knew she never would again.

“No,” she answered gently. “I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted that in a million years, but I just… I can’t live my life never knowing who I was, or what I could have been. Please… please understand that.”

“I do,” I said, almost inaudibly. “I don’t want you to go,” I said quietly, lifting my head and looking at her through blinding tears.

“You know I have to…”

“Did you ever really love me?” I asked her quietly. I was so scared she was going to tell me she thought she loved me, and she married me because she didn’t have any other life to live but the one I had offered. I would die if she told me that; she was my heart, and if she never loved me… my whole life, everything I was because of her, none of it would be real, and I would just be another lost soul, looking for someplace to belong, someone to belong to.

“You know I did,” she said tenderly, tears coming to her eyes. “God, Taylor, you know I loved you with all my heart.”

“But it’s passed tense,” I said quietly. “You just aren’t in love with me anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for out there.” I looked off, turning away and leaning on the wooden railing again. I couldn’t watch her go; if I watched her go, I was watching my life walk out the door, my heart in her suitcase, and my entire world in pieces behind her. She gently ran her fingers through my hair, and I closed my eyes, wishing she wouldn’t do that, knowing it would be the last, and wishing she would never stop so she couldn’t leave me.

“When I figure out what I’m looking for, you’ll be the first to know.” She said softly. I felt her hand slip away. She never said goodbye, but I heard the sound of her shoes across the porch, the patio door slide open and close again. I heard the front door close, and the sound of her trunk opening and closing. I listened to the sound of her car as it came to life and pulled out of the driveway. I never looked back – I think I would have died if I saw her drive away, out of my life. I never loved someone so much in my entire life, and the only way I could prove that, was to let her go.

...Somewhere In Between...

The night she left I was completely lost. I hadn’t slept alone in seven years, I was used to the way her body felt nestled against mine; I was used to her warmth. I tossed and turned endlessly, each time I turned over she wasn’t there, and I was met with cool, crisp linen and a pillow that still smelled like her. She left as the sun was coming up, and that whole day I couldn’t eat; I could barely think. I couldn’t believe she was really gone; it wouldn’t sink in. I kept telling myself that she’d come back that night; she’d be back for lunch and when she didn’t I told myself she would be back for dinner. When she didn’t come back, and the night stretched on to early morning hours, I knew she wasn’t coming home. It was almost one in the morning by the time I crawled into our empty bed. Empty. She wasn’t there sleeping already, she wasn’t there waiting for me; she wasn’t half on my pillow, saying it smelled like me or wearing one of my tee-shirts again. She was really gone. That was something I had never prepared myself to deal with, and something I didn’t want to deal with.

I got no sleep that night either. I didn’t call my mother like I did every morning. I didn’t sign on AIM to talk to my brothers. I still couldn’t eat. She had been gone for twenty-four hours and I was falling apart. What happened to being strong? I don’t know if I ever really was strong, and if I was, it wasn’t the kind of strength to get through this. She had barely taken anything. I sat on our bedroom floor with pictures, with her clothes, looking through our wedding album. It was a complete roll reversal of a touching made for TV movie on the Lifetime network - the woman leaving the man. I wasn’t a man at all. When she left, I felt like a lost and lonely little boy, and I didn’t know what to do.

I sat by the living room window all day, there on the couch, and I hardly moved. I didn’t answer the phone, didn’t turn on the TV or the radio, didn’t check my email. I just sat there, staring out at the empty space in the driveway where her car had been. I couldn’t even cry. I guess I must have been in shock. Once it finally hit me, I mean really hit me, it made me sick. I had to run to the bathroom to throw-up. And I didn’t cry, I sobbed. This was just something I had never prepared myself for. I didn’t think it would ever happen to us.

I laid down in our bed, feeling sick and tired, feeling drained. The phone had been ringing all day, and I knew it was my mother. I unplugged the it. Twenty-four hours and I was falling apart. Just a few months ago we were talking about having a baby. We had been married for seven years, and we really needed something to add. We wanted a baby; a child would make it even more perfect than it was. Was I blind? Did I miss something? She was happy; at least I thought she was happy. And then suddenly here I am alone, because she left me, dying inside because I don’t know where it went wrong. Why did she have to find herself? What was there to find? I knew everything about her, or I thought I did. She was an amazing poet – I could sit and read her poetry for hours. She could sing, ironically enough, and had done background vocals for my brothers and me for some songs on some of our albums, but she always remained unaccredited – she didn’t want people to know. She was an unbelievable artist – she could sketch and paint like no one I had ever known. For God’s sake she was Sarah. I thought she loved me, for seven years, I thought she loved me, and then… this.

I didn’t open our mail, just continued to let it pile up. For a week, I did nothing, spoke to no one, I barely had the energy to shower. I couldn’t sleep or eat. I paced at night, or just sat against the wall or in a corner, my eyes red-rimmed from either not sleeping or from sobbing on the bathroom floor, maybe both. I still hadn’t taken any phone calls or checked my email. Nothing seemed worth it now. It was a solid week before I even had the nerve to talk to my mother; I wanted to tell her, but how do you break your mother’s heart by telling her that someone else broke yours? I called her.

“Taylor,” she said, sounding relieved. “For Heaven’s sake, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for a week. Honey, how come you haven’t called?” I wanted to tell her, but the words were stuck and my throat was dry, my tongue felt like sandpaper. “Is Sarah pregnant yet?” I heard the smiling, hopeful tone in her voice and I felt my eyes begin to water.

“No, Sarah’s not pregnant,” I said quietly, my voice sounding somewhat hoarse. She must’ve heard something in my voice or sensed it like she always had.

“Tay, what’s wrong?”

“Sarah’s not here,” I said quietly, sinking down to the floor.

“Well where is she? Did she make a doctor’s appointment and forget to tell you?” That hopeful tone was back in her voice.

“No.”

“Then she probably went shopping, sweetie.”

“No,” I said again.

“Taylor… Then where is she?” She asked.

“She’s gone,” I said quietly.

“Gone? What are you talking – “

“She left me.” Those words made me want to throw-up again. I had everyday for a week. But it had become painful; I had nothing in me to throw-up except for stomach bile.

“What?” Her words were quiet, disbelieving. “Baby, I’m sure you’re overreacting,” she said softly.

“I wish I was, Mom,” I said, feeling the emotions swelling inside me. I could hear the sound in my own voice – I was going to cry. “She left a week ago.”

“Oh Taylor…” I could tell she was sorry for me. She hated it when any of her kids were hurting. “Baby, why?” She asked me softly. I could tell she had never seen this coming; she had been as blind to it as I was.

“I don’t know,” I said quietly, my hand over my eyes. “She said she had to find out who she was without me. She said people fall out of love, Mom…”

“Taylor…” For once, my mother didn’t know how to comfort me. “Do you need anything?”

“I need her back,” I cried softly. I knew that hearing me like that couldn’t have been easy for my mother, but what could I do? She was the first person I talked to in seven days, the first person I had confided in that my wife left me. “Why is she doing this to me?”

“Baby…”

“I don’t understand,” I cried quietly. I was going to be sick again, I could feel it creeping up the back of my throat. “I have to go,” I said quickly.

“Taylor wait – “

“I have to go, Mom.”

“I love you,” she said softly.

“I love you, too,” I replied, holding the phone close to my ear for a moment, but the nausea wouldn’t back off. “I’m sorry; I have to go…” I didn’t wait for her to say anything else; I hung up, and barely made it to the bathroom. I couldn’t keep going like this; I felt like I was dying.

Part of me knew that she would come to see me; I’m her child, and when bad things happen she needs to make sure we’re ok. Truth of the matter was that I wasn’t ok; I was so far from ok it was a joke. I was lying on the bed, barely able to move, in a pair of jeans and a black tee-shirt. I felt like hell and I knew I looked just as bad. I knew I’d lost weight in the passed week; it usually happens when you don’t eat and you throw-up constantly – but it wasn’t a voluntary thing. I wasn’t sure if I was starting to actually doze, or if I was on the verge of passing out, but my head was swimming. I think I had a fever. I don’t know how long I lay there, drifting in and out of semi-consciousness, but at some point my mother showed up.

“Taylor?” I felt her cool hands pushing my hair back gently, touching my face. “Baby, I’m so sorry,” she said softly. I wanted to cry; my mother always made things better, from childhood right into my adult life, but she couldn’t fix this. No, she couldn’t fix this, I couldn’t even fix this.

“Mom…” My voice was slightly hoarse, maybe from sobbing or maybe from not talking to anyone, maybe from both. She helped me sit up and sat down on the bed beside me. “She’s gone,” I said quietly. I was still dizzy, much dizzier than before.

“I know, sweetheart,” she said softly. “She could come back – “

“I miss her,” I interrupted her. I looked at her through hazy eyes, and I saw the sad sympathetic look on her face. She had tears in her eyes; I must have looked pathetic. “I miss her so much…” I started to cry, and I lay my head down in her lap, curling up into a ball. Here I was a grown man, crying in my mother’s lap, my nose running, acting like I was seven instead of twenty-seven. And I had every right to.

“Shh,” she tried to soothe, “I know you miss her, baby. I know it hurts.”

“The hurt just won’t go away,” I cried. She gently stroked my hair away from my face. “I keep thinking – “ my breath hitched in my chest and I sobbed “ – that she’ll come back.”

“Maybe she will,” she said softly.

“She doesn’t want to come back,” I cried. “She doesn’t love me anymore.” I don’t think I ever cried so hard in my life. I clung to her, head in her lap as she stroked my hair gently, trying to soothe me, but no words were enough. If she had brought Sarah back to me, then it would have been enough. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but even if it was only for a short while, for the first time in seven days I fell asleep, and it was only in the comforting company of my mother.

We sat at the kitchen table together, me across from her, my long legs tucked up underneath my chin. She made me tea, and it sat in front of me, steaming just a little, along with a small bowl of soup that I couldn’t bring myself to touch. I felt like I was withering up. “Baby, eat,” she said softly, holding her mug of tea and watching me carefully, that way that mother’s do – with love and concern.

“I can’t,” I replied quietly.

“You have to eat,” she said softly, but I shook my head.

“I just can’t,” I said again. “I haven’t been able to since she left.” I wouldn’t look at her.

“You haven’t eaten in a week?” I shook my head. “Nothing?” I shook my head again, and continued to look out the patio doors. I looked down at the floor when I felt I had enough nerve to speak.

“I just… get sick. Everyday is the same. I lay in bed all night; I can’t sleep. I get up, I think about her, I get sick. I can’t eat…”

“Taylor, that’s so unhealthy,” she said softly, “and so unsafe.”

“I can’t help it,” I said quietly. “I don’t have anything to throw-up, but I can’t stop it. I think I’m dying…”

“Taylor, you’re not dying,” she said softly, sympathetically. I didn’t believe her. I really thought I was dying. “But sweetheart, you have to eat something. Not eating or sleeping for a week isn’t going to do you any good.”

“I know that,” I said, chancing a look at her. I really had scared her by telling her that. I wished I hadn’t. “But I really can’t help it.” We were silent for a pair of minutes. I could tell she didn’t know what to say; she was already walking on eggshells with me. She was afraid I’d break – my mother was always afraid of that; she always used to say how fragile I was, always afraid someone would break my heart. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” I finally said softly, and we made eye contact across the table. “We were supposed to stay happy; she wasn’t supposed to go.” I could feel the tears in my eyes. “We were supposed to have a baby…”

“Oh Taylor…” My mom had tears in her eyes too. “Baby, marriage isn’t perfect.”

“No, but ours was for so long…”

“Everyone has their problems, sweetheart. Your father and I don’t have a perfect marriage. We fight; we get mad at each other.”

“But he never left you,” I said quietly.

“No, he didn’t.”

“And you never left him.”

“No, I didn’t.” She knew I had made my point and there was nothing she could say now that would make it much better.

“You two worked it out; you always worked it out. You lasted. What went wrong with us, Mom? We talked every night. She talked and I really listened, and I talked and she really listened. What happened?” I looked to her for answers like I had all my life, and for once she didn’t have one.

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “But I wish I did. And I wish I could do something to take away your pain, but I can’t. I don’t know how to make this better for you, baby.”

“You can’t,” I said softly. “She was everything to me, Mom. She’s gone.” There wasn’t much else she could say or do. She stayed a while, made sure I ate some of the soup – I only got sick. She made sure I drank my tea, and watched me while I just rested on the couch. She talked softly to me, telling me that she was there if I needed anything – she and dad were only a phone call away. I knew she was trying so hard, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing could ever be enough. I could feel myself slipping into this merciless depression, and I was drowning. It was only a week. What was I going to do if she was gone for a month? A year? Longer than a year? Was I just going to waste away and die? I know it felt that way, and it scared my mother to read it in my body language, in my eyes. She held me for a little while, and I cried again, and she left after I started to dose again. I couldn’t sleep in that room. I slept on the couch instead, with her pillow. I needed to feel her, to smell her, and a down pillow that she used to sleep on when she was mine was the best I had.

Flashback

We lay in bed with the windows open; it was always cooler once the sun went down. She drew lazy circles on my chest with her fingertips, her full head of dark hair resting comfortably on my shoulder. It was Sunday. We always spent Sunday’s relaxing with each other, losing ourselves in each other all day. Sometimes we went out for a drive, sometimes we got ice cream, but most of the time we stayed in. I took her left hand in my right, stopping the invisible designs she was drawing on me, and brought her fingers to my lips. She kissed my chest in response. Our legs were tangled in the sheets, my waist to my knees covered, the snarled sheets tangled around her legs and keeping them to mine; she had one leg over my waist, the sheets covering her from her waist almost to her calves. I traced her spine lightly with my fingertips, causing her to snuggle against me. I loved this, being like this with her, these moments. Through the window the breeze brought the faint smell of cut grass and weeds, and from her hair I could smell violets. She always smelled so good. Her slight perfume of sandalwood, and her violet shampoo, and something else entirely her.

“Let’s stay like this forever,” she said quietly, kissing my chest again. “I never want to leave.”

“I’d love to stay here with you, naked, forever, but we’d die of starvation,” I said, smiling as I stroked her hair gently.

“Way to ruin the moment, Taylor.” I could hear the smile in her voice. She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me. I swear I could drown in her green eyes. She put her hand up to mine, holding it in the air, palm to palm. She stretched our fingers up; her hands were small in mine. Her palm fit in mine, and my fingers stretched at least two inches longer than hers. She laced her fingers through mine, watching our hands, her engagement ring and wedding band glinting in the small amount of fading sunlight – it was already down, but the light left made our room look orange. “I love you,” she said softly.

“I love you, too,” I replied.

“It’ll always be like this,” she said, still holding my hand.

“Well, yeah, except for when we have kids.” She smiled.

“We’re not having seven kids; your mother was crazy.”

“Nah, she just loved having kids.”

“Or she just thought your dad was really good in bed, and there were a lot of accidents.” She smiled at me, knowing that it was something I never wanted to think about. Ever.

“Sarah,” I groaned. “God, I don’t wanna think about that kind of stuff. Gross. They’re my parents.”

“I know,” she giggled. “I just like to make you squirm.” She rolled slightly away from me, lying on her back, the sheets only covering her naked bottom half. I gazed at her, her bare chest; there was no reason for her to cover up – married couples had nothing to be embarrassed about. She really took my breath away, made my heart stand still – everything was beautiful about her; from her hair, to her eyes, to her face, her lips, her breasts, her arms and hands, her flat stomach with just that little incline, her legs and feet… her heart, her mind, her soul… All of it, all of her, was absolutely amazing. I could never be there with her and not be moved by her; it couldn’t be any better than this.

“What?” She said softly, catching me watching her.

“You take my breath away,” I said softly. “You’re so beautiful.” I tucked her hair behind her ear, and she rolled over again, and I pulled her full length onto me, sliding my arms around the curve of her hips and resting them on the small of her back, her hip bones pressing against mine.

“I could say the same about you,” she said, searching my eyes, and tucking some loose fringe behind my ear.

“Let’s always be this way,” I said to her. “I love it when we’re like this. I love making love to you and just lying here together, holding you, touching you…”

“It’s my favourite part,” she said softly, touching her lips to mine and running her fingers through my hair.

“Mine too.” She kissed me again, straddling my waist. I looked up at her through heavy lidded eyes; I adored her; she was my world. She pulled my shoulders so I was sitting up, and I wrapped my arms around her again. “I love you,” I said softly.

“I love you, too,” she said against my lips. “Promise me it’ll always be like this,” she whispered, as I laid her down gently beneath me. I gazed down at her, her hair like a cloud of silk around her head.

“I promise,” I whispered, pressing my lips to hers. I pulled her body to mine, resting in the cradle of her hips, moving slowly with her. I could make love to her everyday, over and over, and just never tire of it. Everyday she took me in, took me deeper, so far beyond a physical sense. I couldn’t get enough of her. I wanted to crawl inside her skin and just stay there. She was all I wanted, all I needed in this life; she was my purpose, everything to me. She held me in her hands, with the promise not to let me fall. I was hers and she was mine. We didn’t need to know anything else. And that’s the way it would always be.

...Home

Nothing had changed in the last two years; the house was the same: clean, untouched, hardly noticeable that anyone lived inside its walls if it weren’t for the telltale car in the gravel driveway. I had moved on in a way. I stopped trying to visualize her return, if it ever happened, but in my heart… there was no change. There was no other woman, no new love; when I fall in love I fall forever. I still wear my wedding band, true to the vows I took one July nine years ago – vows were meant to last forever. They were a promise.

It was a breezy Saturday afternoon in early August, and I had left the patio doors open, all the windows, even the front door, thankful for the screens that allowed the air to flow through without the nuisance of flies. I was just laying on my bed, fully clothed in a cotton tee-shirt and jeans, my feet bare. It was quiet. It was always quiet, seeing as I was there alone. So when I heard the crunch of gravel beneath car tires I creased my brow, listening carefully. The engine cut. I sat up slowly, getting up and making my way to the open window where the sheer curtain caught the breeze and its gossamer fabric simply floated. I prayed to God that it was real this time, that it wasn’t a dream that I would wake from that would fade like summer into fall, reopening the same wound that never really healed.

I walked through the hallway, down the carpeted stairs, and out the front screen door. I stood out on the front deck as she walked slowly toward me. She looked the same, her hair a little longer and her body a little thinner marking the only visible differences. She held my gaze as she walked up and stood in front of me. I didn’t know what to say or think or do. I could see the tears begin to form in her eyes, shining in the fading light of the setting sun. Suddenly she stood on her tiptoes, stretching up and wrapping her arms around my neck. Without hesitation I slipped my arms around her body, pulling her closer to me, until I could feel her body against mine. She was real. It never felt so good to hold someone in my entire life.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Jordan, I’m so sorry,” she cried softly into my neck.

“I missed you so much,” I whispered in return, squeezing my eyes shut against the burning tears. “God Sarah, I missed you so much…”

“I’ll never leave you again,” she whispered, holding me tighter.

“Did you find it?” I asked her softly. “Whatever it is you were looking for?”

“Yes,” she answered softly. “I found myself.”

I pulled back slightly. “I love you so much,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision. “I…”

“I never doubted that you did. I know I can still be me and be your wife. I can still be me and love you.” We just stood there and gazed at one another. We were lost in this moment of truth, and I was drowning in the depths of her green eyes, finding there what I had known to be there long ago… “I love you.” She said softly, her face wet with tears as the wind ruffled our hair and errant strands of it stuck to her cheek. “It just took missing you to realize it.”

I bent down and pressed my lips to hers, feeling something I could never begin to describe when I felt her kiss me back. This… this was my Sarah. I rested my forehead against hers for a moment before pulling back slightly.

“Where did you go?” I asked quietly. She shook her head slightly, studying my face, reaching up to gently tuck my hair behind my ear – just like she used to.

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said, kissing me softly. “I’m home.”