This Is What I Do Instead Of Studying - Blog Posts

You know how water has a majestic quality to it? How, in the middle of the day, when the light hits it, it almost shines? The sun reflecting off of the facets of inconsistency on the surface, creating a glittering spectrum. It’s awesome. It’s beautiful. It brings a smile to your face and warmth to your chest. It is not what I am seeing now.

It is midday, nearly one in the afternoon. The sun is directly overhead, hitting the water just right. But I have never seen a less majestic sight. It is dull. It is sad. It is cold.

In the middle of January it should be frozen. But global warming has given us an astonishingly warm winter and all around me people walk by with only light jackets and scarves. The Chicago River remains fluid. I am conscious that I am giving the river more thought than I ever have in my life, despite visiting the city countless times in my childhood. I am avidly working to avoid thinking about today. Focusing on anything and everything else. But there’s only so long that can last. Only so much about the bland, gray water that I can expound on before there is nothing else. And I am left alone with reality.

I couldn’t sleep last night, tossing and turning for hours before I finally gave in and got up at four in the morning. I was alone in the living room, on the sofa. Eve was asleep upstairs, probably would sleep late; she’s had a tough week. I let her sleep as long as possible before kneeling beside her bed, what used to be our bed, and hesitantly speaking her awake.

Eve loves the city. Our first real date was to a concert at Soldier Field. We were married at the Chicago Botanic Gardens nearly two years ago. She loves the fast pace and the excitement, but she said she didn’t want to live here. “You’d be miserable!” she told me. “You’re an old-fashioned guy; the city would sweep you right up.”

So we lived in the suburbs, in Woodstock where it’s quieter and more stretched out. There aren’t very many places you can walk to and you don’t really know your neighbors that well, but it’s nice. You’re not boxed in, you’re free. And it’s a good place to raise kids.

That’s what we were going to do, Eve and I. We were going to raise kids in the suburbs of Chicago. That was the dream. I had a stable job at a business firm; Eve was working as a stagehand at the Woodstock Opera House. It didn’t pay that much, but she enjoyed it.  She would come home excited, the light in her eyes burning, dancing, every time a new show came. She’d sneak me in the back and find me a seat off to the side during rehearsals so I could appreciate the art. That’s what she always said, anyway.

“The real show is nice and all but it’s the rehearsals that you’ve got to see. Not too early where they’re fuddling around and not too late where they’ve got it all ironed out. But in the middle where they’re just trying and designing, seeing the way certain things sound and how powerful they are. That’s the real art. That’s the show I want to see.”

There was a one stand-up comedian that Eve particularly loved. There aren’t really rehearsals for comedians so she let me sit in on the real show one of the nights. We were still laughing about some of the lines when Eve let out a cry and doubled over. We didn’t know what it was and she was pregnant at the time so I rushed her to the emergency room. Forty-eight hours later and we were back home but without the baby. Something had gone wrong, she’d had a miscarriage.

“It’s fairly normal, it happens a lot more than you’d think,” the doctor told me. Like that would make me feel better. Like that would make it easier. Like that would help ease the devastation in Eve’s eyes.

She was off for a long time after that. Less enthusiastic about things. Like she’d been muted. I figured she just needed time, that she’d be back to normal soon. And maybe, if that had been all we had lost, she would have. It’s impossible to tell.

A couple weeks after that, the company I had been working for went through cutbacks. They had to lay off a grand total of eight-two workers throughout all their locations. Through no fault of my own, as I was assured by my ex-employer, I was one of them. Eve was more upset about it than I was. I had been the main supporter of the two of us, bringing home the money as she pursued her art interest. We had planned for her to give that up and be a stay-at-home mother once our child was born. Maybe that’s why she took it so hard. Just one more piece of our life, our plan, our future, fading away.

As Eve got more and more detached and it became obvious that finding another job would not be an easy task in this economy, I got increasingly more stressed. I wanted things to be normal, to be easy. I hadn’t signed up for this. This moody version of the woman I had fallen in love with. She was downtrodden, she was crushed, she was drowning and there was nothing I could do. And every work opportunity I pursued was another door shut in my face and it became evident that we’d have to move if I couldn’t find work soon, our house was too expensive.

So I made a bad decision. One that I’ve regretted constantly since then. I had been visiting my father; he and his brother were second generation immigrants from Italy. My father’s brother, my uncle Tito was there and he told me he had some work for me.

“It’s not necessarily…legal work. That’s why I was hesitant to bring it to you earlier. But it’ll fix all your money problems, I guarantee it.” Turns out he’d gotten himself in some sort of money counterfeiting gig where all you had to do was make the stuff and then exchange it to a middleman for cash so you never had to use the fake bills yourself. I refused at first. But things weren’t getting any easier and eventually I called him up and told him I was in.

Tito helped me find the equipment and he taught me how to make passable currency and how to get in touch with his buyer. And so the far room, the room that was going to be the nursery, became a workshop for counterfeiting. I developed quite a knack for the trade and my uncle was correct in that it did solve our financial problems. But not Eve. No, it didn’t fix her. She still looked to be drowning but like she was resigned to it. Like she knew she couldn’t fight the current and so had given up.

She knew about my new “job,” obviously, I was working in our house, not to mention the sudden increase in our funds. But aside from the initial “are you sure this is a good idea?” we never talked about it. And that was worse. That was much worse. It was like she wasn’t surprised that I had stooped to this level.

Weeks went by. Months. She and I barely spoke anymore. And I hated it. I hated what I had become. What our marriage had become. What had become of her, of Eve, of my angel. I had taken to sleeping on the couch downstairs and I would only see her at meals or pass her occasionally in the halls. It’s like we were strangers.

Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I snapped. I had been working and just finished my next batch of bills, they were hanging up to dry. I ventured into the kitchen for a drink and she was there. Sitting at the dining table, silently staring at her folded hands in front of her. She looked up as I came in and her eyes were glassy with absence and in that moment I remembered the countless times she had laughed there, we had talked here. Times when the kitchen was filled by teasing and happiness and love.

It was too much. I have never yelled so much in all my life. I yelled and she stared and I screamed and she flinched and I begged, cried, pleaded, and she whispered.

“What’s become of us?” It was so quiet I could barely hear it over the beating of my frantic heart. “I’ve called my sister,” she murmured. “I’m going to live with her in the city for a while.”

You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. I knew she was unhappy, obviously, I knew she needed something different but I didn’t know she would leave me. The idea had honestly never passed through my mind. That’s what marriage is, isn’t it? Agreeing never to leave? Never to give up?

Of course she was right. I needed to get my life on track, she needed the companionship of her sister to piece herself back together, and we could both use some time apart. There’s nothing worse than being faced with something horrific that you know will tear at everything in you until there’s hardly anything left but knowing that you have to go through with it. Because it’s the right thing. It’s the good thing. It’s what you need to do.

She was to leave two weeks from then, who knew when she’d be back. I took my counterfeiting equipment to my uncle, told him I was out.

“You can’t just…be out. They’ll come after you,” he said. Let them come. It’s been a fortnight, I haven’t heard from them. Besides, what could they possibly take from me now? I’ve gone back to scanning the paper for work. My first two interviews were disasters but the third one seemed promising. They said they’d give me a call in the next couple weeks.

So this morning, I let Eve sleep as late as possible and then we boarded the train. The 10:48 to Chicago.  I had offered to drive her but she had hurried to assure me she would be fine on the train. She probably was afraid of being trapped in the car with me when I was so desperate and broken. And she didn’t have that much stuff anyway; she was only bringing a small duffle bag. I did insist on riding with her, to keep her company, to keep her safe. She allowed that, though the ride was silent.

I sat us on the second story on the far side so I could keep my eye on the rest of the car. Just in case Tito was right about my old employers. But there was no problem. Eve watched the news on her phone and I listened to music, unraveling slowly. The panic was welling up inside me. I couldn’t imagine a life without Eve. I still can’t. At times, the only thing preventing me from begging her to reconsider was the group of girls giggling a few seats down from us.

Eve’s sister Heather’s house is only an eight minute walk from the train station. I knew this. Eve knew this. But she didn’t say anything as I led us the long way, strolling around the city for nearly half-an-hour before ending up in front of the house. There was so much to say but I was being strangled by my emotions and I couldn’t find the words. So we walked in silence. When I glanced at her, she was looking around. Probably enjoying the city like she always has. I was just trying to enjoy these last few minutes with her. Trying to savor them. To remember them.

This won’t be the last time you see her; it’s only for a little while. I thought to myself for the hundredth time. But nothing would quell the turmoil, the twisting feeling that I would lose her. That we would reach Heather’s house and I would leave her there and never see her again. So we kept walking.

Eventually we arrived. We stood at the door without knocking and I turned to her. Eve, my wife, my love, my savior. For a moment, standing in that doorway, I saw a piece of the old her. She was looking at me hungrily, memorizing me with her eyes as I was frantically trying to memorize her with mine.

“You… you know where to find me,” I murmured, my voice raspy from disuse. She nodded. “Eve, I…” I intended to tell her I loved her, one last time before she left but before I could finish, Heather wrenched the door open. How she knew we were standing out there is beyond me. She gave me a reproachful glare as she took Eve’s bag from my hand, simultaneously ushering her little sister into the house.

As Eve crossed the threshold she looked back at me one last time.

“Garrett,” she murmured, her eyebrows knitted together but whether from concern, sadness, or pity I couldn’t tell. Then she was gone and her sister was giving me one last scornful glance before closing the door. I stood there on the doorstep, staring at this last of many barriers between Eve and I. This one I hadn’t put up and I had no idea how to take it down.

Eventually I walked away, walked to the bridge, staring over the edge at the Chicago River rushing past. Dull and sad and cold. Like me.