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She hasn’t been right since that fucking delivery. She hasn’t been right at all.
The words echo in my over-exhausted brain as I mow the lawn. The sun beats down on my back. I turn the corner in our yard and see her there, lurking in the window. The sun glares in my eyes, but I see her silhouette standing at that drafty window. I’ve always hated that window. The doll is on her hip.
Goddammit, when did things get so bad? As if the universe wants to kick me in the nuts when I’m down, my mower buzzes over a rock. The object slingshots across the yard, causing me to startle. I scream out my frustrations over the buzzing of the mower, slightly thankful the thing didn’t hit a car or a window. I’m surprised it didn’t with how bad things are.
Mowing the grass used to be my least favorite chore. Now, it gives me time alone, time to think. This can also be its own personal kind of hell. Out here, alone, I think about all that I’ve fucked up these past years. All the choices I made that led us here, and all the choices that were made for us.
She’s spiraling. It’s just the frayed edges of the spiral, a slight coming undone. But she’s getting worse, not better. I knew things weren’t great when that box showed up. But it’s so much worse now.
I’d come home from a long day at the office—a long day of defending her, if not with my words, then with my distance from the old crew. I can always feel the eyes on me—the pitying eyes. Poor John, his wife went bat shit. Yes, yes, that’s the one. Yes, poor thing. They can’t have children. I wonder if it’s him or her that’s defective.
No matter where I go, it’s like there’s a glowing fucking sign. His nuts don’t work. He’s a failure of a man. His wife’s a mess because of it.
I pause in my tracks for a moment, taking a breath and letting out a ragged exhale. I can’t do this now. I have bigger issues. Like keeping her from completely losing it.
I love her. I don’t want her to end up back there. I don’t. That first time she lost it after the body we buried, I promised her I wouldn’t let her end up back at that place. She’d confided in me early on about her time at the asylum, how it almost ended her. I swore I’d never let her end up there, and I’d meant it. That place was meant to help her, but it didn’t. It left her traumatized.
And that’s why I’m so worried. At first, I called her therapist when I saw her cradling it. I hadn’t known where the hell she’d gotten it from, but I looked at the packing slip. It was some lifelike porcelain doll company from some warehouse of horrors. The thing did look real enough for a doll. And at first, her therapist and I agreed that maybe it was just a coping mechanism over the loss of our foster daughter and all that had happened. It didn’t make me feel much better, in truth. If I could’ve just given her a child, she wouldn’t have to rock some eerie doll that probably would spring to life and murder us at night.
The weeks went on, though. The fascination with the doll got more real. Strollers and clothes started showing up. Bassinets and bottles. The doll started going everywhere with Evette, to the point I didn’t want to go anywhere with her. I wanted to protect her. I didn’t want anyone to know just how bad it was. I fed into her obsession, telling her about fake horror stories of babies getting sick just to keep her at home out of the public’s gawking eye.
I knew she needed help—but I was afraid of the help everyone would think was best. I couldn’t go back on my promise to my wife. I love her. I still do.
But also, I have a selfish reason for not wanting her to get to the point of being committed.
You’re a horrible fucking person, the inner critic in my head bellows. For most people, this critic is just a wrong asshole. In my case, it’s right. I have been a horrible person since the night Ev and I met, but probably long before that, too. And that’s why I have to be careful. If Ev gets committed and they start pumping her full of meds, she could start talking. And if she starts talking, secrets from the past could find their way to the surface.
Secrets that would devastate both of us.
I push the mower onto the front of the house. She’s sitting in the chair by the bay window now, that doll in her lap. Margot, she named it. Margot. A stab in the heart every single time I hear it.
She’s not the only one who has suffered a loss. She’s not the only one grieving. It’s just I don’t have time to be sad because I have to be cautious for the both of us. She’s not thinking straight. She’s not acting right. I have to do this. I have to keep on with my plan. I just have to sort out the details. I have to find a way to make it work, whatever it takes.
I’ll do what it takes. I’ll do whatever it takes. It’s all for her. It’s all because I love her.
It always has been.