When I Courted Bitterness

Sam stood there at the bottom of the trail and glanced around. There was nothing too poetic about the scene in front of her. Spring was long over, and the sea of green had withered to the disarray of dried out weed and grass. It was scattered over the trail until it sloped upwards. Then the line of barren trees could be seen. She stomped her foot, and a satisfying crunch of stones on the gravely ground reached her ears. She stared at the rising plumes of dust and watched it slowly settle on top of her shoes. She sighed. She had been standing here for a while now. There was nothing keeping her there except for an unnamed wariness.

“Well, there was no reason to dawdle about,” she thought to herself. “I have come all the way here. I might as well get this show on the road.”

As she hitched her bag and started up on her trek, she revisited her plan. Why was she taking this trip again? Oh, that’s right. Her psychologist had suggested that a change of scenery will be good for her. Dr. Graham didn’t outright suggest that she go off alone in search of a life epiphany. He had meant for her to take a day off, hang up her anxieties and spend time with her favored people. Take a vacation where she can no longer ruminate or gnaw on an old bone of worries ad nauseam.

Momentarily, it did cross her mind before she dismissed the idea. The usual set of people that she was constantly in touch with were her coworkers, her mother, and her sister. Some of her co-workers accepted her because she was hard-working and did her work to perfection. They could count on her but acceptance didn’t make them her friends. In other’s eyes, she was different, weird and not made of the same material as them. They were bewildered by her utter dedication to work and aversion to having fun. She was uptight. It slowly had turned to resentment as Sam started getting recognized for the work that she did. Their classification of her personality ranged in various levels of negatives, and she had learned to ignore it. She couldn’t imagine taking a vacation with them.

Well, there was Lele who she could have asked. Lele was the only person at work who she could ever call a friend. However, Sam knew Lele was going through some shit of her own and was hardly in any mood to enlighten anyone. All that was left was her family.

Her sister, Cassie, and she couldn’t have been more different. Cassie was the favored child who could do no wrong. With her baby blue eyes, straight blonde hair and lithe body, she was capable of enticing just about anyone. She was the popular kid in school who prioritized making the cheerleading squad over getting good grades. Who can guess what Sam was doing? She was the nerd, the wallflower who had a hard time making friends. However, her hard work paid off in the end. While Cassie went on to do some dumb course on interior decorating in a community college close to home, Sam moved out to Boston to pursue law. She lived in bliss for a short while.

Cassie, then, managed to snag a rich monkey and moved to Boston, much to Sam’s chagrin. Her brother-in-law was not a bad person by textbook definition but he was a white supremacist who got on her nerves with his pompous remarks. Their mother started making it a habit of visiting them in Boston. Sam was now forced to endure awkward family dinners.

“This will help us bond,” her mother had reasoned, not fazed by Sam’s scoff of disbelief.

Her mother lived in her world of ideologies and Sam had learned long back that it was safe to just play along. Sam can’t say that she was a bad mother. How can Sam call her bad when she didn’t even attempt to play the role of a mother. The idea of taking a vacation with any one of them made Sam cringe. It will just add to her anxiety rather than try to diminish it, she had decided.

She kicked the ground in frustration and picked up her pace. The narrow trail led her deeper into the forest. The clutter of trees encompassed her from all directions, and the view seemed to be unvarying. It was awfully quiet that she could pick up distinct sounds around her. The faint rustling of leaves, the occasional light breeze, her uneven footsteps, and her soft breathing. She was slowly getting accustomed to the silence. She tried to concentrate on the walk and not let her mind wander off to unpleasant thoughts. Nowadays, any thought about her life seemed unpleasant. She glanced down at her feet and tried to focus on the way she put one foot in front of the other. After a while, it started to make her dizzy. She tried to look around and take note of her surroundings. However, there was nothing that stood out to capture her attention. Eventually, her thoughts started to wander, and she had no real power to stop it.

Who were her favored people? Didn’t she have anyone she could talk to and share her thoughts?

Sam blinked, agitated at where her thoughts were heading. A hazy picture had started to take form in her head. Golden skin, untamed hair, high cheekbones and piercing hazel eyes. The image gathered clarity and made Sam stumble. She sucked in her breath at the thought of her husband. Ex-husband, she corrected herself.

Avery used to be her best friend, her go-to person for the better part of nearly a decade. They had met during her first year at law school. Avery was a student at Johnson School of Medicine that was located close to her University. Both had trouble settling in the dorms and were on the lookout for an apartment near their universities. They had moved into the same three-bedroom house that housed four other people. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when they had become close but they had. It baffled her how they came to care about each other despite their differences. Oh, the differences that they had. She was a believer while he was an atheist. She was controlled as he was spontaneous. She was meek as he was confident. She could go on for hours about their differences. However, they chose to bond over their similarities instead. Both had come from a broken family that was demanding without giving anything back. They were ambitious to rise in their chosen field and carve out an identity for themselves. They became each other’s support system. He witnessed her turbulent law school days and lent a shoulder to lean on every time she cracked under pressure. She listened to him as he spoke about his dreams of becoming a neurologist. They both had passed with flying colors. They had helped each other reach their goals. Life, after that, was pretty straightforward. She went on to join a corporate law firm, Peterson Lem in Boston. He joined as a resident doctor in Loren Memorial located in the same city. They had taken an apartment halfway between both their workplaces and continued to live together. Her life revolved around work and any free time she got to spare, she was with Avery. Somehow, emotions shifted, and they laid a base to be something more than just friends. It was not a fairytale romance. However, Sam believed Avery to be her perfect prince. She followed him around like a lost puppy, dazed and mesmerized. She had no doubt in the world that he reciprocated the feelings. He was attentive and caring. She remembered the time when she had come down with terrible flu and couldn’t do much for herself. He had taken the day off to take care of her. He fed her home-cooked soup, and crackers and ushered her to bed. He had crawled under the duvet with her, held her as he read the collection of Emily Dickinson’s poems that she adored until she fell asleep. He made her feel beautiful inside out.

They had gotten married a year later. Avery had gone down on one knee at their favorite restaurant, and in between happy tears, Sam had said yes. The wedding itself was a simple yet beautiful ceremony. It took a lot of pleading and heavy romp in the sack to convince Avery to hold it in a church. Their family had surprisingly gotten along well with each other. They had lent their whole-hearted support and helped them plan their wedding.

Mrs. Avery Riggs. She had been awfully proud of that title. Sam was shrouded in marital bliss. The bliss had continued to encompass her for nearly five years. They had their differences and engaged in occasional disagreements. It usually blew over within a day, and they were back to being Sam and Avery, the picture-perfect couple that people seemed to envy. Sam had never felt as secure as she felt when she was with her husband. She didn’t have many people in her life who had prioritized her and cared for her to an extent that Avery did. She remembered the card that Avery had given her for their first anniversary. “Mrs.Avery — funny, wholly beautiful and a kick-ass lawyer. I am one lucky man.” Shrouded in marital bliss indeed. Then, just like that, their dynamics had changed.

She had been sick for a while. She had not been able to keep her food down and ended up taking off from work to rest at home. Avery had been worried, especially when he had walked in on her retching her breakfast down the toilet. She had waved away his concerns and had claimed that she caught some bug that was going around her office. On the fourth day, she felt immensely better and decided to get back on her feet. She had finished her morning routine and was making her way to the breakfast table when an overpowering smell of onions that Avery was frying hit her nostrils. She had barely made it to the washroom before she had emptied the contents of her stomach. It was glaringly obvious that it was not a bug. She sat down in the washroom, drawing her knees in and leaning against the tub. A torrent of emotions flooded through her. “Could it be?” she asked herself in disbelief. She breathed deeply and tried to calculate her menstrual cycle. She was late by 15 days. How did she miss that?

“With all the running around that I had been doing for the recent client, it must have slipped my mind,” she reasoned to herself. It took a moment for the reality to sink in. “I am going to be a mother,” she whispered to herself. Avery and herself had never spoken about kids. Now that it got her thinking, she can’t help but imagine a beautiful child with her unruly brown curls and her husband’s striking eyes. A warm feeling grew in her chest and spread to encompass her.

It was then that she had noticed her husband standing at the door He had a look of concern and something else that Sam couldn’t put her finger on. They looked at each for a minute before Avery spoke. “What are we going to do about it?” Sam blinked in confusion. That was not what she had expected. Sam could now see that Avery was starting to panic. Before she could do anything, he had turned around left. She had slowly cleaned herself up while her thoughts were wrapped around her husband’s weird reaction. She had gone to work but found herself too distracted. When she had got back home, she found Avery on the couch, staring at the telly while sipping on a beer. She sat beside him and waited for him to acknowledge their morning scene. When he didn’t, Sam tentatively nudged him. “Speak to me.”

He was silent for a while before he answered, “I never thought of becoming a father.”

Sam was unsure of how to react. She also had never thought of becoming a mother but she found the notion welcoming. Unlike her husband.

“What are we going to do?” Avery whispered, still not looking at her. Sam was slowly starting to understand where this topic was heading. She found herself getting angry at the implication.

“I am not going to do anything,” Sam said, contritely. “What you are implying is against my belief!”

“Don’t,” Avery replied. “Don’t make this my fault. We never spoke about it. We are not ready, Sam.”

“You are not ready. I am.”

It was the first time they had slept in separate rooms. Sam was baffled. How does she react to such a situation? She didn’t understand why Avery could be against having a child. They would have started a family sometime in the future. Why can’t that time be now? Or was Avery completely averse to having a child? Sam dreaded to think it was the latter.

She had fixed an appointment with the gyno at the hospital where Avery was working. Avery accompanied her though they refused to speak to each other. He isn’t the abandoning type. However, his half-hearted attempt was as bad as him not being there. That night, Avery had found her crying. In between attempting to comfort her and convincing her that they don’t need this baby, they had engaged in a full-blown fight. She had made it immensely clear that what he was suggesting was against her belief and she was going to have this baby with or without him. She had moved out the next day. After spending nearly a week at Lele’s place, she had found a small apartment for herself. Avery had called multiple times, urging her to come back home. However, she found that she couldn’t go back. She had always picked Avery over everyone. For the first time, she found herself picking someone else. She didn’t understand this new found love for her unborn child. However, she welcomed it. She held onto her hope that Avery will come around and embrace the idea of starting a family. Then, she could go back home.

She remembered a brief period of her childhood where she had been happy. It was the time where her dad was still alive and her mom was functional. Sam was a daddy’s girl and wanted to be just like him, brave and kind. Her dad had been a believer and had loved telling her stories from the Bible as a means of teaching her morals. Even when she found it hard to follow the story, she would patiently listen. She had always loved hearing his strong voice reciting the lines of the story. When he had passed away due to a sudden cardiac arrest, Sam found solace in the belief that her dad had left behind. She became a believer but there have been times she was baffled by the ideologies of God. She refused to question it no matter what until that dreadful night.

She was in the shower when she first felt the pain. She had been three months pregnant at that time. It started in the center her abdomen and seemed to spread at a maddening pace. There seemed to be some weight that was being pulled down past her organs, and Sam was delirious in pain. When she felt the trickle of blood go down her legs, Sam quickly got out of the shower, hastily threw on her robe and called Avery. By the time he had picked up the call, Sam was sobbing out of pain and fear. He was there at her place in ten minutes though she felt like it was hours. He had let himself in with the emergency key she had given. The sight in front of him seemed to stun him momentarily. She was sitting down next to the bed in a pool of her blood. Her wet hair was sticking to her pale face, and she didn’t have the energy to move it aside. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she bit her lips to stop herself from crying out. Avery had quickly recovered and sprang into action. He lifted her into his arms and made his way to the car.

“I got you baby. You are going to be alright,” he said repeatedly.

“But what about my baby?” Sam thought in a daze. “Will my baby be alright?”

It took the doctors three hours to stop the bleeding and numb her pain. They delivered the news with all the sensitivity that doctors lose over the years. And just like that, it was over. Sam didn’t understand God then. It was the first time she had questioned her belief. She had felt betrayed. She had wanted to scream and pour out her anger. In the end, she had simply cried. Avery was upset too but not at the loss of the baby. He was upset that his wife was upset. The woman who was the most empathetic of souls, the woman who was kind and brave, the woman he had come to love wholly sat on the hospital, small and fragile, weeping tears that he found disconcerting. To Sam, that was not enough. Avery had taken her back to their house, and she spent the next few days in bed, staring out into space. She found out that sleep didn’t come easy. When she did, it was not without nightmares. Was God punishing her for Avery’s rejection? Sam felt the bitterness eating at her, and she didn’t know where to direct it. Avery hovered over her, trying to soothe away her discomforts. Avery wanted to go back to being how they were.

“I love you, Sam. We were happy before. Let’s try to forget these few months and try to go back to the way we were. Avery and Sam, the picture-perfect couple,” he had whispered hugging her from behind as they laid in bed. Avery didn’t experience any change in the past few months. However, for Sam, things had dramatically changed. There was Sam before the baby and Sam after the baby. She didn’t think she could go back. She had gone back to work after two weeks and found her work to be a pleasant distraction. She had started taking more workloads than before much to her husband’s annoyance. She was barely at home. Their intimacy took the first hit. Sam had asked Avery in the passing if he would ever be ok with having a child. The answer was clear to Sam when Avery had remained silent. It was the first time Sam felt their differences smothering her. Over the next six months, they either lived in awkward silence or fought until Sam’s throat was sore.

“How long is it going to take for you to get over this Sam?” He had yelled. “I am tired of this shit. I don’t even seem to know who my wife is anymore.”

She had reluctantly filed for a divorce.

Sam found the tears blurring her sight as she staggered up the path. She choked as her past came flooding back to her. It had nearly been a year since the divorce, yet, the wound was still fresh. She could see the path clearing out into an opening. Sam hurried along, trying to suppress her internal turmoil. She brushed past the last few branches and was taken aback by the sight in front of her. A cool breeze drifted by, carrying along with it the musky scent of the earth. It was a small clearing scattered with flowers of various shades. Sam leaned against the nearby tree and gathered herself. She wiped the residual tears that had trailed down her cheeks and stood there, taking in the scenery. She made her way to the edge of the clearing and looked down. The scene below was breathtaking. A lush carpet of greeneries with specks of colors dotting it could be seen. It contrasted to the hues of red, orange and blue that painted the sky. At the distance, she could spot the vague outline of the mountains.

She stood there and let her thoughts wander. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She wondered how it will feel if she jumped? Will she float among the clouds? She imagined feeling lighter as the wind sweeps her across to wherever it wants to go. She imagines losing color, then her texture. She will turn from opaque to translucent. She will wane until she disappears into nothing. Sam opened her eyes at that. Nothing? She tested that thought around in her head. What about her life up until now? What about all the good memories she had made with her father? With Avery? Her hard work in building her career so far? Her life adding up to nothing scared her, and this revelation seemed to lift her spirits a little. Did she tell you that she was supposed to have a boy? When she was brainstorming names she had decided to call him Noah, taking after the savior. It had been one of her favorite stories growing up.

“Was he up there, looking down at her?” she wondered. She felt like he was. She wanted him to be proud of her.

“Never will I allow my heart to become small and bitter, rather I will share it and it will grow and warm the earth. I will greet this day with love in my heart,” she vowed to herself.

Maybe he really was her savior.