Isabelle Eccles

Fictional Perfection


How long had this eternity actually been? One day, a week, six months, did it even matter? He remembered how it started, the moment when his already fragile marriage was abandoned and starved. True, they had been fighting for a while, but a long-anticipated finale had not subdued the constant aching in his heart. He glanced around his blank hotel room and saw his own spirit reflected there. The king size bed, the expensive furniture and the extravagant bathroom were as superfluous as breathing had become to him. The sparkling crystal creation of a chandelier hung over his head resembling his own personal rain cloud. He lowered his head into his hands, carelessly allowing his glasses to slip off, squeezing his eyes shut and ripping his mind out of the lonely hotel room which he now called home.

And he was there again, yelling at her again, consuming her insults again, regretting the conversation again. Accusations swarmed their kitchen, filling up every inch of space, spilling into every pot and drawer, slowly stifling his voice under hers. Had she thought he was unfaithful? Spent too much time at work? Lost interest in their marriage? He struggled to answer, but his attempts to rectify the misconceptions only assured his wife of her suspicions. She pivoted on her feet and moved towards a steel cabinet, placing her hands over her face in a fashion that resembled surrender. He desperately exhaled and dropped his head, exposing to his view his daughter who had hidden on the stairs.  

“Come here Maggie,” he coaxed, hoping her young heart would forgive the shouts she heard her parents exchange. She stood up, and, for a second, he hoped she might comply.

With a stabbing glance at her father, she slowly proceeded up the stairs to her room. 

Without thinking that he might speak a potential offense, he opened his mouth for his final mistake. “We can’t keep this up… and we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t put Maggie through this. I hate…. I really hate to sound like some movie…but…God, what the hell are we doing?” Sincerity devoured his sentences, shielding from his sight that his statement would sound too close to a good-bye for his wife’s pride to accept.

She turned back to confront him, and didn’t wipe away her tears, like she usually did. “You know what, you’re right. We can’t do this to Maggie anymore. And, to be honest, I can’t do this anymore either… I want full custody.” She lowered her eyes and walked past him, past his gaping mouth and distraught eyes. She remembered to lift the car keys before closing the door on her way out. 

He shook himself out of the memory, and found himself sitting back in the hotel. He leaned down, grabbed his glasses and tossed them on a wooden table in the middle of the luxury suite he had treated himself to. The divorce papers were on the same damned table. The idea of staying in a suite while going through a divorce always seemed an excellent plan, one he had thought of often when he and his wife were quarreling. It was a fabulous idea, in fact, until he was in a divorce and realized that his money was, in actuality, truly worthless. The divorce papers mocked his marriage, mocked the most important thing in his life that was now buried in a graveyard he wasn’t allowed to visit. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he signed his wife and daughter away.  After digging his hands into his eyes he took another swig of some alcohol he had found in the wet bar of his room.

Back at his old house, he felt a surge of anxiety. She would probably ridicule his attempt, but he had to know there was absolutely no way it could ever work. He lifted his sweaty hand and extended it toward the green oak door, thinking all the while of how pathetic he was. The door opened before his fist hit the wood. She was there, standing in front of him, her eyes red and irritated with constant crying. Without an invitation he stepped into her house. He turned and watched her push the door closed, watched her bare left hand turn the lock. He felt back in his element, back where he belonged. And before he could declare an apology she had thrown her arms around him and was crying again. 

After an eternal embrace, she slightly pulled herself away from his arms and put her mouth to his ear. “We can fix everything… I promise,” she quietly assured him. He just smiled, a deeply grateful and satisfied smile, and whispered, “I promise too.” 

Maggie appeared at the top of the stairs and grinned at the sight of her reunited parents. Had she known that they would get back together? Something made him believe so. Things had actually worked out into a fictional perfection, which they never do. How glad he was that he hadn’t signed the papers, that he had found his family again. 

He woke up with a searing headache. He lifted himself out of the luxurious imported sheets that had enveloped him all night. As his mind pounded and reeled, he searched for his glasses on the table where he thought he had left them. After knocking over a few bottles, his fingers grasped his signed divorce papers. And although the wet bar could replace his pain, nothing else in the expensive hotel room could murder his dreams.

 

[BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS, CLASS OF 2007 EDITION]

Copyright © 2002-2006 Student Publishing Program (SPP). Poetry and prose © 2002-2006 by individual authors. Reprinted with permission. Contents photo from LHS Yearbook Staff. SPP developed and designed by Strong Bat Productions.