The Last Pieces of My Heart

Tabitha

“I’ll see ya’ll in the morning. Don’t forget I’m bringing doughnuts!” I call out as I walk out the back door.

I walk to my car, wrapping my jacket closer to me. Even though it’s April and we should be getting warmer around here, the evening can still get chilly. I get in and turn the heat on, hoping that the car will warm up in the ten minutes it takes me to get home. Living close to work has some advantages, but heating up and cooling down a vehicle isn’t one of them.

I think about the finishing touches I have to make on dinner and hope that Kyle is happy with the chicken and dumplings I’ve made. He’s been so grumpy lately that I’m wondering if there’s anything I could do that would make him happy. He’s saying it’s all related to this case he’s taken on, but I don’t know if I believe that. Kyle has always been one to hold things in since we were kids. I thought that over time he would get better about letting me share his burdens, but no such luck. He was as closed off as he’d ever been, and maybe even worse.

People in town liked to think that we were the perfect couple. We met as children and grew up together as friends. Then once we were older, we became a couple. Kyle was with me when I lost both my parents during our senior year of high school. He stood with me while I tried to get myself together after such a tragic loss. The people in town thought that made him a saint and made his ego grow all that much more.

I love Kyle. That’s something I don’t doubt, but I don’t know that he loves me in the same way. I’m always the one that works at keeping that spark alive in our relationship. I make sure to do everything possible to make his life easier and happy. The only thing that I lack is giving him children. We tried for years and when we were unsuccessful; I suggested seeing a doctor. Kyle wouldn’t hear of it.

“The whole town will know what a failure you are in that area! I won’t have you embarrass me like that!” He had yelled at the mere suggestion.

I had never felt lower in my life. Kyle had always told me it was my job to keep the house in order and to give him children. He said as long as I would do that, we would be perfect. I knew very well the community would watch and wait for the new Pressley to make their debut. It seemed like such a simple task, but I wasn’t able to do it. Over the last few months, Kyle had gotten angry at the fact that I wasn’t getting pregnant. He swore it was my fault and that I needed to get my act together.

The problem of children seemed to be the only thing that was ever there. We never fought except for that. I never felt like he was stepping out on me or hiding things. All in all, I thought we had a great marriage. I just needed to figure out how to give him children. Easier said than done, right?

I pull up to the house and see the garage door is open and Kyle’s car is already in there. He’s home early. Kyle rarely gets home until around seven at night. Hope floods my system as I think that maybe he’s home to spend some time with me. I haven’t seen him much over the last few months and I miss him. I haven’t said anything because I knew he was under a lot of pressure with this case. Tonight, I will work hard to give him what he wants most, a child.

I close the garage door and enter the side door into the kitchen. All the lights are off, so the room is darker than it could have been. The days are getting longer but there still isn’t enough sunlight coming through the windows to help me see well. I flip on the switch, and everything looks the same as when I left.

“Kyle? Honey, I’m home!” I call out, hoping to hear him yell back.

I listen carefully and hear nothing. The house doesn’t even creak. I set my bag down on the counter and walked out of the kitchen toward the stairs in the back. I walk up to the second floor and head toward our bedroom. Maybe he went to take a shower? Walking into the bedroom, I see that the lights are all off. The bathroom door is open and there’s no one inside. I turn and head toward his office only to see from the hall that the lights are all off in there as well. I head toward the front of the house where the main stairwell is.

I reach the top of the stairs when I see him. The light of the setting sun hits him just right, and I see the noose around his neck. Kyle is hanging from the highest beam on the ceiling. A scream leaves my mouth as I rush down the stairs to him.

“No, no, no Kyle!” I scream as I reach him.

I try to lift him up and feel his hand brush against mine. Ice cold. He had been there long enough for all the heat to leave his body. I sink down to the floor, screaming his name over and over. My chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself. I’m shaking and unable to breathe as I hear someone pounding on the door.

“Tabitha? Tabitha, open the door!” I hear a male yelling.

My mind is so clouded that I can’t think straight. When I hear the front door open, I am still shouting his name and rocking my body back and forth. I hear someone gasp as a pair of arms wrap around me. I cry and scream for Kyle to wake up, but there’s nothing. He hangs there slightly swaying. I hear a female voice whispering in my ear to breathe. My only thought was that I didn’t know I wasn’t.

“Yes, I need police and paramedics to 1513 Sipe road. There was a suicide. Yes. His wife found him. No, she’s hysterical. Yes, we’ll stay with her.”

“Tabs, honey it’s Brittany. I need you to breathe for me, honey.”

I finally look up and see my neighbor’s face. She gently takes my face in her hands and looks me over. She’s mimicking how to take slow, deep breaths and I follow her lead. My head clears, and I look over to see her husband Mason crouched down beside her. The look on his face says it all. Kyle’s gone and I’m left all alone. Sadness and pity fill both their eyes. Kyle and I had been neighbors with them for years. Kyle and Mason always played golf together and Brittany and I hung out and did girls’ nights. They were our closest friends and for them to have to see this is breaking my heart all over again. They shouldn’t have to see their friend this way.

“He… he. Why? Why did he do this?” I ask. A look of heartbreak passes over Brittany’s face as she looks at me.

“I don’t know, honey. All I know is that he’s there, and he has a note pinned to his shirt that says sorry.”

As she says that, I realize I never noticed the note. She’s right, it only says one word, sorry. I look at Mason and see him staring down at the floor. It’s like he can’t bring himself to look at me. Or maybe it’s the fact that his best friend died. Either way, I can’t seem to get my thoughts in order about what to say or do. I hear a knock on the door and Mason jumps up to answer.

Police and paramedics come into the house as Brittany helps me up and leads me over to the living room. She sits me on the sofa and heads to the kitchen to get me some water. I sit in place numb to everything that is going on around me. I can’t get my head to wrap around the fact that my husband killed himself. The man who stood in front of the church and God, promising to love and protect me, left me. And he did it by his own choice.

A hurt so deep that it could cut through the center of the earth, cuts through me. He chose to leave me. There is nothing in this world that could have been worth all that. We could have worked through everything. But yet here I sit, watching the men from the police and paramedics take Kyle down from the noose that he used to kill himself. What could have been so bad that he couldn’t talk to me about it?