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“I want out, Aaron.” Haley finally finds the right answer, anxiously picking at her fingernails as she shreds them apart, blood prickling down her hands as he watches her, the same expression he’s been wearing for the past twenty years gleaming across his cheeks. Aaron isn’t smiling. He never does, but she just didn’t realize that he’d finally turned to stone, even for her.
Haley exhales, slowly, like she can’t find the right words, because she can’t. She’s loved him for half her life, can barely remember what it’s like to live without him, “I — I want a divorce. I don’t ever want to fucking see you again.” Haley runs a hand through her hair, “I can’t keep looking at you.”
But Jack.
She’ll have to see him again, because, only two years ago, back when she was still so in love with him it hurt, they decided to have a baby the same year he turned forty. Aaron had been holding out on her for years, decades, actually, claiming he wasn’t ready for a baby. But if Haley had it her way, and she should have, she was the one that did nine restless months of pregnancy and eighteen hours of birth, most of which, without him by her side, they would have a high schooler right now.
Haley never gets what she wants. Learned the hard way that it was easier to play into whatever belief Aaron had, there were less arguments that way, less screaming and time spent downing a bottle that never would love him the way she had.
He’s almost shocked she’s able to say what she wants so quickly.
“Haley.” Aaron puts a hand on her shoulder but she elbows him as she brushes past him, spinning around as she looked for her car keys. “Baby, come on… I’m sorry.”
Haley snaps, almost straining her neck as she wept. “Are you?” She hiccuped, not letting him get a word in edge wise. “I’m not stupid, Aaron. You took that fucking case so you could get away from us. Why can’t you look your own son in the eyes anymore?”
“I love Jack.” Aaron shuffled, trying to reach an arm out towards Haley as she frowned, moving away from him as she walked up stairs. “Haley! Please. It’s not like that.”
She doesn’t stop for a minute. “I’m done, Aaron.” The door slammed and within seconds, he heard a mixture of screams and Jack’s reluctant tears.
A door opens and for a moment, he hopes it’s Haley, already able to apologize for her mistakes, but instead, it’s Jack, saddling his stuffed animal towards his chest as he cried. His son looks around for a moment, clearly wanting Haley. “Momma?”
Aaron shook his head and Jack took a small step forward, leaping into Aaron’s arms for comfort as his father kneeled in front of him. Aaron covers Jack’s ears. It dawns on him they’ve never talked about not fighting in front of Jack. Aaron could count on one hand how many times they had fought before Jack. Since then, a week is a hand and a half.
He doesn’t know why it’s gotten to this. How it’s gotten to this point.
Haley exhales, stuck on the top of her already made bed, chest constricting in a way that hurts. Blood gushed down her hand, broken glass on the floor in front of her, a formerly framed photo from their wedding, shattered.
She has to move. Her brain keeps telling her legs to go, but she can’t move. Haley looks around, trying to figure out what she needs to grab tonight. Her arm reaches out towards the phone, dialing Jessica as she slowed down her breathing.
Jessica, much to Haley’s dismay, is not shocked in the slightest.
She’s seen the shift in her brother in law. Ever since Jack came along, something was rotten. Aaron loved him, of course he did, but he just… didn’t know what to do.
He loves Jack.
He does.
Haley hears her older sisters voice in her ear and it’s the only thing grounding her as she lays there, able to hear her son asking for her instead of him as Aaron held him tight, wondering where they go from her.
“Momma?” Jack asked again, burying his head into Aaron’s shoulder, tears slipping onto his suit jacket.
“Mommy’s busy, Jack.” Aaron lies. He lies and it kills something inside of him when he sees the expression Jack wears once he pulls away. Did his son know he was a liar?
“Why she yelling?” Jack doesn’t get it. Haley never yells. She never raises her voice, not even when he throws a fit and refuses to pick up his toys or when he accidentally drops his juice.
Haley is full of love. She was meant to be someone’s mother, the joy in her chest is comforting. She’s not once resented Jack — just Aaron, for making her wait so long to become a mother, something she’s wanted since she was a teenager.
“Mommy’s just a little upset.” Aaron lies, “She’ll be okay.”
“Hug?”
Aaron shakes his head, and look of defeat plastered on Jack stays with him for the rest of the night.
He leaves Haley alone. Makes his own dinner, preparing a plate for her after tucking Jack in. Aaron takes the stairs quietly, unable to hear any noise coming from their bedroom as he knocks. “Hales?” The nickname slips, he rarely calls her Haley, that feels too formal, that she’s just somebody and not the love of his life. “Honey, I’m sorry.” I’d do whatever you ask me to do, “I made you dinner, baby.”
Nothing.
Not even a scream.
Aaron doesn’t anticipate that. He’s not used to Haley screaming. He’s used to her delicate laughter and her light blonde hair in his lap. He’s lived more of his life with her than without. “Hamburgers for me and a veggie burger for you. I even put cheese on it.”
Aaron inhales. He doesn’t know it’s going to be his last as he gently opened the door. It’s not locked, he doesn’t know why he thinks she’s changed so much. Haley would never shut him out like this.
The plate hits the floor as his eyes readjust to the sight in front of him. Haley splayed across the floor with a bottle of pills beside her, empty, his old medication from a past injury, lifeless blue eyes widened as she stares at him.
“Haley!” Aaron falls to his knees, hot tears swamping his face as he reached for the phone, dialing 9-1-1 as he panicked. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t. Haley!”
Nothing.
The line clicks and Aaron’s not even sure where he is anymore. “My wife… my wife isn’t breathing. She — she took some of my pills and she’s unconscious.”
Someone says something on the order side, but he doesn’t know what it is. He tells them their address as the line disconnects. Aaron immediately leans forward, rescue breath after breath as he performs CPR on the last person he could have ever imagined would have needed it.
“Hales.”
“Baby, please.”
In. Out. Hands pressing against her chest, another breath. In. Out.
Nothing.
“Haley!”
“Don’t do this. Don’t. You’re okay. You’re fine, Haley.”
“Jack. Think about Jack, Haley. Your son. Our son needs you.”
Aaron doesn’t move from the floor until the paramedics pull him away. His vision goes blurry when they tell him she’s dead, had been for an hour. Aaron can’t make out anything afterwards.
He stands there with his arms at his sides, looking down at the space where her body was, trying to answer the questions as best as he could.
He doesn’t know why she did it. He looks down at her body, pale, and he can’t draw a conclusion. Haley was fine last week. Laughing at his jokes, lingering in one of his old college t-shirts around the house, mentioning a second baby to him at dinner, wondering what life would be like if they had a girl.
Aaron freezes.
He replays every moment, how she kissed him on the first day they met, her heels drawing up as she struggled to reach him. He remembers her smile as she walked away, the only thought coursing through his head then was that he was going to marry her.
He doesn’t know why she did it. He tells the police that. Aaron is well aware they’ll point the finger at him, but he doesn’t know why she did it.
Haley was happy. Haley loved him.
Or she had.
Aaron breaks. He doesn’t know why she’d end her life. They were… they were happy. God, they were thinking about another baby, and now she’s… Aaron can’t even think of the word. She’s dead. He was never going to get to hear her sweet laugh again or have her frown as he got dressed, stealing a kiss from the bed as she begged him to stay.
Tears tremble down his cheeks, they never stop.
Jack.
He’ll have to tell Jack that his Mommy isn’t ever coming back.
Aaron’s knees buckled. He doesn’t know why she did it. Why she’d leave him in this constant state of panic, spiraling out of control. He has so many people to tell, her sister, her parents, Jack.
He regrets leaving for work that morning. Haley was off. He could see it in her eyes. She was nimble. Listing off a ton of options for Jack’s breakfast, trying to make Aaron smile as the phone rang.
She begged him to stay. Because he said he would.
Aaron faltered, telling the paramedics, “It was my fault… She. I shouldn’t have gone to work. Haley needed me.”
They reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, but it was. It had to be.
He doesn’t know why she did it.
Aaron hasn’t known her for so long.