Storytelling Week 10: Unforgettable

It is six o’clock in the morning and I’m already going to be late for work.  Being the CEO of an advertising company isn’t an easy position for my 45-year-old self, on top of having a wife and teenage twin girls.  I’m surprised I’ve lasted this long.

Thinking of which…I look to my right.  My wife, Delilah, looks so beautiful sound asleep I’d hate to wake her.  I nudge her anyway.

Delilah half-opens her eyes and looks at me smiling with her arms stretching out.  “It’s already that time?”

“Yes ma’am it is.”

I walk to the bathroom and prep myself for the day ahead of me.  I walk down the stairs to the fresh smell of waffles.  We converse about how her day will be as I scarf down my breakfast.

“Well, I better get going then.  I’ll let you know when I make it to the building.”  I lightly kiss her on the forehead and get a whiff of her perfume as her hair falls forward against her cheeks.  Mm…the sweet scent of jasmine and honeysuckle, that’s my favorite.

~~~

Sitting in my office, I look down at my watch and the dial strikes 7 o’clock.  It’s getting late, I should get going. 

I arrive home to find Lila setting the table.  I made it just in time.  We have dinner together as usual.  

When we finish, she brings our plates to the sink and begins to wash them.  I decide to help her rinse this time rather than one of the girls.  We smile at each other. 

She leans in to drop a cup in my sink as I’m rinsing a plate and I smell something musky…

It’s not my cologne nor is it her perfume.  “So what did you do today?”

“I just went to the store and came back home to exercise, not a very productive day, truthfully.”  She seems distant.

We finish the dishes and head to the bedroom.

I lay in bed and my mind begins to wander.  I conjure up scenarios of whether she could be seeing someone else or just tired.  I try to sleep, but my heart and mind won’t let me.

(Following.  Flickr.)

A few days have passed and it’s still the same feeling and still the same scent.  I’m beginning to think that she goes somewhere else after work and on her days off. 

Though today’s the day I buck up the courage and follow her.  I know it seems crazy, even for me.  I’m a CEO of my own company for crying out loud.  I guess it won’t stop my pride in knowing whether she still loves me or not.

We say our usual goodbyes and I act as if I head off to work.   I drive down the street to the park and wait for her to leave the house.  I see her come out and duck my head in case she looks my way.

I peek up and see that she’s backing out.  I begin to follow her. 

She drops the girls off at school and just when I thought she’d go the direction towards home, she turns into the neighborhood behind the school.

We arrive at a nice home.  I park in front of the house down the street.  She pulls into the driveway and steps out of the car to await the person opening the door.  I inch my car closer…a man with similar build as mine, yet fair brunette hair, opens the door.  She steps in and he closes the door behind her…

I step out of the car and run to the house.  I scope the house to find the right window as I do, I see him undress her and they kiss…my heart stops.  Furious, I want to kill them both.  I know that would be wrong.  I contain myself and head back home.

~~~

I'm pacing the living room and the girls walk through the door.  In a stern voice I tell them to go to their rooms.  They look at each other with discernment and do as I say.

Lila walks through the door half passed seven.  I stop and look at her.  

"How could you do this to us?"

Her eyes filled with concern.  "What are you talking..."  It dawns on her what I ask of her.  

She tries to explain herself and I just can't let her.  I walk off toward the room and she follows.  Closing the door behind her, we enter a screaming match.  This lasts all night.

~~~

We're restless the next morning.  Once we simmer down, I go to wake the girls up and as I open their doors, they're gone.  Frightened, we both go looking for them.  Setting aside our fight to find our girls.  

We get a phone call from my parents and they tell us they're with them.  We head that way and once we arrive, we sit them down and discuss our concern about why they ran off.

They know why Lila and I were fighting and that we wanted to get a divorce.  There's nothing we can say to comfort them, because it's true.

~~~

A year has passed and the divorce has finally settled.  Delilah moved out about two months after I found out and the girls were torn about our decision.  Though we were all upset about the situation, we still gave them the option of who they wanted to be with.  The end result, I gained sole custody.  Gena wanted to stay with me, but Gail and I weren't on the best terms.  With what her mother did to me, she couldn't bare to stay with her either, so she chose the latter.  

Our family may be torn apart and what happened that night was unforgettable, but deep down inside, I can say that I forgive her.

Author's Note:  The original story I decided to transform is about a man with a wife and two children who goes hunting for his family everyday.  The man paints his wife from head to toe before he heads off to hunt, much like a ritual.  The wife has been sneaky going to the nearby lake to 'fetch some water,' but instead meets with a snake.  This happens for quite some time until the man notices part of her paint smear off so he decides to follow her the next day, because he has a feeling she is lying to him.  He catches her bare herself naked for the snake and watches it coil itself around her.  Furious, he jumps the snake and kills it as well as his wife.  After killing his wife, he skins her and takes the meat to feed his kids.  The rolling head occurs in this moment after they unknowingly eat her and their father goes to fetch some more meat, their mother's head rolls towards them and apologizes to them.  Frightened, they attempt to run away from it and are saved by kind people as well as protected by their bears and panthers.  Some others find the children, because they have plenty food and they build a camp from thereon.  There father comes to live with them, but out of hatred towards him, they feed him to the lions.
I have kept some aspects of the original story in mine, but in a more realistic and less vulgar way.  In a sense I kept the affair and the struggle with the children, but not the killings or the cannibalism.  I decided to use first person to depict how the husband may have felt and what was running through his head all the while of not knowing and soon finding out.  It's written with a purpose of, though our families may be crazy and bad things happen at the end of it all we have to overcome the obstacle within ourselves.  It didn't end on a whole good note, but at least he could find remorse in some way and move on.

Bibliography:  Tales of the North American Indians:  The Rolling Head by Stith Thompson.