My spouse texts me, “Where are you?”

It’s a Tuesday night. I was supposed to pick-up our son at soccer practice in Somerville, New Jersey. But shortly after lunch, as I was surfing the internet looking for a job, I found myself unable to breathe. The suffocation, as I call it, was upon me. It happens often, at unexpected moments. This feeling of being trapped — stuck. And if I don’t move, if I don’t get up and do something I’ll drown in the blackness. It doesn’t make sense. I know. You’ve told me that before, everyone has told me it’s nonsense. But I’ve taken my pulse, my heart rate doesn’t lie. It starts racing. The harder it pumps the more constricted my lungs feel. So I got in my car, filled up my tank and started to drive. It wasn’t until I crossed the boarder, leaving New Jersey behind me, that I could feel my body relax, the knot in my chest unravel.

  I look out at the harbor, the sun dipping down, rays of light slicing through the clouds. It’s early September, so its still warm, warm enough and late enough that crowds have begun to form. People out for a walk, meeting for dinner, or perhaps a drink. “Fells Point,” I close my eyes and hit send. I can already see the blood rushing to her face, the anger exploding out of her. Worse, I can hear her cursing, swearing that this is it, the absolute last time. She’s leaving me. But I’ve known that for years. It’s only a matter of time until she follows through.

   My phone buzzes immediately and I wince to see her response. I could have lied. I should have lied, but it’s not like I could just be home in an hour. “BALTIMORE! You’re in BALTIMORE!”

   I’m at a pub, sitting at an outdoor table right on the water and sipping a hard cider. I’d have preferred something harder, stronger — a martini or margarita — but I didn’t have enough money. The twelve dollars in my pocket was all I had, the last of my allotted allowance. Until I find a job, what my spouse gives me is all I’m supposed to spend. She’ll crucify me later for the gas and tolls. As for lodging, well, that’s what rest areas and park benches are for.

  “Yes, but I’ll be home before you leave for work in the morning.” A cool breeze lifts off the water, a shiver travels down my spine. I should have brought a sweater, but when I left it was hot.

   “Damn you. You have a child. Why is that so hard for you to remember?”

   I can feel my chest tightening up again. All around me I hear the chatter of other people, the sound of silverware clanking, shoes shuffling. Other people with lives so much more fulfilling than mine. Happier. Busier. What I wouldn’t give to have some of their tranquility, their weightlessness. Anything but this regret, the strands of which wrap around my head, my heart like the body of an anaconda. How did we — my spouse and I — get here, get detached and uncompromising. Fighting is not good. If we continue it won’t go away. I won’t be able to breathe, and how can I go home if I’m suffocating. “I didn’t forget. I just couldn’t be there.” And that’s the part she doesn’t understand. No one does. Not even you. I can’t just be in one place. It’s like, I don’t know. How would you feel if someone dropped a cage on you in the middle of the street trapping you right where you stood? How would you feel with all those eyes ogling you? That’s what it’s like to wake up every day in the same place. To have no where interesting to go. To feel as though the world is judging me, judging everything I do, even the size of the strip of toilet paper I use to wipe my butt. I had to move — snap the stagnation. I needed to break away. I needed a few hours alone, separated from every freaking familiar thing in my life. I needed an adventure, even if that adventure was nothing more than a long drive for a drink in city I hadn’t been to in years.

  I have taken too long to respond, and so she hits me with another text, barbed words meant to inflict injury, or at least deflate my self-esteem, an easy task considering it wasn’t very substantial to begin with? “He’s eight. He needs someone. And I’m the only one working. If I don’t work, none of us will eat. Why don’t you care?”      

 Well damn, that’s nothing new.  I slam my phone on the table and it seems the world jerks in my direction, suddenly alert, watching me. I shrink into myself, slouching in my seat and staring down at my lap. It’s not like I don’t want to work. I’d love to have a job, but you try getting a job as a teacher with ten years experience and two masters degrees. They freaking laugh at you when you apply because surely they can hire some green nitwit out of college for a great deal less. But I know what you’re going to say, it’s my own freaking fault. But I didn’t quit my last job. They let me go. And I was pregnant at the time. Who the hell is going to hire a pregnant teacher. Yeah, I know, calling my boss a moron probably wasn’t my brightest move. But I was beyond irritated. After three years, he couldn’t figure out how to spell my name properly. Brent is not difficult, and yet, in every email he sent me he spelled it Bent. I was the only openly queer teacher on staff and he called me Bent. I’ve no doubt it was on purpose. The union rep agreed with me, but it wasn’t enough. I had no proof that it was on purpose or what his motivation might be. Plus, I wasn’t tenured, so they claimed there was nothing they could do about it. The assistant principal could take cheap shots at my sexuality, but the minute I called him on it, I got fired. But whatever, I hated my job anyway. After three years in that place, I still couldn’t figure out how to teach English to students who absolutely refused to open a book and read. How do you get kids to think critically about a novel, short story, or essay when they haven’t read it? How do you force them to think for themselves, when they’d rather sit back and regurgitate what you taught them? Kudos to anyone who can be successful day after day with kids who can’t be bothered doing anything.

  I pick up my phone again and stare at it, trying to formulate my response. The fury is bubbling, and I know if I let my fingers type I’ll end up regretting my words. I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to be anywhere, yet I want to be everywhere at once. Anywhere but here, anywhere but trapped in this body, stuck inside my mind. Why don’t people come with an on-off switch. How lovely it would be if I could shut myself down, force myself into sleep mode. I miss the days when I could jump into my car and drive, randomly making turns and not caring where I ended up. I miss the dive hotels, where I could lose myself. Forget who I was and not have to speak to a single soul for days. I miss the anonymity, the comfort that lay in no one knowing who I was. Oh to converse again only with strangers, people in passing. To not have to second guess everything I say, and fear that once again, I have caused offense.

      “Danni. Are you there?”

      My phone buzzes and I stare at her words. That’s the problem. I’m still here. Still trying to build myself up, trying to forget the reality that spins around me forcing me to choke on my own thoughts.

     “Danni. Justin needs you. Your son needs you.”

     I thought I needed him too, needed him so badly that some nights I clutch him so tightly my spouse fears I might crush him. But I could never hurt him, not intentionally, not if I leave when the suffocating begins. How lovely it would be to walk through life invisible? And mute. I don’t want to talk. If only I could rid myself of my voice, the poison that burns my tongue and soils my friendships. Friends. I don’t need them now. Friends and disappointment — are they not synonymous?

   “My battery is dying.” I type slowly, deliberately, lying to protect myself.

   “Bullshit.” She knows me well. “Answer me, honestly. Are you taking your meds?”

   There are no stupid questions except the ones for which you already know the answer, the answer you’d rather forget or ignore. Meds, I laugh aloud, taking a swig of cider. In theory, I’ve got no problem with them. You know that. They’re quite appealing, from a purely clinical perspective. Because nothing really is pure or simple. Yes, if obtaining meds wasn’t impossible, I probably would take them. I had been taking them regularly for nearly three years, until my shrink screwed me over. I had an appointed for 2:00 one afternoon. As always, I was early. I waited. And waited. And waited. I would have knocked, but her door was shut. A sign written in big letters, “Do Not Disturb. Do Not Knock. Do Not Call,” hung on it. What could I do but leave at 2:45 when I had to pick up Justin. As I was walking out I blasted her via text.”

    “Where were you? I had a 2:00 appointment.”

     “I’ve been in my office. You should have knocked.”

    “Knocked. You have a sign telling me not to.”

     “Well what do you want from me.”

    “Now, just a prescription so I can pick up my meds.’

    “For that you’ll need an appointment. Will tomorrow work?”

  “Tomorrow, I wasted forty-five minutes in your office. I don’t want an appointment. I want my meds.”

    “Sorry. I have to see you first.”

    “Well fuck you. Obviously, you don’t give a shit about me. How many other patients have you fucked over?”

      And that was it. She wouldn’t fill my script, and I wasn’t wasting my goddamn time with her any more. Why the fuck was I paying her not to show up. But I did try to find another shrink. Actually, I tried two other shrinks. Both times I made appointments with other doctors, and both times they kept me waiting for more than a half hour. I have a mood disorder. I am prone toward impatience and angry outbursts, especially when I have to wait unnecessarily. I had divulged this much on the phone when making an appointment, and still they didn’t care. Or did they even bother to listen? Seriously, they are supposed to help me. Them keeping me waiting only agitated me and made me worse. Obviously, they were in the profession not to help people like me, but to line their pockets with money. I wasn’t about to sit in a waiting room for the doctors to fuck with me three times a year. I’d live without my meds. At least then, I wouldn’t get aggravated trying to do the right thing.

   I know better. I know I shouldn’t antagonize her. I know that I should play the dead battery and power-off my phone, but I don’t. My anger and frustration crests and spews out of me and I am unable to stop myself. My thumbs fly over the letters, and I hit sent without reading over what I had written, not caring if I spelled half the words wrong or if my grammar sucks, “You know damn well know why I’m not taking my meds. I’ve told you before, if I could get them, I’d take them. But doctors only care about making themselves rich.”   “You can’t be a mother without them.”

“Fuck you!”

“You come home now. This minute. Or don’t come home at all?”

 Her words are sharp, but I can’t tell if they cause me pain or bring me comfort.

Don’t come home at all! Oh the freedom those words offer. Freedom if I sacrifice my son. Stagnation and suffocation if I do not. Staring at the screen, the ultimatum thirteen years in the making. Thirteen years of struggling to breathe, of struggling to find my place. Thirteen years of shit and playing by rules I despise.

   Don’t come home at all!

  This time I do shut off my phone and chug the rest of my cider. If I leave now, I can be in Richmond by the morning. Richmond or home. I’ll decide when I get to my car.