Independence Day

Independence Day
by Shannon Chapel

Thank you my dear friend, Mara ♣ McBain , for the beautiful ribbon.

I used to believe you had to be screwed up to kill someone; now I believe you only have to be screwed over.

I'd been thinking about killing Liz. I could plunge a knife through the back of her cheap canvas lawn chair. I'd brought one with me just in case. It was in my purse. The boom of the fireworks would drown out her cries. The beach was dark, and with all the people milling about I doubted anyone would notice.

Look at her, I thought. She was thirty feet away, but I could still hear her. Drunken whore. What does he see in her?

"Here you go, babe." Jon handed me a plastic cup filled with beer and sat down beside me. "Nice night, isn't it?"

His thick left hand squeezed my knee. Did he touch Liz with that hand, his wedding ring skimming across her taut, tanned flesh? I pictured his hands on her, caressing her, pleasing her the way they'd pleased me for twenty years. I wanted to double over in pain. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to yell and stomp and hit and hurt him as much as he'd hurt me.

But I sat there. I wouldn't allow myself to fall apart. I was stronger than that. I was stronger than him.

"You look beautiful tonight."

"Thank you."

"I think they're getting ready to start. Are you cold? Do you want me to get the blanket out of the car?"

I kicked off my flip-flops and dug my toes into the sand. It was still warm. "No, I'm okay."

I wondered why so many middle-aged men lost their minds--why they were willing to risk their marriages, their children, their lives for a meaningless fling with a younger woman. I couldn't for the life of me remember what prompted me to open Jon's cell phone that day--the day I found the pictures and the text messages. Did he know that I knew?

"Let's get this party started!" Liz yelled, throwing her empty beer can. "I ain't got all night!"

From the corner of my eye I saw Jon flinch and lower his head. "Some people, huh?" I said.

"Some people," Jon repeated.

A mic squealed somewhere in the distance: thunk, thunk, thunk as it was tapped three times, someone said, "Testing, testing, one, two, three." There was a brief pause, then a woman cleared her throat and started to sing the National Anthem. One by one people rose, their hands over their hearts. Liz stood, staggered, righted herself.

Jon slipped his left arm around my shoulders and squeezed. "Here we go," he said. I looked up into his beaming child-like face, and my heart broke a second time.

The fireworks exploded above us, tinting sand, surf and skin shades of red, white and blue. I remembered lying in the back of Jon's truck, neither of us out of high school yet, as we watched the fireworks together. We snuggled under a blanket and gazed in wonder at the stars. We talked about men walking on the moon and other incredible things human beings were capable of when they set their minds to something. It was the summer of '86, and we were inseparable.

I wondered if Liz had even been born yet.

Then she was stumbling toward us. She weaved her way through the crowd, and my intestines weaved themselves into an intricate, gnarled knot. She stopped short when she saw Jon, glanced at me, then back at Jon, and he stopped breathing.

Here we go indeed, I thought.

Liz covered the last few steps between us and collapsed against Jon's chest; her delicate fingers stroking the fine hairs there. "Hey, baby. Buy your girl a beer?"

Jon pushed her away, holding her at arm's length by her elbows. "You're drunk, lady. I'm not who you think I am."

Liz threw her head back and laughed--a cruel, manufactured laugh that chilled me, and I took a step back.

"Sure you are." Liz jerked free and wrapped her arms around Jon's waist. "And you like it when I'm drunk, don't you, Johnny?" she cooed. "You like all the naughty things I do to you when I'm drunk. You can't get enough of the sucking and the--"

"Stop it, Liz."

"Oh, that's a first! You've never told me to stop before. Is this the little woman?" she asked, winking at me.

Jon unclasped her hands from around his back and pushed her away. "Stop it, Lizzie. Now is not the time or the place."

Oh my God, he has a pet name for her.

Liz smiled. "There's always another time, and it's always at my place, isn't it, baby? You keep coming back for more, don't you?"

I spun around and started to walk, slowly at first, then faster. I had to get away. I didn't want to get sick to my stomach with so many people around. I didn't want to give her the satisfaction.

"Honey, wait!" Jon chased after me.

"Your old man likes it dirty, did you know that?" Liz called out to me. "The dirtier the better. He'll be back. You wait and see. He always comes back."

I ran. With tears stinging my eyes and streaming down my face, I ran. Our lives together flashed before me, each occasion a snapshot in the photo album of my mind: our first date, our wedding day, our first-born child, my fortieth birthday, our twentieth anniversary--but my five-foot, five-inch frame was no match for Jon's six-foot three inches, and he caught up with me quickly and pulled me to a stop.

"Please." Jon took my hand. I pulled it away. "Please talk to me."

"How long?" I asked.

"What? What do you mean, how--"

"How long, Jon?"

"Honey, I think this is a bad idea. Can't we just go home and--"

"How long!"

Jon sighed. The pained look on his face intensified my anguish. Shouldn't his discomfort make me feel better? I wondered. No. You've never liked to see those you love suffer. I supposed that was true, for there had never been any doubt that I loved him.

"Seven months."

All the air exited my body as if I'd been sucker-punched in the gut. I couldn't breathe, and I slumped to my knees in the sand.

"I didn't think to look at the dates. All those text messages ... seven months of lies."

It felt like hours before Jon spoke, and even then all he could manage was, "You knew?"

It occurred to me that I'd known for quite some time--before I found the messages and the pictures, I'd known.

"We're not supposed to end this way," I said.

"End?" Jon knelt beside me and pulled me close. "She doesn't mean anything to me. Jesus, what're you talking about, end? It's been over for two months now. Are you going to leave me for this?"

I wrenched myself free and stood up. "It's been over for two months for you! For me this just happened today. Is that supposed to make me feel better? Is the fact that she means nothing to you supposed to make me hurt less?"

"Honey, calm down. Let's--"

"Don't you dare tell me to calm down." The tears fell freely now, and I was completely helpless to stop them. "Actually, you saying she means nothing to you makes it worse because it means you threw away our lives together ... you threw me away for someone you don't even love."

"I'm sorry. I never meant--"

"What? To hurt me?" I looked up into the sulfur-filled heavens. There were no stars tonight; just the man-made kind bursting in unison, their brilliant colors and deafening detonations punctuating the death of my marriage like some cheesy B-movie soundtrack. "Just shut up, Jon. There's nothing more to say."

We stood there like that for a long time--Jon looking at me and me looking at the sky.

"I'm not who you think I am," I whispered.

"What?"

"You said, 'You're drunk, lady. I'm not who you think I am.'"

Jon looked at the ground and said nothing.

"Those are the truest words to come out of your mouth in almost a year. You're not the man I thought you were."

The fireworks stopped and people filed to their cars. I wondered who cleaned up all the mess after such events--all those tiny bits of paper and debris littering the landscape like lies and deceit litter our lives, lying in wait, biding their time until someone discovered them.

"Ironic, isn't it?" I asked.

"What?"

"That the fourth of July ends up being my Independence Day?"

I looked at Jon kneeling in the sand, and I felt ... exhausted. Exhausted and a sense of loss I'd never felt before. All those years. All those memories. All those Christmases and birthdays and anniversaries and Thanksgivings and nursing sick children back to health and cold winter nights and lazy summer days. I couldn't remember my life before him, and I didn't want to imagine my life without him. I reached out to touch the top of his head and stopped myself.

"We had a good life, didn't we?" I asked.

"I'm so sorry," he said as he started to weep.

"I'm sorry too," I said.





1,563 words

Written for July 2009

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