Sarah

Sarah

unfinished

16 November 1997

27 years old

Sarah let herself into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind her. From the paper grocery bag she carried, she withdrew bubble bath, a box of chocolates, and a bottle of champagne, setting them down on the kitchen table, one by one with a sigh.

She knew it was fruitless the moment she signed the papers… She would never feel differently. A broken marriage, a friendship torn asunder… and now, no place left to go, except to an empty apartment.

She had fidgeted in the big leather chair of the attorney's office, desperately seeking comfort and refuge in the soft cloud of her own perfume—the one she used only for special occasions. The feeling of hopelessness had consumed her, and only when she signed the divorce papers did she know with certainty that trying to save her marriage would have been pointless. She was doing the right thing. Michael may not have thought so, but then he was a man. And weak. Wasn't he?

"Yes," she determined. "He is." And with resolution, and a hardened heart, she boldly signed her name to the Decree.

But now, an hour later, she looked around the empty apartment, taking in the ghosts Michael had left behind. "At least he had the decency to leave everything with me," she thought. He had taken with him only his clothes, toiletries, some books and a few CDs. "Good to know he has some pride left," she muttered.

Sarah took off her coat and boots, and padded to the bathroom, grabbing her purchases and a corkscrew along the way. She drew her bath and squeezed nearly half the bottle of bubble bath beneath the running water. She uncorked the bottle of champagne, ducking out of the path of the cork ricocheting off the ceiling tiles. Not bothering with a glass, she tipped her head back, drinking straight from the bottle, as she systematically shed her clothing, leaving them in a heap on the floor. She did not intend to leave the tub until the bottle was empty. Piling her hair atop her head, she slowly lowered herself into the tub. The water was hot. Too hot. But that was good— She needed to wash, scour, scald the grim of the day, no, of the last two years off her skin.

Never again, she told herself. Never again.

***

Three years earlier,

Michelle was throwing a housewarming party with her new lover, Alexander. As Sarah got ready, she called to Michael in the living room to bring her the gift she'd bought earlier that afternoon. "It's in the box over by the sofa. Wrapped in a bunch of newspaper." Silence. "Mike? Do you see it there?" She shuffled out of the bedroom to find Mike standing ashen-faced near the door of the apartment. She closed the compact she was holding. "What's wrong, Mike?"

"That box was Michelle and Alex's housewarming gift? The one that was right there," he pointed to the floor near the sofa, "filled with all the newspaper?"

"Of course. …..Why? What did you do with it?"

Michael rubbed his hands through his hair and over his face; an action which , Sarah knew, clearly did not bode well.

"Michael, where is that box? What did you do with it?"

"Oh man. Shit. I'm so sorry. I didn't know, I really didn't."

"Michael!"

"I thought it was trash and threw it in the incinerator with the rest of the garbage."

"Fuck. I don't believe you. And I suppose it didn't occur to you to look through it, or at least ask me, first?"

"Well, I thought it was empty!"

"Forget it. I don't want to hear it. I'll have to think of something else. Let's just go, huh?"

But it wasn't just the $100, paper-thin, venetian glass vase--bought for her best friend who insisted that this time, Alex is definitely The One (and this time, Sarah believed her)--now lying broken and ruined amid the burning rubble of the incinerator that made her so angry. She had to grant that the cardboard box that held the vase was deceptively light, after all; and packed as it was with bubble wrap and surrounded by an almost obscene amount of newspaper….. Well, anyone could have mistaken it for trash, really.

No, the guts of the matter was that Michael had been irritating her a lot, lately, and even that wasn't his fault. Not really. It was that lost feeling she'd been having lately. That sort-of limbo state; close-mouthed, inward, detatched-ness. She felt apathetic and angry and sad all at once. A thing clawed within her, yowling to be set free; but she couldn't identify the beast, and therefore knew not how to free it from the confines of her own psyche.

She supposed she was going just a bit crazy. Nutso. Blammo. But even that didn't seem to really matter.

Michael's voice stirred her from the blackness of herself. "I'm sorry, Sarah….. I just didn't know."

She looked at him, still standing at the front door, stricken with shame like a little boy caught doing something wrong. Christ. She sighed. "It's okay, Michael. Really. I shouldn't have yelled at you." She smiled weakly at him. "I'm sorry, too." And she meant it, for a lot more than just flying off the handle over a case of innocent human error. She pulled their coats from the closet and handed one to him. "I suppose there’s a florist still open, someplace?"

"Yeah, I think so." He sounded relieved, and eager to please.

"Then let's get out of here before they all close." She took his arm as they walked out the door together.