(Start from the beginning.)

10:23 am, March 18, 1999
Tuesday morning

I opened one eye cautiously and peered around the room. All was quiet. I gingerly picked up my hand and pinched my nose. That felt real. I opened both eyes and sat up, looking around the room. Sunlight poured in through the windows. So it had been a nightmare after all. A terrible nightmare.

I couldn't quite remember what the nightmare had been about, but I knew I'd had one. Vague traces of terror and anguish lingered with me. I shuddered and climbed out of bed, glancing at the clock as I did so.

"Shit," I muttered aloud, realizing I'd missed getting Tyler off to school. Hopefully he'd taken the initiative to dress and feed himself. I found it odd that he hadn't woke me, but apparently I'd been sleeping like the dead.

I paused as I walked through the hall, a strange feeling washing over me at my last thought. Slept like the dead. I shook my head and continued down to Tyler's room. The door was open, the bed unmade and empty. I hurried to the kitchen, but he wasn't there either. In fact, the house was eerily quiet. Apparently Tyler had gotten himself off to school and Adam to work without ever waking me. How had my two unorganized and careless men managed that?

Pooper barked behind me and I jumped. I turned to face him and bent down to pat his head. "If they keep this up, Poop, I'll be out of a job." He wagged his tail and licked my hand. "You're sure feeling good today!" I noted, scratching him behind the ears. He responded with a satisfied and rather loud fart. "Thanks, Pooper," I said, standing and waving my hand in front of my face to try and ward off the stinky fart.

There were dishes in the sink so I started on those. The entire house needed to be cleaned and I didn't know that I'd get it all done before needing to stop to make supper - not with the late start I'd gotten. Plus I needed to run to the store if I was going to have anything to cook for supper besides.

As I cleaned and straightened, my mind began to wander as it always did when I was doing household chores. I was angry at Adam - very angry and hurt - but the strange thing was I didn't know why. I know we'd gotten into a fight the night before, but I only remembered bits and pieces of the argument, as if I'd been falling asleep during a movie. It was a terrible fight, I remembered that, maybe one of the worst in our nine year marriage. But what had caused it? What was it about?

I tried as hard as I could to remember, but disjointed fragments were all I could recall.

"You don't mean that, Stella - you're just angry," Adam had said.

I also remember him saying, "We need to talk, Stell" and "You can be a total bitch, you know that?"

But I couldn't remember in what context any of it was said or where in the conversation. Something floated back to me about threatening to take Tyler away from him - why would I do that? I would never! None of it made sense.

I loved Adam, had loved him since I met him my first semester in college; I was 20. We married a year later and I never finished. He did, but was never able to put it to any use. A year after that I was pregnant and we were broke. My parents helped us rent a small house in my hometown of Maringouin, Louisiana, and we moved there; my step-father got Adam a job at a plant in Bunkie. Everything seemed idyllic. We were happy, just well-enough off and madly in love.

After Tyler was born I sometimes thought, in those early years, that no one should be allowed to be as happy as the three of us were. Looking back now I wonder how I'd ever made it this far with such a corny and naive view of the world. We bought a house in Baton Rouge when Tyler was three, and by that time my childish fancies had begun to be replaced by the cold, hard indifference of real life.

Adam was a brooding person who liked to be alone a great deal of the time. He would go off, sometimes for days at a time, to "reconnect". I was okay with his absences at first - until he started coming back drunk. Adam didn't drink all the time - and I wouldn't say it was even "often", but I hated the person he became when he'd had a few too many. My normally quiet, withdrawn and genteel man became loud and obnoxious - and mean. He never hit me - never hit Tyler - but as the years went on his cruel words during these times began to leave marks on my very soul.

On the outside we were a perfectly normal family - but the inside was silently crumbling around us. I knew it, I'd felt it for years, and I'm sure that Adam had, too but neither of us ever seemed to want to face it. Somewhere along the way Adam and I simply grew apart. It was like a giant oak that had started as one, strong sapling and then had, unexpectedly, branched off into two separate trunks. I know longer really knew Adam and he no longer really knew me.

But I assumed, as I'm guessing he did, that was just what marriage did to people; that everyone experienced this detached yet functional relationship after a certain number of married years. For us it began around the six year mark. My friends seemed to be going through the same thing - some had even divorced when they reached this stage. But I loved Adam - Adam loved me. For all intents and purposes we were happy together - well, we were content together. Comfortable. What more could you ask for? Somewhere along the way of raising a child, paying bills, working on a marriage and all the other grown-up things I'd lost any fantastical notions of a perfect love and a forever-passionate union. Life with Adam worked - and so we plodded on, ignoring the slowly rotting parts.

I was weighted down with these thoughts - so much so that I hadn't realized how late it had gotten. 2pm - I barely had enough time to run to the store and grab something to cook and make it back before Tyler got home. I decided I'd hurry and grab something quickly - I should be able to make it home before him. Even if not, he'd be okay alone for the few minutes more I might be gone. I grabbed my purse and keys, opened the door, stepped outside...and froze.

I could not force myself to take the few extra steps that would put me at my Explorer's door. I could not force myself to even think about getting in the car. It just wasn't happening. I felt a mild panic, but I wasn't necessarily scared. I'd had panic attacks before and this certainly wasn't one. It all seemed very simple to my conscious mind - "No, Stella," it told me, "You can't do that." But another part of me wasn't getting it so easily. "Why in the hell not? Take the next step, Stella - just one foot in front of the other. Get in the car, silly." But no matter how I tried to talk myself into walking towards the car, I could not. I just simply wouldn't.

Don't ask me how you can not doing something you're consciously telling yourself to do - don't ask me how my entire body "wouldn't" do something I was fully capable of doing. I couldn't explain it but there was obviously no use in fighting it. I quietly turned around, walked back inside, set my keys and purse back down and took a deep breath. Maybe it was time to call my therapist again - Adam had been hounding me to start going again, but I'd refused. Maybe I did need to go after all, however. I didn't allow myself to dwell on the incident for long. I quickly turned my mind to something else. I dug through the cabinets until I found something that would make a decent meal for my family - almost immediately forgetting about what had just happened.

I was in the middle of cooking when Adam came home. To say I was surprised was putting it mildly - he never came home early, not without calling first.

I was still upset with him, but figured it would be wrong to be pissy with him when I couldn't even remember what I was pissy about. "Hey, hon, what you doing home so early?" I asked him, turning from my cooking. I gasped when I saw him.

He looked horrible and it was obvious he hadn't come from work. He was in a t-shirt, a dirty one picked right off the bathroom floor I noted, and wrinkled jeans. He had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was so mussed as to be comical. It was the look on his face that had shocked me so, however. He looked as if he'd aged 20 years in one day. I noted lines I'd never noticed before and he looked the grimmest I think I'd ever seen him.

"Adam..." I started, quietly, but he walked right past me and into the bathroom. He slammed the door behind him and I heard him being sick. Bewildered I went and began banging on the door, "Adam! Adam, open this door!! What's wrong? What's going on?! Adam!!" He wouldn't answer me and I could hear him drawing a bath. Adam only took baths when he was very upset and I began to get even more worried. I continued yelling and banging on the door, but he continued to ignore me. After awhile I gave up and tried to listen. I heard him climb into the tub and then he began to cry.

If I'd been worried before now I was terrified. Adam hadn't even cried when his father died two years ago. What in the world could be making him do so now?! Instinctually, I turned to look at the clock in the hallway. 4:30pm. Panic and terror washed over me, squeezing my heart in a vise-like grip. Tyler should've been home an hour and a half ago.

"Adam!!" I screamed through the door, banging so hard now I was sure I was going to put a hole in it. "Where is Tyler!?" My voice was shrill, and whiny with terror. "Has something happened to Tyler!! Adam, please answer me!! What's happening!"

The phone rang then and I heard Adam getting out of the tub. The door whooshed open in front of me and I stepped back, surprised he'd gotten out so quickly. He hurried down the hall; a towel wrapped around his waist, and grabbed the ringing phone. I followed him.

"Jena," I heard him say with a sigh. "Yes, I'm fine. How is Tyler? Can I talk to him?"

I could tell he was talking to him in the next second and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. After he hung up, I tried to query him again.

"Why is Tyler at my mom's?" I asked.

He walked past me and into the living room. He sat on the couch and stared at the wall.

"Damnit, Adam!!" I yelled, wanting to throw something at him. "I know you're angry with me and its fine if you don't want to talk to me, but don't keep me in the dark about our son!!"

He just kept staring at the wall. Frustrated and angry, I went into the bedroom and slammed the door. I curled up in bed, fuming, and soon fell into a fitful sleep.