Aversion

Copyright 2019

Chapter 1

For as long as I can remember, I have been incapable of saying the name of that distinct carpenter from the bible without feeling this sharp, stabbing pain in the center of me. I don’t know why. I have come to consider the possibility that maybe I was born with a very specific aversion. Just as cigarette smoke makes some break out in hives or bee stings close up a person’s throat, mine is a reaction to that Name. The first Name specifically. I can say the last name, the Christ. But the idea of saying the first Name brings a cold chill to my body. It leaves me gasping for breath. It leaves me feeling broken, a cup trying to hold liquid as it drains away from me. It leads to horrible moments of anxiety. It leads to panic attacks. And ultimately it leads to graphic thoughts of suicide.

When Brooke and I met, everything was good. Now… now it’s all ruined. Now it’s all over. She went to church today and she came back to tell me some news. She converted, prayed that prayer they try to get you to say. I didn’t even know she was shopping around. I thought she was happy on our religion-free road. If I had known she was playing around with such things, if I had known her Sunday morning was spent in the halls of a church, I would have distracted her. I would have found a way to keep her far from that place every Sunday.

Do you have anything to say, Eric? She looks at me, Fiona and Mitchy circling my feet. Yeah, daddy! Tell mommy what she wants to hear! Their eyes are loud even though they haven’t spoken a word. Mitchy is too young to speak, only just recently beginning to take his first uncertain steps. And Fi, usually a spit fire of opinions and four year old tangents, is unusually quiet. She took them too? Where was I? How did I not know? Since telling me her news, I have only stared ahead, trying to focus only on my breathing. She said the Name, the one I can’t say, the one I can’t hear. And now my heart is a loud thumping, a continuous beating drum getting louder and louder. What can I say? Everything is changed now, Brooke! We are incompatible! I am a smoke free house and you just lit up.

I look down at my children. The sadness is louder than the thumping. I close my eyes for a moment. I can already imagine the next few weeks. Divorce papers. A split home. A foundation cracked for two little people just now starting to build up their blocks. They’ll never understand why I couldn’t stay. And neither will Brooke. She doesn’t know about the panic attacks and she doesn’t know their cause. She was perfect for me for many reasons, but especially for her distaste in religion. We didn’t talk about it. The topic was never around us. I made sure to keep it contained, some type of quarantine parameters always implemented—well, I can’t say always. Not today. I fell asleep somewhere along the way and now everything is broken.

Her eyes scan over me a few more times and then wander away with her as she guides the kiddos to another part of the house. She knows the silent treatment, she’s been on the receiving end of it many times. It’s a pause for thought, a pause so I can say the mean (sometimes cruel) things in my head. And there are many things I want to say to her right now. You broke the rules! You changed the game! You ruined everything we built! This set you apart! But now you are no better than any of the others! Did you ruin our children too?! Did you fill them with that poison?! Did you go and make them incompatible with me?!

I say none of it but in my head, it continues. Along with the still fast beating heart, the onslaught continues. All it seems to do is inflate an already overinflated balloon. If I can’t calm down, I worry I’m going to pop. My lungs are shriveling up, tightness grabs hold of my hands and squeezes, a numbness now spreading from my fingers up toward my forearms. It was that Name being said… and the things I keep screaming inside… and the fact that I’m about to lose all that I love.

Brooke and the kids are out of sight, in the living room, I think. I’m bent over in the dining room, feeling like somebody has a vice grip on my lungs, cranking tighter and tighter. I’m trying to breathe but pressure is all I feel. Pressure from all sides and the release valve to bleed it away is missing—it’s always been missing. I just have to make it through. If I can just take a few deep breaths—but I can’t. It feels like I’m suffocating, drowning but without water. This is as bad as it has been in a long time. If not ever.

I close my eyes to try and calm down. I can only see the top of dark stairs. The walls are old stone. It’s not only pressure I feel but fear. Immense and growing. The light downstairs is dim, long shadows stretching up the stone walls, reaching toward me—

Eric! Brooke’s voice pulls me back. My eyes open in the way they would if I had spent a night getting sick over the toilet. I’m weak and on the floor of the dining room. The attack has passed but I feel drained, a balloon, once too full, now fully deflated, never to regain the same shape it once had. Brooke now knows something is wrong and she will never see me the same way. What happened to you?

I shake my head and shrug. It’s not an act. I’ve always had attacks when hearing the Name, but never even one image to answer why. A paralyzing fear at the top of dark stairs leading down into a place far darker. I take a deep breath. It almost sounds like an empty aerosol can. I imagine my voice is nothing more than a rasp. Something’s different about today. I’ve been given a peek behind the curtain and I can only take it to mean one thing: this isn’t broken beyond repair just yet.

Brooke is on her knees, Fiona standing next to her. Mitchy is sitting on the floor, a few blocks keeping him occupied for the moment.

Are you okay, daddy? Fi’s eyes look both scared and compassionate, both willing to take on the weight and unable to fully understand it.

I’m okay, Fi. My voice isn’t as empty as I expected it to be.

Time to spill it, Eric. What’s going on? Why does this not seem to surprise you?

Silence as I prepare to answer. Where should I begin? To show I’m planning on answering her, I look at her deep bronze eyes, my mouth opened slightly, as if the words are made in a factory just waiting to roll down the conveyor belt. This silence is a different brand. A brand she welcomes. It isn’t cold and distant. It’s eventual. And it shows intent.

Finally the words are there. I’ve had panic attacks for most of my life. They are brought on by one thing. And, um, ya-you just accepted Him into your life.

Her mouth is now open just the same but the factory seems to have stalled. Her eyes squinted, her nose scrunched—does she think I’m lying? What a low thing to do… what a low opinion to have of me. It would be an effective lie, for sure, but who would be snake-like enough to use it? Not me. She should know that. Our years together have seen many of our hidden rooms exposed. We still have our secrets, of course. Nobody ever knows anybody entirely. How can we? We don’t truly know ourselves. How can I let her see behind every door when there are ones I wasn’t even aware of?

Wa-why have you never told me? Her look of disbelief has changed into a long and thorough search, the scanning resumes as she shuffles across my eyes with hers: a cast of light looking for answers.

It never came up. It wasn’t important. It didn’t apply to our lives. It was the perfect situation. But now—

It doesn’t make sense.

No. It doesn’t. But, it’s always happened. The first name, that J one. Even the beginning of it… I react to it severely, B. I always have. So I avoid it.

Her eyes are sad now. I think she’s starting to picture the same thing happening in the next few weeks. A split home. What we’re going to tell Fi. I want to ask her to choose me, as if this was a situation where I was allergic to a pet and I was given precedence over the animal. But, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be chosen. Her look tells me that she’s already made her decision. Something happened today, something I don’t understand. My wife is different than she was. Some kind of confidence is with her, some kind of assurance that I can’t match. She has found that thing we all look for, an epiphany that lights up the dim spots and paints everything with a clarity that has been missing. I see it on her face that my ideals and hers are different now. Even if she decided to go back to the way things were, it wouldn’t be genuine.

Daddy. Fi wandered away to take a few of Mitchy’s blocks, which he then threw across the floor in rebellion. This conversation, which has been filled with more pauses than words, has never been allowed the quiet atmosphere it requires. Fi helped stir the pot and now Mitchy’s crying.

I’ll change him and then we can talk some more. Sometimes Brooke’s statements sound like questions.

I nod my head.

Daddy. Oh, Fi is persistent. Her dark brown hair is only a shade or two lighter than Brooke’s, braids meeting braids leading down into two tight pigtails. She’s beautiful, just like her mother. Her white dress is dirty from crawling around on the floor. And even so, she looks far more put together than me. She’s standing. I’m still on the floor, my weak legs trying to regain their previous strength. Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!

Yes, Fi! she knows how to make my voice raise in response. What is it?

We learned about Jesus today.

It’s back again, just as bad as before. Hel-help! I call but can’t hear myself. I just hear the pounding. My heart feeling ready to stop. I am a young man, only thirty two, and slim by even slim standards. But the attacks leave me feeling like some kind of main component is missing and I’m beginning to short out. I’m going to lose them because they won’t give up the very Name I can’t be around. Now even Fiona says It. This is a whole new trajectory, unfairly introduced into my life without a thought to how it would affect me. Brooke knew my stance and yet she went searching. And worse yet, she brought the kids. I would be better off dead. My whole family are now possessors of a poison that will one day kill me. I wish it were now. A quick and merciful end for a man deficient of the very thing they now seek. What a sick cosmic joke.

All sounds are drowned out. I look around, Fi’s face filled with worry as she looks back for mommy. She yells for her too, I think. Brooke runs from Mitchy’s room, him tucked like a football under her arm. She reaches her hand up toward my face. And her touch immediately softens the constant drumming of my heart. I don’t want to close my eyes again. I can’t. Something was at the bottom of those stairs and if I stay long enough, I fear it