Up until the girl bit my husband’s ear off, I never doubted, never for more than an instant, that he was a good person.
He was supposed to be supervising a group of teenagers from Church, who were spending the night in a labyrinth under the city. Something I’d laughed about before – even as he explained the historical and religious significance of the labyrinth, and the element of adventure for the kids, it just seemed funny that they’d be sleeping in a maze (“It’s not actually a maze,” he insisted).
I woke up to knocking. Not angry knocking, not pounding, but desperate and rapid, like a chipmunk. I hadn’t expected him home that night. So I’d locked the door and bolted it.
I approached slowly, sort of backing along the counter, a hand over my stomach. Still half asleep and rattled by the unexpected visitor.
“Katy!” Taptaptaptap. “Katy!”
Hearing Bryan’s voice, I was at first relieved, then unnerved at whatever was unnerving him. I unlatched it quickly, eager to let him in.
But he didn’t rush inside when the door was open, just stood there like an uninvited guest, sheepish and chastised. I stared back at him, baffled – and then I noticed the rag he was holding to his ear.
Rather, where his ear had been.
“Honey,” he said, “I think I need to go to the hospital.”
Something told me, in that moment, that life as I knew it was over.
*
The world looked like a labyrinth in the night. How had I never seen it before? The winding road, flanked on either side by white picket fences and ivy-covered walls. Such a nice neighborhood to be trapped in.
I don't know why he came to get me first. Emotional support, I guess. Or maybe he wanted to explain it to me before someone else could.
As I drove him, he explained that the girl who’d done it was Chloe.
“She was having a nightmare,” he said, breathless, like he’d just gotten back from a run. “Tossing and turning, making noises, you know?” He looked straight ahead as he spoke. “So, I went over to her sleeping bag to try and wake her up. So she opened her eyes, you know, with me over her – and she just lost it, just went absolutely crazy.”
And bit your ear off? I wanted to ask, but didn’t.
I rounded corner after corner. By day, the homogeneity of the houses was comforting, the lawns all groomed within community guidelines. By night, the suburb felt sinister, each house a trap, a decoy, designed to replicate something safe. There could be something evil inside each of them.
I was navigating a labyrinth, full of danger. At the center was the truth.
I should have been horrified by what happened to my husband, asking questions, outraged on his behalf. But for some reason, his explanation was nauseating me.
“So she just bit it off,” he continued, unprompted. Looking at me now, intense. “Just bit it off and spat it out. Who – even if she thought – who does that?”
A hint of raw emotion crept into his voice, genuine shock and outrage, and it made me realize how contrived he’d been up to this point. Like he’d been trying to convince us both of his innocence.
“Fuck,” he muttered, to himself. “I should have grabbed it. They might have been able to put it back on.”
Chloe was a nice girl, even if she was a bit absentminded. She was blonde, with thick, dark eyebrows that somehow only accentuated her prettiness. She giggled a lot. I couldn’t imagine her doing this.
She was the sort of girl Bryan had always been hostile to – he hated blondes, especially bottle blondes, which he alleged she was. “I prefer girls like you,” he’d always said. “Your beauty shines all the brighter, because you don’t call attention to it.”
Still, he’d tolerated Chloe, because she helped out with the younger kids. He only gently ribbed her for wearing bright red lipstick to Church, and called her “Kelly Bundy” behind her back. The resemblance was there.
I realized now that these put-downs made me feel sort of special, the Jackie to her Marilyn. What did that say about me, that I was competing with her? That fact was suddenly impossible to hide from. When my husband gave me attention, rather than her, when he’d assured me I was better than her, I’d felt like I’d won at something. But she wasn’t competing with me. She was sixteen years old.
We pulled up at the hospital, bleachy light pouring out its hive of windows. The heart of the labyrinth.
The truth lived here.
Bryan was still looking at me. “Do you think –” he wet his lips. “You know, should I press charges?”
I stared back at him. His desperate face, his thin sheen of sweat. His lips, which I’d kissed so many times, were dry, sallow as his skin. His strong jaw hung quivering, like a door loose on its hinges. I used to think he was so handsome.
“Honey,” I said, slowly and quietly. “I think you should be wondering if she’s going to press charges against you.”
His face fell, in a way that told me he’d expected but dreaded this reply. My heart sank. So it was true.
“You’ll stay with me, right? You believe me?” he asked. When I didn’t respond right away, his eyes darkened with desperation. He looked at my stomach. “Please, Katey. For our family.”
I nodded. “Go on inside, Bryan. I’m just going to park the car. I’ll meet you inside, we’ll talk about it.”
Relief overtook his features.
He opened the door awkwardly, his right hand still holding the cloth to his ear. I watched as the only man I’d ever loved walked towards the glowing doors of the hospital.
I knew the emotions hadn’t hit me yet. I was still in shock. A truth I’d built my life around – that the man I’d chosen to spend my life with was a fundamentally good person – had been yanked out from under me like a rug. He might as well be dead.
I had to think of my baby. I had to do the right thing. And I had to do it fast, before I chickened out and reversed course, clung to the life I thought I had.
My womb felt heavier than the rest of me, a single grounding weight keeping me in the driver’s seat. My hands were shaking, leaving sweaty patches on the steering wheel.
I didn’t want to picture him alone in there, the way his face would look when he realized I wasn’t coming.
I didn’t want to think of him holding our baby. Of raising a daughter with him.
I put the car into gear, and drove away from the hospital.
Out of the parking lot.
Into the night.
Brooksie C. Fontaine
Brooksie C. Fontaine is an obnoxious coffee addict who got into college at fifteen and annoyed everyone there. She is a teaching assistant, illustrator, and recipient of MFA degrees in English and Illustration. Her work has been published by Fahmidan Journal, Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine, Bending Genres, Defenestration Magazine, Eunoia Review, Aureation, Report From Newport, Boston Accent Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, the Cryptids Emerging and Things Improbable anthologies, and more.
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