The Last Silence

I had sex with my husband and it felt like nothing. Like pressing my palm against a wall and feeling the drywall give a little, the studs holding firm underneath. Like the time I tried to explain to my mother what depression felt like and she said, “But you have so much to be grateful for.”

He rolled off me. His breathing slowed. The ceiling fan clicked on its third rotation, a sound I’d been tracking for seven years now, ever since we moved into this apartment and the landlord said he’d fix it next week.

“You good?” His voice was muffled by the pillow.

“Yeah,” I said. “Fine.”

That word. Fine. I’ve been fine for so long I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be anything else. Fine is a country I live in. It has no weather, no seasons, no earthquakes. Just flat gray light forever.

He was already asleep. I could tell by the way his breathing changed, that little hitch at the end of each exhale like a car engine that doesn’t quite turn over. I lay there with my legs still apart, the sheets twisted around my ankles, and I thought about the first time we did this. The first time we did anything.

We were in his dorm room. He had a poster of a Bob Marley album tacked to the ceiling above his bed. I remember staring at it while he fumbled with the condom wrapper, thinking about how the colors in the poster seemed to vibrate, how the whole room felt like it was humming. His hands were shaking. He kept apologizing. I told him it was fine.

That was the first time I lied to him.

I got up. The floor was cold. I put on his t-shirt from the chair and walked to the kitchen. The linoleum tiles were peeling near the stove, a curl of beige plastic lifting like a tongue. I’d been meaning to glue it down for two years. I’d been meaning to do a lot of things.

The refrigerator hummed. I opened it and stared at the contents. Half a jar of pickles. A carton of eggs with two left. Some takeout containers I was afraid to open. I closed the door and leaned my forehead against it.

My phone buzzed on the counter. A text from my sister: *You awake?*

I typed back: *Yeah.*

She called immediately. I answered before the first ring finished.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“You always say nothing’s wrong. Then something’s wrong.”

I sat down at the kitchen table. The chair wobbled. I’d been meaning to fix that too.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I’m having a crisis.”

“A crisis about what?”

“About everything. About the fact that I just had sex with my husband and I felt less than I feel when I eat a good sandwich.”

She laughed. I didn’t.

“That’s not funny,” I said.

“It’s a little funny.”

“It’s not. It’s really not.”

She went quiet. I could hear her breathing, the way she does when she’s thinking about what to say next. My sister is a therapist. She’s always thinking about what to say next.

“When did it start?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Gradually. Like a slow leak. You don’t notice until one day you look and the tire’s flat.”

“Have you talked to him about it?”

I looked at the crack in the wall above the stove. It ran from the ceiling to the outlet, a thin black line like a vein. I’d noticed it the week we moved in. I’d meant to patch it.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because what would I say? ‘Hey, I know we’ve been married for six years and you’re a good man and you love me, but I don’t feel anything anymore. I feel like I’m watching my life from behind glass. I feel like I’m already a ghost and nobody told me I died.’”

“That’s a start.”

“It’s not a start. It’s an ending.”

She was quiet again. I could picture her in her apartment, sitting on the couch with her feet tucked under her, the way she always sits when she’s working through a problem. She has a mole above her left eyebrow that she touches when she’s thinking. I knew she was touching it now.

“You need to talk to him,” she said.

“I know.”

“I mean it. This isn’t the kind of thing that fixes itself.”

“I know.”

“You keep saying you know.”

“Because I do know. Knowing and doing are different things.”

She sighed. The sound came through the phone like a small wind.

“I’m worried about you,” she said.

“Don’t be.”

“Too late.”

I looked at the clock on the microwave. 2:47 AM. The numbers glowed green, sharp and definite. I thought about all the nights I’d spent staring at that clock. All the hours I’d given to this apartment, this marriage, this life I’d built like a house I didn’t want to live in.

“I have to go,” I said.

“Where?”

“Nowhere. I just have to go.”

I hung up. The kitchen was dark except for the light from the refrigerator and the microwave clock. I sat there for a long time. The refrigerator hummed. The ceiling fan clicked. Somewhere in the building, a dog barked.

I went back to the bedroom. He was still asleep, still on his stomach, one arm hanging off the bed. The sheets were tangled around his legs. He looked peaceful. He looked like a stranger.

I got back in bed. I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. There was a water stain in the corner, a brown bloom spreading like a flower. I’d been meaning to call the landlord about it.

I turned on my side, away from him.

The bed was warm. The room was dark. I closed my eyes and thought about the Bob Marley poster. The colors. The way they used to vibrate.

They don’t vibrate anymore.

Nothing vibrates anymore.

And that’s the thing about being fine. It’s not sad. It’s not angry. It’s not anything you can fight. It’s just a slow fade, a dimming of the lights, until one day you realize you’ve been living in the dark for so long you’ve forgotten what light looks like.

I opened my eyes.

The water stain was still there.

The ceiling fan still clicked.

And I was still fine.