Lisa Allen-Agostini - Trinidad Noir

The fluorescent bulb directly overhead gave the restroom a whitish-gray cast. Eric stared at the small back and tiny waist of the woman across from him. His Cara. She was still the petite woman he had married, a woman who always took care of herself. As she turned around, he quickly shut his eyes again. She was more beautiful than he remembered. When he felt the cool damp of the cloth she placed on his forehead, he reopened his eyes slowly. His eyes searched to meet hers. He smiled, and she sighed and smiled back.

“Hello, Eric,” she said softly.

“You came,” he murmured. “I knew you would.” He reached out, took her hand, and placed it against his chest. Her lips curved into a half-smile, but her eyes misted with concern. She still loves me, he mused. He did not need to hear her say it. She was here and that’s all that mattered. It meant that they could go home together. She would take care of him and make him feel safe again from the cruel world.

“An ambulance coming and I called your sister,” she said, carefully placing his hand at his side.

“I don’t need an ambulance,” he replied, raising himself on the makeshift cot. “I need you . Let’s just go home and—”

“It’s over, Eric,” she said as gently as she could. “You can’t come home with me. The judge said.”

“What the hell the judge know? He know me? He know you?” Eric lay back as she placed the bowl on the counter.

Surprised by the strength in his voice, she realized that the call about Eric’s possible heart attack had made her drop her guard. “Calm down, Eric,” she coaxed. “You’re not well.” He threw back the cover and sat up in the cot. The concern in her eyes turned to bewilderment. “But, I thought... your heart... the office called...” she stammered.

“The only thing wrong with me, Cara, is that this heart mash-up,” he declared. Fixing his gaze on her, he added softly, “And only you could fix it.”

“So, that is why I here? Nothing wrong with you? You make these people call me from work because they think you dying, and nothing wrong with you? I can’t believe this. What kind of game is this? You wasting my time.” She moved to the chair where she had placed her purse. Her lawyer had warned her to stay away, but she believed that Eric had had a heart attack.

“Give me another chance nah, babe,” he pleaded, grabbing her wrist. Cara looked at the hand grasping her. He still wore his wedding band, this man to whom she had promised herself years ago when she had thought that he was the most sensitive, mature man she had ever known. In the eyes of an eighteen-year-old surrounded by comparatively immature boys of the same age, those qualities were enough for her to consider his proposal. It had been a chance for her to escape the watchful eyes of her mother and the endless duties thrust upon her as the eldest of six girls. She believed that Eric was misunderstood and needed comfort, needed to be handled with care. Her family did not approve, but she was adamant, and for ten years she had coddled, cooed, and coaxed this man.

Her mother thought he was too quiet, and the first time Eric beat her, her mother had simply shaken her head and said, “Well, and you want to take man?” It was a question she would hear each time she ran home after Eric’s abuse. After the third or fourth beating, Cara bore the next five years quietly. She would tell herself that he only drank to get away from the pressures of work. She never believed that he meant to hurt her.

“He just forgets himself when he drunk,” she told one coworker who asked about her bruises. It was only after Eric kicked her in the abdomen while she was pregnant, causing her to miscarry the three-month-old fetus, that her mother offered Cara her old room if she needed a place to stay. That was a year ago. Since then, her mother had made her register at a local center for abused women. Cara would tell Eric that she was going to her mother’s house to help out, but when he called one day and she was not there, they argued and he accused her of seeing another man. Nothing she said could change his mind. Six months after joining the center, Cara left Eric.

Now she was troubled. She could only imagine the depth of his pain and confusion, and she was unsure whether to explain again that she was not with anyone else and that she cared only about him. She was no longer convinced that she could help him. Eric would have to decide for himself that he needed help. “ Another chance? I hear that before. And we try, Eric. I try with you, with your jealousy and your drinking, and—”

“I will make things better. I go stop drinking. Don’t leave, Cara,” he begged.

“You need help. The last time you say that, I go back home, and the very next Friday you come home drunk, and you bus’ my head,” she replied, trying to pull away. “The mark still there.”

“You not going nowhere,” he said, standing and tightening his grip on her wrist. “I didn’t say you could leave.”

“Eric, you’re hurting me,” she winced, her eyes filling with fear.

“You ’fraid me, Cara? Your own husband, eh? Look at what they do to we! That you ’fraid the man who love you,” he said, shaking his head. “I would die for you. I would kill for you,” he added softly, gazing into her frightened eyes. She stood frozen.

Suddenly, as if awakened from a trance, she threw her weight back and jerked her arm once again, hoping to surprise him and run to the door, but he held her firmly with a smirk on his face.

“Where you think you’re going? We’re not finish here. You forget I know you? All my life I trying to please everybody. But I could never get it right. Always the misfit. Not again, you hear? Is my turn now!” he bellowed. “I go show them who is man! I taking back what is mine!”

Cara glanced again at the door and prayed that someone would come to the restroom. Where was the ambulance? She had to think of some way to calm him. “You’re right, Eric,” she said, steadying her voice. “I understand, but you need to see a doctor to make sure everything okay.”

He tilted his head, looked down at her, and decided to relax his hold, allowing her to pry her wrist free. “I don’t want any doctor or ambulance or anything. I just want you,” he said miserably, staring at his hands. “I don’t know what does happen. Sometimes I does get so damn vex at everything,” he added apologetically.

“But you need to stay in control, Eric,” she said. She picked up her purse to leave, but when she reached the door, his six-foot frame blocked her. His hands were behind his back, and she heard the click of the lock. “Eric, what you doing?”

“I not ready for you to leave, Cara.”

“But I need to check to see if the ambulance reach,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm.

“Cara. Don’t leave nah,” he begged. “I just want some time with you. Come, please?” He reached for her. She darted from his grasp, tripped over the rug, and fell onto the cold floor. Eric loomed above, one hand reaching down to her. His other hand was in his pocket. “Babe, come. Let’s work this out, nah,” he said gently, pulling her to a sitting position. “I can’t do this without you.”

“Eric, you’re not well,” she repeated, shaking her head. “One minute you’re sweet and gentle, the next you’re a raging bull.”

“I’m real sorry I hurt you, Cara. I just love you so much, I can’t live without you. Tell me what I doing wrong and I will fix it.”

“You really want to get better, Eric?” she asked cautiously.

“Yes, darling, but I don’t know what does get into me sometimes. Only you could help me, Cara.” He searched her face. “Stay nah? For me, please?” The fury in his eyes that accompanied his tantrums was gone. Before her stood the sad little boy who had lost his way. In the early years, she had been the only one who could talk him out of his rages, the only one who could once again find that little boy beneath the wrath. Things had been so different then. Maybe she should give him one more chance, but she would need to bring in someone else to guide them through it.