Behind Closed Doors

Maya cautiously closed the bathroom door behind her and turned on only one set of lights instead of the two. That would draw less attention.

She opened the small white bin where she kept her feminine products and dug beneath a box of tampons until she found the test she had hidden at the very bottom.

She was two weeks late. She sat on the closed toilet seat and stared at the little plastic stick in her hand. Two weeks, only two weeks. No big deal.  

She tried really hard to process what could be happening. It had to be the stress, there was plenty of that lately. Then she thought about the extra class she had decided to take this semester. She had three children, a husband who was barely home and somehow she thought that trying to get an online psychology degree sounded like a good idea about a year ago. It was taking twice as long as it should. Maya couldn’t remember what a “good night” of sleep felt like. There were plenty of reasons why she could be late. But today she just had a feeling.  

Maya glanced at the door. She imagined that at that moment her fifteen-year-old was upstairs with headphones on, pretending not to hear anything happening below him. And last time she checked, the nine-year-old had fallen asleep halfway through one of the Spiderman movies, and the seven-year-old was sprawled across the couch beneath his favorite blanket next to him.  

God, she loved those kids. They were the reason she stayed. If she had a dollar for every time she kept telling herself that maybe things would eventually get better…  

Maya stood and took a good look at herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized the woman staring back. It wasn’t so much her body that had changed, it was the light in her eyes. It was gone. She didn’t recognize the soul peering back at her. All she saw were hazel eyes surrounded by a hollow face.  

She thought back to the time when she and Darren had laughed in this bathroom. They would brush their teeth side by side and sneak kisses while the shower ran from cold to hot. Sometimes if they knew the kids were occupied, they’d even jump in the shower together. But that didn’t happen anymore. It hadn’t happened for the better part of two years. Now they barely looked at each other. 

Darren was having an affair. Maya knew because she had found the messages. Quite by accident of course. And then on purpose after that.

The first time she saw the woman's name on Darren's phone, she just assumed it was for work. Darren was in finance. His phone was always pinging or buzzing. She had lost count of the meetings, clients, dinners, and late nights long ago.  

What didn’t go unnoticed were the hotel charges on the American Express card. Maya handled the family bills and always combed them thoroughly when they arrived. When she asked Darren about the charges, he was quick to speculate suspicious activity on the card so Maya called the credit card company. They suggested she call the hotel before declaring fraudulent charges and issuing her another card. So she did.  

Darren fit the description perfectly for the male who checked into the hotel and used the card. However, Maya did not fit the description of the woman accompanying him.  

After that, Maya stopped asking questions and started paying attention. She realized what a strange marriage she was in; one where Darren could cheat, but technically she couldn’t? Not because he had said so. They had never actually discussed it. It just seemed like something that was understood. Or perhaps it was something Maya had conjured up in her own brain because thinking that was easier than admitting that their marriage was unstable.  

She did wonder why Darren didn't just leave. I mean, why was he staying with her if he was so unhappy? She contemplated that question, but figured it out. Of course he was going to stay. He was in finance and had run the numbers. Divorce would cost him. Big time. There would be alimony and child support. They’d have to figure out the house and who got what part of their very cozy lifestyle. Darren didn’t want to pay for any part of a life he no longer wanted. So instead, he created one behind Maya’s back.  

It didn’t happen overnight, but Maya began to create a life of her own as well. Oddly enough, it started with a broken kitchen cabinet. The house was more of a fixer upper when she and Darren bought it ten years ago and most of the repair work had been done up front, but in the last couple of months, the house was really showing some wear and tear. The leaky faucet that had at first just been irritating, soon leaked into the ceiling and made a very visible stain. The faucet, leak and ceiling stain needed to be repaired. True to repair form, one repair led to more repairs.

Darren was always at work. Or with Molly. That was her name. Maya had figured that out when she found a sticky note left for her husband in one of his pants pockets thanking him for a “fun night and talk soon ~Molly.” 

So Maya hired a contractor. His name was Kirkland, although everyone called him Kirk.

He was just supposed to fix the trio, including the irritating leaky faucet. Instead, he ended up fixing things all over the house. He replaced the rotting wood beneath the back door. He repaired a window in the children's bathroom. He rebuilt a section of the porch that had started to sag. But more important than any repair, he began talking to Maya.

It didn’t start out flirtatious. It was just a simple back and forth conversation. She would ask him if he wanted coffee or water. He made jokes about the condition of the water she was offering him. He would update her on things about her own house that she kicked herself each time for not knowing. And she would mention things about Darren’s indiscretion. He never encouraged her. That made it worse. Kirk wasn’t just interested in what she had to say. He actually heard what she was saying. Maya hadn’t been heard in a very long time.  

Late one afternoon, Maya talked to Kirk about her impending psychology degree.

"I thought I'd be finished by now," she said.

"What’s holding you back?" Kirk asked.

Maya jokingly replied, “two brunettes and a sandy blonde that eat continuously.”

Kirk smiled. "Well in the scheme of life, the food chain is pretty important."

She laughed. It felt strange. She couldn't remember the last time Darren had made her laugh.

Throughout their conversations Maya learned that Kirk had once been married. He was just now able to admit that he was too young when he married his high school sweetheart. They had a baby right from the get go and needed to find a house quickly. But nevertheless, it was a good life at the time, and he thought it would last forever. But it didn’t.  

One afternoon, while his wife was on her way to take their baby girl to the pediatrician for her routine check-up, their car was hit head on in an intersection right before the road to turn into the pediatrician's office. They never made it. His wife and baby were killed. Kirk didn’t go into any more detail than that. He didn’t need to. Maya could feel his grief from where she was standing.

"It took me a year to leave the house," he told her.

He continued, "Two years before I could talk about it,”

“and upwards of three before I could start working again."

Maya was feeling his pain as if it were her own.

"Kirk, how long ago did this happen?" Maya said.  

"It’s been five years now," he replied.  

"And how are you doing now?" she asked with concern.  

He thought about it. "I feel fragile," he said. "but I’m no longer broken."

Fragile, but not broken. That phrase stayed with Maya. Maybe that was what she was.

The attraction between them was not surprising. It had been there from their very first conversation. What was surprising was how long they fought it off. They really tried to keep things professional. Maya reminded herself that she was married. Kirk reminded himself that he had already lost one family and didn't want to destroy another.

But loneliness can break even the most powerful promises one makes to themselves. Eventually, the language between them changed. Then the distance between them lessened. And one night, intimacy got the better of them and the romantic boundary they’d worked so hard to protect slipped away.  

Afterward, Maya didn't cry or feel guilty which surprised her. But she did feel sad. Not for what had happened with Kirk; that had been incredibly sweet and very much needed. It was because of Darren. Their marriage had become a performance. Pretending to be husband and wife, pretending to be happy…it was exhausting. She knew the children could feel the tension in the house, even though she didn’t want to admit it. She also knew that pretending to be a family was not the same as being one.  

She looked down at the test in her hand. She hadn't told Kirk she was late. How would she even go about telling him? She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say. She was sure of absolutely nothing.  

Maya unwrapped the test quietly and scanned the directions. She hummed under her breath as she tried to aim for the testing window, which was next to impossible. She set the test carefully in the middle of the double-sided sink. Then she waited. One minute became two, then three. She paced through minutes four and five. She stared down at the test and then looked back at herself in the mirror again.  

Was that a spark of life in her eyes? But what would happen now? Would Darren even notice? Would Kirk entertain the idea of raising a child with her over one romantic encounter out of loneliness? Or was it more? Her mind was filled with questions about her own kids, the house, a divorce, where she would live; questions that were coming at her so fast, she felt sick and needed to vomit.  

Whether that was morning sickness or overwhelm, it didn’t matter because the two pink parallel lines did not fade. Maya picked up the test and held it closer, squinting as though the second line might disappear if she looked hard enough.

It didn't. She thought about all the people that would be involved in this new scenario; Darren, Kirk, her three beautiful children, maybe even Molly. And the grandparents. Ugh, she couldn’t go there at the moment.  

She thought back to the woman she had been when she married Darren. Then she thought about who she was now and who she wanted to be. At this moment, Maya understood. The secrets didn’t destroy their marriage. They exposed it.  

She turned on the second bathroom light, which illuminated the test even more, but also shed light on Maya’s face and gave her the color back that she thought had been drained from her soul earlier. She could see her true self in her eyes again.  

Behind that closed door, Maya stood alone with the truth in her hand and thought to herself, There’s no going back now.