Tu Me Manques

There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.

                                                                                                   Neil Gaiman


How many people did she know that went to bed drunk, obliterated, trying to escape or erase life's disappointments, failures and too many sharp edges.....only to wake the next day and find it all at the doorstep like the big, fat Sunday morning edition?
There is just some shit in life you cannot escape, no matter how hard you try. 

Camilla stared out the window at the vast ocean horizon. The sea this morning was all pinks and blues, an invitation for what she hoped would be a soothing morning swim. It was mid August and they'd had the cottage to themselves. Paul had driven their son back to college campus on the afternoon of the day before. Camilla was grateful for the time alone until later that evening when Paul would return. When he would return and they both had to face the painful and ugly reality that their marriage was over. It had been for quite some time. For Camilla mostly, it seemed. Paul continued to act like a deer in the headlights whenever she tried to mention the possibility of divorce, even despite the fact they'd been in separate bedrooms going on 2 years.

Paul had gotten himself drunk the night before, a man who was not a drinker normally but decided last night he'd go all in and guzzle a six pack of German ale. Camilla had become more and more distant this last year to the point they worked opposite schedules and rarely spoke. If their son was around or home for weekends, then life seemed somewhat normal. Camilla would cook hot meals for them and yield to conversation with Paul. They would sit, all three of them, in the den watching action movies with popcorn and for that while everything felt,...normal.
Paul wanted his wife back, his life back. He held the hope that she would wake one day and want to start 'fresh'.
He knew he wasn't the most easy man to deal with but he could change that, he thought....but he knew he was lying to himself. Decades before he had packed away his guitars in exchange for suburbia, a solid career and family life. A choice that would eat him from the inside out and turn him into someone neither of them recognized.

Camilla slipped into her bathing suit and ran her hands over her smooth but plump thighs. She was often told she was a stunner, a true beauty. She was thankful for her lovely skin and bright eyes. Her body was was luscious and only slightly fuller than it was in her youth. "Thick" is what her husband referred to her as. At 48, she could still command and have any man in the room.
She had loved him so completely at one time. The memory of those old feelings haunted her and ate at her broken heart like a relentless cancer. Camilla missed who Paul was. Who he would never be again no matter how hard he tried. Paul was gone from her.

As she walked toward the shore on that mid August morning, the sun warm on her shoulders and slipping into the oceans embrace, Camilla turned to see Paul coming up the gravel drive in the distance.

He looked like a ghost.





CJ Ellis


Art credit : Clare Elsaesser