Jennifer was getting ready for the day in her bedroom when her husband, John, came up

behind her and wrapped his arms around her. Some mornings started out like this, which were
the best, but other mornings he simply got up, brushed his teeth, put on his clothes, and left; a
simple Goodbye his farewell to her, walking out without looking back at his wife who simply
stood there in front of the same dresser she was standing in front of now, staring after him as if
still waiting for his real farewell. Oftentimes, when this happened, she stared blankly at herself in
the mirror until their only child, Julie walked in with her stuffed bear in tow. Only four, she was
still attached to the bear as if it was her real mother, which Jennifer felt a bit of resentment for,
until she thought that Julie would neer drag her mother behind her on the carpet, letting the
carpet wear into the bear. Jennifer turned around in John!s arms, looking up into his
e"pressionless face. #uring a time not too long ago, Jennifer had belieed that John loed her,
but now she wasn!t too sure, especially looking into his cold face that seemed fro$en from its
lack of emotion. %heir lies had become a routine of normalcy, which eentually started to wring
out the emotion from her husband. She couldn!t understand why, as she still loed him. %he only
time he seemed to melt at all, melt into a human being that is, is when his daughter was near. &e
loed her, of that Jennifer was certain. 't was, really, the only thing Jennifer thought was
reassuring about their marriage, the marriage that had (uickly become routine and emotionless.
&e wouldn!t want to destroy anything he had with his daughter. &er husband, John, had been an
easy)to)smile kind of man before. *ow, he had hardened into the man she saw now. +aybe it
was because he had become a policeman shortly after Julie was born, and had killed two people,
that she knew of. %he men that had died had dragged a piece of his soul away, tearing it away
while hooking onto the rest of his soul to torture him while he lied, tearing it away piece by
piece and leaing her only the shell to say Goodbye to her when he left. &e still had enough of
his soul left to be happy about his only child, his daughter Julie, but the entire rest of his soul was
dedicated on only that, and not on giing his wife loe or acknowledgment for making his dinner
when he came home, whateer time that may be.
,hen they had gotten married, Jennifer as any other bride had thought that their lies
were going to be perfect. ,hen she had Julie, life had only gotten better, and they had been
perfect, the three of them, with their three J names and a white house with a big backyard.
&oweer, John had gotten his -ob, and soon his life was inoled in saing his city rather than
family, saing others rather than himself, caring about other wies rather than his own. Jennifer
only had a fight with John about it once, when he had come home and had been moody, so
moody that he had kicked the teleision off the stand, that he had backhanded her across the face
when she protested this behaior. %he fight had (uickly gone out of Jennifer, despite his profuse
apologies and the lingering knowledge that no matter what Jennifer said, that memory would
neer be forgotten. .or a while, he had done his best to make it up to her, to make her wholly
forgie him, to make her loe him again, but he didn!t seem to understand that deep inside, she
did forgie him because there was nothing else she could do, because she did loe him. Julie,
thankfully, had been too young to remember such a horrid ordeal. John stopped trying recently,
neer reali$ing that Jennifer!s small gestures were of loe and not of patroni$ation. Jennifer said
' loe you to him, and John returned it with ' loe you, too, honey, eeryday, which seemed
to replace that awful day with some sort of emotion, whether fake or real both were unsure. /ut
then that fateful day came when John got tore apart his soul, made it unfi"able. 0fter that day, he
neer got happy, neer got mad, neer got anything unless with Julie, but he tried to pretend with
Jennifer. %hen that second day came, when his soul was ripped apart een further, and he
stopped een trying to pretend, trying to act as if eerything were still the way it was before he
had hit his wife, before he had killed two men, both in shootouts inoling the police.
*eermind that he was regarded a hero. %o Jennifer, he was a robot, a shell -ust waiting to be
filled again, hopelessly awaiting that day despite knowing it would neer come.
0s John stood behind her, he looked at their reflection. 0s the pain of those two days
faded, he had tried to pretend with her again, which resulted in these special mornings where he
would simply hold her and she would let him, with him staring at their reflection and her staring
down to where she could see his arms wrapped around her. %hey would stand there in silence,
and despite his emotionless mask, she would get the feeling that he wanted her to know
something, something about him that she could not fathom, could not understand. %hen he would
get ready for the day, get dressed, and on these special mornings would gie her a kiss before
saying Goodbye, and leaing. 0s soon as the front door closed, her daughter would walk in as
if the sound of the door closing was the signal for the 0ll clear, dragging that bedraggled bear
behind her. &ere, Jennifer!s whole personality would change, almost as drastically as John!s
would change as well upon seeing their daughter. She -ust didn!t notice it in the way that no one
notices their own smell. .rom here, life was routine as well. She would cook breakfast for herself
and for Julie, then would put her in the stroll for a walk around the neighborhood which might
consist of stopping by the park so Julie could play before going back home. Once they return
home, Jennifer would make lunch for the both of them, and settle down to watch %1 for a while,
while Julie took her afternoon nap. ,hen Julie awoke, Jennifer would play with her daughter,
laughing and playing /arbie, or playing house where she was the caring husband and Julie was
the loing wife. %hen, Jennifer would do the dishes and laundry after letting Julie watch %1 on
the liing room couch, where she would usually giggle and clap her hands while looking
emphatically towards her bear as if it had an opinion as well about the programs they were
watching. ,hen dinnertime came around, Jennifer would always feed Julie first, then would eat
a little to take an edge off of her own hunger before settling into a kitchen chair with the
newspaper and coffee while waiting up for her husband like the loing wife that Julie had
mimicked earlier. Once Julie!s bedtime was near, Jennifer had Julie get ready for bed, helping
her get into pa-amas before reading her a bedtime story and tucking her in when she was done.
Julie, knowing the routine, would go to sleep almost instantaneously, as if allowing her mother to
leae without any trouble so that she could go downstairs to her coffee and wait some more for
her husband. %onight, howeer, seemed to be one of the rare times that routine was broken, as
her husband did not appear at the door, weary and worn by midnight. +idnight passed, and then
so did one o! clock. Jennifer would carefully go up the stairs to the bedroom, so as not to awaken
Julie, get ready for bed, and then go to bed. She would lie awake for hours, staring at the
bedroom door as if John would walk in, surly and silent, making his way to the bed and almost
automatically falling asleep. ,hen her cell phone rang, she was still up, and grabbed it so it
would not awaken Julie. &ello2 she answered. ,hat she heard made her grasp her phone so
tightly it was a wonder that it did not crumble into dust, into small particles that became nothing,
not een air, until her fingers pressed against each other, pressing into each other until her fingers
became nothing, and then her arms became nothing, the nothingness spreading until she became
nothing and then the world itself would become nothing. She hung up the phone (uietly, and
dressed (uietly, and went into Julie!s room. She picked up the still sleeping Julie, making her
way out of the house until she could deposit Julie in the backseat of her car. Silently, she droe
to the hospital.
%he hospital was a sterile, (uiet sort of place, despite the hustle of doctors rushing in and
out of corridors, the occasional emergency $ipping through the hallways. %he doctors were all
busy, saing lies, burying them, burying themseles in the endless waes of patients that
seemed to come through. %he pristine, hygienic walls of the hospital gae it a barren feeling, and
could neer be a home. 3erhaps that is why een though patients! lies are saed here eeryday,
ery few like it, een though their own lies were saed here. Some een risk their lies, liing
in denial until the ery day they have to go to the hospital, unwilling to go to this desolate place
where they could hae been saed much sooner.
Jennifer was carrying Julie, her small form seemingly fragile in her arms, the way that
children could seem but be so resilient. Jennifer!s arms tried to surround and block Julie from the
world, as if the hospital were the enemy that would shatter her daughter!s tiny body. 't was not
so much the hospital that Jennifer was afraid of, but more the things that lay within its lairs. She
talked briefly with the nurse, who directed her in a certain direction, and Jennifer made her way
through the halls, wondering how no one got lost, how patients could stand such a place. She
made her way through until she reached a certain room, and she hesitated in opening the door.
/efore she could open it, another man came up to her and grasped her hand, taking it away from
the handle. Jennifer stared up at him, this man who was wearing a uniform similar to that of her
husband!s, but was obiously his superior. Jennifer snatched her hand back, aerting her eyes as
if by doing so would prolong the announcement she knew he would make, an announcement that
she knew would destroy the ery foundations of her life, and Julie!s. &e!s passed away. %he
announcement came anyway, making her -erk as if it had physically struck her, and Jennifer
stood there, still, unable to moe, unable to bring her eyes up to meet his still. 0lthough softly
spoken, those words carried a blow so heay Jennifer didn!t know if she would be able to stand
up against it, stand up against the torrent that was threatening to drag her under its waes and
swallow her whole, but Julie would get swallowed as well and she couldn!t allow that because
John would neer forgie her for that, neer forgie her for letting their only daughter get
swallowed up because of her. Jennifer finally looked up at her husband!s superior, saw his eyes
held some sadness for her, for him, for their daughter, but she was unaffected. 3erhaps she had
been more like John than she had eer admitted. She turned around without a word, and despite
the protests that could be heard, walked right out of the hospital back to her car, back to her
home and tucked Julie back into bed. %hen she went into her own bedroom and stared at her
reflection across the room, until she lied down and went to sleep.
%he ne"t morning, she went through her routine, only pausing in the morning when she
knew John should hae said Goodbye to her, and she didn!t feel resentful at all that that was
all he said to her before leaing, without een a kiss. She played with Julie, feeling surprised
only once when she saw a tear land on Julie!s head while they played house, and she was the
caring husband and Julie the loing wife. 3erhaps she and John hadn!t been that different at all,
as she was sure when Julie looked up at her caring husband, Jennifer!s face was -ust as
emotionless as John!s had been, John whose soul had been torn into pieces, and in the end was
still being tortured by a wife who should hae loed him and had sent him off to his death
without een returning his goodbye. ,ho, in the end, had neer returned his goodbyes.