"Justin, Jenna's audition is in forty-five minutes, we've got to go," I urged from the doorway of Justin's office.

The large room was once our office. Two antique-store, almost matching, mahogany desks once occupied the center of the large room, the desks facing each other so that the occupants of the room could easily have a conversation while working. They were beautiful giant desks by a large bay window with a built-in cushioned window seat, encircled by feather-blue walls lined with gray-stained bookshelves holding hundreds of books – from slightly erotic historical romance to sheep farming to antique first additions, to just published.

Next to the matching gray-stained doors was a beautiful library ladder that went all the way around the room; no book, no matter how high up it was, was unreachable.

The loveseat – once a vibrant indigo blue – had faded over the years, but it had always been draped with my great-grandma's rainbow afghan. This room had been warm and cozy once... Fresh air always blowing in through the open bay window... The deep burgundy curtains always swept to the side to allow the sunlight to stream in, lighting up the room, inviting all to enter. This room was once a place of laughter and togetherness – Justin and I on our computers working while Jenna and Jace laid on the couch and watched a movie on the small TV next to the loveseat or worked on their homework, asking questions as they went.

Now. I hated the word. I wished I could forget what life had been like in the past, and just know the present, so I could stop comparing our lives to what they'd once been. We would never have that again – unless some big positive change happened in the next six months. The doctors had all agreed: all changes within the first two years would be permanent.

Stepping into the dark room, hatred filled me as I gazed at the empty walls that had been poorly painted dark brown, splotches of gray still shining through, almost mocking me as I stood in the doorway. The library ladder that had taken the children on spins around the room had been tossed into the garage along with the shelves – broken and another thing left to be forgotten.

The warm, filtered sunlight was gone. The loveseat was covered in trash. The fresh air was stale. I struggled to breathe; the air was so heavy it sunk into my lungs, almost refusing to come back out.

The books we'd collected had been unforgivingly tossed into the spare room upstairs; the older books damaged Justin's careless hands. I had wept when I saw them lying on the floor, torn and discarded. It had taken two days to lovingly pack them into plastic boxes, alphabetically and according to genre, fiction or nonfiction. I debated on whether to keep the new books or get rid of them, so they were still stacked in piles in the spare room, their voices calling out to me whenever I passed the closed door. I needed to decide what to do with them, but decisions were harder and harder to make with each new day. I longed for a miracle; a way out.

One desk sat in this room now, covered with water bottles, chew spit, candy wrappers, and mold-covered cups. Water rings and deep gashes scared the lovingly cared for wood we had spent hours restoring.

The spare bed had been moved out of the spare room and shoved carelessly into the corner of the room. A sheet half-covered the once white mattress, which had soiled brown stains. Blankets were piled around the end of the bed, and pillows with no pillow cases were shoved into the corner.

His dresser sat alone across the room, drawers open, clothes spilling out of them. Boxes of his stuff sat in the middle of the room. The stench of old chewing tobacco, unclean body order, and urine surrounded me. I refused to question the urine odor – there was only so much I could handle.

I wasn't allowed in this room unless he was in here, and even then, he barely tolerated my presence. The once beautiful ornate Victorian brass doorknob we had found at an antique shop in Capistrano, their baby moon before Jace had been born, had been replaced by a cheap knob. Only he had the key for it; a key kept securely in his possession.

My desk had been roughly transplanted – the walls still held the chipped bumps from where he had hit them while roughly moving it into the master bedroom. He had pushed it in and left it; I had moved it gently to the back of the room, where it still sat, dusted weekly and void of any clutter. It humored me; once my desk would have been cluttered with papers and mail – stacked according to importance – with a few coffee mugs or a small plate. It had been messy but organized chaos.

Justin's desk used to be organized and orderly too. The computer was always off when not in use, there was never any trash, and coasters were used to preserve the wood. As a couple, we had switched places. Disorder made me anxious, sometimes setting me off, forcing me to spend hours either hiding from the mess or cleaning it – polishing every surface the tangle of Justin's chaos had touched.

The bed laughed at me now when I laid in it alone and cold. Sleep came slowly as I missed the life partner I once had. Some night's sleep never came; the morning sun would rise before my eyes even shut. What I thought about during those long nights I couldn't remember. The room itself mocked me, daring me to rise, to fight. The room no longer held any safety for me. The closet, where I usually wept, no longer called out to me. There was nowhere anymore that I felt safe. The house had become a battlefield, one I was both scared to be in and leave.

"Can I please clean the room this weekend? It's filthy." I asked Justin. My heartbeat picked up the pace with each word I dared to utter. Would this be another screaming match?

"No one sees this room so why the fuck does it matter to you? It's not your fucking concern," he snapped as he continued to play on the computer without looking up. As soon as his computer had returned from getting cleaned from viruses he had moved it into the room, and moved mine out. "Why are you even in my room?"

"Jenna's audition... the Armageddon show you said you wanted to go to so you could audition also? We need to leave in forty-five minutes," I said, biting my lower lip. The urge to snap back that he was disgusting, and that this room was a health hazard, was huge, but I resisted, counting to ten in my head. Do not let him upset you, I silently told myself.

"Get out in the truck; I'll be out there in a minute." He waved his hand dismissively at me.

Turning away, I wanted to be gone, far away from him, and I had to fight an impulse to remind him that we needed to leave asap, so we wouldn't be late, because if I did remind him, it would just cause a fight. A fight I didn't have the mental capacity to deal with. Leaving the room wasn't hard; it contained nothing I wanted. The room was his – his own personal Hell. I couldn't help but take one last sweep of the room, spotting the layers of dirty clothes on the floor. One pile was a pile of freshly-folded clothes that I had handed him two days ago. Anger pinched my nerves; all he had to do was put it on top of his dresser or hang it in the closet. I had done all the work – folded them and even hung the clothes on hangers.

"Jenna! Jace! Come on, get in the truck," I called out once I left the room. I heard the kids bicker on their way down the stairs. A dark cloud of unease rained down on me; I didn't want to take Jenna to the audition because something didn't feel right.

Pushing aside my unease, however, I grabbed the folder with her headshots and resumed my way out to the truck, knowing that Justin would come when he was good and ready. He would sit in there knowing that we were waiting for him. He enjoyed making people wait on him. I guessed it made him feel important. When had he become so self-centered? When had he stopped worrying about others? I knew the answer to my questions: fifteen months ago. I had long stopped counting the days; now it was just months. Now if I could only stop comparing my life to the past.

***

"I knew I'd get the part. As soon as I walked in, Elijah was all over me about trying out for another part. A main character part – just by fucking looking at me." Justin pounded his fist on the steering wheel, causing the truck to swerve into the other lane, barely missing a car.

I gasped out loud in fear, gaining a dirty look from Justin who scoffed at me under his breath.

"He loved my audition. He didn't even say a word when I was done. He just fucking sat there and stared at me. For a minute, I was worried I had bombed it. Fuck ya!" Justin excitedly shouted in the truck, his voice ringing inside of my skull. Although he acted excited, I heard no excitement in his voice, no true exhilaration or joy. It saddened me that his life was an act. How would it feel to feel nothing?

It had been a long day. The auditions went for longer than expected due to an emergency one of the casting agents had. I was ready to sit down, watch a movie and maybe fall asleep in my recliner, my body curled under the familiar weight of the Cowboys fleece blanket I had gotten for Mother's Day two years before. I could already feel its comforting weight – the love that would fill me as I snuggled deep under it. Breathing in the familiar scents, I would be momentarily transported back to a time when life was typical, the barrier it would build up, protecting me against all the negativity and hostility that filled my life. It was my constant. I could count on it to never change: the blanket's rough texture from too many washes, the faintly faded deep navy of the Cowboy colors, and the smell of me that lingered on its fibers. It would never hurt me with words or actions, never turn its back on me, never scoff in my face, and never make me question my own decisions. It carried love in its imperfections, each one giving me a swift memory to remember as I sat there with it wrapped around me, forcing me to feel the happier times into my brain.

Perhaps that is why I loved that blanket so much. When I held it in my arms, I saw myself walking into the office catching Justin and the kids attempting to tie together my fleece blanket for Mother's Day. The chaos was wild in the room as they all scrambled to their feet as I walked in. Justin was laughing as he timidly asked me for help as he held out the blanket to me.

"We'll get you something else... Please help us; we have no idea what we are doing," he had begged me.

I could still hear my own laughter mixing in with there's as I gently took the blanket and declared it a masterpiece. "I love it. It's all I could ever want," I had gushed out, wrapping the blanket around me.

Later that night I had taken it apart, sewed it together, retying the unevenly cut sides – saving the blanket. While watching TV after my miraculous rescue, I had curled up under it, stroking the new silkiness of the fleece fabric, letting the love that they had put in it flow into me.

It was amazing how different my life was now only two years later. The love was gone, but the memories were still there.

I knew it'd be a few more hours before I could close my eyes and beg for a good night's sleep. Dinner needed to be made, dishes done, laundry folded, fights fought and most likely lost. I still had many jobs to do. The household jobs didn't bother me; it was the mess that was left behind to clean up that bothered me. The candy wrappers left on the floor in the living room... The full spit bottles left on the tables next to the couch or in the bathroom... The dirty dishes piled up on the floor.... The tools left lying around, waiting patiently to be put away... The lawn mower left out in the yard, which desperately needed to be mowed... All the clutter bothered me, took my focus away from the things that were important, teased my brain, made rage flow through me. Inwardly, I scoffed at myself. Apparently, Justin wasn't the only one that had changed.

The world whizzed by the truck. I sat staring out the window, watching the people inside other cars, wondering what demons they were battling. Did anyone ever wonder what demons I was battling? Did anyone even care? More importantly, were there other families going through this struggle right now too? I often thought of that – of other wives, children, even husbands, battling through the same war. What did they do? Had they given up yet? Did they ever wish – like I had at times – that their husband or wife hadn't survived?

Would it had been better if Justin hadn't survived? Ashamed that I would even think such an awful thing, I looked away from the cars. Why would I think such a thing? I wondered, lost in my own self-pitying thoughts.

We turned down Astle Road, the corner where his accident occurred. Justin loved to drive by to "try and remember the accident," he always repeated. I thought it was more for him to flaunt to the corner that he survived. To show is beastliness, mocking the road for its inability to 'take him out'. His memory, though, hadn't returned; it was just a dark place with empty holes. He'd forgotten so much of the kids when they were younger too: our trips to Disneyland on Jenna's fifth birthday, Justin making the winning touchdown the season before the accident, the day the two of us first met. It was all gone. People he'd known since childhood were strangers to him and friends he'd went to school with were forgotten. My heart had broken – at first – but now it was hard, and I secretly thought that maybe he didn't deserve those memories. The people he'd forgotten saved from the blackness that surrounded him.

His first few weeks at home, I'd dragged out all the scrapbooks, baby books, yearbooks, and loose pictures. We went through all of them, and I explained every event he'd forgotten, laughing at the memories even when he didn't break into a smile. I looked past his bored eyes and encouraged him to ask questions. He pushed them all aside when we'd finished. I remembered the hug I gave him, whispering it'd be okay, that we'd make new memories.

"We'll see about that," had come his sharp reply.

I had jerked away from him, surprised at his offensive tone, staring at him with wide eyes as he turned away and switched on the TV. Later, I had lovingly packed away all the books, and stashed the pictures in individual boxes, precisely labeled – the way Justin would have done it for me. I did this on the assumption that when the time came, he would look for them and go through them himself. He would find the memories again on his own. He would laugh at them, then come find me and we would rejoice in him being "back" again.

The boxes were still sitting in the attic, covered by a thick layer of dust.

That stupid corner. That stupid fucking corner, I hissed out in my brain, fresh tears prickling at my eyes. Gone was the bloodstains that stained the asphalt, and the freshly torn asphalt marks from where his bike scraped the road while it skidded – worn away by the traffic. It was just a corner now; all evidence of the tragedy wiped away with time. When would it be wiped from us? When would the evidence be cleared for us? When could we move on?

"It was awesome. Elijah recommends losing twenty pounds of fat but gaining some muscle. It's a lead role, like the main lead role, so I need to be buff. The role is the sheriff; I'll be leading the people out of the city. I'll be almost like their savior," he continued happily, acting like we all cared. But none of us cared. It was a harsh truth; I no longer cared about what made him happy. When once I would buy fresh lilies every Monday for the living room because they reminded him of his favorite dead grandmother who once had a garden full of lilies, I no longer bought them. When I did buy flowers, in the vain attempt to bring some freshness and light to the house, I bought roses, carnations, sunflowers – anything but lilies. It was my own silent protest against his new controlling manner.

"They loved Jenna. She got the part of Missy, one of the leads' daughters. She gets lost in the craziness, and has to find her way back to her mom," I threw in, interrupting his boastful spiel to turn the conversation to Jenna and her awesome audition performance. Acting was her thing, and today was her callback performance.

For the past week, Jenna had locked herself in her room to study the script and practice in the mirror, even dragging a protesting Jace into her room to rehearse. Jenna loved to act, always begging for more classes. The three of us – me, Jace, and Jenna – had season tickets to the local theatre, and we always made sure to go to the opening night of each show. Jenna would sit enthralled during the performance, soaking in each character. Later, I would write a review for the production, outlining each actor's pros and cons. What I did with her reviews, I didn't know, but it made me happy to see my daughter find happiness during this gray time. Jenna now found it as a way to connect with Justin. When she had to practice for an audition, I would quietly ask Justin for help, knowing he would give her a few minutes to shower his "expert" advice on her.

"Elijah. The director is Elijah, just so you know. I told him I have all kinds of ideas on my character's backstory. I asked him if he had any and he said to just make him my character. It's going to be awesome. This is my big break." Justin was taking the limelight away – again – from his daughter.

I turned in my seat and looked at my beautiful Jenna, who deserved the light. All the effort I put forth was constantly brushed away by my husband's ignorance.

Jace was asleep against the window, his small pouty lips gently open as he breathed, a soft snore escaping with each intake of air. The kids were safe, and that's all that really mattered – not that Justin seemed to care, and I held so much anger towards him it sickened me. We all lived a secret life behind closed doors. Yet, all that mattered was that they, Jenna and Jason, were alive and safe.

"Good job, baby. You did so good. I'm so proud of you," I told Jenna, reaching back and squeezing her knee gently.

"Thanks, but I know I did good. Acting is my thing. I always excelled at it," Justin answered, thinking I was talking to him, assuming everything was about him.

Jenna shrugged her shoulders and put her earplugs in and started listening to music.

"I was talking to Jenna, your daughter, the reason why we were even at the audition," I snapped, glaring at him through red-hazed eyes, wishing the world would swallow him up and leave us alone. Allow us all a moment to breathe freely.

"Fuck off. Sorry that I'm excited I got the part," he snapped back, matching my glare, silently killing me in their reflection.

"Well, it's not about you. I couldn't care less if you got the part or not. How exactly do you plan on filming a TV series and keeping your job at Hills Energy?" The urge to fight rippled through me. I wanted a fight, a good screaming fight where I would be exhausted afterward.

"I did it before," he said through gritted teeth. His grip on the steering tightened, his knuckles turning white.

I wondered if today would be the day he lashed out physically and hit me. Go on, hit me, I chided silently. Hit me and let me be done with you. Give me another reason – a solid reason that you can't talk me out of – to leave you. I pursed my lips and raised my left eyebrow, daring him.

"You were an extra two times for Duty. You missed two days of work, not weeks for filming," I added, tired of playing a part in his fictional world. It worried me that he couldn't tell the difference between a made-up world that he created to the real world we all lived in.

"It's not your concern, is it?" he sneered out at me.

"Yes, it is. If you get fired from your job so you can go act it is my business. If your action affects my kids, it is my business. Get over yourself. No one cares if you got a part or not. Today wasn't about you!"

"My money is not your fucking concern. Keep it up, and you won't get any of my money. Fucking cunt," he shouted, his voice thundering in the tight enclosure of the truck cab.

I was used to the threats about money. After returning to work, he had set up his own checking account and only had a small percentage put into the original checking account we once shared. When I asked why he had, he jeered that he was tired of paying my way through life, and I needed to get a real job if I wanted money.

Every day he came home from work I was surprised. Every time he got paid, and the money was in the checking account, I thanked the universe. I know needed to get a job, soon it felt; otherwise, he'd either not have a job or would take away the money he did graciously give me. His threats of taking it always loomed above me, threatening me, choking me, stealing my life away from me.

I was ashamed that I had started another fight with him, yet the itch to fight wasn't gone. I wanted to fight more. It scared me; the feeling of needing to fight with him. Was it because that when we fought, it was the only time he showed any emotion? The only time he interacted with me? Was fighting the only way I could get his attention?

His only emotion seemed to be anger, though, and his anger raged when he let it out. Raged at me. But I could take it. My only wish was that the kids didn't hear any of it or witness their father – or me – like this.

This wasn't the life we wanted – a life of fights in our family. I saw the vision we once shared, and it ignited me; I had to find a way to help my husband, to get him to see the damage he was doing. To get him back on the plan we had made together. To get him to love me again. Maybe another call to the doctor, maybe if I explained – again – the severity of Justin's changes, they could recommend something.

There had to be something.