Hey Dianne
I have been dealing with a lot of emotions lately and turmoil in my personal life. This a song I heard that I really wanted to put my own rendition on, to give my idea of what the characters are going through
This is story inspired by this song:
[Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties - Divorce and the American South (Official Music Video)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn-FgydQjo)_
You've reached Dianne Winterson. I'm not in right now, please leave your message and I'll get back to you when I can!
I listened to the message play before the beep buzzed through the machine, looking down at the letter that laid before me on the empty kitchen table, sitting on the only chair left with the table. My eyes didn't focus on the words written on the page, I had thought them through 100 times before writing them, I didn't need to read them again.
"Hey Dianne, could you pick up the phone?"
His voice sounded so different from the man I once knew. It was cracking as he spoke, knowing that so many tears had run down his cheeks. He sounded as broken as I felt.
"I know that you're listening, baby I know that you're home. I know where i went wrong, don't you leave me alone. Could you pick up the phone?" I'm lost in some truck stop down in the south. I've locked myself in this phone booth and now I'm waiting it out."
****
I heard the message play, the same one she recorded in college so many years ago when she was waiting for the interviews that seemed to never come. I rested my head on my forearm as I heard the beep echo in my brain,
"Hey Dianne, I've been trying to quit. i went from a half and a pack a day to this e-cigarette bullshit. It don't give me what I want but it stops them coughing fits, I know how you hate it."
I looked up at the phone, seeing that I needed to put another coin in soon. I shuddered as I took a deep breath, knowing the next sentence would open the wounds we had tried for so many years to close.
"Hey Dianne, I know I fucked up. It's just.." I took another deep breath, bracing myself for the tears I half expected but knew wouldn't come. I had seemed to exhaust my tear ducts with the last few days of this game of phone tag she wouldn't play with me.
"..when we lost the baby, I just shut off. I know I never listened, I wasn't there for you enough. I'm a fuckup"
****
"I'm a fuckup"
And there it was, the wedge we had driven between ourselves when that fateful day fell upon us. I clenched my fist as I heard him say those words, knowing inside I resented him so much I couldn't so much as sleep in the same bed as him. I couldn't recall how many times I looked at him over dinner, or when washing the dishes and looked to his eyes. He'd advert them most of the time, but sometimes he'd look back at me. I tried so hard to read them like I once could, trying to speak to him through my own but he'd look away as soon as it seemed maybe I was getting my heartache through. He would turn away and grab that god damned pack from his chest pocket, telling me he would be back. I cried myself to sleep so many nights, hugging myself and asking the same questions "why us?"
I stood up and walked toward the phone, still unsure if I would pick it up or just end the recording before he could finish his speech.
****
"I had a dream that I flew back north; the plane went down before we hit New York. You didn't come to the funeral"
And there it was, my roundabout way to ask for her to forgive me and let herself heal. I knew she hated me, I couldn't blame her; I hated me too. I don't why I am this way, I've never been one to open up my heart when I was facing any difficulty. My father raised me believing men never cry, they were never cowardly enough to show their emotions. I should have known that wasn't the husband any woman would want, its one of the many reasons my mother left him and me by default. I felt my ears perk, hearing the receiver picked up as she released the breath she was holding in as I spoke again.
"Hey Dianne.."
****
"Aaron, I don't know how to say this."
I took another breath as the words left my lips, contemplating how I could say the words that would change our lives again, for better or for worse.
"I'm.. I'm..uhhh.. going to stay at Amy's for awhile. There's a letter on the table when you get back to our apartment, you need to sign the papers that I've attached. Goodbye."