Ending a Marriage
21 Jul 2019Today’s prompt: “One day a young boy climbs a tree and decides he won’t come down until his parents stop their divorce proceedings. Write about the event from the point of view of each parent.”
Of course Josh doesn’t want this to happen, you think. We’re still his family, in spite of everything that’s happened. We’re the only parents he’s ever known. Connor can call you a monster all he wants, but that won’t change. Josh must feel so afraid. His parents are breaking up, and what can he do? He tried the one thing he could think of. He climbed away from his problems, and he issued an ultimatum.
Josh is crazy good at climbing. You’re not sure how he managed to get to such a high branch. Neither is Connor. “Great,” he grumbles, “now we’re going to have to call the fire department.”
“That won’t be necessary,” you tell Connor. You take your snake form and coil around the tree. Loop by loop, you inch upwards, until you reach Josh’s branch. You unspool from the tree trunk and nestle across Josh’s shoulders in the anaconda version of a bear hug, and feel your sobbing son rest his head on your neck.
“Don’t you fucking do it,” Connor shouts from below. “That’s my son. Don’t you dare fucking … constrict him to death.”
You find a stable position on the branch and revert to human form. “For Chrissakes, Connor, that was a love squeeze. I’m sorry you haven’t figured out the difference yet, but Josh knows. He knows I love him in all of my forms.”
You look at Josh and put your arm around him. “Are you okay?” He nods and sniffles. “Are you ready to come down?” He shakes his head.
You sit with Josh for a minute, watching Connor fume below you. You hid your other forms from Connor for so long. A part of you always knew he’d react like this. That this relationship was always doomed. Of course, you didn’t think you’d want to stick around for so long. But then you had Josh.
You didn’t hide anything from Josh. Even as a toddler, whenever Connor went to work, you’d change into your other forms – the snake, the bat, and the beast. You wanted to see if he took after you, if he would transform when you showed him how, but he never has. It seems he’s entirely human. But your transformations were something you could share with him. He loved your bat form. He was mesmerized by the way you would flap around the ceiling on leathery wings. His grubby toddler hands would pet your scaly smooth snakeskin. But his favorite was cuddling your furry beast self. He’d bury his face in the thick fur of your chest as you rocked him. He was never afraid of any of your forms. He always knew you were mommy.
“I’d better go down,” you say to Josh. “I’ll check on you in a few minutes. See if you’re ready to come down.”
“Okay,” he says. You curl your way down the tree and shift to human once more. Connor gives you a look of disgust, turns, and walks into the house.
You can see him through the window pacing in the kitchen. He’s on his phone. Probably talking to his attorney. He’s glowering at you.
You knew you should either break up with Connor or tell him who you are, but then you got pregnant. You knew you should tell him who you were before you got married, but somehow the time was never right. And then lie after lie built up over time. It was pretty easy to cover for Josh’s little outbursts of “beast, mommy!” when Connor was home. You’d just stay in human form and curl up your fingers like claws and growl. And you knew the day would come when Connor would find out, but that didn’t make it hurt any less when he finally came home early from work one day and caught you in beast mode.
At this point, Connor knows everything. He knows all your forms, and he knows Josh is completely normal. He knows you were transforming from the age of two months, and he knows Josh has never so much as flickered from his human form in seven years. And he knows – you’ve told him many times – that you’re not some malevolent creature, some bloodthirsty monster, some harbinger of doom. He knows everything. He just doesn’t trust anything.
You go inside to pack up the additional things you’d planned to take today. You check on Josh a bit later.
“You can’t stay up there forever, you know,” you say to Josh as sweetly as you can.
“I want you and dad to stop fighting,” he says.
“I know honey. I’m trying,” you say.
“I want you to stay together,” he says.
“I know, Josh. I understand. I know this divorce hurts you. But I just don’t think us staying together is an option.”
“I’m staying up here,” he says.
“What happens when you get hungry?”
“I’m not coming down for supper.”
You shrug. “All right. Suit yourself.”
You go in and finish packing. It’s now dinnertime. Josh is still in the tree. You make him a sandwich and take it outside.
“I cut the crusts off,” you call up to Josh.
“I’m not coming down,” he says.
You sigh. “Fine,” you say. Snake mode and bat mode won’t work to take the sandwich up. You balance the sandwich on your left palm as you transform, your fingernails thickening and lengthening into dark bonelike claws, coarse black fur sprouting from every surface, your physique growing taller and stouter, more muscular. Your mandible stretches and large lower teeth jut out in a nasty underbite. A gradually tapering tail unfurls on the ground, and low rows of spines jut out of your eyebrow ridge and cheekbones. You bury the claws of your right hand into the tree trunk, followed by those on your left toes, about a foot above the ground. “I’ll bring it up.”
“I swear to god, Chuck, this is impossible. I don’t know when she’s going to snap and kill someone or destroy something. Today she turned into a boa constrictor and crawled up a tree Josh had climbed up, and then she started squeezing the life out of him. She only stopped when I yelled at her. And then she was all like, ‘it was a love squeeze!’”
“That’s some bullshit,” Chuck says over the phone. “But hey, I looked into it, and from the three forms you told me about – snake, bat, seven-foot furry monster with spikes on the face and a big tail – it sounds like you’re dealing with a Lethra demon.”
“Great,” Connor says. “What are their weaknesses?”
“You can kill them by decapitating them. Honestly, you can kill most demons by decapitating them.”
“I’ve got an axe in the garage. I think that’ll do it.”
“Good luck, man. I can’t think of anything scarier than having your wife suddenly turn out to be a demon.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s Josh.”
“Obviously. Seriously, good luck.”
Connor retrieves the axe from the garage and runs out the back door just as you’re starting your ascent of the tree. “Don’t be afraid, Josh,” he calls out. “It’s going to be okay. Just close your eyes.”