NO ONE EVER DIED OF A BROKEN HEART

by Marianne Carlson

It has been my experience that well-meaning people say, “You’ll get over it, put on a happy face.  You’ll see, no one ever died of a broken heart.” These same well-meaning people also will tell you, “No one ever died from lack of sleep.”

     Wrong. I have known many people who are driven close to suicide because they CAN’T SLEEP! But I digress, and besides, Marva was a sound sleeper. It is I who can’t sleep. I sometimes wonder if I will ever get a good night’s sleep again because it is when I go to bed, try to sleep, that my defenses are down and this sense of overwhelming sadness creeps in almost drowning me with sorrow.

     “Come on, Otis, out you go.” Marva’s constant companion the once feisty black and white Boston Terrier, sniffed at the door before stepping out. He used to be  energetic,  happy, curious. Now he exists only to look for Marva behind every bush and tree.  His once trusting eyes are subdued, any glimmer of hope has long been snuffed out. We go to bed together at night. He sleeps at the foot of my bed, his little paws occasionally in motion, dreaming most probably of Marva. I take comfort from his presence but cannot sleep.

“I met the nicest man today.”

“Oh?”

“And believe it or not, he’s not married.”

“Or so he says,” I remember answering. Once a cynic, always a cynic. Marva smiled.

“I want you to meet him.”

We met later that week at Annabelle’s, the local hang out where everyone knows everyone, but no one knew Curt. He seemed to have blown into town from another planet. Annabelle’s was hopping that night, I remember there was a peculiar unreal atmosphere.  Both Marva and Curt were strangely animated. I didn’t like Curt at all, he made the hair on the back of my neck rise. Marva glowed. I had never seen her like this, right from the getgo, he possessed a certain power over her which spelled trouble. It was his eyes. Curt had Rasputin eyes, and all his sweet talk couldn’t negate the glaring contradiction emanating from his eyes which I translated as pure evil. Marva didn’t see it, she was “blinded by the light” in every sense of the word.

“Marva, you need to read Carl Jung again. Your projections are blinding you.”

“What projections?” 

“What projections? Give me a break. You don’t know anything about this guy. For all we know he has been incarcerated.”

“Well what if he was? It would have made him a better person.”

“I am simply saying you need to take it slow. Get to know him a little better. Look at Otis. Even Otis is upset.”

It was true. Otis did not like Curt either. Low rumbles from deep within his throat reached the surface of his being every time Curt came within three feet of Marva. 

I have examined and reexamined my behavior ever since. Was I jealous? Maybe, but I was more concerned than jealous because with every passing day Marva decompensated. Her beautiful mane of thick blonde hair became limp. She used to light up a room, now her skin was sallow, she looked unkempt, her lovely blue eyes dulled. When they were together she always stood behind Curt allowing him to dominate the conversation. My once happy, opinionated friend became a mouse in front of my very eyes as I stood by and allowed it to happen. There was no reckoning with her. She took her cues from Curt. If Curt laughed, Marva laughed, if Curt didn’t like something, Marva didn’t like it. She became a shell of her former self.

“Curt doesn’t love me any more.” Marva and I were having lunch in her once pristine kitchen, now littered with dirty dishes, baskets full of dirty laundry, piles of unpaid bills. Those unpaid bills should have been a huge red flag, Marva was a stickler with her money, she never allowed her credit cards to go unpaid. Otis was lying next to her, his eyes half closed as if he feared something would happen to her if he slept. In retrospect, Otis was right not to sleep. This was to be the last time I saw her.

“I have become a stalker.”

“A stalker? My God Marva, you really need to get a grip.”

“I can’t help myself. Curt is cutting me cold. I need to know who he is seeing behind my back.”

It was many months later that she texted me. “In Kansas with Curt. Very happy.”

Kansas? What the_____? Marva is a city girl. Hurt beyond belief, I couldn’t believe that my closest friend,  my BFF, would leave without so much as a fare thee well.  Since Jr. High School we had been inseparable. She was my touchstone.  And all this for a piece of shit like Curt?    

I’m still not over it, I’ll never fully get over it, life doesn’t have the luster of days gone by. One morning I awoke and realized that Otis was not at the foot of my bed. I missed his weight snuggled up on top of my feet, keeping them warm. I went to my back door and found his lifeless body on the porch. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong with him, he told me he died of “natural causes” but I know why he died. Otis died of a broken heart.