Six Years of Silent Hearing Aids

At three in the morning, my husband texted me.

[Where are you?]

I was sitting in the observation room of the abortion clinic, utterly exhausted from the pain. I typed back:

[Ill tell you when I get home.]

When I finally walked through the door, he was sitting at his computer, editing a vlog from a recent party.

"I aborted the baby," I said.

"Im being transferred overseas the day after tomorrow. Take tomorrow off, and lets go to the courthouse to finalize the divorce."

He didnt look up from the screen, just muttering his usual absent-minded "uh-huh."

I knew it. He had turned his hearing aids off again.

For six years, I had excitedly shared the little details of my day with him. I had enthusiastically planned our future together. Over the years, I must have sung at least three hundred love songs to him. In the end, not a single note ever made it to his ears.

I was genuinely so tired.

I walked up behind him and flicked the switch on his hearing aid.

He frowned instantly and snapped before I could speak, "What are you doing?"

"The battery on my hearing aids is running low, and I left my charger at the office."

"Im taking tomorrow off to go with Chloe to hear her sing at karaoke. Dont waste my battery."

I nodded slowly and reached over, turning his hearing aid back off.

Then lets part in silence.

...

Allen suddenly flicked his hearing aid back on.

"Whatever. I'll just swing by the office and grab the charger tomorrow morning."

"What were you trying to say?"

I didn't answer.

I walked over to the sofa, sat down, and took out the painkillers the doctor had prescribed. I swallowed them dry with a sip of cold water.

Only then did Allen look away from his monitor and glance over at me.

"Why are you taking pills?"

"Vitamins," I replied.

He nodded, accepting the lie immediately.

"Did the doctor say anything else? I wouldve gone with you today if I wasnt so busy."

It was always the same excuse.

Allens promises meant absolutely nothing to me anymore.

Like during his last vacation. He promised to take me to the beach. I had bought the plane tickets and planned the entire itinerary. But at the last minute, Chloe claimed some creep was following her home from work.

Allen threw a stack of cash at me to shut me up, and spent his entire month off acting as Chloes personal bodyguard, driving her to and from work every single day.

I could let go of something trivial like a canceled vacation.

But he also consistently bailed on my birthdays and our anniversaries. Every single time I asked, it was always because Chloe had some "emergency."

He never took the things I said seriously. He barely even listened.

But whatever bizarre, dramatic excuse Chloe came up with, he treated it like an absolute royal decree.

I never understood it. We were all adults; how could he lack such basic judgment?

It wasn't until much later that I finally realizedit had nothing to do with whether he believed her or not. It was entirely about who he loved.

When a man loves a woman, even if she points at the sky and calls it the ground, even if she calls red green, he will find a way to justify her delusions as absolute truth.

"Whatever. Let's just go to sleep," I said softly.

"At your last physical, the doctor said your thyroid nodules were getting bigger. You need to stop staying up so late..."

Before I could even finish my sentence, Allen reached up and switched his hearing aid off.

He waved me away dismissively, signaling me to leave him alone.

I suddenly let out a dry, bitter laugh.

I was laughing at my own pathetic reflexes. Even after all these years, my first instinct was still to care about him.

I walked back to the master bedroom and locked the door behind me.

By the time I finished filling out my overseas transfer paperwork, it was already 6:00 AM. The sky was turning gray.

The sound of his keyboard clacking in the living room had been replaced by the sound of a voice call.

Even through the phone speaker and a solid wooden door, I could clearly hear Chloe's obnoxiously loud voice.

And Allen was patiently listening as she planned out their entire itinerary for the day.

I buried my head under the heavy duvet and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

I had originally gone to the hospital yesterday for a prenatal checkup.

When I woke up and saw the dark, torrential clouds outside the window, I turned to Allen, who was sitting on the edge of the bed scrolling on his phone.

"Looks like a massive storm is coming. Can you drive me to the hospital?"

I waited. Silence.

I assumed he had turned off his hearing aids again. But when I looked closer, the tiny green indicator light was on.

He was just so completely absorbed in his texts that he completely ignored me.

I snatched the phone out of his hands.

On the screen was a chat with a contact he saved as [Princess Chloe]. She was begging him to come to her pajama party tonight.

Knowing that Allen absolutely despised loud, chaotic environments, I typed a reply for him:

[Not going.]

Allen panicked, lunging forward to snatch the phone back. He frantically tapped the screen to unsend the message.

"I asked you to drive me to the hospital for my prenatal checkup," I stated clearly.

"When?" he asked without looking up.

"This afternoon."

He kept typing furiously on his phone, ignoring me again.

Just as my anger began to boil over, Allen suddenly laughed out loud. He shoved his phone screen in my face.

"Chloe said she invited a bunch of old college friends over to her place for lunch. Let's go hang out."

"I'll take you to the hospital after we eat."

But at the lunch table, Chloe coaxed Allen into taking shots.

The group kept passing bottles, laughing and drinking heavily.

I felt sick watching them. I barely touched my food before standing up and saying I needed to get to the hospital.

"Just reschedule the checkup," Allen slurred slightly. "I'll go with you in a few days."

He had absolutely no idea that specialist appointments had to be booked weeks in advance.

"No," I said firmly.

Allen pulled out his phone to call me an Uber.

"Don't bother," I rejected him flatly.

He just nodded and told me to be careful on the way.

Not a single person at that table offered to walk me to the door, let alone to the front gate of the complex.

I walked out with an umbrella, but the sideways rain soaked my pants up to the knees. I wandered aimlessly around the massive apartment complex for ages before I finally found the exit.

And of course, disaster always strikes in pairs.

Traffic was gridlocked because of the storm. By the time I arrived, I had missed my slot and was pushed to the very last appointment of the day.

Right next to the maternity clinic, the abortion waiting room was eerily empty.

I ended up sitting there instead, staring blankly up at the glowing sign reading [Pregnancy Termination Clinic], lost in my own thoughts.

Before I knew it, the sun had set.

Usually, if I was out this late, Allen would have called to check on me.

Today, there was dead silence.

I thought maybe my phone was acting up.

But when I unlocked it, I saw that Allen had just posted a new story on Instagram.

He was at Chloe's pajama party.

I zoomed in on the photo.

His platinum wedding band was missing from his left hand.

I called his number. Chloe answered. She sounded incredibly annoyed, telling me I was being annoying and ruining their vibe by constantly checking up on him.

I only asked one question: "Where is Allen's wedding ring?"

"Oh, he let me try it on earlier," she paused casually. "It probably fell in between the couch cushions. I don't know, we'll look for it after the party."

The line went dead.

Down the hall, the nurse finally called my name.

"Evelyn? Is Evelyn here?"

"Patient Evelyn, please come to exam room 3."

I took two steps forward, then stopped dead in my tracks.

I turned around and walked up to the reception desk of the abortion clinic.

"Do I need an appointment for a termination?"

"No, walk-ins are accepted today."

"Okay. Please schedule me."

A burst of giggling startled me awake.

I grabbed my phone from the nightstand. It was only 7:30 AM. My head was pounding aggressively from lack of sleep.

I blindly reached into the nightstand drawer for my migraine pills.

Empty.

I had reminded Allen at least five times to pick up a refill, and he still completely forgot.

It took me several minutes to gather the strength to sit up and open the bedroom door.

Allen was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. Chloe was standing right beside him, acting as his sous-chef.

"Go pour your sister-in-law a glass of warm water," he told her affectionately.

Chloe confidently opened the overhead cabinet. From a dozen different mugs, she flawlessly selected mine.

She filled it and brought it over to me.

"How did you know which mug is mine?" I asked.

She turned around, heading back to the cabinets, digging through them as she answered, "Because I come over all the time."

"Whenever you go on business trips, I come over to hang out with Allen."

Chloe then pulled down Allen's favorite mug.

She stood on her tiptoes, looking confused. "Allen, where did you put my mug?"

Allen pointed a spatula toward the UV sanitizer on the counter.

"In there."

"I told you to stop tossing it in the sink when you're done. You have to wash it and let it dry before putting it back in the cabinet."

"Otherwise, I have to run the sanitizer cycle every single time you leave it out."

Chloe grabbed her little cartoon mug, waltzed over to Allen, and affectionately rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.

"I'm too lazy for that."

"I'll just leave all the washing to you!"

Allen playfully raised the spatula as if to bop her on the head.

"You're going to die of laziness one day!"

They were so incredibly comfortable around each other. Like a real family.

I stood there gripping my glass of water, feeling the warmth slowly seep out through the glass until it was ice cold against my palms.

I had never seen this side of Allen before.

When it was just us, he barely spoke. At dinner, I usually scrolled on my phone while he read articles on his tablet.

Then we would wash up and go to our separate jobs.

"Do you want a fried egg or hard-boiled?" Allen called out to me, holding a small frying pan.

Chloe immediately plopped down in the chair next to me and excitedly raised her hand.

"Chef Allen! I want both!"

"Eggs are my absolute favorite!"

Allen smiled warmly and slid the breakfast into her designated bowl.

Then he finally looked back at methe woman who had spoken exactly one sentence all morning.

"What about you?"

I pressed my lips together, my fingers lightly tracing the faint, red splotches still lingering on my forearm.

It had barely been two weeks since my last severe allergic reaction.

"I am deathly allergic to egg protein."

"Did you seriously forget?"

Allen completely froze.

A flash of intense guilt crossed his face. He quickly scraped the remaining eggs in the pan into his own bowl.

"I'll make you something else right now..."

"Don't waste your time," I cut him off smoothly. "Weren't you in a huge rush to get to the office and grab your charger?"

"You two take your time eating. Have fun today."

After I said that, Allen didn't dare sit down.

He stood there awkwardly holding the frying pan, unsure if he should put it down or retreat back into the kitchen. He kept covertly watching my face for a reaction.

I flashed him an empty smile. "Is something wrong?"

"No. Nothing."

Allen picked at his food, entirely distracted.

Because if this had happened a year ago, I would have exploded on him.

If he tried to run away from the argument, I would have chased him all the way to his office.

One time, he got so frustrated he actually called me a "hysterical bitch."

My tears instantly spilled over.

I grabbed him by the collar and screamed:

"How is any of this my fault?"

I screamed at him until I was hyperventilating, completely stripping myself of any dignity.

When I finally looked up, panting, I saw Allen staring at me with a completely blank, bored expression.

He had turned off his hearing aids ages ago.

His dead-eyed calmness made me look like an absolute lunatic.

But even if he couldn't hear the desperation in my voice, couldn't he see the massive tears streaming down my face?

Huge drops of water hitting the floor right between us.

Why couldn't a single drop touch his heart? Why didn't he feel even an ounce of pity for me?

After that day, I never picked a fight with Allen again.

I slowly figured it out. I slowly accepted the reality of my marriage.

And slowly, I stopped loving him so much.

After breakfast, Allen went back into the bedroom to change. A few minutes later, he walked out wearing a crisp dress shirt.

"Honey, where are my ties?"

I gestured vaguely toward the balcony. "Theres a whole pile out there. Pick whichever one you want."

He stood completely still in front of me.

I finally looked up from my phone. "What now?"

"My tie," he muttered, looking uncomfortable. "Are you... are you not going to tie it for me?"

"You have two fully functioning hands," I replied flatly.

"Right."

Allen was entirely dependent on me picking out his outfits, matching his ties, and even selecting his cufflinks every single morning.

I always made sure his attire perfectly suited whatever meetings he had that day.

I was naturally a very low-maintenance, casual person.

But marrying him had forced me to become hyper-organized and domestic.

Color-coordinating his silk ties, hand-steaming every single dress shirt, constantly updating his wardrobe to keep him looking sharp and modern.

"I can't get the knot right," he whined, fumbling helplessly with the silk fabric. "Just help me."

I sighed, stood up, and took the tie from his hands.

After expertly looping the knot, I suddenly yanked the fabric straight up, nearly choking him.

"Allen, you really need to stop relying on me so much."

"What are you going to do when I leave you?"

Allen didn't take my words seriously at all.

He gently shoved my shoulder and waved at Chloe. "Let's roll."

"I'm coming with you," I said.

I needed to swing by the pharmacy to buy my migraine medication anyway.

Both of them turned to look at meone with intense annoyance, the other with deep frustration.

"Relax. I'm not going to crash your little date."

I opened the shoe cabinet. Sitting right dead center on the top shelf was a brand-new pair of fluffy, cartoon slippers.

Winter was still months away, but Allen had already made sure Chloe's feet would be warm when she came over.

I pulled my eyes away from the slippers, grabbed my own sneakers, and put them on.

"I'm getting dropped off halfway. Let's go."

Allen and Chloe walked side-by-side to the garage, laughing and joking the entire way.

They were gossiping about the pajama partywho chose a crazy dare, who got blackout drunk and embarrassed themselves.

When we reached his SUV, Chloe naturally pulled open the passenger door and climbed right in.

She immediately reclined the seat, draped a plush little blanket over her lap, and then dug through the glove compartment. She violently shoved my expensive lipsticks and sunscreen out of the way just to find her cheap little compact mirror.

Allen gave me an incredibly awkward look and muttered, "Maybe you could..."

"I'll sit in the back," I offered before he could finish.

He audibly sighed in relief.

The SUV cruised smoothly down the avenue. Allen's left hand rested on the steering wheel, his ring finger still totally bare.

"Did you ever find your ring?" I asked out of nowhere.

The car noticeably swerved for a split second.

Allen didn't say a word.

Chloe was completely engrossed in watching the vlog Allen had edited for her last night. When she reached a funny part, she let out an ear-piercing shriek.

"Oh my god!"

When high-pitched sounds hit Allen's hearing aids, the feedback loop would trigger an agonizing, screeching pop right in his ear. It caused him severe physical pain.

That was why Allen absolutely hated loud noises.

Even when I spoke to him, I had to carefully modulate my volume to make sure I didn't cross his pain threshold.

But Chloe was literally shrieking at the top of her lungs inches from his face, and his expression didn't even flicker.

Only his knuckles gripping the steering wheel turned pure white.

"Allen, you are an absolute genius!"

"I literally love you so much!!"

Allen smiled softly. "I'm glad you like it."

With their loud, obnoxious banter, my question was completely buried and forgotten.

Whatever.

It really didn't matter.

It was just a piece of metal. I was about to throw mine in the trash anyway.

After picking up my prescription, I asked the pharmacist a few quick questions about managing chronic migraines.

By the time I walked out the sliding glass doors, it had started to rain again, and the sky looked like it was about to absolutely dump on the city.

I stood under the pharmacy awning, hoping to wait it out and catch a cab home.

But the downpour started at 10:00 AM and didn't let up until 10:00 PM.

The city's ancient drainage system completely collapsed under the deluge.

The cabs stopped running, and the buses were completely grounded.

The floodwaters on the streets kept rising until it reached halfway up my calves.

My skirt was completely soaked through. The freezing water chilled my abdomen, and the fresh surgical wounds from my abortion started throbbing violently.

I pulled out my phone and texted Allen:

[Where are you? Can you please come pick me up?]

[The flooding is getting really dangerous.]

The messages went completely unanswered.

I started calling him.

I called him nearly twenty times. He didn't pick up a single one.

Gritting my teeth against the searing cramps, I finally stepped off the curb into the filthy, freezing floodwater and started the long walk home.

Suddenly, my foot slipped off the edge of a dislodged manhole cover.

Splash

Foul, freezing sewage instantly swallowed me over my head. I thrashed wildly in the dark water, fighting to break the surface.

Out of nowhere, a strong hand clamped onto my jacket and brutally hauled me up onto the pavement.

If it wasn't for her, I legitimately would have drowned in an open sewer.

The young woman dragged me onto her emergency inflatable raft.

"Where do you live? I'll take you home."

By the time I finally reached my apartment, it was pitch black outside.

Fighting through a splitting migraine and agonizing abdominal cramps, I stood under the scalding water in the shower. The second I stepped out, my legs gave way, and I collapsed onto the bathroom rug, completely blacking out.

When I finally regained consciousness, the clock read 2:00 AM.

The rain had stopped, but two bright, obnoxious voices echoed down the hallway.

"I literally carried you on my back for three blocks. You are trying to kill me."

"Get down."

Chloe giggled flirtatiously. "No! I don't wanna!"

"I want you to carry me. I want you to carry me forever!"

The front door clicked open, and the hallway lights flipped on.

Allen kicked off his ruined leather shoes. His slacks were rolled up past his knees, but they were still completely soaked in muddy water.

Chloe, on the other hand, was perfectly dry and spotless.

They moved into the bathroom with sickening intimacy, sharing the same hand towel to wipe their faces. Neither of them even glanced toward the dark living room where I was sitting.

"It's getting chilly in here. Are you cold?"

Allen anxiously pulled her toward the light to inspect her clothes.

"Wait here, I'll go find you something warm to wear."

He walked straight into the master bedroom and came out carrying an armful of my expensive silk nightgowns.

"These belong to your sister-in-law. Pick whichever one you like."

I absolutely despised people touching my personal belongings. Allen knew this better than anyone on earth.

Chloe immediately snatched up the ruby-red silk slip.

"I want this one!"

That dress was my anniversary gift from Allen.

I hadn't even brought myself to wear it yet, and he just casually handed it over to another woman to sleep in.

"Tonight was absolutely legendary!"

Chloe was bouncing around the living room like a hyperactive child.

Watching her, I couldn't help but see a mirror image of the girl I used to be.

Except the response she got was entirely different.

Allen looked at her with pure, unfiltered adoration, hanging onto her every single word as if missing a syllable would be a tragedy.

"Can you two please shut the hell up?" I finally spoke, shattering their little bubble.

They both completely froze.

After a suffocating silence, Allen quickly launched into an excuse. He claimed Chloe's apartment building was in a low-elevation zone and prone to flooding, so he brought her here to keep her safe.

I didn't say a single word back. I just stood up and walked straight into the guest bedroom, locking the door behind me.

That night, sleep was completely impossible.

Through the thin walls, I could hear them whispering and laughing together in the living room.

All night long.

The next morning, Allen and Chloe ate breakfast together and walked to the front door together.

"Honey, I'm going to drop Chloe off at her place first."

"I'll swing back around and take you to work."

"Just wait for me."

I was absolutely never going to wait for Allen again.

I packed a single suitcase. I pulled out the divorce papers I had printed months ago but never had the courage to sign, and finally scrawled my name across the bottom line.

I left the documents sitting directly on top of the dining table, right next to the hospital discharge papers from my abortion.

He would see them the second he walked back through the door.

I took a cab straight to the international terminal, breezed through security, and boarded my flight.

The overhead intercom politely requested all passengers switch their devices to airplane mode or power them off completely.

I pulled my phone out of my purse and pressed the power button.

But right before the screen went black, an absolute avalanche of notifications exploded onto the screen.