The Wardrobe - 1. Chapter 1

The Wardrobe

Sam dragged his suitcase over the threshold, turned the hall light on, and kicked the door shut behind him. He reached out to drop his keys into the blue glass bowl on top of the chest of drawers as always, but then stopped mid-motion. Where the chest had been was only a dark smudge on the wall. The matching mirror Mark and he had bought in Venice was also gone . While he stared at the delicate piece of blue Murano glass art standing on the floor, his fingers holding the keys opened, seemingly on their own accord. Heavy metal hit fragile glass and shattered it beyond recognition.

Sam patted himself down in search for his phone. Someone must have broken into their home. Then the rational part of his mind kicked in and mentally slapped him upside his head.

Idiot, who would steal the fucking furniture, huh? You know very well what this means.

It was the same part of his mind that had briefly wondered about the absence of any light in the house when he left the cab.

Mark's working late.

Sam left the trolley where it was and headed for the living room; not caring that some of the glass was stuck under his soles and he made crunching noises with every step.

Despite already knowing better, he still couldn't help but call, "Mark! I'm home!"

He slapped his hand on the light switch by the door of the living room, took one look and then closed his eyes. The coffee table was missing; one of the couches, parts of the entertainment center, the fish tank, books, and even the lamps. Mark must have planned this for a long time seeing how thorough he had been.

Sam took a step forward and turned on his own axis. His gaze fell on the sculpture sitting on the mantelpiece. He had given it to Mark for his birthday the night before he left for his conference a week ago. Seeing it still here should neither surprise nor hurt him as much as it did.

The chest in the hall belonged to Mark. He had inherited it from his grand mother, along with the dining room furniture and the china. Sam slowly lifted his eyes to the adjourning room. It was empty. Table, chairs, sideboard, cupboard, everything was gone.

If he was honest, Sam knew what was going on the minute he saw the lonely glass bowl sitting on the floor. Nevertheless standing in the half-empty living room felt like a sucker punch into his guts and before he could stop it, a garbled sound wrenched itself out of his throat. He pressed his lips shut, shook his head, not willing to give in to the sudden pain.

Instead he stalked over to the antique liquor cabinet with the strong urge to drink himself to unconsciousness. He found it still well stocked, which wasn't a surprise as Mark never drank Jack, or Jim, or Mexican, or Russian, only expensive French and Italian red wine.

"So cultivated," he scoffed while he stared at the bottles.

The special wine storage refrigerator in the kitchen was probably gone also. Not that Sam minded, since he wouldn't have much use of it anyway.

When Sam felt another sob welling up, he concentrated hard not to let it out. Breathe, in, out, in, out. He couldn't give in to the pain he felt, waiting to run him over, he wouldn't be a snotty mess. No, he had to pull himself together and see it all. Long enough had he ignored the unwanted truth until it had slapped him right into his face. Sam had fought it, turned a blind eye on all the signs, because he simply hadn't wanted to face it. Instead, Sam had tried harder to be the man Mark had wanted at his side.

At that thought, Sam felt something hard forming in his throat, it hurt when he tried to swallow. No...no. He needed not to think of that. He needed to be numb.

No thinking...

With that in mind, he grabbed the bottle of Wild Turkey and threw himself on the remaining couch, his couch.

When he went to prop his feet on the nonexistent coffee table, memories of the day he had met Mark at an antique market came back to him. Mark had been admiring a square oak wood chest that had been turned into a table, and had asked Sam for his opinion. They had found out they both thought it would make a great coffee table, but Mark didn't like the glass top. At the end, Mark had bought it after he had the dealer remove the offending glass pane.

Sam took several long swigs, always shaking the bottle afterwards, making sure there was still plenty left.

Warm, he finally felt warm. And numb.

Every time his thoughts drifted to Mark, he lifted the bottle to his lips. The buzz made it harder to think. He liked that. He did not want to think of where Mark was, or with whom. Later maybe, but not yet.

Not yet.

Sam fell asleep on the couch; when he woke the bottle in his hand was empty. He went into the cabinet for another bottle and another bottle. Sometime he got hungry and stumbled into the kitchen, where he found some cheese in the fridge, and some crackers in the cupboard. He took his loot back into the living room and promptly forgot all about it, after he'd come back from the bathroom.

He didn't change his clothes, didn't shower for days. He didn't know what day it was, didn't register the ringing phone or the voices on his answering machine. He drank, he slept, he went to the hall bathroom to take a piss. He counted the growing number of empty bottles neatly lined up along the living room wall, but he never made it to the end of the line. In a brief sober moment, Sam even noticed he was starting to stink, but he ignored it and got another bottle.

One day though, while he used the bathroom and coincidentally was partially sober, the mirror showed him a man he didn't recognize. Sam grimaced at the dark stubble on the man's face, the oily, filthy hair, and the bloodshot eyes. Looking down at himself, he hated what he saw, what he had let himself become.

He showered and shaved, grabbed some fresh jeans and a soft, long sleeved shirt from his suitcase. The clothes he had worn five days went straight in the garbage can.

After making some tea, Sam finally felt better. The pain still lingered in the back of his mind, but it was manageable as long as he pushed away every thought of what he could miss.

He had work to do.

First he cleaned the glass from the hallway, and then he went through the house, taking inventory of everything that was left. Mark had been thorough. Sam found gaps everywhere, so many things were missing: Books, paintings, photographs, more pieces of furniture.

As Sam had expected Mark's study was completely empty. Sam's study was mostly untouched; only the light gray envelope on his desk hadn't been there before. Sam left it where it was.

The gaps in the kitchen were smaller, as most of the stuff belonged to Sam. The only obvious things missing were the wine storage fridge and the coffee maker. That wasn't a problem though. Sam had always liked tea better than coffee, anyway.

The bedroom was last. Sam knew all of the furniture would still be there, because, like the liquor cabinet in the living room, Sam had inherited it from his great aunt Maria: The king-size, four-poster, cherry wood bed with the matching nightstands, the big ornate wardrobe, the matching chest of drawers, and the small vanity with the marble top.

He pushed the door open with maybe a little more force than was absolutely necessary. What he noticed immediately was that the bed was made with Sam's cheap before-Mark-sheets. Mark had insisted on buying Egyptian cotton and silk. The nightstand on the right was empty; Mark's cell phone charger and water glass were gone. The other nightstand was its usually messy self. Spare cell phone charger, half empty bag of pretzels, his mother's tea cup, and some papers.

Sam closed his eyes for a moment before he turned slowly and walked over to the wardrobe. His hand hovered over the big, old iron key, not being able to touch it.

He knew what awaited him if he'd open it. Three-fourths would be gaping, empty space, on the right side would be the two suits Sam owned. One charcoal grey with matching waistcoat, the other one was dark blue. There would also be three dress shirts and one hanger with ties.

Sam's hand shook and he let it sink to his side. He didn't want to face the emptiness, he wanted it to be locked away behind the wardrobe's doors.

He left the bedroom as it was and went through the house a second time. He shuffled everything around, until the gaps were not so obvious anymore. He couldn't do anything about the dining room other than lock the door.

Sam didn't sleep in the bedroom; he slept on the couch instead. He'd done it before, when he hadn't wanted to disturb Mark after working late. It was a comfortable couch.

At the beginning it had been difficult, but after a while Sam thought he had a pretty good routine going on. After waking up he went into their...the bedroom, he walked right to the chest of drawers, his eyes firmly fixed on it, neither straying to the bed nor to the wardrobe. He would open the first drawer, take out some clean underwear and socks, close it again and then open the third for a t-shirt. In the fifth he would find fresh sweats, or a pair of jeans.

He knew if he only opened the first, third and fifth drawer everything would be okay, normal, like it had always been. Nothing would be missing, no empty drawers pointing out the obvious.

With his clothes bundled under is arm he went into the bathroom, took a quick shower and again shoved every image of Mark and him out of his mind, and locked it away.

Gone.

Every morning Sam would trudge into the kitchen, make some tea. With the cereal bowl in one hand and a mug in the other, he would walk into his office and work until his stomach reminded him he needed sustenance. He'd call take-out places and always order enough for dinner too.

Doing everything like he had done the day before gave him structure, order, a new kind of numbness.

Mark's letter had long gone into one of the bottom drawers of his desk, unopened. Every thought of it put firmly away behind cherry wood doors and an iron key.

Sam's focus on work, kept his mind off anything else, and every time images of Mark, or the half-empty house flickered up at the edge of his consciousness, they were always quickly pushed aside. Clinging to his routine helped with that, it was safe. It made him detached, unaware; it was the only way Sam could exist.

Sam had been able to secure two large projects while he was away at the conference and thought he had work for weeks to come. What Sam hadn't taken into consideration was what he could accomplish when he worked every day, from early in the morning until he could barely hold his eyes open in the middle of the night. Therefore, it took him completely by surprise, when he realized one day, that his first project was about to be finished, way before the deadline. This was a completely new experience for him and elated, he called his client and made an appointment for the beginning of the coming week.

Only when he'd hung up and looked at the tear in his jeans it dawned on him that he couldn't present the new program wearing sweatpants or ratty old, blue jeans; not with this client. No, Sam had to wear a suit, with a dress shirt, definitely a tie. Sam had to open the wardrobe.

Or buy a new suit.

No, that wasn't an option. Maybe it was the aftermath of having finished a project, but for the first time, Sam felt he could face the emptiness, that he had been a coward long enough.

Sam turned to the stairway, before he would change his mind. Slowly he took step by step until he stood in front of their...his bedroom. He took a deep, shaky breath and then pressed down the handle.

After closing the door carefully behind him, he slowly walked over to the wardrobe. Letting his hands wander over familiar cherry wood decorations, lingering briefly when he found a small unevenness, he could almost smell the scent of the little lavender sachets his grandmother had always used to protect her clothes from moths.

Finally, Sam turned the key with shaking hands and pulled the doors open all the way. What he saw was exactly what he had pictured it in his head: two suits, three shirts and his ties, nothing else.

He had clung to the idea that as long as he wouldn't open these doors it wasn't real, that it was a mistake, that he had got it all wrong, that Mark would be back. Of course, deep down the rational part of his mind had pointed at all the missing furniture and told him how stupid he was and that he should open the damn thing and get it over with. Instead, he had refused to accept the truth, had mentally shoved every memory in here, desperate to detach himself from reality.

Sam's throat constricted and sobs soon became desperate gasps for air. He had locked away Mark's happy smile for cooking his favorite meal and Mark's one lifted eyebrow that had made Sam think. He missed the places they had gone to hunt for antiques, the songs they had listened to, danced to, and even fought over. Gone were the touches, the sighs, the little gestures of love, the kisses both hot and sweet, and the heated looks across the room that always got Sam in trouble every time.

He had turned a warm memory from his past into a hiding-place for his pain, his fears, his regrets, and his failure.

That had to stop.

Sinking on his knees, he punched the floor with his fist while a whining growl escaped his tortured chest. That was not all Mark took away. There were the disapproving looks for preferring jeans and gym shorts over slacks and suits, for not finding time to go to all those charity events, dinner parties and gallery openings. He took the waiting, the questions Sam never dared to ask, the growing distance between them that Sam hadn't wanted to see.

Until this moment, Sam hadn't realized how much all this had been weighing on him and he couldn't believe how long it had taken him to figure it out.

His head throbbed and Sam pressed his heated face against the cool wood floor, where he fell asleep, utterly exhausted.

With his body stiff from lying on the floor for too long, Sam rolled slowly into a sitting position. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind before he braced his hand against the wall and slowly scrambled up to his feet. Rolling his shoulders in an attempt to loosen his cramped muscles, he did what he came for and took the dark grey suit out of the wardrobe. Suddenly, something lying on the bottom shelf caught his eye. Leaning forward, he tugged at a piece of cloth until he could see what it was. It was a tie. Sam had found it at an artisan market. It was made from hand painted silk. It had been so different from all of Mark's other ties with its bright swirls of blue and green, that made Sam want to buy it for Mark.

He remembered Mark's reaction clearly, the indulgent smile, his soft spoken, "Nice." Mark had even held it against his chest and had walked over to the mirror in the hall to see how it looked on him.

Mark had never worn it.

While Sam's finger followed one of the blue-green swirls, he realized for the first time that this tie had been for a man who Mark could never be. Just like Sam couldn't be the man Mark wanted by his side any longer. Sam would never be the suave partner who entertained and captivated his audience with anecdotes and witty remarks. It was something Mark needed from his man, but Sam wasn't that man. There were many other things, like the importance of their careers, what they wanted for their future, where they had drifted apart, things that Sam hadn't wanted to see.

Absentmindedly stroking the silk in his hands, Sam slowly accepted that sometimes loving someone wasn't enough.

The thought made Sam tearing up again, but this time it felt okay, it didn't feel like he was splitting in two. Finding the tie on the bottom of the wardrobe had helped to clear the fog he had allowed to cloud his mind for far too long.

***

Sam stared at the assortment of beverages and food on the table, wishing this after-the-presentation-get-together would be over, and he could go home when someone tapped him on the shoulder from behind. Forcing a smile on his face, he turned around and found himself immediately mesmerized by smiling blue-green eyes.

"Cookies?" The waiter waved a plate in front of Sam's face. "They're really good," he said with a waggle of his eyebrow.

Sam looked down at the cookies and then back to the man holding the plate. Like always, he couldn't get one word out. The man didn't seem to mind though. He grinned and pointed at Sam's chest. "Nice tie, by the way." His fingers reached out and traced one of the swirls that matched his eyes so perfectly.