After the Storm

This is mostly a true story about how my wife and I rekindled our love and saved our marriage. I've changed our names and altered a few plot details, but otherwise everything is just how it went down. There is sex at the end, but the thrust of the story is about our marriage and how it withstood the biggest crisis we'd ever faced.

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The alarm clock went off at 5:35 in the morning, waking me up long before I was ready to get up. Outside, I could already hear the wind picking up as Hurricane Katrina made her way toward us.

I'm not a very nice person in the morning anyway, plus I had worked the night before until 10:30, getting last-minute business finished, then I'd sat up for another two hours monitoring the Weather Channel. There was no doubt in anyone's mind by then that this was the big one we'd all been dreading, and, of course, that just added to the stress I was feeling.

I can still see in my mind's eye, as I think back to that day, the sight of Jim Cantore doing a standup on the beach in Biloxi on Sunday morning. With a beautiful, clear sky and a dead calm sea in the background, he was telling viewers to take a good look because it would never be the same. I've been down there in the months since, and that comment should be the 2005 award winner for understatement of the year.

The alarm clock was one you can set anywhere, and which has several different tones - a cookoo bird, a beep and a bell. We like to use the bell, because it's a little more soothing than the others.

The problem was, in my fumbling half-awake state, I couldn't find the right button to shut the damn thing off. So it just kept going - bong! bong! bong!

I got increasingly frustrated with it, and finally I angrily climbed out of bed, grabbed the thing, stalked to the living room, where my wife and daughter were looking out the window, and threw it toward her.

"Shut this goddam thing off!" I snarled.

I really wasn't throwing it at her, honestly, but to her, figuring she'd catch it. However, I guess I used a little too much force, because I nearly hit my daughter with it, then I wheeled around and stalked back to the bedroom.

"That was totally uncalled for!" Darlene yelled as she followed me back to the bedroom.

"Well, I'm sorry, but it pissed me off," I said. "I couldn't get it shut off."

"You told me you wanted to get up and watch the storm," she snapped.

"Not at 5:30 in the morning, I don't," I snapped back.

"Fine, be an asshole," my wife said. "I won't bother you again."

She slammed the door, and with that the crisis that brought our marriage to the crossroads had officially begun.

A little background is in order here.

I'm Dan and my wife is Darlene. We have two children, a 20-year-old son who was away at basic training with the Air Force in Texas at the time, and a 14-year-old daughter.

Darlene and I met fairly late in life; I was 27 and she was 26. She'd been married once before, and was recently divorced, while I was fairly shy and not all that experienced with women.

But we fell in love right from the start. All the things I never could seem to do with other women, I could do with Darlene. From the beginning, sex between us was outstanding, and I seemed to be a totally different person when I was with her than I had been before.

Darlene is average in size, and pretty well built, with a healthy pair of round, fat tits and slim legs. She's added a few pounds here and there over the years, and she could probably stand to lose about 15-20 pounds, but she still looks mighty good to me.

As far as her looks goes, she's not one of these women that jumps right out at you, but when you take the time to really look at her, you realize that she's quite attractive. Her eyes are her best feature. They always seem to be laughing, and they have the ability to just draw you in.

I'm about average in size, as well, and I too could stand to lose a few pounds. People have said I'm pretty nice looking, but I don't know about all that.

We were married and soon had our family coming. We live in the same South Mississippi town we've always lived in, a smallish town about 60 miles from the Gulf Coast.

We've had our ups and downs over the 23 years we've been married. We had a miscarriage early in our marriage that we still grieve over. I went through a midlife crisis about seven years ago that nearly resulted in me having an affair with a younger co-worker. And, a little over a year before Katrina, I was arrested for a DUI and forced to quit drinking.

I must stress that I am not a violent person, but I do have a quick temper. By that I mean things will set me off and I'll rage for about a minute, maybe two or three, then I'll take a deep breath and I'll calm down.

The ironic thing about it is that it's always little stuff that sets me off. Slow drivers in traffic, something that won't stay where it's placed, an idiotic thing someone says on TV, all seem to just rub me wrong. But get me in a truly bad situation, and I'm the picture of calm. The bigger the crisis, the calmer I am.

I must also say that I've never, ever, laid a hand on Darlene, and never will. Her first husband was abusive and she told me flat-out that if I ever hit her – even once – she'd leave me. I love her too much to do that, and besides, whatever other faults I have, hitting a woman isn't one of them.

But I threw the little alarm clock at her that morning, and that was getting pretty close to the edge.

I finally got up at 8:30, right about the time a small tree fell over and hit a corner of the house with a big thump. By then, the winds were howling at about 75-plus and the rain was coming in sideways.

Darlene was pretty calm, all things considered. She'd spent the morning cooking, trying to get as much done while we still had power. I sheepishly apologized for my earlier outburst, the way I always did, and that's when I got the first hint that this one was different.

Darlene just kind of shrugged her shoulders and went about her business. She wasn't mad, just ... indifferent, like it didn't matter one way or another.

We spent that day acting normal. We talked like we always did, even hugged and touched each other like we always did, but I could sense that a barrier had come between us. She was just cold to me.

I'll be honest, I really didn't have a lot of time to think about it over the next few days.

We were luckier than most with storm damage. We lost some shingles from our roof, and there was damage from where the tree had hit the house. We would end up having to get a new roof. We lost about a dozen trees in our yard, and one of our cars was totaled.

It was awe-inspiring – and very scary – to see 110 mile an hour winds in action. Tall pines and old oaks were being whipped around like grass, and at one point, we watched two huge pines in my front yard go tumbling down in unison. It was really one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. We could see the ground being pulled up as the trees were being blown around, and it was just like a slow-motion film as they toppled over.

The power went out about 12:30 that afternoon, right at the height of the storm. By about 5 o'clock, it was all over, and we finally ventured outside to inspect the damage. Already there were people with chain saws cutting through fallen trees so they could clear a way out.

I live on a dead-end street, and there were a half-dozen trees lying across the road, along with two power poles. I started to get the sense then that the worst was just beginning for us. I just didn't know how bad it was going to be.

Obviously, the worst in our town wasn't nearly as bad as it was for the poor folks on the coast, or in New Orleans. But it was still the worst thing I'll ever experience, and yet, in some ways, it was the best thing. I've never felt more alive, more energized than I was during that time. We were on the front row for the biggest story in the world at the time.

Tuesday, the sun came out and it was the start of the hottest, driest month I can remember. We had no power, no water and no phones, not even cell phones. I knew my office had a generator, and I knew I needed to try to get in to work.

I work in an industry that was deemed to be essential to the recovery effort, so we were in business, and I knew the company I work for was already gearing up for what I knew was going to be a long, difficult period. Even though it was nine miles to the office, I started walking, and finally got a ride after I'd gone about a mile.

Darlene and Debbie, our daughter, came to pick me up about 4 o'clock that afternoon, after a path out of our street had been cleared. Again, Darlene was serene and cordial toward me, but I got such a sense of deadness in her feelings toward me that it took me aback.

Again, I don't want to compare the difficulties we endured in the days after the storm with the problems faced by those who lost everything in the storm, including the lives of loved ones.

Compared to what the folks in Biloxi, Waveland, Bay St. Louis and other coastal towns went through, compared to the hell on earth that was New Orleans, we were very, very lucky.

Nevertheless, life was pretty tough for us in those first few days after the storm.

Without power, of course, we had to throw out everything that was in our refrigerator and a lot of what was in our deep freezer. What was still salvageable, we had to cook immediately, either on the grill or the Coleman stove. And the house was like an oven, no matter how many windows were opened. At night, the only lights came from flashlights and the oil lamp we had sitting on the kitchen table.

Without water, we couldn't bathe, couldn't fill up the sink to wash dishes or clothes. That had to be done with the bottles of water we'd stored ahead of time. And, we couldn't flush the toilets. One thing we had not done that we should have done ahead of time was to fill the bathtubs with water.

Fortunately our next door neighbors had, and they left town as soon as they could. So they gave us the key to their house and told us to feel free to use their water. However, that meant lugging a full five-gallon water jug from their house to ours, which isn't fun, especially in the heat of the day.

But we did it, because the alternative was to simply leave everything in the stool, and it didn't take long for that to become nauseating.

Through it all, Darlene and I went about our routine in apparent normality, but we seemed to be circling each other, seemed to be ignoring the elephant in the room. Our conversations were brief and perfunctory, focusing strictly on the mundane.

It was Thursday night, after I got home from work, that I finally took the bull by the balls and initiated a confrontation of sorts.

She and Debbie were out on the driveway, sitting in the deck chairs with a small fire going. With no lights in the house and no air conditioning, it was cooler outside than it was inside. By this time, we hadn't bathed in three days, and none of us had slept real well.

It was eerie out there. We live on the outskirts of town, so we usually have a security light, there are lights on the street behind us and you can usually see the glow of the town lights overhead.

But on this night it was pitch black, except for the small fire going in the driveway. The moon was new, so we weren't getting any light that way, and the only sounds were from the two or three houses in the neighborhood where people had hooked up generators.

Debbie finally went to bed, and it was just the two of us. Darlene lit a cigarette then and looked out at nothing.

"Babe, talk to me," I said. "We can't go on like this. It's like you're a stranger to me. What can I do to make it up to you?"

"I don't know, Dan," she said after a long pause. "This has been building for a long time, and when you threw the alarm clock at me, something died in me. I don't know you any more. You're never happy, never satisfied, you're always getting pissed off about something or another, our sex life is a joke, and I just ... I've just had it. I'm not even angry, and I've shed all the tears I'm going to shed over it. I just don't feel anything any more."

"Do you not love me any more?" I said.

"I don't know," she said. "You're still my husband and you're still the father of my children. I want to love you, and there's still some affection there, but you're not making it easy for me."

I just sat there stunned. I realized in that moment that I had killed something beautiful. You have to understand. I've always felt that Darlene loved me unconditionally, without reservation. I've sometimes felt unworthy of that kind of love, but I'd taken it as a given that it would always be there.

Now my wife – whom I still loved – was telling me she wasn't sure she loved me any more. And she wasn't finished.

"I'm not going to leave you, if that's what you're thinking, at least not right away," she said. "Debbie's got three more years before she graduates, and I'm not doing anything until then. But, Dan, I've got to tell you, if it wasn't for her, I'd have already left."

"Why didn't you say something?" I said in despair.

"Would it have done any good?" she countered. "I was afraid you'd just puff up and deny it, get all pissy with me. You can be so self-delusional sometimes. I wasn't sure if I could make you understand that I die a little inside every time you act that way toward me and the kids. I've finally reached the point where I just don't care any more."

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've cried in the years since I became an adult. I was raised on the belief that big boys don't cry. But I shed some tears that night.

"Darlene, I'm ... humbled," I said. "Very much so. I guess I just didn't realize what I was doing. I still love you, and I want you as my wife. It hurts me to know that I've killed your love for me. Please, forgive me?"

"We'll see," she said as she stood up and headed toward bed. She kissed me good night, as always, but it was a pretty loveless kiss.

I just sat there, feeding small tree branches into the fire, and contemplating my sinking marriage. My whole world had fallen apart in a matter of days, and I wasn't sure how I could fix it.

"I'm a fucking idiot," I said out loud to the night. "I've taken the love of the best woman a man could have and killed it. God, how could I be so stupid?"

I went to bed that night a troubled man, but I knew in my heart that neither of us was willing to give up without a fight.

We began fighting for our marriage bright and early the next morning.

Earlier that Thursday, we had made a decision to get up around 5 o'clock in the morning on Friday and go on a search for gasoline for our one operating vehicle.

After driving back and forth to work for three days and driving around town on assignments, my gas gauge was down to under an eighth of a tank. I had also made a trip with Darlene to take her to work, where she was told that her office was closed indefinitely, and that she was not to report for work until further notice.

Apart from the lack of power and water, and the struggle to find and buy groceries – especially ice – there was also the fuel crisis. Convenience stores and gas stations initially had plenty of fuel in their tanks, but without power, there was no way to pump it. Then, as supplies were depleted and no way for the big tankers to get in, demand quickly outstripped supply.

It was fascinating to watch how rumors governed people's actions. Someone would hear that so-and-so had gas – or would have gas at such-and-such time – and in no time there would be a line of cars two blocks long and growing by the minute.

Darlene had heard on Thursday night that a certain store well out on the highway out of town would have gas at 7 a.m. on Friday, with a $20 limit, cash only. The person who told her this knew the owner, so we figured it was pretty reliable information. We decided we'd get up at 5 o'clock, get in line and get enough gas to get through the next few days.

We got out there about a quarter to 6 and were stunned to see a line of cars as far as we could see. I drove about two miles and finally stopped and asked how far the line went.

"Back to the court house in the next town," the man said.

I did some quick math, and realized that if he was right, the line stretched a good 12 miles. We'd never make it, so we turned around and headed back toward town.

Fortunately, the store nearest our house had a line forming, and we learned that they would have gas at 1 o'clock. We figured that if we ran out of gas there, we could at least walk home, so we got in line and set about waiting.

I knew Darlene was on the road to some kind of reconciliation – albeit ever so slight – when I was walking back to the car after a trip to the house for supplies, and I saw her talking to a young mother who was walking with her baby toward the store.

We had brought along several bottles of water and a box of Pop-Tarts to munch on while we waited, and were down to our last bottle of water. Darlene has always been a giving person, and I watched from a few yards away as she gave this woman the rest of our Pop-Tarts and our last bottle of water. I could see the woman burst into tears as she thanked Darlene for her generosity.

"That poor woman said she hadn't eaten since Wednesday," Darlene said. "She couldn't thank me enough."

"You know, you really are special," I said. "Darlene, I spent a lot of time thinking after you went to bed last night, and I realized that I've been a major jerk. I've taken your love and just crushed it, squeezed it dry one drop at a time. But I still love you more than anything in the world, and I'm willing to do anything, change anything, if you will love me again. Maybe I don't deserve it, but I'm asking for a second chance. I just want to hear you tell me that you love me again."

"Dan, right now, I can't promise anything," she said. "I know you love me, and at some level, I think I still love you. It's going to take some time for me to get over this, and I'll try. That's all I can promise."

"Just don't give up on me, please," I said.

"You have a lot of good qualities, Dan, qualities that made me fall in love before," she said. "Work on those, be patient, and we'll see where it goes."

It didn't happen overnight, but things did start to fall into place that day.

The store where we were in line started pumping gas at 10:30, rather than 1 o'clock, and we were able to get our 20 bucks worth, along with some treats like chips and cold sodas. Then I drove into work that afternoon to find that they had brought in a tanker truck to provide employees and their families with gas. I expected them to limit me to 10 gallons, but they filled me up.

The next day, Darlene's brother and his wife showed up from their home in Monroe, La., with a care package – 10 gallons of gas, food, flashlights, clean underwear, Coleman fuel, lamp oil, lighters, charcoal and two cases of bottled water. And about 2 o'clock that afternoon, the water came back on.

You wouldn't think something like that could be emotional, but Darlene actually cried when she heard the spitting of the faucets that signaled we had running water again.

We went to church that Sunday, and shorts and T-shirts were the norm, but it was an emotional service. We thanked God for getting us through the storm, and we prayed for help in the long recovery that was still to come.

And during the invitation time, I went up and spoke to our pastor asking for extra prayer for our relationship. I knew we still had a long way to go, but at least now we were talking, at least we weren't holding things in. I really hadn't had any idea that things had been festering in Darlene's heart for so long, didn't realize that my angry outbursts were chipping away at her love for me.