Shadows of the Past
There is no sex in this story.
There is none at all.
So if that's what you want, you may as well look elsewhere.
This is just a story about two wives who moved on and two husbands who are left to heal the pain as best they can.
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It's midday Saturday on one of those almost warm days of early spring. The sun is out and it's the first hint of warmth in four months. There is still a thin, spotty layer of snow on the ground that's deeper in the shade under the trees. The crocus in the lawn have made their show, peaking through the last of the winter's snow, and are now retreating, and the daffodils will soon be sending up their shoots to break the surface of the ground to begin their show. It was a long, dark winter for the world and for me, but now I am starting to think we are both awakening. Life is returning to the land and, finally, to me as well. Two years, it's been two years of living as little more than an empty shell of a man and now, finally, I am starting to feel again. Like those daffodils that die off every year only to rise again from the bulb, I had retreated below the surface where no one could reach me and held to what little life I could find in me. Two years, and at long last I had that faint spark, that urge to reach up again and live in the warmth of the sun.
I'm sitting on my back deck, looking over the yard, wearing that late winter jacket that is as much to break the wind as to keep me warm, and I'm drinking a mug of hot tea with lemon and honey. I'm holding the mug with both hands as it warms my fingers and palms between the sips that warm my throat and stomach. I can feel the warmth of the tea slowly radiating through my body, and between the sun and the tea I'm feeling good. Sitting there, looking over the yard, I can't help but think of the old couple that had this house before me and all the years they spent building the gardens and dropping little gifts in the ground that I am still discovering. I met them almost two years ago. They seemed nice and still loving toward each other after so many years. It was a bittersweet moment for me. I wonder what they thought of me at the time, and I want to thank them now, but I have no idea where they are.
As I sit there, I hear a friendly voice from behind me, "Henry, you going to spend your whole Saturday just sitting there, or are you going to do something?"
I can't help but smile. It's Craig, my next-door neighbor. He and his wife, Cheryl, were the first to welcome me to the neighborhood. They showed up at my door while I was waiting for the moving van. Craig and I are both electrical engineers, except I'm analog and he's digital. It makes for some friendly rivalry. I tell him he only knows two things: yes and no. His whole career is built on building circuits that say, "Yes, no, yes, no, yes, yes, no, yes, no, no..." He tells me that I spend so much time balancing inputs and outputs that I should work for the post office. What kind of friends would we be if we couldn't give each other a little shit from time to time?
I turn my head in his direction and call over my shoulder, "I'm going to sit here until I defrost, and my joints can move again!"
I can hear him coming up the three steps to the deck and then he pulls up a chair.
"I'm drinking tea. You want a mug?"
"Hell, yes! You don't have anything stronger, do you?"
"Too early for me, but you're welcome if you want. You know where I keep it."
We head into the house and I put the tea kettle on. By the time the whistle blows I'm ready for my second cup, so I fix two. "I'm drinking mine with lemon and honey."
"I'll have my honey from the bottle."
All kidding aside, it is early in the day and I wonder what might be bothering my friend. He'll tell me when he's ready, so with two fresh mugs we head back out into the sun and the warmth. We sit there for a time and just soak in the sun. Friends don't need to fill the void with talk. In time, when he's ready...
"I wish I knew what was bothering Cheryl."
There it is. A man has two kinds of frustration. When it's the world that's bothering him, he'll rant and rave and yell at the moon. When it's his wife, he grows quiet.
"Have you tried asking her?"
He looks at me like I'm crazy. "Yeah. I've asked repeatedly. I've asked every way I can think to ask. I've been direct, indirect, logical, subtle, and nothing works. She just says that nothing's bothering her and to leave her along."
"I've never met a wife yet who wanted to be left alone when she was happy."
He gives me a look that says, "I know."
"I'll tell you what really pisses me off! Last September, when I was feeling all that stress from the deadline on the GM chip job I was working on, I would work all day, then come home and work after dinner. You know what she did? She would come in the den and just sit with me. She never tried to talk or distract me. She would just sit there with a book and read. She'd sit there and I'd feel my blood pressure dropping and I'd grow calm, and then my head would clear, and we'd talk a little, and I'd get my work done without the frustration. When she figured I'd worked enough, she'd coax me off to bed and as often as not she'd just cuddle up next to me and I'd start to feel like all was right with the world."
"Rough life, man. I feel for you."
He snorted. "I'm not complaining about that. Work was hell, but life was good. Now, I can tell she's upset. She's distant, distracted, ill-tempered; so I try to do the same thing for her that she did for me. I'll come into the living room, sit in a chair near her, and she gets up and leaves the room. It's like, wherever I am, she wants to be someplace else. I'm not asking anything of her. I just want to sit in the same room with her. I fix a snack, but she complains it's too fattening, or she isn't hungry. But it's never, 'No thanks.' It's always more like, 'Damn it, you know I'm watching my weight!' I tell you, she's not easy to love right now."
I couldn't help but smile a little when he said that. In the time I've known him, I've learned three things above all else: Craig is generous, he is patient, and he loves his wife.
"Can I tell you something just between the two of us?"
"I thought all of this was just between the two of us!"
"Well, yeah. I can barely remember the last time we had sex. It's not that she's just disinterested. Whenever I bring it up, she becomes downright hostile. I mean, you'd think I'd insulted her family or something. And with the things she says when I try to initiate any kind of intimacy, you'd think I was just using her for my own pleasure. I tell you, she's damn hard to love right now."
We sat there for a time, both quiet with our own thoughts. He was consumed by his thoughts and I was trying to find the right thing to say. I finally broke the silence and said, "I have to tell you honestly that I never had that problem with Claire. I don't know why or how, but it seemed that we were always able to communicate. I remember when we would talk long into the night about whatever was bothering one or both of us. She never made me feel that it was her against me. We were always us against the world. I think I'll always be grateful for that."
"Henry, I'm sorry I never met Claire. I really am. The way you talk about her, she must have been something very special."
"Oh, don't get me wrong. She had her moments." I couldn't help but smile. I figured it was time to bring out and dust off one of my favorite quips. It seemed appropriate to the moment. "She could be difficult. I often think about going back to the priest who married us and saying, 'You know when you said that marriage takes work? Well, that really doesn't cover it!'"
That finally got a laugh out of my friend. "No, I don't suppose it does."
I hoped that I'd helped my friend. He seemed calm and relatively quiet by then, so we sat and sipped our tea until we were both warm and satisfied. We talked about work a little and eventually Craig went back to his house to work on his patience and whatever was bothering his wife.
As I sat there, alone again, I ruminated on the past. No, marriage isn't easy. That much is true. But it's the most worthwhile thing I've ever done. I am far from the man I was when I met Claire. She changed me. From her, I learned patience and confidence in myself. Before her, I'd never had either. I could persevere and work long hours toward a goal, but that's not patience. As for confidence in myself, I knew I could do the job, but deep down I doubted whether I had anything to offer anyone other than my work and a superficial friendship. She changed all that. I came to see myself through her eyes and started to believe that I was a man worthy of being loved. A wife changes a man, and a good wife changes him for the better. The other kind of wife erodes his self-respect and prevents him from becoming the man he could be. There is probably no more powerful force in a man's life than his wife and she has more influence on the kind of man he will be and the life he will live than any other being on Earth. She has even more influence than the mother who raised him.
It was turning cool and my tea was gone. Time to go inside. I may yet start a little fire in the stove tonight. It may be warm in the midday sun, but the nights aren't warm, yet. I check the small pile of wood by the stove and there's enough if I choose to start a fire. It's too early to think about dinner, so I settle down at my desk and work for a few hours. In time, I'll reheat some of the stew that I made last night, pull a roll from the bag, and pour myself that beer that Craig's had me thinking about ever since he visited. I'll turn on the radio, keep it low, and spend a quiet evening with my thoughts.
Looking back, my thoughts a year ago were dark and brooding. I was filled with anger. It was hard to spend a quiet evening without the rage overtaking me and I would search for a distraction. With an old house there are always things that need to be done. I painted every wall, repointed the chimney bricks, pulled up the rugs, and refinished the floors. I still had work to do in the basement, but for now it was fine for storage. It was an old house, but the basement was dry, and I was grateful for that.
