The kids were gone for the weekend and David was alone. For a while he tried to convince himself it was all a bad joke and that his wife of twenty years would come back through the door laughing. If it was a joke, it was a sick joke. David sat there in the living room for two hours until he decided he could not stay there tonight. He began to pack and as he packed he filled his car. He started with clothes and then some books, the computer, and a few personal items. Every time he would put something in the car he would sit back down in the living room and hope that his wife would walk through the door and say that she had changed her mind. She never did.
At two in the morning he decided that by then she had gone through with it, so David got into his car and he drove away. It was no longer his home. Barb was no longer his wife.
In the next few weeks David would wonder how and why this happened. Who was she listening to? Who was filling her head with this insane, destructive crap? Was it one of her girlfriends? Was it that creep? Has this been going on for some time and for how long? Was this the first time, or just the first time she was honest with him? He had no answers and just kept spinning the questions over in his brain. He had difficulty sleeping and couldn't concentrate at work. He was a wreck.
Of course, I knew nothing of this at the time. I was on the other side of the same community going about my usual teenage business. My parents heard the gossip, but told me nothing of any of it. A week later my father comes to me and says, "Go over to David Jenkins' house and help him load his truck." That's all dad said. He could have said more.
I got there and started helping. I noticed we packed this chair and not that table, we packed a dresser but not the bed. I asked David why he was leaving half his stuff? The other men shot me a look. David just said, "Jake, I'm divorcing my wife." Thanks, dad. You could have said a little more. After that I worked in silence. I carried what I was told to carry, and I kept my mouth shut. We packed his tools and we left the kitchen untouched. Then I road with David to the storage locker he'd rented and helped him unload the truck.
What do you say to a grown man who is thirty years your senior when his life has just ended? What did a kid my age know about marriage, anyway?
In time, Barb moved out and David moved back in. Being the man he was, he started to prepare the house for winter. David planned to live there year round and let Barb have the house in the city. I guess that way his kids could visit and he'd have space for them. It would be Spartan, but that suited David.
Our community had some interesting, if not very typical, resources. Some of the men had gone together to buy a two-car garage that they equipped with wood working machines that they shared. I had a growing interest in working with wood, so they let me in and gave me instructions. In time I got to know David better. He was no longer the man I'd known before Barb had her "date". He stopped laughing and telling jokes. His kindness never faded, but his joy had left him. David had made a lot of the furniture in his home and he made a particularly nice Windsor chair. He thought of making a chair as a step in the process of building a marriage and a family. David wanted to do more than write a check when it came to providing for his family and he was good at it.
David remained that empty shell of a man for about a year. I'd see him at the shop or on the street. He was always kind, but never happy. His kids never wanted to talk about it, so I just gave them space.
After about a year David started to seem just a bit better. The changes were small and gradual. There was a smile and "Thank you" to the man who ran the corner store. He held the door open for a neighbor and made small talk. Once I caught him humming a tune while he worked the lathe. He remained quiet and withdrawn, but he was slowly getting better.
One day, while working in the shop with David, I decided I'd tell him a story I'd heard. I don't know why I did it; I just wanted to have some kind of conversation with him. I certainly don't know why I chose the story I told. We were working quietly in the shop and I said, "I've been thinking about how intellect meets humor and what's required to make a really good comeback. I mean, you can practice a joke, but a comeback has to be spontaneous." He gave me an odd look. I get them a lot. "I read recently that Churchill and Lady Astor had some kind of running feud and once she said to him, `Mr. Churchill, if you were my husband I'd put poison in your tea!' Without a moment's hesitation, Churchill replied, `Madam, if I were your husband, I'd drink it!'" I was doing my best Churchill impersonation and laughed just at the telling of the joke. David cracked up. It was the first time I'd seen him laugh since his divorce. It occurred to me later that I had probably chosen the worst of all possible jokes to tell him; but he enjoyed it anyway and I started to think there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
We talked for a few minutes; and then David looked at me and said, "I never thanked you for helping me move." Well, actually he did and I told him so. After a moment he asked, "Did I ever tell you the story of my divorce?" Well, clearly, he never did and I never asked. He then sat down with me and told me the whole story. There are some things a guy that age just does not need to know. I thought about how he was blindsided, how he thought he had a loving wife who shared his values, and how without warning it all blew up on him. That's the stuff that gives a young man nightmares. He said to me, "After a few weeks, I started thinking that maybe she was right. Maybe, if I really loved her, I could get past this and we could put the marriage back together. I sat down with her and right away she started in on me. I was selfish. I was cruel. I didn't understand how a woman feels. I thought only of myself. She really got to me and just as I was getting ready to apologize she said to me, `I should never have told you! If you didn't know, you wouldn't be upset and everything would be fine.' That's when I knew she would do it again and the next time she would do it behind my back. I got up, told her to sign the divorce papers, and I walked away."
It took me a long time to process that information. It took months. All I could think was that David never saw it coming. He walked into his house one night with their anniversary party planned, and then his whole world blew up around him. What made it worse is that I doubt Barb ever imagined that one day she'd betray him when she took her vows "...forsaking all others, till death do us part." How does a young man select a wife when he can't see this ticking time bomb buried so deep that even she doesn't know it's there?
I asked David about that and he thought for a minute. "Jake, I can't tell you how to know your wife will keep her vows. I don't think Barb lacked character or values. I think something just scared her. She saw herself getting older and lost sight of what was important. Maybe I let her down and didn't comfort her enough, but I always tried to be there whenever I knew something was bothering her. The thing is, you can't be responsible for what a person keeps inside themselves. In marriage you have to talk and share both your joy and your fears." David was staring off into space. "To be honest, I still don't know why she did it. I guess it's what she wanted, but she broke my heart that night."
I was thinking about what David had said when he leaned forward and offered me a view that I've carried with me ever since. He said, "Jake, when I look around I see two kinds of people in the world. I see builders and collectors. Builders try to create something that didn't exist before and to do it they put a part of themselves into everything they build. In the process, they see their own worth in the worth of what they build. If you are a builder, then you are a builder in all aspects of your life; you are a builder in your relationships, in your work, in your play, and in how you view your role in society. Builders know that they cannot build two things in conflict with one another because each is a part of themselves and they know that it takes both time and commitment to build something of value. Collectors surround themselves with things that already have value. They may enhance the value of what they collect; but in the end, they draw their own worth from the value of the things they collect from the world around them. The irony is that many collectors think they are builders because they are building a collection, but that isn't what makes you a builder." David paused for a moment. "Jake, you need to know yourself. I'm a builder. I can't help it. I thought that Barb was, too; but in the end, she needed to find her own worth in the desires of another man. I couldn't build a marriage with someone who looked outside it for validation."
I thought about what David told me and I would continue to think about it in the days, weeks, and months ahead. I thought about builders and collectors, the kind of man I thought I was, and the life that I wanted to live. I thought about what it meant to build a life with someone, to find myself in her love, and to raise a family someday. I finally looked at him and I asked, "Would you teach me to build those Windsor chairs?"
Epilogue:
David had friends across the community and they never turned their backs on him. With their help and support, he slowly rebuilt himself and his life until about a year after our conversation he was again the man I knew before the night of Barb's date. His kids seemed happier, too. He still needed to speak with Barb from time to time, but he limited those conversations to matters involving the kids. There were decisions to be made about colleges, cars, and such. As the family healed the kids starting bringing their dates by the house to meet "dad". He became the parent his kids wanted their friends to know. Their mother remained bitter and forever blamed David for their divorce. She remarried, but it didn't last long. Barb continued to search for meaning in her life while those things that meant the most slowly slipped between her fingers. In time, David heard less and less from his ex-wife and he thought about her hardly at all. You see, there was this young man in the neighborhood who David had taught to build chairs and this young man had an aunt about David's age...
