Sam

by Jack Weyland

  “Oh, c’mon, Lara, you can tell your church friends that, but I know better. You get your kicks out of competition. Face it, you’re hooked on success.”

  She let out a long sigh and nervously ruffled her hair, then very calmly continued. “Let’s see if I understand—you don’t want me to be a manager, right?”

  “How would you feel if you were me? Asking you for lunch money every morning.”

  “That’s not true, and you know it. All the money goes into one checking account. It’s your money, too.”

  “Why can’t you stay home and be a housewife? Why do I always have to be running to catch up with you?”

  She looked at me as if I were a total stranger. “Good grief, is that the way you feel? Maybe you’re right, maybe it’s better when we don’t talk. I feel so much anger coming from you.”

  “I’m not angry,” I said angrily.

  “Yes you are—your body language reveals the way you really feel.”

  “Body language? That’s from a book, isn’t it? Always trying to improve your mind—you can’t let well enough alone, can you?”

  She closed her eyes and rested her head in both hands. A minute later, she looked up at me again. “What else is bothering you? C’mon, let it all spill out.”

  “Okay, I will!” I snapped. “I’m tired of my son being dumped off every day with his grandmother! I want us to be a normal family where I earn the money and you spend it. And just once, is it asking too much for you to make gingerbread cookies for my son? Is that asking too much? With sugar, Lara, with sugar! Are you listening to me?”

  She looked at me, then quietly replied, “Everyone in the block’s listening to you.”

  “Why won’t you do what I say? Whatever happened to ‘follow the priesthood’?”

  “Sam, you tell me first what happened to ‘gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned.’”

  “That does it!” I roared. “Not only don’t I want you to be a store manager, now I don’t even want you to work anymore!”

  “You mean quit my job?”

  “That’s it—quit your job and be a wife and mother.”

  She pursed her lips and said evenly, “It doesn’t make any sense for me to quit right now.”

  “I’ve made up my mind.”

  “We’ll talk later.”

  “We’ll talk now!”

  She sighed. “All right—you feel threatened by my working, right?”

  “Don’t try any of that listening jazz on me either!”

  I rushed to the closet and got Adam’s sweatshirt.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going out with my son! You remember him, don’t you? He’s that little person we drop off every morning on our way to work!”

  “Please tell me where you’re going.”

  “To a movie—is that all right?” I barked.

  I stormed outside, lifted Adam from his swing, and set him in the front seat of the car, started to get in, stopped, checked my wallet, muttered to myself, and marched back inside.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Sheepishly I looked at her and admitted, “I need money for the movie.”

  She handed me her pocketbook. “Take all you want.”

  I took a ten dollar bill, smiled slightly, and asked, “Is it okay if we get popcorn, too?”

  She smiled back, just a little.

  “Lara, I love you,” I said.

  “Do you, Sam?”

  “I think so.”

  I hurried to the car. I think I left her crying.

  Half an hour into the movie Adam fell asleep. I numbly watched it twice. By the time we got out, it was eleven-thirty.

  Either Lara was asleep or else she was faking it. I put Adam in a nighttime diaper, put him in his crib, then quietly slipped into bed. All night long I was careful not even to touch Lara’s feet. We both clung to the safety of the opposite edges of the mattress.

  The next morning I got up early, decided to skip work, woke Adam, dressed him, and we left.

  We drove to my parents’ house. Dad was up, reading scriptures. I walked in, said hello, and told him I needed something in the garage. Then I went and retrieved my last model plane from the rafters.

  We stopped for a box of donuts for breakfast, then went to the park. I parked near the Ferris wheel.

  While Adam explored the area, I sat down on a bench and took the picture of Charly from my wallet and looked at her again, letting the memories flood my mind. A few weeks earlier I’d started taking it out in the store when I was alone, which was most of the time. The rockier my relationship with Lara, the more I thought about Charly.

  Then I went to the car and got the plane. We sat on the lawn and waited for someone to help us launch it.

  “Plane go high in the sky?” he said, except it came out “pane.”

  “We need somebody to help us.”

  “Mommy Lara help,” he said, except it became “Rara.”

  “She’s working today. Saturday is her big day at the store.”

  “She help.”

  “Maybe, but I can’t ask her.” I shook my head in frustration. “Adam, let me give you a little advice. You’re going to be a man someday. A man must never waver, a man must set his course in life . . .”

  “Mommy Rara help fy pane in the sky,” he said strongly.

  “A man must be strong, and his wife must be . . .”

  I stopped.

  “His wife must be . . .” I shook my head, I didn’t know anymore.

  “Pane go high?” Adam asked.

  “Very high—the pain is very high right now.”

  He found a bug to torment. I sat and thought.

  A few minutes later I tried thinking out loud. “My great-grandfather—now there was a man for you. He was a pioneer with three wives when he crossed the plains. There he was, out in the wilderness, women to the right of him, women to the left of him, but he kept going. Across the wilderness they went, him at the head of his wagon, fighting the wind and the rain and the burning sun, listening to all his wives’ suggestions. What a man he was, Adam. That was a time to be alive, when men were men, and women stayed in the covered wagon. Now women are everywhere . . .”

  “Where Mommy Rara?”

  “Winning herself another dress. Adam, tell me something. Do you miss not having gingerbread cookies?”

  “Cookie?” he asked, his eyes getting big.

  “Not just any cookie—a gingerbread man with little frosting buttons and eyes and smile. I’m talking about your real, homemade gingerbread cookie. You’re growing up without them. Do you miss that?”

  “Adam want cookie.”

  “Have a donut, okay? I had gingerbread cookies when I was a boy. Your grandmother made them for me. She didn’t work at a store, you know. She stayed home. When I’d come home from play, she’d give me gingerbread cookies. Adam, let me tell you, they were fun to eat. Sometimes I’d bite its little gingerbread head off in one bite.”

  “I want fy pane in the sky.”

  “We will, we will. In a few minutes somebody’ll come along and help.”

  I held him in my lap and talked. “I don’t really know what to tell you now about being a man. Things change. A woman could be president of the United States. Think of that, Adam. Maybe a woman like Lara. She’s so smart. That’s my problem. I’m afraid she’s better than me in every way, that she’ll always have the best ideas and suggestions. What would happen to our family if I always did what she suggested? Even if she was right? Don’t you see what a position I’d be placing myself in? Everyone’d think I was weak. Of course, if we always made the right decision, I guess that’d be good. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad—except I’m supposed to be the boss. How am I the boss if I always do what she suggests?”

  “I want Mommy Rara fy pane.”

  “Once I thought I had Self-Knowledge. Now I can’t even remember what it was. Sometimes, Adam, I’m scared. You might as well know that now. Men aren’t always strong—there
was only one John Wayne.”

  He left to explore on his own.

  Ten minutes later I looked over to see him tipping up a beer can to drink any leftovers. I hurried to stop him.

  On our way to the garbage can I continued our discussion. “I think I’ve forgotten something, and that’s to tell you to follow the Savior. He’s the best example of manhood in the world. And follow the prophets and apostles, and . . . watch your father.”

  That’s when it hit me.

  “Adam, we’ve got to go home and find Mommy Lara and apologize.”

  I threw the plane in the trunk and we left the park. Two blocks from home, we saw her riding toward us on an old dirt bike belonging to a neighbor boy.

  “Mommy Rara funny,” Adam laughed.

  I stopped the car, partially blocking a lane of traffic, and ran to her across the street on the sidewalk. She was wearing jeans, a Western sport shirt, and sneakers. I loved her just that way, without anything from the store.”

  “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! Can you forgive me?”

  She dropped the bike and threw her arms around me and cried.

  A cab driver, having to maneuver around my car, leaned out and yelled at me.

  I nodded my head, but didn’t move.

  Lara continued to cry.

  Adam starting honking the horn.

  We broke apart and walked across the street. I threw the bike on top of the car and we returned it to our neighbor.

  Lara was still in the car when I came back. I looked at my watch. “You’d better get ready for work.”

  “I’m not going to work today,” she said.

  “Me either. Can you come and play with us?”

  She gave me a cautious grin. “I’ll have to ask my mother first.”

  A few minutes later, back at the park, I showed her how to start the engine and launch the plane. Then I went to the controls and we had lift-off.

  Our plane was up and flying. I motioned for her to come to me and I showed her how to fly it. I stood in back of her with my arms around her, both of us holding the controls, feeling her warmth and catching the slight accent of her perfume.

  We kept it in simple patterns until it ran out of gas.

  By this time, Adam had reopened the donut box and sampled each one. His face was covered with jelly.

  “That’s his breakfast?” she gently asked.

  “I got him fruit-filled so he’s get his vitamin C.”

  We smiled politely at each other.

  “Lara, I’m sorry.”

  “You made me feel so bad last night.”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t know. But sit down—I’m going to tell you.”

  I sat down on the grass with her.

  “I tried,” she said, “I really tried to be everything people expected me to be—a model housewife, a good cook, an efficient worker at the store, a new mother for Adam, a source of income for you so your business could get a start, a dependable person in my callings in church. I tried to do it all, and I almost made it, didn’t I? Almost—I had everyone pleased, everyone but you, everyone but me. Sam, I can’t be Wonder Woman anymore.”

  “I’ve never heard you sound like this before.”

  “Like what?”

  “Vulnerable,” I finally said.

  “But that’s what I am.”

  “Me, too. Ask my creditors, they’ll tell you.”

  “I want our marriage to work out,” she said seriously.

  “Are we talking about that?”

  “I think we are.”

  “Why are we?”

  “Because I’m scared. After you left last night, Steve called. He asked what we’d decided about my becoming a manager. I started to cry and told him about our argument and about your leaving. I must’ve sounded pretty upset, because he said he was coming over. A few minutes later I was in the bathroom looking in the mirror, wondering what to do for my eyes so I’d look decent for him. Suddenly I saw how things might go. He’d come over and I’d tell him my complaints, and he’d sympathize and tell me how much he admires me, and how sorry he is that things aren’t working out. THen he’d go home. Someday at work maybe he’d ask me out for lunch so we could talk. He’d tell me about his ex-wife, how she never really understood him. And it’d go on and on until gradually I’d feel closer to him than I do to you. Sam, I know where that can end.”

  I nodded my head.

  “All this time I was staring at myself in the mirror, seeing weaknesses in me I never dreamed were there. Sam, I enjoy his compliments. He’s given me ten times as many as you have. By the time I heard the doorbell, I was scared to death—not of him—I was scared of me. I couldn’t face him. He kept ringing the bell. Finally I opened the door a crack and told him I couldn’t see him, that I just wanted him to leave. And so he left.”

  I let out a secret sigh of relief.

  “This morning,” she continued, “your dad called and said you’d left Adam’s sweatshirt at the house on your way to the park. I went next door and borrowed a bike and set out to find you. That’s when you came along. So here I am,” she said with a hint of a smile. “I’ve just avoided a path that for me might have eventually led to adultery. And what have you been doing lately?”

  “Me? I’m into bankruptcy these days.”

  “What a pair we are,” she sniffled one last time.

  “I love your face,” I said.

  “Is that important to this discussion?”

  “No, but I just thought you’d like to know.”

  “I do—thanks. Anyway, I called the store today and told them I wasn’t coming in, so I’m yours for the day. What shall we do?”

  “Tonight let’s listen to ‘Mystery Theater’.”

  She nodded her head and grinned.

  “We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I added quickly.

  She started to giggle. “I do love a good mystery now and then.”

  “Me, too,” I beamed.

  “There’s one other thing,” she said. “I’ve decided to do what you counsel me.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “Try me,” she challenged.

  “Stand on your head.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I knew it.”

  “I mean about my job. I’ll quit work, stay home, try to get pregnant, and make gingerbread cookies—every day, if you want.”

  “Of course you could quit working,” I said, slightly off-balance, wondering if she meant she’d try to get pregnant every day as well as bake the cookies. “Realistically speaking, though, this isn’t a good time for the extra income to stop.”

  “Realistically speaking,” she countered, “the income from my job isn’t extra. We need it all. And I’m afraid we always will and I’ll never be able to quit.”

  “But you enjoy your work, and you’re good at it.”

  “Good? I’m fantastic! And it’s fun to be the modern woman, liberated in the business world. But it isn't liberation if I can’t ever break loose. I don’t want to work anymore.”

  “Are you saying that just because you’re afraid of what might happen between you and Steve? I have more confidence in you than that. The problem wasn’t that you were working. It was that we’d quit communicating. And that was my fault.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” she said reflectively. “Last night I decided I don’t want to run competition with you. When you leave for work in the morning, I want you to know you have a little bit of heaven waiting for you when you come home.”

  “Why should you be the one to do all the changing?” I asked. “I can learn to adjust to your working.”

  “I want to quit my job.”

  “You’re just surrendering?”

  “It’s not a war, Sam. Why can’t I have the freedom to change my priorities? I want to spend more time with Adam and I want some children of my own. Maybe after our children are grown, I’ll go back to work.”

  “Grown? They haven’t even
been conceived yet.”

  She smiled coyly. “I’m sure we can work that out.”

  “But if you quit,” I said, suddenly worried, “what’ll we do for food and rent?”

  “My man’ll provide for our needs,” she said, full of confidence.

  “Me?” I croaked.

  “Hey, where’s all that Self-Knowledge? I saw you in the desert, killing our supper with only a song and a rock, starting a fire with no matches, saving me from a rattlesnake. You can do anything you want.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Sure, you’re terrific. Cute, too.”

  “But you’d just quit your job?” I asked weakly.

  “Sam, why are we arguing? Yesterday you asked me to quit working. Today I say I will. Now you're trying to talk me out of it.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and grinned. “It’s the curse of some marriages. It happens whenever the husband and wife are equally compromising. To escape, one of us has to be reasonable and the other stubborn. Which do you choose?”

  “I’ll take reasonable.”

  “Rats, I wanted that.”

  She started to laugh. “Oh, well, you can be reasonable if you want.”

  “No no—not if you want it that badly”

  Adam dragged the box of partially eaten donuts over to us. We tasted the fragments, or at least I did.

  “Are we ever going to figure this out?” I asked. “Let’s start with the basics. You’re a woman and I’m a man.”

  “Nice combination, don’t you think?”

  “And you’re my wife.”

  “Considering the past few months, I’d better be.”

  “And I’m your husband.”

  “So far it all ties together quite logically, doesn’t it?”

  “In olden times, I’d rule and reign over you. But those days are gone forever. So what do I do?”

  “You preside, Sam. You’re the president of our family, and I’m your vice-president.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I read your priesthood manual last night?”

  “You did? Is that all right to do?”

  “Why not? You preside—so preside for me, Sam.”

  “Vice-president, what do we do about your working?”

  “Mr. President, what would be wrong with following the counsel of our Church leaders?”