by Tina Welling
Jess had two choices now: he could continue on the safe path of his childhood innocence or he could take further steps toward acknowledging and accepting his responsibilities in his mother’s death as well as his life with me. He’d met with Lola, yet rejected her perspective. Was this a step forward or a step backward?
Either way, I faced our marital problems with clearer eyes and an acknowledgment that possibly I faced them alone. I must accept that and not expect more. The things I once expected from Jess—support of my choices, acknowledgment of my emotional responses—I was now learning to give myself. The good news was that this understanding offered me the independence that would allow to me have both my own life and a firmer relationship with my husband. And I wanted both. I loved Jess the way I loved my breath and blood, the way I loved the sky and water. Jess felt as integral to my heart as one of its chambers. He’d moved in long ago at my invitation, dragging his old baggage with him.
After I drove through dense wetlands for half an hour, the view opened and the coast lay exposed again. Pelicans flew low in formation over the shore. Gulls screamed at one another in competition for some scrap near the waterline. Since I was traveling the road alone, I slowed, set my arm on the open window and took in the air, soaked up the sounds of the birds, and marked the colors of the waves—white to palest green.
Then I couldn’t stand it; I pulled the car over, got out and ran with Bijou through the beach grasses to the hard sand at the water’s edge. Slipped off my sandals and waded in with my pup. I’d pay for this later with a wet and sandy dog in my car, but the pleasure of kicking up water and feeling my toes dig into the wet sand was worth it. We splashed and chased each other, me laughing, Bijou barking. I pretended to grab at her ears; she pretended to snap at my toes. Then we ran up the shore and back again, finally falling to the sand and breathing heavily. I stretched my legs out in front of me. I hadn’t noticed before: my feet had become beautiful. During the weeks of walking the beach and wading, the sand and sea had smoothed them into silk and the sun had tanned my skin so that my toenails gleamed like pearls.
I lay back on the sand with my head on my arms to let the sun dry my legs and the hem of my skirt. I closed my eyes to the glare. A line from a lecture in psychology class earlier in the semester rose to mind. It had struck me as a piece to my puzzle and I had tucked it away. The instructor had said, “A facet of the innocent little boy was the scamp, the mischievous stinker who continued to slip out from beneath the consequences, and if caught had story after story to explain it all away.”
I knew where that puzzle piece belonged now and I snapped it into place.
I had wanted to save Jess; he had wanted to be saved. We were a pair. We were still a pair, but the space between us now must become roomy enough for each of us to move in our own orbit, arms flung wide.
I rose and brushed sand from my clothes and legs. One look back at the ocean, and then I called to Bijou and climbed back into the car.
Soon I pulled off the coast road and joined the traffic in town. Stuart would be crowded with snowbirds for another month yet. Daisy claimed driving around elderly people was frustrating; they looked in their rearview mirrors more often than their windshields, afraid of what was coming up behind them. Daisy said, “Usually, it’s me trying to pass.”
Instead of scampering around the gerbil wheel of Jess’ defense system in my thoughts, I should have been worrying about my dad and what would greet me there.
When I arrived at Dad’s house, I found that his usually immaculate place was disturbingly out of order. Red wine stains on his pale blue dining room rug had been left unattended. His water glass, on the sink, looked as cloudy as the sky now did, portending a storm. Dad himself was unshaven, his shirt unclean and rumpled. He wore a belt, but had failed to thread it through the loops on his pants, and it sat below his ribs, gripping his shirt to his chest.
“Dad, haven’t the Ready-Maids been here lately?” His weekly crew of house cleaners kept up his laundry as well.
“I called them off. I been feeling kind of fluffy.”
“Kind of ‘fluffy’?”
“Yeah, you know . . . fluffy.”
I surprised—and worried—myself by understanding what he probably meant. Unstable, maybe light-headed. I hated to get into this, but I asked anyway.
“What have you been eating?” I braced for his answer, expecting it to be the industrial-sized purchase of whatever was discounted at Publix this week, eaten down to its final spoonful.
“I go out now. Eat eggs and sausage in the morning, steak for dinner and in between potato chips while I watch golf on TV.”
Maybe Andrew Weil wouldn’t have approved, but for Dad that didn’t sound too bad.
“Well, Dad.” I walked toward the phone. “I’m making an appointment with Dr. Jack right now.” Jack had been our family doctor for decades. I tuned out Dad’s backpedaling about fluffy not being a bad feeling; we’d been putting off an appointment long enough. I proceeded to dial. Daniel’s words of several weeks ago poured into my mind—“Something in his look . . . his skin color or eyes . . . Have him checked out.” There was something in his look now all right—a grayness to his skin and a lack of presence in his eyes. While I waited for Jack’s receptionist to answer, Dad began to whisper. I covered the phone. “What, Dad?”
“Not you.” He made conversational gestures to someone invisible beside him and continued his whispering.
“Katherine, hello.” I paused, watching Dad.
I walked into the other room away from him, and speaking softly identified myself. I said I thought I had an emergency occurring with my father at this very moment. Katherine said, “Bring him in.”
So much for saving Daisy trouble. I phoned her in a panic while we drove to the doctor’s office and she met us there. Dad slept the whole way.
Hours of waiting and testing, hours of wrestling Dad in and out of his clothes, and finally he was home again. Diagnosis: a form of dementia, probably set off by a series of small strokes called TIAs. Prognosis: will worsen, maybe sooner, maybe later. Treatment: none available, watch him.
Oh, and take away his car keys.
That was a rough one. He had taught us how to drive, for heaven’s sake. But the idea of him out there on the road, having a stroke and possibly harming someone, prodded Daisy and me into action.
We blamed it on Dr. Jack (he said we could), and Daisy and I told Dad that for now, until he stopped feeling “fluffy,” he shouldn’t be driving. All this was eased somewhat by Dad having misplaced his car keys. He was looking for them in order to prove us wrong about driving under the influence of fluffiness. He was going to the store for potato chips. When Daisy found the keys before he did, she quietly pocketed them. I found a golf game in progress on TV and some corn chips in the cupboard, which distracted Dad from his search. Problem solved for the moment.
We fixed dinner for Dad and sat with him for a while. I remembered that I had brought him a gift, a Peter Gabriel CD. I played “Biko” for him three times. When Dad was ready to turn in for the night, Daisy and I went to her house. After we tucked the girls into bed and even after Marcus wandered upstairs with his mystery novel, Daisy and I stayed up, worrying and wondering about Dad. We created possible future scenarios and we tried to solve them or talk each other out of their possibilities. Should we get care in place? What kind? Should we look at assisted-living centers or nursing homes? When we wound down from that without finding solutions to any of it, we decided before things became any worse we should all take a trip together: Dad, Jess, our boys, Marcus and the girls. Create a family memory.
We decided on a houseboat trip through the Keys. We’d rent one on Islamorada, load it up with food and head out to fish, kayak the mangroves, swim on the sandy beaches of small islands in the Florida Bay, watch for dolphins, enjoy sunsets. There would be something to do for everyone.
We planned it for the boys’ spring break later this month. Since Mountain Time was two hours earlier
, I called Jess, then lined it up with Cam and Saddler. It was all set. What supplies would we need, what food should we take? With relief over these easier questions, Daisy and I began a list.
Boneless ham, chocolate, coffee, milk, red licorice, bagels, garbage bags, ziplock bags, toilet paper, paper towels, paper plates, paper cups . . .
And then, because I couldn’t sleep and it wasn’t yet late in Wyoming, I phoned Jess again, after Daisy went off to bed. Aside from tonight’s call to arrange the trip, our last talk hadn’t been very satisfying. In fact, Jess had hung up saying that “as usual talking to you just pisses a guy off”—speaking in his passive, generalizing way, not exactly mentioning any guy’s name in particular. I was probably crazy, but suddenly that felt like home and I missed it.
When Jess answered the phone I said, “Do you suppose it ever happens that when a guy dials a nine hundred number for phone sex the woman says she has a headache or is too tired?”
Jess said, “Sure, probably. It could be some woman’s specialty. You know, a guy misses his wife—not me, not you—and he likes to call this woman just to listen to the same old excuses he’d get if his wife were home.”
I laughed. Then I indulged in telling Jess everything that had happened with my dad at the doctor’s office, and when that was finished, I reached back to my boat trip with my friends before leaving Hibiscus, and when that was finished, I filled him in on Daniel. Then I checked to see if Jess was still awake.
He was. He said, “What happened to the subject of phone sex?”
I said, “I’m too tired.”
Jess said, “Tell me more, baby.” And he panted suggestively.
I laughed. “Wouldn’t it be nice if someday there was a nine hundred number for comfort?”
“Comfort?”
“You know. ‘Now, I’m rubbing your temples in gentle circles, now brushing my fingertips over your eyelids. Massaging your forehead.’ ”
“Watch out. I’m getting relaxed.”
“Sir, do you have your credit card ready?”
The next morning I drove over to see Dad. Since he couldn’t find his car keys earlier, he’d taken his golf cart up to the clubhouse for breakfast and planned to return for dinner—the perfect solution. Dad was happy and claimed his “fluffiness” had settled. He looked like his old self. I phoned Daisy with the good news and rescheduled the Ready-Maids for a housecleaning. He and I went to the grocery store and loaded up on supplies. While Dad pushed the grocery cart up and down the aisles, he hummed “Biko.”
After lunch I headed back to Hibiscus.
Jess and I usually left it up to our boys to make contact while they were away at school. College kids had their own ever-expanding lives and spent very little time thinking about their parents. Until—as the old joke went—they needed money. Phoning them last night to line up spring break had allowed us to catch up, and the family trip had assured my sons that all was well on the home front.
Which, happily, it was. I was feeling strong and clear that afternoon, driving back to my apartment. I had acquired five new Marriage Rules and I looked forward to seeing my husband soon. To celebrate, I stopped in town before heading to the apartment and went shopping for a new bathing suit to take on the houseboat. And I kept my eye out for an alluring dress to wear when I picked up Jess at the airport.
In the store I shuttled hangers along the swimsuit rack, gathered a few possibilities and took them into the dressing room with me, wishing Daisy were here to give her vote.
I was pleased the boys sounded excited about the houseboat trip; I was afraid they’d made plans already to get in some spring skiing. Our sons had become excellent skiers growing up in Jackson Hole, fearless but not rash. And thank God they didn’t get into the record-breaking fever that went on in a resort like our hometown. Kids took life-threatening risks just to get a name and a big gear company’s backing so they could travel around the world for free, taking more life-threatening risks. The fame, money and travel could look pretty glamorous to a kid.
I found two swimsuits and bought them both, a two-piece coral and a one-piece black with lacy inserts. One for causal daytime wear, one for formal evenings, I joked to myself. On a houseboat for several days, I’d be glad to have a change. I left the store and walked to the yarn shop.
By now the saleswomen and I knew each other by name. The store had taken an interest in my class project and offered to display my dog sweaters and sell them after my class was over. My pretend craft business was materializing into a reality. It gave me ideas. If I could return home with the makings of a small business, it could only help me in strengthening my independence from the store.
Inside the yarn shop, I stood for a moment, imagining the upcoming time when I would be shopping in Jackson for my yarns at Knit on Pearl. There I’d find the warm wools that were scarce here. I browsed through the ribbon yarns. The young saleswoman working today, Amy, told a customer who was learning to knit socks, “Just be sure you knit the second sock. During my mother’s whole life she only knitted one sock.”
I chose a lacy ribbon yarn in shades of lavender with silver threads running through it to combine with a soft cashmere yarn of purple. I was aiming for a very high-end dog sweater. I pictured a Florida woman toting a tiny shih tzu, then picked out three sparkly rhinestone buttons.
Amy nodded approval of my choices when I approached the counter. She checked out the sock-knitting lady ahead of me, handed her the bag and said, “Just remember: there are a lot of lonely socks out there in the world.”
As I was leaving the yarn shop, my cell rang and I tucked my bags under my arm and rummaged for my phone. It was Hadley.
Right then, on the sidewalk of downtown Hibiscus, my hard-won balance toppled in a heap at my feet. I stood against a storefront listening to Hadley relay the offer Jess had made to her: my husband had given away part ownership of the store. I felt breathless at Jess’ betrayal.
According to Hadley, yesterday Jess had left the store to go skiing, but before leaving, while climbing into his ski pants and jacket, he had offered Hadley one-third ownership . . . without conferring with me.
Distance from Jess had allowed me to see things in our relationship that I had been too close to see before, but distance had also allowed me to indulge in certain forms of marital amnesia. And Jess’ repeated assumption that he had total rights over the life that we shared was one of them. When I flipped my phone closed after hearing that news (which Hadley had reported as a warning, not as having accepted Jess’ offer—“Fresh powder,” she’d explained), I seethed inside. A scalding rage burned my chest and throat. The skin on my arms and face prickled as if my anger had erupted into a rash with the effort to contain it. I wanted to scream my fury. Instead I ranted inside my head, while blindly pounding down the sidewalk toward my car. I feared my lips moved and sounds emitted from my mouth at times. And once I reached the privacy of home, I sobbed with pain, loud enough to bring Bijou to my side and Kia to her birdcage door.
From anger to bereft hopelessness back to anger. I fumed. I wept. I boiled with fury and a sense of helplessness. The arrogance and self-centeredness of this man were an outrage. I lay on the floor exhausted with emotion and feeling alone in the world. Jess could have told me what he’d done. He could have called me. I had phoned him myself twice last night and he hadn’t said a word.
When Hadley phoned, she had suspected I was in the dark.
Then I recalled the rest of my conversation with Hadley about her concerns in leaving her husband, Paul, and I felt ashamed of myself for feeling so miserable. It wasn’t as if Jess were trying to overpower me, defeat me as Paul had her.
Or was it?
And then I saw it.
This was the ticket to my new life.
And I didn’t have to disrupt one thing. Jess had done it for me. Suddenly I realized I didn’t have to work at introducing the idea of financial independence, or manufacturing that space between Jess and me, or finding excuses for personal friends
or acting on my values. And if on this occasion I didn’t claim my personal power, I never would. Jess, with his preemptive act of giving away a share of my ownership in the store, had introduced all these concepts into our marriage for me.
When life fell apart, I scrubbed bathrooms. So I rose from the floor, went to the bathroom, tied my hair back and sprinkled cleanser in the tub. I washed the tiled shower walls, sprayed disinfectant on the toilet and took a brush to it, mopped the floor, shined the mirror. Then I stripped, showered and shampooed.
Separate money? Jess had just made an independent financial decision. And he had often done so in the past. He ordered fleece by the truckload without one mention to me in regard to our joint accounts, while I alerted him to my underwear purchases.
Separate friends? Jess had his own friends, always had. It was only my friends we shared, couples we socialized with.
Claim personal power? There was a joke. Jess hadn’t ever recognized anyone else’s power but his own.
He had created space automatically with his choices to put himself and his playtime first and by not addressing the emotions his actions created. I thought this would be the hardest of the rules, yet thinking back to the many occasions when Jess walked away from our discussions, it seemed space had been a part of our marriage for some time.
If doing what you wanted, when you wanted was a part of honoring personal values, Jess had been a master.
It was me. Me who had not wanted separate money, friends, power, space or values. I had resisted all separateness, had seen it as a barrier against union and intimacy.
I had created the need for a marriage sabbatical all by myself.
Since coming to Florida, I’d learned more tricks than scrubbing the bathroom to help myself regain balance during difficult times. I had learned that if I could touch base with those parts of my life I particularly treasured—my creative energy, being outdoors, remembering the wisdom of others—I recovered my center. And when things were particularly bad, as they felt now, I thought I’d better enact every one of them. So I wrote in my journal; I knitted; I took Bijou to the beach. And I recalled Lucille quoting Rainer Maria Rilke. She had said, “When times get hard with Shank, I repeat these lines to remind myself what matters: ‘Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.’ ”
