He was so handsome. Tan skin, black hair, deep brown eyes, broad shoulders, full lips. I wanted to reach out and touch those lips. But I didn’t have the right. Wife or not, I didn’t have the right to make that move.
“I understand if you don’t want to be alone with me, Tony. I do. This is silly, but I have to ask, just so I’ll know for sure…is it the weight?”
He drew his head back, his brow furrowed a bit. “Salem,” he said with a tender smile. I could see it really wasn’t the weight, which was comforting and confusing in equal measure. I hated the extra weight so much. I couldn’t see how anyone else could be okay with it.
“It’s not the weight, and it’s not that I don’t want to be with you. It’s that I do. I do.”
“You do? But…”
“I know you’ve changed. I can see that. You have changed. But this voice in the back of my head keeps wondering what I’m going to do if…you know.”
I frowned. On the one hand, I knew. The voice wanted to know what he did if I went off the rails again — if I started drinking again — if I started screwing around with other men again. If I left him. Again.
But I needed, I found, to know what, exactly, Tony was afraid I would do. What his particular boogeyman was, where I was concerned.
“What?” I whispered, afraid but needing to know. “What you’re going to do if what?”
“Last time I was naive.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I was scared, but for me it was about things like paying the bills, providing, you know, for you and the baby. But I thought, if I worked hard enough, I could make it work. I’m not so naive this time. I know now that I can’t do it all by sheer force of will. I can’t make everything work.”
“I know that, too, Tony. I’m not expecting you to make it work all by yourself. I’m here. I’m — I’m — ” I’m what? What had I done to further our relationship, aside from make myself willing to be adored by him? “I know we said we were going to play it by ear. And that sounded like a good idea at the time. But it seems like…well, we played things by ear until they felt a little too real. And then you got scared and pulled away.”
He looked at the ground between his feet, then nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Tony,” I whispered around the sudden hot lump in my throat. “I’m sorry you feel like you need to protect yourself from me.”
He raised his gaze to meet mine. “I know you are.”
“Do you? Do you know that if I had it to do over again, I would do everything differently? That I can see so clearly now what I couldn’t see before? And yet still, I can’t promise you I won’t hurt you again. Some days I feel like I can handle my life, like I can stay sober and stay in control. And every day I want to do that, I really do. But some days it feels like I’m doomed to failure, like it’s just a matter of time.”
I wanted to tell him how much it would mean to me to know for sure that we would be together, eventually, to know that he actually still loved me, that he wanted me beyond a sense of duty. It would mean the world to me to know that he stayed married to me for some other reason than, “because I said I would.”
That was too much to ask of him, though. He didn’t need the weight of my sobriety added to his own sense of duty.
I couldn’t help but ask. “Why did you stay married to me, if, when the time came, you were just going to run from it?”
“I don’t know!” The sudden outburst was so out-of-character that I think it even surprised him. He frowned, his lips flat, then rose from his chair and paced in front of me. “I don’t know. It was the right thing to do. I still think it’s the right thing to do. It’s just that when it comes down to — to a real relationship with you, with real emotions and real risk, like you said…”
“It’s a little too real?”
“Yeah. A little too real.”
We were silent for a long time. I reached out and put a hand on his arm.
“Tony. I didn’t give you any choice before. I put you through all that pain without giving you any say in the matter. And I don’t have a right to even ask you to forgive me. That is your choice. But I do need to know. Can you forgive me?”
“There was nothing to forgive, Salem. You were hurting. You acted like a person who was hurting.”
“You were hurting, too. You hurt more than I did, I think.” I remembered the way he had sobbed, in the hospital, when he thought I was asleep. He was so young, and just as terrified as I was to be a parent at eighteen, but still…when our baby died, he had mourned as deeply as anyone ever had.
And instead of leaning on each other, helping each other through it as he wanted, I pushed him away. And when he refused to go away, I did.
“I appreciate the thought, Tony, but we both know that’s only part of the picture. I was hurting and I lashed out at everyone and everything, but you were hurting too, and I hurt you more. I made it so much worse. Those are facts that need to be dealt with. I’m prepared to deal with them. I’m prepared to face it, Tony. In fact, I think maybe…”
I swallowed. I thought about everything thing I felt toward my mother now. Everything I didn’t feel, actually. How I felt…dead, maybe? Numb?
“I think maybe some things are just too hurtful to get past, completely. As completely as two people who — well, who are married, who are in a committed, day-to-day relationship, would need them to be. Maybe some things are just too big for that. And the best we can hope for is more of a…” I shrugged. “More of a go-in-peace, no-hard-feelings kind of forgiveness.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe that. Grace is bigger than that, Salem. God is bigger than that.”
I had to swallow another lump then. I took a deep breath.
“Then here’s what I think. I think you need to look me in the eye, and tell me everything. Everything I made you feel. Everything I did to hurt you. You need to say it out loud.”
“There’s no point in that. You were there. You know.”
“I know. But I think you need to say it.”
He shook his head and sat back down.
“Tony, you can’t say anything about me that I haven’t said about myself. Don’t you think it will make you feel better, to get it out?”
“No, I think it will add pain to pain. It won’t change anything. I don’t see any point in bringing up old memories. I think we would be better off focusing on the future.”
I nodded, tamping down my frustration. “Okay, that makes sense. But…see, it’s like we’re a stream.”
“We’re a string?”
“We’re a stream. Like, you know, a river?”
He gave a slight nod. “Okay. We’re a stream.”
“And we can’t just say, ‘Okay, I’m starting from this point of the stream.’ Like, draw a line and this is what we take with us downstream. It’s all in there. Everything that has happened in our lives, and in our parents’ lives, and their parent’s lives — it’s all in there. We didn’t choose it to be that way, but that’s the way it is. It’s all part of us.”
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look particularly agreeable, either.
“And our streams are flowing together now. So all the pollutants in my stream are mixed with your stream. I don’t want it to be that way, but it is that way. Trying to ignore the lead in the water doesn’t make the lead in the water go away.”
“Streams don’t have free will, Salem. You and I — okay, maybe we’re affected by our pasts, but we have free will to make choices not to repeat those pasts.”
I was silent for a long time, but finally I said what was on my mind. “Tony, we’re in limbo here. You’re afraid I’m going to hurt you again. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you again, too. I don’t want to. I’m going to try very hard not to. But I can’t…” I whispered. “I can’t hope to be the wife you need if you can’t forgive me. I feel defeated already. Like I’ve already screwed it up past the point of redemption, and there’s no hope. I can’t show up, every day, if I don�
�t have some hope that at the end of it, we’re going to be whole again.” I shook my head. “What am I saying, again? There’s no again here. If we could be whole, for the first time. You have to forgive me. And to do that, I think, you have to say it. You have to say the words, and I have to hear them. Because…sometimes peace is on the other side of conflict.”
“Salem, I don’t think — ”
“Please, Tony, just say it.”
“This isn’t necessary.”
“Just say it.”
His mouth clamped. He glared at me. “You know, I gave you time when you asked for time.”
“I know that.”
“I gave you room when you wanted room.”
“I know. And I appreciate it.”
“So why can’t you give me time? Why can’t you give me room? Why do you have to give an ultimatum now?”
“I’m not giving an ultimatum.”
“Of course you are!” he roared. “That’s exactly what you’re doing. Put up or shut up, that’s what you’re saying!”
“I just think — ”
“How about you stop thinking for a little while? How about you just do what we agreed to do for once. We agreed we would take it slow, we’d just let things proceed at their own pace. You agreed to that, Salem.”
“I know, but — ”
“But it’s not going how you want it to, so now you’re changing rules in the middle of the game. Which is so! Freaking! Typical!”
He threw his coffee cup at the wall. He stood and paced in front of me, every line of his body rigid. He whirled on me.
“So typical! No matter what I did, it was wrong. You wanted my attention, I gave it. Then you wanted space. So I gave you space. But that meant I didn’t care. So I came back, like a little trained dog. All I wanted, Salem, was to make you feel better, to give you some — some comfort, some stability, because I knew you needed it. But no matter what I did you pushed me away. Of course I’m afraid to get close to you again. How could I not be? I wanted you as much as I’ve ever wanted anything in my life, before or since. I wanted it to work. I wanted us to be together. And you!” He jabbed a finger at me. “You left!”
His face contorted with rage. With horror, I realized that I was not ready for this. I thought I was, but no - this was so much more intense than I was prepared to handle. I hadn’t hurt him. I had destroyed him.
My throat burned so hot and all I wanted to do was put my hands to his face, to his mouth, to shush him, to soothe him.
But I was terrified and frozen.
“You left!” He jabbed his finger again. “You left me and went with —” He flung his arm wide. “How many men, Salem? How many men were you with after you left me?” He stopped and bent, thrusting his face into mine. “How many?” he roared.
“I don’t know!” I said, scared into the truth. “I don’t remember!”
“You left me and lived like a — like a — ” He stopped, his throat working in fury, his mouth clamped tight.
“I didn’t know!” I shouted. “I thought we were divorced!”
“You didn’t know. Do you think that makes it any easier for me? That you didn’t even bother to know I was waiting for you?”
“Why were you waiting? Why didn’t you come after me?” I shouted back. “Why did you let me go?”
“Because you were awful! You made every moment more miserable than the last! And I knew the moment I did find you, you’d lash out at me again.”
“Then why did you want to be with me in the first place? Why did you stay married to me?”
“Because I loved you!”
We both fell silent, the air heavy with tension and heavy breathing.
I burst into tears.
Noisy, messy tears.
Tony walked away, muttered something under his breath, but I think it was more to his detriment than mine. He returned with a box of tissues.
I’m not sure which it was — the fact that he loved me despite how awful I was, or the fact that he was a man who had a box of tissues in his house. I mean, I didn’t have tissues. When I’d cried that afternoon at home, I had done what I always did — wiped my tears on toilet paper or gently used fast food napkins. But he had tissues. And something about that, or the way he’d shouted, “Because I loved you!” made me love him so much I couldn’t breathe.
I did everything I could to get it back together. I didn’t want to manipulate him into backing off.
“Go on,” I said. “Keep talking. Keep yelling. This is good. This is what I needed to hear.”
He seemed to be spent, though. He sat beside me and rested his hand on my knee.
“Really, Tony. Go on.”
“That’s all, Salem. I didn’t want you to leave. I didn’t want you to — to be with those other guys. I wanted our marriage to work. It hurt when it didn’t.”
“It didn’t hurt you. I hurt you.” Beyond repair? What if I had damaged him beyond repair? How could I live with that?
So there were two big questions on the table, I realized.
One was, of course, could Tony forgive me? But the other was, could I handle seeing someone, day after day, who had something so big to forgive?
The painful truth of fighting for sobriety was that you came to know yourself well. Uncomfortably well. All the justifications and lies you tell yourself appeared as exactly what they were — lies and justifications, shabby pretenses at truth.
Some people, when they feel guilty about something, do whatever they can to make it right. Me, I get my defenses up. I get resentful of whatever is making me feel guilty. And I lash out at it.
I mean, I used to do that. I was trying very hard not to be that way anymore, but…what would it be like, living with that guilt all day every day? Would I be able to push down that tendency, again and again?
I wasn’t sure he could handle me, and I wasn’t sure I could handle him.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” I said. “Or maybe, you know…this is just hastening the inevitable.”
He didn’t argue, which was kind of terrifying.
“But I’m glad you told me. I mean, if nothing else, I think you have the right to say to me whatever you need to say. You have the right to have your grievances heard, right?” I tried to smile but it felt wobbly.
“I’m so sorry, Tony. I can’t even put into words how sorry. You didn’t deserve what I did to you.”
He turned and put his hands on either side of my face, searching.
I so wanted all he saw there to be love. Not damage, or pain, or fear. Just love.
Love never failed. And that was the only hope I had left.
I had been wrong when I told Tony I wouldn’t sleep that night. I slept like the dead, like someone who was hiding from something. When I woke Monday morning, it was still there.
A yawning chasm of nothingness.
Out of habit, I stumbled to my prayer room.
I lit the candle, and knelt. Normally, I watched the flame for a couple of minutes, focused my thoughts. Then I read the scripture, and then I prayed.
But today, I just sat. I didn’t open the book. I didn’t pray. I didn’t even think, aside from remembering scenes, words, from the day before.
I thought of God. I knew I should pray. But no words came. Not from me. Not from him.
Finally, I sighed, blew out the candle, and stood.
I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I wasn’t sure what to do. The only thing I knew was, I had to go to work. I had to take care of business. I had to get through this day.
Doreen was off on Mondays, so I had asked Viv to take me to work.
“Just one time,” I said, when she complained about the early start. “I’ll have the Monster Carlo back this afternoon, and it will be legal. You can drive it.”
“I’ll hold you to it. Do you want to go interview that Barnstable guy?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m really tired. I might be coming down with something.”
Maybe that wasn’t just a l
ine I was feeding her to get out of going anywhere. Maybe I really was coming down with something and that’s why I felt so empty inside. Maybe it was the beginning of a virus or something.
I trudged through the day and asked Tammy, the other bather, to give me a ride over to Five Star to pick up my car. Mrs. Pigg had called me to let me know the part came in and it would be ready that afternoon. I thought about calling Viv, but I decided I wasn’t quite up to Viv just yet. I felt a strong need to stay buried in the invisible cocoon I’d created since the day before.
When I got to Five Star Auto, Five was still working on the car.
“Almost done,” he said with a crooked grin. Everything about him looked a little crooked, I realized. I hadn’t noticed the week before, but I guess it had something to do with the eye twitch I thought was a wink. Something was not quite right about the way he moved. His motions were a little jerky; everything was just a bit lopsided.
“You better come in and have some ice tea while Five finishes up with your car,” Mrs. Pigg said from the doorway of the office.
I joined her inside and we went into a little kitchen break room. She found two amber glasses that looked like they might be roughly the same age as my car.
We drank our tea and talked about the robberies, but she’d pretty much said her piece the other day and hadn’t seemed particularly anxious to talk about it; I steered the conversation to family. I was not fishing for any information about the hot brothers.
“So, five boys. It must have been noisy around your house.”
“Oh, lands. Don’t even get me started. If it wasn’t one thing it was another.” She laughed. “The neighbors loved us, let me tell you. Always somebody fighting, somebody building something or trying to blow something up.”
That actually sounded pretty nice. It had usually been deadly quiet at my house, unless Mom was in a yelling mood, or one of her boyfriends was.
“That sounds like my husband’s family,” I said. “Always something going on.”
“I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Even though I know they took years off my life, worrying about them. Between my five boys I’ve seen four broken arms, three broken legs, I lost count of the collarbones. One skull fracture.”
Caught in the Crotchfire Page 27
