Chin Up, Honey

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  He had formed the awful habit of always asking her who she was talking to on the phone.

  “Mama.”

  She saw him give her a curious look. Her tone had still been sharp.

  Well, what she wanted to say to him was: Who else in this world do you think I would be talkin’ to at ten o’clock at night?

  They got into bed and lay, as on the nights before, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Do you mind if I turn on the television?” John Cole asked, already picking up the remote before she answered.

  “Yes, I do.”

  He put down the remote.

  She rolled over and did her best to feign sleep, while words seemed to jam up in her throat and threaten to choke her. It seemed quite odd that she could have been so happy and talkative that afternoon at the drugstore.

  12

  Time Lines

  Emma dedicated the morning hours to getting ready for the counseling session. Heaven knew she did not want to appear to be a woman who had let herself go and given her husband just cause to lose interest.

  She took thirty minutes to pray and meditate, hoping to get her mind on solid ground. The peace she found from this was pretty well undone, however, by all that came after. She painted her fingernails and toenails to match, showered and washed and fixed her hair, and did a full make-up job. She tried on four outfits before choosing one that she felt sufficed. After several long minutes of debate, she chose to wear pantyhose, and wondered if she ever again would be at peace not wearing panties under them.

  By the time she reached the Stop offices where she was to meet John Cole, she was on her last nerve.

  “He’s in a meetin’ just now,” said Shelley Dilks. She got up and came around the desk. “You’re a little early, you know.”

  Emma, feeling reprimanded, checked her watch. She was not even ten minutes ahead of time, and she didn’t think that counted as early. She always thought that fifteen minutes either way was acceptable.

  “You got your hair cut. It looks really cute,” Shelley said in a friendly manner, coming close and giving Emma a good inspection.

  Emma touched her hair. “Oh…yes. Back last winter.” She realized she had not seen the woman for the better part of a year. She also noted that Shelley, who was several years younger than Emma, had started dyeing her hair. Emma kept from mentioning this; most women didn’t care to have it pointed out.

  They chatted for several minutes, during which Shelley was very talkative and complimentary. She seemed so friendly, even anxious for Emma to like her, that Emma felt she should make an effort to visit the offices more. She really had not taken an interest in things going on with the business in years. Shelley went on about this supplier and that employee, as if Emma knew all about them. John Cole rarely spoke about the goings-on at work. That she didn’t know a single incident was a little embarrassing, so she didn’t say that she didn’t know. It all went to show how far apart her life and John Cole’s had become.

  When John Cole came out of his office with another man, he looked a little surprised and said he hadn’t known she was there, as if they had not set a time to meet. She didn’t say anything about this, though. It was not a time to get nitpicky. They were both just so nervous.

  On the way out to her car, John Cole reached over and took her hand, and rubbed his thumb against hers as he often did when nervous. The more nervous he was, the faster he would rub his thumb, and just then he was rubbing quite quickly. The main problem with this was that his thumb tended to be really calloused. It hurt right that minute, but she was glad to be holding his hand and didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him to stop.

  The New Hope Counseling Center turned out to be in a sixties’ ranch-style house in a string of others, all made over into offices. The office on one side handled vacuum and sewing machine sales, and on the other were attorneys. Probably, in one way or another the counseling center fit in with the other two, but still, Emma felt a little apprehensive about the therapists’ qualifications.

  The waiting room still looked like the living room of the house. She wasn’t too impressed with the decor. She didn’t mention any of her apprehension to John Cole, though. It wouldn’t do any good to add to their general nervousness, which was already rising due to the only other occupant of the waiting room—a woman who, Emma gradually realized, was just crying and crying. She wasn’t making any sobbing noise, just holding a tissue over her mouth. She shook and shortly began to sniff.

  Covertly watching, Emma became concerned as she saw the woman shake harder.

  Emma thought maybe she should go comfort the woman, or maybe tell the receptionist, who she felt really should be watching but didn’t seem to be. But she did not want to butt in to someone else’s business, and she knew John Cole would give her that annoyed frown if she did.

  Hesitating, she began to get a little anxious about the matter. What if the woman got hysterical? What if she had a gun in her purse, and pulled it out and shot them? Such a happening did not seem too far-fetched at a therapist’s office.

  Finally, without a glance to John Cole, so as not to see him frown, Emma got up and went to the reception counter, leaned far over and whispered, “You might need to know that the woman over there is really upset.”

  The receptionist nodded with a reassuring expression and whispered back, “She’s okay…it will only be a few more minutes.”

  Emma was relieved to know the receptionist knew about the woman, although she didn’t think she was handling the matter very well.

  Just as she sat down again beside John Cole and saw him frowning, a door down the hall to what had been the bedrooms opened, and a woman came out. She was crying into a tissue, too. John Cole looked as if his skin was crawling. Emma thought that she did not intend to cry. She simply did not cry in front of people.

  Another minute, and a vigorous sort of woman came striding out of the hall and over to them. She stuck out her hand, saying, “Hi, I’m Catherine Owens.”

  Hope flickered within Emma. This woman was firm, competent, and would understand important matters. Emma knew this last thing instantly, as she took in the woman’s cut-to-f latter pantsuit and stylish appearance.

  Furthermore, the color and style of the woman’s office was a lot better than the waiting room. There was a whole wall of shelves with books, and nice pieces of artwork were hung around the rest of the room. There was a basket of magazines. Emma saw the top one was Modern Decor. There wasn’t a reclining couch, like in therapists’ offices in the movies, only a small leather loveseat and a couple of chairs, and comfortable needlepoint pillows.

  Emma and John Cole sat on the couch, and the therapist, who said to call her Catherine, sat facing them in her swivel desk chair.

  “Okay, so what’s going on?” Catherine asked. “What problem brings you in here for counseling?”

  Emma, who appreciated the direct approach, looked at John Cole, and he looked back at her. She shifted in her seat, crossing her legs. It had been his suggestion to come, after all. He should answer and not leave it to her.

  The silence stretched. Emma recognized the intentionally patient expression on the therapist’s face. Emma had used silence herself a time or two. Catherine would wait them out.

  Thinking someone needed to get started, and since she and John Cole were paying, she said, “Well…we had decided to separate, but then Johnny—that’s our son—decided to get married, so we couldn’t ruin his weddin’ by maybe gettin’ divorced. And now we think we want to try again.” She felt silly as all get-out as soon as the words left her mouth.

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Thirty-two years,” said Emma.

  Catherine’s eyebrows went up. “You both must have been fairly young when you married.”

  Emma was familiar with the expression; she could practically see the woman’s mind turning. Whenever people heard how young she and John Cole had been when they married, they generally looked at her as if expectin
g her to be toting a herd of barefoot children and possibly living in a beat-up travel trailer.

  Emma explained that she had been seventeen and John Cole nineteen when they married. “But I wasn’t pregnant,” she added. “We didn’t have to get married. In fact, our son didn’t come along for six years. He’s our only child. He isn’t a child anymore, of course. He’s twenty-six.”

  “Ah-huh.” Catherine, who had slipped on reading glasses, was jotting on a tablet. “That would make him born in…’ seventy-two?”

  Emma said yes, then added, “I call him my miracle. We never did have any more. We wanted to, but it didn’t happen.”

  She wondered if she had been totally accurate. What might have been more truthful was that she had wanted more children but John Cole had not. She considered bringing up this point, as she watched Catherine scribbling on the tablet.

  Then she saw Catherine peering curiously over the top of her glasses at her, and realized that she had been leaning forward slightly.

  Catherine said, “I’m doing a quick time line to help me get to know you a bit. Let’s take a look at your backgrounds. Emma, why don’t you go first and tell me about your family? Do you have brothers and sisters? Parents still living?”

  “I’m an only child,” Emma said, then went on to explain that she was originally from North Carolina, where all of her relatives were from, and that her father was dead, but her mother was in very good health and lived at MacCoy’s retirement village.

  “When and from what did your father die?” Catherine asked.

  “Well, in seventy-five, I think. Maybe seventy-six. I forget, but not too many years after I married. I don’t know from what.”

  She saw Catherine pause in writing and look up at her.

  “Daddy just went off one day with this woman in town. He had gone off for as long as I remember—he was a travelin’ salesman. Sold feed. He went down to South Carolina, and a few years later Mama got a phone call tellin’ her that he had died. I was out here by then. I don’t really know anything else about it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Watching Catherine scribbling with the pen, Emma felt her face grow warm. Her father was not a comfortable subject. Her mother never talked about him.

  Then Catherine asked John Cole about his family. She called him John, despite the fact that Emma had given his name as John Cole when she made the appointment.

  John Cole had not offered a word the whole time and had to clear his throat. “I have two older brothers and one sister. My father is livin’, but my mother is dead.”

  Catherine asked him where he was from, and the ages of his siblings and stuff of that sort. All of these answers required only one or two words, and each time he waited for Catherine to ask him before giving any further information. When she asked him about the date and circumstances of his mother’s death, he was able to supply, “Cancer…five years ago, maybe.” He cast Emma a questioning look.

  “Mother Berry died seven years ago in August. She had been sick off and on for quite a few years, then one day she died. It wasn’t long and drawn out. She just passed right at home, watching The Young and the Restless. It was her favorite show.” Emma crossed her legs again but then found herself bouncing her foot, so she uncrossed them. The sofa was not meant for someone as short as she was. Her feet barely touched the floor.

  “All right. I have an overview now,” Catherine said after a minute. She pulled off her glasses. “Let’s get back to my original question. What specifically is the problem in your relationship?”

  Emma waited a moment for John Cole to say something, but of course he wasn’t going to, so she said, “We don’t have a relationship. Oh, we don’t fight. We argue a little, but we do not have great big fights. We never have done that. The thing is, we don’t talk. And we don’t have sex. I know we have been married for a long time and are middle-aged, and I don’t expect it all the time, but I do think somethin’ sure is wrong when a couple can’t talk or have sex. This has been goin’ on for about ten years, too—it isn’t like it happened yesterday. When it started, we were in our thirties. I’ve done everything I know to keep myself attractive and to try to talk with him. I’ve tried to talk about this with him. I’ve read books and tried everything I know, but nothin’ has helped.”

  She abruptly shut her mouth, quite astonished at having said all that she had. What seemed to have happened to her was like what happened when trying to get ketchup from a bottle: she had held everything back for so long, and now, with one shake, a whole lot was f lowing out. She did not dare look at John Cole. She was too embarrassed.

  Catherine said, “Can we say an accurate assessment of your complaint, Emma, is that you are not receiving the intimacy you want with John and are lonely in this union?”

  Emma felt a little jolted by the term “lonely.” She did not like the picture it made in her mind. “I don’t know if I would call it lonely, but I do think that we should act like we’re married, since we are married,” she said. “I think a husband and wife ought to be able to have a conversation about more than what’s on TV. And that we should have sex.”

  Good Lord, help her. She could not shut up. And it was all out there now. To a stranger. She felt horribly embarrassed, but she felt even more words trying to come out. She told herself she needed to calm down, and that she would not cry or in any way be a hysterical woman.

  “What do you say to this, John? Would you say that what Emma says is an accurate picture of your relationship?”

  John Cole slid a sideways glance at Emma. She mostly felt it, because she did not dare look directly at him.

  “I guess.” He coughed into his hand. “We don’t talk all that much.”

  “Are you happy with how things are with you and Emma?”

  “No, not really, I guess.”

  “And why do you think you and Emma don’t talk or have sex more often?”

  “I don’t know. I work a lot, I guess.”

  “Are there things that Emma does that annoy you and make you feel you don’t want to talk with her or have sex with her?”

  “No. She’s a great wife.”

  Emma could hardly believe how he said that. She looked at him then, to see his look as he was praising her. And acting as if she was making up all their problems.

  Then he added, “We do have sex. We did just a week or so ago. It isn’t like we never have sex.”

  “We did not.” Emma said instantly. “A week ago, we had split up and you were gone. We have not had sex for two months.”

  “Okay, then a few weeks ago. We do have sex,” he said to Catherine.

  “I see there is a diff—” started Catherine.

  “And before that, it was two or three months,” Emma said, feeling the need to set things straight. “We just don’t relate.”

  “It was not three months,” John Cole said, slipping in the contradiction. “It was the night I bought the new truck.”

  “Okay. Two months.”

  That sat there for a few seconds, and then Catherine said, “I’d like to take just a few minutes to look back at the beginning, when you two were first dating. I don’t want to spend a lot of time looking back, and it is important to remember that you were young and totally different people then. But sometimes a brief look at the past helps to put today in context and gives me more of a picture. Emma, I’ll start with you. What attracted you to John?”

  “Well…” She felt a little confused with the question, having to remember so long ago. “Somethin’ just seemed to pull me to him. Right from the first time I saw him, I guess. I don’t mean that it was like love at first sight, but I liked him right off. I thought he was really cute, for one thing. He had this way of lookin’ right at a person and givin’ a slow, sexy smile. He was really sort of with-it, compared to the boys in my small town. He had been around more, bein’ older and in the Navy for a year when we met. He had a good sense of humor…and he liked animals. And we both liked the beach. He really liked it, bein’ from in
land, like he was. I’d always been to the beach, but it was more fun with him, since he got such a kick out of it.”

  She found a lot of memories coming out about their visits to the beach, until she realized she was talking on again, so she stopped.

  “And does he still smile that way?” Catherine asked. “And have a good sense of humor and like animals?”

  “He still has a sense of humor—when he wants to. And every once in a while he will smile at me like that, but really not much. It’s like he doesn’t have time and doesn’t care to make the effort. We have just lost all passion.”

  Then she added, “He does still like animals, though. He all the time says that he does not want me to feed any stray cats, and then he goes and does it.”

  “Okay. Let’s stop there a minute and give John a chance. John…what attracted you to Emma?”

  “Lots of things, I guess,” he said slowly. “She was real pretty. And she was always smilin’ and happy. She seemed real intelligent. She knew more things than any girl I’d ever met. I just liked bein’ with her.”

  Catherine asked him if any of that was still true, and he said, “Yes…all of it.”

  “If you still like bein’ with me,” said Emma, “then—”

  She shut her mouth when—in a manner Emma thought was a little rude—Catherine held up a hand toward her and said, “I’ll give you a chance in a minute, Emma.” And then to John Cole, “John, would you say that your security and well-being are important to Emma?”

  Emma, instantly interested, looked at him.

  He blinked and said, “Well, yeah…yes, I would.”

  “Emma, do you feel that your security and well-being are important to John?”

  Emma, who was already thinking about it, said, “In some ways. I mean, he makes sure that our house is nice and my car is safe. He’s jumped up and gone out thinkin’ we had a burglar, too. He’s protective like that. It’s just that he doesn’t realize the importance of emotional and spiritual security and well-being. Of havin’ someone in your corner, who shows it by believin’ you when you say you need to be with him and that bein’ together is important.” She suddenly had to struggle not to cry.