It was the kind of thing you only get at an airport bar. That place where each meeting comes with the knowledge that you’ll never meet again. That place where each drink and subsequent conversation comes with an unspoken confidentiality clause. That place where only truth flies.
• • •
“The question is, after how long is your marriage for other people, as opposed to just for you? After how long is the image just as important as the content within? Would it be selfish to leave after so long?
I thought so. Eventually you realize we exist for others as much as we exist for ourselves. The family, kids, grandkids…my life isn’t about me anymore.
Nothing on the outside has changed. We still project the same image. But inside, here, everything has changed.
You know what I started to ask myself? Can an event be the death of us? Another way of asking can we be dead while alive, I suppose. I wouldn’t have thought so. But now, now I know that a part of me will have died long before I’m laid six feet under.
Still, I can’t leave. I’m too bound. I exist for them as much as for myself. So that’s what I’m living for now. And with time new memories have come and formed. Though they never conceal, only distract.
Who knows how things would have turned out if I had made another decision? I certainly don’t. Nor, in a way, do I want to know. Everything has its reason, and if you can’t find the reason then best to make one. My family is my reason.”
“BY KEEPING IT SMALL, I MADE IT BIG.”
She was a delicate looking woman. Her touch always so faint, it felt more like a skin’s whisper than the presence of another body. Her age always as secretive as she was. Her face never betrayed her in revealing her years. Her hands were always cold. I wonder, now looking back, did all of her blood just rush to her heart to keep her heartaches from killing her?
Sitting over a glass of wine she’d nervously play with her nails, a habit that would threaten to undermine anyone’s elegance. Not hers, though. Never hers. Hers she held onto steadfast. Maybe that’s where all of her strength went.
• • •
“My first instinct was to keep it to myself. To hold it close so it wouldn’t run out and go telling the world. I thought, ‘The fewer that know, the smaller it is. The less damage it’ll cause.’ And for a while, that was true. Everything seemed fine. Nothing seemed to change. But gradually, things unraveled. And then they continued to unravel. My life continued to come undone, like one of those big wooly sweaters that has one thread you can pull. So you think, ‘Let me just pull that out’. But it doesn’t stop coming out. The string continues to pull out while the sweater, in some momentary miracle, stays put. Even though you can see this spine of a thread weaving out. Further and further and further. Curving its way out of the countless loops of other threads. The rest holds still, even if just as an illusion. Because the second you try to move the sweater everything falls apart.
That’s what I was like, I was an unwoven wooly sweater.
Hearing about his affair slowly, almost graciously, pulled the thread out of me. To the world I looked the same. They couldn’t see the core come out of me. But what do other people know? They couldn’t feel my spine slipping out.
I thought that by pretending like it never happened, that through immediate forgiveness I could skip over all the grief. ‘If I minimize the amount of people that know then it’s less true. The more people know something, the truer it is. If only I know then maybe, maybe in some way, it’s less true.’
But really, what I found out? One person is all that matters. And that one person is normally you. Even if it’s just you who knows, then enough people know. And in a way, by keeping it small, I made it big.
“I DON’T CARE WHAT HAPPENS ON ONE RANDOM PAGE, MARRIAGE IS A LONGER STORY.”
She would always talk between drags, speaking into the butt of her cigarette like it was her microphone. A microphone to whom, I wondered. Her gaze would rarely travel further than the trail of her smoke. Almost hypnotically following it as it danced around, eventually into nothing.
Throughout her talking there would be moments where her conviction would dial up and down. Giving her words power through tone, rather than action. Maybe the microphone was just to herself? Like a coach rehearsing his locker room speech for halftime, she needed to inspire a comeback.
• • •
“Did it even really matter? My pride was hurt, that’s true. But what does that matter? It was a momentary lapse. His moment of being fully present in life and seizing the opportunity that laid before him, even if that opportunity wasn’t me. It doesn’t feel great, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me.
In a way he’s what all the books preach. Live in the moment. Be here now…yeah, those books. I don’t need a fucking motivational tape when I’m married to him.
He calls me the hardback covers that contain his stories, the bookends to his adventures—he’s always loved a good analogy—and that his book is dedicated to me. The stories always have lessons, but they’re just pages in the book. You never hear someone ask, ‘Hey did you read that page?’ They always ask, ‘Did you read that book?’ Or they say, ‘I love that book!’ – or – ‘I hate that book’. One of those, but it’s never about the page. The book is the full story. Some pages are shit, some are hopeful; others can be covered in blood while the next drowns in boredom. The page is nothing on its own, the book is the thing to know, the thing to remember. And me, I’m his book. So I don’t care what happens on one random page, marriage is a longer story.”
“AN AFFAIR VS LOVE.”
She was a nervous character. The type you couldn’t help but get nervous around. She sat opposite me wrapped so tightly in her pashmina I became convinced it was serving as her external skeleton.
Her presence was comforting, but her energy concerning. Her words were convincing, but her tone questioning. Everything she said felt like it ended in a question mark. Only once did this invisible question mark disappear; when she said, I love you. And the question mark wasn’t replaced with an exclamation mark, just a simple, solid, unmovable period.
I love you. What else could possibly matter?
• • •
“I realize that a lifetime of joy will also carry a lifetime of pain, otherwise what can it really be measured against? I can’t read black type if the page isn’t white. The whiter the page, the clearer the words. That’s how I feel about pain. The clearer I feel it, the clearer I love him.
It’s not an ideal moment to realize you love someone, but it’s a moment.
So his four most painful words ‘I had an affair’ were followed by three much simpler words ‘I love you.’ It was like a battle of simplicity.
Can you say more with fewer words? Which of the two will be more powerful? It was like good vs evil. An affair vs love. Which will win?
One is an action; the other just an emotion. But that singular emotion is causing so much more action. I love him, so now I have to love him.”
“HIS BETRAYAL JUST HAS A BODY.”
Her marriage was almost twice my age. She looked two times older than that. The years hadn’t been kind to her, and nor had her marriage. Some bruises can be worn as badges of honor. They can show what we conquered. Not these though. These seemed to say more about what she had barely survived.
In the end I couldn’t figure out if her story was really sad, or simply just real. After all, fairytales only show a certain time period. Maybe if you followed up with Cinderella in her 50s, the Beauty in her 60s, or Snow White in her 70s, they’d all have a thing or two to say about their Princes and Beasts. Maybe real is really just sad.
• • •
“If it happens once, then fine. At this point, once is almost juvenile and adorable to me.
But when it happens many times that’s where you get into the red. Especially when nothing changes, then you lose the collective respect and backing of people. I’d say you lose that around the third, or fifth, t
ime. Then people really don’t care anymore.
It came to a point where I didn’t have a choice of whether or not to leave. It had happened too often for anyone to care. It wasn’t a choice anymore.
If I had left now then people would have asked, Why now? Why stay all those times and then suddenly decide no more? What’s different about this one time? So I didn’t feel like I could leave. And now, well, now it’s normal. There’s always a her.
But here’s the thing: There is always a her. It might not be a person, in the expected sense, but who isn’t betraying someone or cheating on someone else? There’s work, there’s gambling, there’s always something. His betrayal just has a body, which is all he really cares about anyways. There’s always a her. Even if it’s a him or an it.”
“MY LOVE FOR HIM BURNT AWAY ALL THE LOVE I HAD FOR MYSELF.”
Who wants to ever confess to being in the wrong? It’s much more comfortable to be the victim. Or so I thought. Until I met her. Until I realized that freedom comes in responsibility. That maybe I’ve always misunderstood who the victim is.
In small ways you could see the signs of torture; the lack of self-love, the lack of self-respect. I suppose that when it’s all within yourself then you’re always sort of at odds with yourself. Battling between being the winner and loser, the victor and victim. You wear a win just as heavily as a loss.
• • •
“I didn’t get cheated on; I cheated. I suppose that would make me the evil one—and I’m not denying that. But in the end I still felt like the tortured one.
I didn’t say anything for a long time. I let it simmer inside of me. I was silenced out of love. I loved him so much I lost my words. But it had come to a point where my love for him was burning all of the love for myself.
I lived in agony—that sounds selfish to say—but it’s true. Having lost trust in myself, I barricaded myself inside of myself. Forbidden from going out, socializing, letting eyes lock for too long. Not trusting yourself is like having a crazy jealous partner living within the confines of your own body.
I was the warden, the prosecutor, the criminal. I had committed the crime. But no one knew. All the trials, punishments, arguments and defenses were held in the confines of my own head and heart.
Eventually though, enough was enough. I realized I needed to forgive myself. However that needed to happen. I knew that for myself forgiveness would come through responsibility. So I took it and I told him.
Then the most surprising thing happened. He didn’t leave. It was like getting a pardon after time served.
A huge part of me couldn’t believe it. I felt like I should be tortured. I felt like I should be left. Verbally beaten. How is it that I’ve been beating myself up more over the past two years than he would? Had he seen the sentence I’d been living these past years and had mercy on me?
I’m not sure. What I do know is that this incident didn’t make me love him less, or turns out him me less, but it did make me love me less, for a long time. And that’s one affair my heart can’t afford again.”
“I WISH I COULD SAY THAT IT MADE ME DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN WHAT IT REALLY DID.”
If there’s an image of the last person you could imagine getting cheated on, let this be that image. The kind of person you find yourself taking advice from, even if they’ve never been in the same situation. The way she started speaking, I felt for sure her story would end with them ending. Her power was too undeniable. She herself was undeniable.
But the moment she started speaking, she dispelled that creation in my mind. The moment she started speaking, she humanized. Dropped her guard in favor of a white flag. Showing that strength might initially, and deceptively, present itself as weakness. Until you realize that actually only the strong can afford to be weak.
• • •
“I wish I could have said that it made me stronger.
I wish I could say that it got me to plot and masterfully execute a Hollywood worthy revenge.
I wish I could say that it got me to live the words of Beyonce’s To The Left.
I wish I could say that I replaced the boy with the girls.
I wish I could say that it made me do anything other than what it really did.
The only thing it did was make my love more evident.
The only thing I could do was hope he’d stay.”
OUTRO
Each reaction seemed different but really each was just a manifestation of love. And, what I realized, was that none of them were wrong. Choice was the most important thing. Choice will never change what happened, but it will change how you feel.
You’ll probably still love them; unfortunately no amount of hate can remove love. You’ll probably still be warmed by her laugh. Or want to argue ‘tea or coffee’ with him every morning. Love can be the worst kind of squatter.
In the end there won’t be a mover to bubble wrap all of those memories or a Hertz to move out that love in the shadows of the silence that will fall after hearing, I had an affair. Sometimes, maybe, the best space filler might simply be, I still love you.
Because really, at the end of it, life is so much more than just what happens to us, it’s actually how we respond to it.
RICH WALLS
Rich Walls is the author of Standby, Chicago and One Page Love Story. He is thankful to have made so many talented friends.
MEET ME ON 9TH STREET
Her last text had been eight hours ago.
“Phone dead. Will be home late. Meet me on 9th st.”
After a first hour of waiting, he realizes this feels an awful lot like one of those early nineties movies, before cell phones. He is the hometown boy upstate, waiting anxiously for her bus. She is the city girl coming home, with no accurate hint of when that might be. In his mind, he thinks he can even hear that cold, three key piano soundtrack. The one that marks a sentimental low just before the high of a big reunion.
So he sits on the bench at the bus stop, deep into the Friday night as the bar goers holler past and the snow falls evenly around him. Every twenty minutes a new bus arrives, its doors hiss open, and his hopes rise once more, only to drop as the doors screech closed without sight of her.
He loses track after the seventh or eighth bus. There is a coffee shop not too far down the street where he could warm up, but he waits on the bench anyway. Somehow it seems to be part of the experience, to be able to say he waited for her. He also does not want to miss the exact moment she arrives.
The soundtrack in his mind slows nearly to a stop, keeping rhythm with his almost dormant heart. Minutes, it seems, separating beats. In between, his thoughts, a constant drift to the many other times he has waited gladly for her. The golden memories of seeing her arrive again. That feeling, glowing inside him like softly burning embers…
“Hi,” she says, shaking him awake. Her voice is warm and so is her face, like fire to his frozen cheeks. But here she is, arrived home. Five hours delayed, she is here now, and he had done his part.
“You’re home,” he answers.
“I’m home.”
THE WHEEL
To fully understand my Uncle Dwight, you have to realize this is the same man who prophesized that on his thirty-ninth birthday the President would arrive at his door with a copy of Lone Wolf McQuade and a six-pack of Schlitz as reward for being, “A prime example of an outstanding American.” President Bush, Sr. never did arrive, but that’s not to say that Uncle Dwight was incapable of hitting the mark time to time.
He said once, “There is not a program on television—and let’s be clear, this is miniseries, newscasts, day time soaps inclusive—there is not a program in all television history that so well espouses the mechanism of love as Wheel.
“Laugh if you will, but allow me to explain. What does the wheel represent? Prizes. Twenty-four of them. All decorated in nice, bright colors with varying levels of reward. Some of the prizes even come as bonus, mystery prizes, full of enticement, enchantment, just begging for you to spin again.
“And what is dating? Prize after wonderful prize. Spin the wheel. Win a prize. Spin the wheel, win a prize. Would you like to solve the puzzle? No, I don’t think so, Pat. Not yet. I think I’ll spin again. I think I will try and win me another prize.
“So, what, pray tell, does this teach us about love?
“The first, very true fact, is that you cannot spin the wheel forever. You will either go ‘Bankrupt’ or, as Wheel so eloquently states, ‘Lose a Turn.’ I hope I do not have to describe to you what it means to ‘Lose a Turn’ in real life.
“And the second vital lesson to be learned, is that the winner, in a grand revelation, is determined to be the very individual, who after landing on a particular prize, and proving their merit with a fitting consonant, says to themself, just as I did when I met my Judy, I said: ‘I have my prize. She is prize enough. I do not need to spin again.’
“That, my young, impressionable nephew, is what they call, ‘Solving the puzzle,’ and that is why Wheel trumps all in describing the game which is love.”
WRAP IT IN A BOW
“Here’s a little trick,” she said. “If you want to impress a girl with a gift, wrap it in a bow. I know it sounds stupid, but it’ll work. Girls like bows.”
This was the advice she had given him many years earlier. It was also advice he later used—to shocking success—but never on or for her. That was a line he had been too afraid to cross.
On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, the two friends choose to see a movie together—one playing in 3D. He offers to save them both seats while she rushes to the restroom. When she returns, and finds him sitting alone in the center of an empty theater, she discovers her new, bubbly 3D glasses resting atop her soda cup, wrapped in a bow.
One Page Love Story- Share the Love Page 20