by Cyndi Myers
“I mean our marriage has been one-sided for years.” The pain in his eyes forced her to take a step back. “Practically from the day I met you, I loved you,” he continued. “I told myself it didn’t matter if you didn’t feel as strongly about me—that we’d grow into love. But it never happened.”
“I do love you!” she cried. “You must know that.”
“How am I supposed to know it? You never say it.”
“I know.” Why were three little words so hard to say? She could talk about loving chocolate or loving a song on the radio, but to say she loved her husband seemed too risky—as if saying the words out loud would tempt fate to take away everything she prized most. “It wasn’t a word I heard a lot growing up. I took it for granted you knew.”
He shook his head. “Be honest with me. When I asked you to marry me, did you love me then?”
She swallowed hard, a lie on the tip of her tongue. But pre tending things were wonderful when they weren’t hadn’t made her any happier over the years. “I liked you, but I didn’t have any idea what it meant to love someone that way. I only…I wanted to escape the life I had and I saw that you were the best chance I had at another one.”
“That’s what I thought.” The disappointment in his voice made her stomach ache.
“Tom, wait, that doesn’t mean I don’t love you now.”
But he had already stopped listening. He threw down his work gloves and pushed past her, out of the room. A few moments later, she heard the car start, gravel flying as he spun out of the driveway.
She sank down onto the bed, feeling as if the world had just tilted. His words hurt, as he must have meant them to. But his anger at her didn’t wound nearly as deeply as her own recognition of how she’d let him down.
She thought she’d done a good job of hiding her true feelings in those early days of marriage. She’d wanted him to believe she returned his love for her right from the first, and she’d fooled herself into thinking she’d succeeded. Over the years, she had grown to truly cherish him, but she had never been one to express her emotions easily. She had thought it enough that she worked side by side with him at their business, kept their home and looked after his children. She hadn’t seen the need for words, hadn’t realized he felt their lack.
Oh God. Could it be she was truly her father’s daughter, distanced from those she loved by the emotional reserve he had passed down to her?
How could she find her way across that chasm? How could she be anything other than the woman she was?
Casey couldn’t believe his mom and dad could get so upset over a stupid porch light but then, he’d stopped trying to understand parents a long time ago. Whether it was the disagreement over the porch light or something else entirely, his dad ended up getting Mr. Wainwright to take him to the airport early.
His mom walked around the house for two days with red eyes, insisting she was “fine,” in a clipped tone of voice that made it obvious she was anything but. Grandpa re treated to his computer and threw a shoe at Lola again. The physical therapist didn’t even blink; she picked up the shoe and threw it back, narrowly missing Grandpa’s head. “You see how it feels, Mr. Engel,” she said calmly. “Now let’s try the arm raises again.”
So when Uncle Del called and asked Casey to go fishing, he was thrilled. “Anything to get out of the nuthouse for a while,” he said.
Del laughed. “I guess things haven’t changed much since I was your age.”
He picked Casey up early the next morning. “Is the dog coming?” Del asked as he loaded Casey’s fishing gear into the back of the truck.
“Nah. I took her last time and she got bored in about five minutes. Drove me crazy whining and running around.” Cradling an extra-large cup of coffee in both hands, he slumped against the passenger door of the truck and studied the road ahead through slitted eyes. The rising sun was a pinpoint of light glinting through the dark pines. “Where are we going?” he asked.
Del climbed in beside him and started the truck. “A place up on the river I know.” He glanced at his nephew. “You’re not a morning person, I guess.”
“Nope.” He slid farther down in the seat, knees braced against the dash.
“If you want to catch fish, you have to get up early.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s when the fish are biting. They wake up hungry and you want to be there with breakfast on your hook.”
He wrinkled his nose. “I’d for sure sleep in if I knew breakfast was a bunch of worms.”
“Nobody ever said fish were smart.” He reached over and switched on the radio. A country singer mourned the girl who got away. Casey shut his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.
But the increasingly bright sun in his eyes and the coffee in his system overcame the last vestiges of sleep. By the time they turned onto the gravel track leading into the woods, he was sitting up straighter, and beginning to feel hungry. “You got anything to eat?” he asked.
“We’ll have some breakfast when we get to the river,” Del said.
He slowed the truck to a crawl as the road narrowed further. Casey grabbed hold of the door handle as they jostled over bumps and wallowed in ruts. Trees arched overhead, forming a canopy that shut out the sun. It looked like the setting for a creepy movie—The Blair Witch Project or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. “How did you find this place?” he asked, wincing as they plunged into a deep rut.
“You just have to know the right people.”
What kind of people? Casey wondered. Satan-worshippers? Boot leggers? Marijuana farmers? But before he could ask, they emerged onto an open bluff that over looked the river. Del parked beneath an arched live oak and shut off the ignition. In the sudden still ness the only sounds were the pinging of the cooling engine and the trill of birdsong some where overhead.
“Where are we?” Casey asked.
“About five miles down from the power plant dam.” Del opened the door and climbed out. “Grab that cooler and we’ll head down to the river.”
Casey picked up the cooler, which must have weighed about thirty pounds, while Del grabbed the poles, a tackle box and a faded blue backpack. He led the way down a steep path to a wide sandy beach beside the river. An old fire ring sat between two bleached cottonwood logs. Del dropped his gear beside one of the logs and stretched his arms over his head. “Don’t you feel sorry for all the bastards stuck behind desks on a day like this?” he said.
“Yeah.” Casey opened the cooler and stared at what must have been a case of beer on ice. He looked up at his uncle. “I thought you said you had food.”
“It’s in the pack.” He grabbed a can of beer and popped the top. “Help yourself.”
The pack held afoot-long sub marine sandwich wrapped in wax paper, a pack of beef jerky and another of corn chips. “This is more like it,” Casey said, unwrapping the sandwich.
While Casey ate, Del untangled lines and baited hooks. He handed one of the poles to Casey. “You ready to catch some fish?”
“Sure.” He folded the wax paper over the remains of the sandwich and stashed it in the pack, then followed Del to the river.
Sunlight gilded the water to a bright copper color, the reflections of the cottonwoods and pines along the bank showing black in the still surface. “You want to cast over there by that old log.” Del pointed across the water. “Let your hook rest almost on the bottom. Catfish are bottom feeders.”
He managed to cast into the general area Del had indicated, then cranked the reel until the red-and-white bobber floated on the surface. “Now what?” he asked.
Del sat on the bank and leaned back against a tree trunk. “Now we wait.”
They fell silent, the rising heat and still ness lulling them into a half doze. Casey focused on the red-and-white cork bobbing in the gentle current, allowing the rest of his vision to blur. Overhead a mocking bird ran through a repertoire of whistles and clicks, varying the calls for several minutes, then repeating the sequence again. Casey leaned forward, elbow
s on knees, and felt as if he was sinking into the soft sand of the riverbank, like a tree, rooted in place.
He decided all those people who studied yoga and consulted gurus and tried to learn how to meditate just needed to take up fishing. All those rednecks who spent every Saturday at the river, drinking beer and baiting hooks, probably never realized they were doing something so zen.
After half an hour or so, Del got a strike. He grabbed up the pole and began reeling it in, letting it out periodically, then taking it back up. He hauled in a good-size catfish, hooking a finger through the gills and pulling it up on the bank. “That’s a good three-pounder,” he said, un hooking the fish and fastening it to the stringer, which he dropped in a deep pool farther down the bank.
“I’m not getting a thing,” Casey said.
“Put afresh worm on and try casting over to the left of that old stump.”
He did as Del suggested and they both settled down to watch their poles once more. “Where’s Mary Elisabeth today?” Casey asked.
“She’s working.” Del winked. “My advice is to always find a woman with a good job. If she has her own money, she won’t be spending yours, and you can borrow from her if you need to.”
“I thought the idea was for the man to support the woman,” Casey said.
“You’re behind the times, son. Women these days like to be in dependent. I say we should let them.”
“Then what’s to keep them from running off with some rich guy?” Personally, he thought Mary Elisabeth could probably have any man she wanted, so why had she picked Uncle Del?
“Because a rich man wouldn’t really need them.” He sat up straighter. “women—most of ’em, any way—like to be needed. They’ll devote themselves to a man who needs rescuing from himself.”
“Why would they do that?”
Del shrugged. “Who knows? But it’s true. You take your mama. She hadn’t hardly set foot in this place in twenty years and the minute she heard the old man was sick, she rushed down here to look after him.”
“But he’s her father. That’s different from a romantic relationship.”
“Not that different. Trust me. Women want a man who needs them. That whole nurturing thing is in their genes.”
Casey didn’t think this philosophy painted either men or women in a very flattering light, but he kept this opinion to himself.
“So what’s going on at the nuthouse?” Del asked. “Dad giving you a hard time?”
“He’s giving everybody a hard time. But I don’t blame him. I’d be ornery, too, if I was stuck in a wheelchair.”
“Humph. My dad would find something to complain about if he was a millionaire who’d just won a marathon.” He looked out across the river again. “What about your dad? He have a good visit?”
Casey shifted. His mom would probably walk across hot coals before she’d tell any one—much less her brother—about her troubles, but Casey wasn’t as reticent. “Not really. He and Mom had a fight and he left early.”
“Oh? What were they fighting about?”
He dug a groove in the sand with the heel of his shoe. “I don’t know. I think maybe he wants her back in Denver and she feels like she needs to stay here.”
Del looked up at the sky. “That’s my sister. Always trying to make everybody happy and making herself miserable.” He picked up his empty beer can and shook it, then crumpled it. “Time for a refill.” He wedged his pole between two rocks, then stood and lumbered over to the cooler.
Casey reeled his pole in, saw the worm had been stolen and set about impaling another one on the hook. He had just cast again when Del returned. “Here.” He tapped Casey on the shoulder with a beer. “Drink up.”
Casey took the beer without comment and cracked it open. It tasted good going down, so cold it made the back of his throat ache.
“I’m not trying to be hard on your mom,” Del said as he settled back against the tree trunk once more and opened a beer. “She’s a good woman. Probably too good. She’s got it into her head that if she does right by the old man, looking after him and everything, he’s going to appreciate it. I’m here to tell you, it ain’t gonna happen.”
“What makes you say that?”
Del looked at him a long moment, as if trying to decide how much to share with his nephew. “Martin Engel cares more for a bunch of birds with funny names than he ever did for his own family,” he said after a moment. “I could have been the worst juvenile delinquent in the history of Tipton, or the class valedictorian, and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference to him, as long as I didn’t interfere with his plans to fly to Africa or spend two weeks in the Galapagos trying to see the Blue-footed Booby or whatever.”
He spoke the words matter-of-factly, but the lines on either side of his jaw deepened, and his eyes reflected bitterness.
“I don’t know.” Casey wedged his rod between his feet and leaned back on his elbows. “I think he would have cared.”
Del shook his head. “I’ve known him a lot longer than you have. I’m his son and every time I walk into that house, it’s like I’m a stranger. I bet he couldn’t tell you today what’s going on in my life.”
“I bet he could. He pays attention to stuff.” Casey rose up and drained the last of the beer, then reached for another. “I think he has really deep feelings about stuff. He’s just one of those people who doesn’t know how to show his emotions. Like…like he never learned how, or something.”
“What makes you think that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, just…when he looks at birds, the way he talks about them…for him they’re like poetry, or music. Something so beautiful and special…I don’t think somebody with no feelings would see them that way.”
“Maybe he’s like that with you. He isn’t that way with me. Hey, looks like you got a bite.”
They began catching fish in earnest, then. In between baiting hooks and casting, Casey drank more beer. He began to feel a pleasant buzz. This is how life should be—no hassles, no worries. Just take life as it comes….
Karen wandered restlessly about the house. Dad was asleep, worn-out from his morning therapy appointment. Del had picked up Casey hours ago and taken him God knows where. Fishing, he’d said. Something they both loved. Something she hoped would keep them out of trouble.
She took out her notebook and consulted her list. There must be something on here that would occupy her, at least for a little while. But every item she’d written down was neatly crossed through. Tasks completed.
She ripped out the page, crumpled it and tossed it toward the trash. It bounced off the side of the can and rolled under the sofa. She let it lie, half-afraid if she lay down on the floor to retrieve the paper, she’d stay there, weeping, until Casey came home and found her.
She stopped in front of the phone, staring at the silent receiver, willing it to ring. If only Tom would call her. They could talk. Find away around this horrible silence between them.
She shook her head and turned away. And what would she say? I want to be different. I want to be the wife you want, but I don’t know if I have that in me.
Is it so wrong for me to want you to love me in spite of everything I’m not?
She passed her bedroom and heard a snuffling noise from beside the bed. Investigating, she found Sadie lying on the rug. At first, she thought the dog had one of the rawhide chew toys Casey had bought her, but as she drew closer, she recognized one of a pair of leather sandals she’d bought for herself on her recent shopping trip with Casey.
“Sadie!” she shouted.
The dog jumped up and at tempted to dive under the bed, but she was too large. So she simply lay there, her head shoved under the bed spread, the rest of her sticking out. It would have been comical if Karen hadn’t been so furious.
She grabbed the dog’s collar and dragged her out, gathering up the mangled shoe with her free hand. “Look what you did,” she said, shaking the shoe in the dog’s face. “These were brand-new. How could you?”
Sadie’s eyes rolled upward and she at tempted to duck her head. Karen could have sworn the dog’s bottom lip trembled. The dog began to shake and whimper pitifully.
“Stop that.” Karen released her hold on the collar. “I’m not going to beat you. What kind of a person do you think I am?”
The kind of person who couldn’t tell her husband she loved him. The kind of person who wasn’t even sure what love meant anymore.
Sadie whined and shoved at Karen’s hand, her nose cold and damp, an icy jolt to the senses. Karen felt hot tears slide down her cheeks and dropped to her knees beside the dog.
Sadie gently licked Karen’s cheek, and nudged her hand again. She stared into Karen’s face, eyes filled with concern. When was the last time anyone had cared so much what she, Karen, was feeling? Was that because no one cared, or because she was so careful to hide her emotions from others? She had spent so many years being the strong, practical one in any group, she’d forgotten what it meant to be vulnerable.
Sadie moved closer, into Karen’s lap, and licked harder at the tears, her whines more insistent. Karen put her arms around the dog, surprised at how com forting hugging the furry beast could be. “I’m a mess,” she said out loud.
Sadie whimpered, whether in agreement or sympathy Karen didn’t know. Karen hugged her more tightly. “We women have to stick together,” she said. “We’re out numbered in this household.”
The dog’s tail thumped hard against the floor, a steady rhythm. Like a heartbeat.
Karen laid her head along side the animal’s soft side. “I never had a dog before,” she said. “So I’m new at this whole relating to animals thing. Then again, I haven’t done such a great job relating to people.” She drew back, and looked into the dog’s soft, understanding eyes. “Maybe you can teach me a few things, huh, girl?”
Sadie barked and wagged her tail more wildly. Karen shut her eyes, squeezing back more tears. How pitiful was it to be over forty years old, and taking lessons in love from astray dog?
But she had to start some where. And she could trust Sadie not to judge her efforts too harshly. If only she could show the same compassion to herself.