Rules Get Broken

by John Herbert

  “What are you saying? That we’re through? That it’s over between us?”

  Now Nancy was crying too. “I don’t know. What I do know is I’ve spent more than a year of my life with you. But last night, for the first time, I felt like maybe all I’ve done is waste a year of my life with you.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “John, listen to me. Last night was supposed to be a fun evening. We were going to take the kids out trick-or-treating, drop them off at your parents’ and then go out for dinner. Remember? But when I get to your house—at five o’clock just like we planned, so we can take Jennie and John out before it gets too late—who’s already there? Your parents. I tried not to get upset—even though you and I were going to take the kids out alone—because I know how much your folks love the kids, but then I sit in the kitchen like a bump on a log while your mother gets Jennie and John into their Halloween costumes. She doesn’t ask me to help. In fact, in some way I can’t put my finger on, she makes it clear to me she wants to dress the kids herself. So I sit there while you and your father talk about God knows what. Watching. Waiting. Wishing I could sink into a crack in the floor instead of feeling as out of place as I did. Hold on. I need a Kleenex.”

  I could hear her blowing her nose. “You still there?” she asked a moment later.

  “I’m still here.”

  “Then we go out trick-or-treating. The six of us. You hold Jennie’s hand. Your mother and father hold John’s hands. And I follow from behind. John, you have no idea how left out that made me feel.”

  “Nan, I’m sorry. I…”

  “Wait. I’m not to the worst part yet. Not even close. So I trundle along behind the five of you, and then we come back to the house. Your folks haven’t talked to me since I arrived, so I think maybe they’ll stay for a few minutes. But no. They take the kids, still in their Halloween costumes, and they head for home. I tell myself, well, that makes sense, I guess. It’s late, the kids haven’t had dinner, and your folks want to get them home before they get too hungry or cranky.

  “Now you and I are alone. Trick-or-treating was disappointing, but we still have the rest of the evening to look forward to. I go to the bathroom, and when I come out, what do I see? I see you, sitting at the dinette table, your head in your hands. Crying. I ask what’s the matter, and you say you’re crying because Peg wasn’t there to see how cute the kids looked in their costumes. And then, then…” Nancy’s words were cut off by a sob. “Then you tell me how messed up your life is, and how you don’t know where to turn.

  “My God, John. Do you realize how that makes me feel? After I’ve been there for you whenever you needed me for the last fourteen months? I’ve been ‘where you turn.’ I’ve been the person you’ve turned to. I never expected you to forget Peg. I never expected you to stop loving her. But I did expect that one day I’d be able to make your life good again. I did expect that one day, one day, you’d love me enough to feel good about being alive. But you don’t love me that much. That’s why I left last night. And that’s why I say I’ve failed. So yeah, I’m through. Through with you. Through with your pain. If I haven’t been able to make a difference in your life after all these months, after all we’ve done together, then I’ll never be able to. Never. And if I can’t make a difference in your life, then I’m wasting my time and my life. And I won’t do that.”

  I knew I had to say something, but my mind wouldn’t go into gear. I couldn’t formulate words, let alone thoughts. Yet I knew I had to, or Nancy would hang up, and I would lose her forever.

  “Nan, listen to me,” I said. “Please. For just a few minutes. That’s all I ask. Listen to me, and don’t hang up. Okay?”

  Nancy didn’t reply, but I decided to interpret the silence as a yes, albeit maybe only a temporary one.

  “First, I’m sorry I made you feel left out and unimportant to me and the kids last night, because nothing could be further from the truth. I just don’t realize sometimes how what I do or say affects you. But please, please know I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would never do anything to hurt you. You have to know that.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You did hurt me, and it’s not the first time, either,” Nancy interjected.

  “I know. But all I can say is forgive me, be patient with me, and tell me when I hurt you. As far as crying over Peg is concerned, I wasn’t crying last night because I missed Peg; I was crying because she wasn’t there to see her little girl and her little boy all dressed up for Halloween. I know that sounds stupid, Nan, but they looked so cute, and all I could think of was that Peg missed out on the chance to see them. Just like she’s going to miss out on seeing them open presents Christmas morning or hunt for Easter eggs or open their birthday presents, or putting them to bed at night or waking them up in the morning. She won’t see or do any of those things, and last night that thought struck me really hard, and I cried. For Peg. Not for me.

  “But you need to know, Nan, that there are still times when the memory of Peg washes over me like a wave. And when that happens, when the wave hits, it brings me to my knees. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you; it only means I still love Peg and still miss her.”

  “I understand,” Nancy replied, “and I know sometimes the memories are more than you can handle. But I don’t want to be a witness to that anymore, John. When we first started dating, I could watch you cry, and I could listen to how wonderful your life was with Peg and how much you missed her. But things have changed. Now I’m in love with you. Now when I see you crying because you lost Peg, I feel like a fool. Like you’re using me. And I can’t live with that. I love you too much to hear you tell me you love another woman—even if she’s dead—or to hear you tell me how terrible your life is without her. Can you understand that?”

  “Yes, I can,” I said softly.

  Neither of us spoke for almost a minute.

  “Can I see you tonight?” I asked when I could bear the silence no longer.

  “No.”

  “Please, Nan. Don’t say no. Nan? Don’t leave me, Nan. Tell me when I screw up—what I need to do to be better—but don’t leave me.

  “Nan? Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” Nancy answered with a heavy sigh.

  “Can I come over? Can I see you tonight?”

  “Yes,” she said finally, sniffling into the phone, her voice so low I could barely hear her. “Just give me a chance to shower and change. I’ve been crying all day, and I’m a mess.”

  I closed my eyes in wordless thanksgiving before answering her. “I’ll see you in a little while.”

  I hung up the phone, leaned back in my chair and thought about how close I had come to losing my second chance.

  Ninety-One

  Dinner was over, and the two of them stood side by side at the kitchen sink Thursday night, December 17th, Shirley up to her wrists in hot soapy water, Nancy waiting, towel in hand, for the next pot to dry. The kitchen was cozy and warm, and the only sounds in the house were the murmur of the television in the family room as Nancy’s father watched the evening news and the clanking of pots in the sink as Shirley scrubbed them.

  “So tell me again what your plans are for Christmas,” Shirley said as she rinsed the suds off a pot and handed it to Nancy.

  “I already told you, Mom,” Nancy replied tiredly. “I’m going to help John put up his tree on Christmas Eve after the kids are in bed and spend the night at his house. I’ll watch the kids open their presents Christmas morning, and then I’ll come over here to spend the rest of the day with you and Dad while John takes the kids over to his parents’ house to celebrate Christmas with them.”

  “Why’s he waiting until Christmas Eve to put up his tree?” Shirley asked. “Why doesn’t he do it now? Why is he waiting until the last minute?”

  “Because Jennie and John think Santa brings the tree. John has to put the tree up Christmas Eve after they go to bed.”

  “John’s too little to know the difference. He’s only two.”

&
nbsp; “Jennie isn’t too little to know the difference. She’s four.”

  “Well, it seems silly to me.”

  Nancy bent down to put a pot in the cupboard next to the sink. Shirley handed her the last pot to dry and began to wipe off the counter.

  “Where are you going to sleep?” Shirley asked, as she pushed the last few remaining crumbs into the sink with her sponge.

  “When? Tonight?”

  “No, not tonight. Christmas Eve. You’ll have little children with you, you know.”

  “I know that, Mom. John and I have already discussed that.”

  “And?”

  “Jesus, Mom. If you must know, I’m going to sleep on the couch in his living room.”

  “I’m sorry, Nan. I know that’s none of my business, but the last few months…seems like all I do is worry about you. And John.”

  “And John?”

  “You know your father and I think he’s wonderful, but…”

  “But what?” Nancy asked. She sat down at the kitchen table behind Shirley.

  “I’m scared, Nan. Scared of what will happen to you if things don’t work out between you and John. You’re so involved. Too involved, if you ask me.”

  “Which I didn’t.”

  Shirley turned away from the sink to face Nancy, wringing her hands in the dish towel Nancy had left on the counter top. Her face reflected the torment she felt inside.

  “I know you didn’t,” Shirley said quietly. “But when I hear you’re going to spend Christmas Eve with John—decorating his tree for his kids—and you’re going to be with him Christmas morning when the kids wake up and open their presents, all I can think of is that husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, do that. Not a couple who are just dating. And I can’t help but wonder what happens to you if something goes wrong between you two.”

  Shirley turned back towards the sink and resumed wiping the counter top she had just finished wiping a few moments before. “Do you think John is going to ask you to marry him someday?” Shirley asked, the sponge in her hand going back and forth over the same spot.

  Nancy pondered the question for several seconds, knowing the answer she wanted to give, but couldn’t.

  “I don’t know, Mom,” she said finally. “He might. He might not.”

  This outward acknowledgement of her inner uncertainty was at this moment suddenly more than Nancy could handle. She needed to escape.

  “I gotta go, Mom,” she announced, and she stood up from the table. “It’s after ten, and I’m tired. I’ll call you tomorrow from work. Okay?”

  She quickly took her coat out of the hall closet and looked into the family room at her father, now asleep in his chair.

  “Say good night to Dad for me when he wakes up, will you?”

  Shirley nodded, and through the beam of light from the kitchen window she watched her daughter hurry down the driveway to her car.

  Ninety-Two

  The clock on my mantel showed five minutes after one, but as far as Nancy and I were concerned, it was still Christmas Eve, and Christmas morning would not arrive until we woke up a few hours from now.

  “Beautiful tree, isn’t it?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the sofa, my hands around a bottle of Budweiser.

  Nancy leaned forward and slipped her arm under and around mine.

  “Sure is,” she agreed. “I think it’s probably the most beautiful Christmas tree I’ve ever seen. Certainly the most beautiful one I ever helped decorate,” she added with a laugh.

  I touched my bottle to hers and tipped it towards her in a toast.

  “To you. For all your help tonight. I could never have gotten this done without you. Thank you.”

  Nancy touched her bottle to mine, and we settled back into the sofa, side by side, to admire the results of our labor over the past four and a half hours.

  The tree was almost ten feet tall when I bought it, which meant I had to take a foot off the top and six inches off the bottom to stand it up in my living room. Almost perfectly shaped, the tree was at least seven feet in diameter at the base and now stood in the corner of the living room adorned with red, blue, green, silver and gold balls of all different sizes. Each ball reflected the light from hundreds of multi-colored tree lights, as did thousands of pieces of silver tinsel as they moved back and forth ever so slightly in unseen air currents.

  “I hope Jennie and John like it,” Nancy said.

  “They’ll love it. Believe me. They’ll absolutely love it.”

  “Did you ever wonder when you were a kid,” Nancy asked, “how Santa Claus was able to set up your tree and millions of other trees and bring your toys and millions of other toys and set up train sets and doll houses all over the world, all in one night?”

  “Not when I was as young as Jennie. When I got a little older, though —old enough to be suspicious—then I wondered. I asked my mother how it was possible, and her answer was perfect.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said, ‘that’s the magic of Christmas.’ And the funny thing is, I still believe in the magic of Christmas. To me…Christmas has always been a really special time of year. A time when dreams come true. No matter how impossible they may seem. Silly, I guess, but that’s the feeling I always get this time of year.”

  I took a sip of my beer. “I remember as a little boy always wanting some special thing for Christmas—a certain truck or a pair of cowboy pistols or a train set; wanting whatever it was so badly I couldn’t imagine life after Christmas without it. And almost always…oh hell, what am I saying?…always, that special thing would be under the tree Christmas morning. Santa always came through.” I shrugged. “I guess that’s why I feel Christmas is a time when dreams come true.”

  “But dreams don’t always come true at Christmas, do they?” Nancy said quietly.

  “No, they don’t. But they do sometimes.”

  Nancy stared at the tree, her thoughts somewhere far away.

  Ninety-Three

  Nancy stared at the half empty coffee mug in front of her. Shirley stared at Nancy from across the kitchen table. Nancy had arrived shortly before noon to spend Christmas day with her parents, but as soon as she had come in the back door, Shirley had known something was wrong. She had poured a cup of coffee for Nancy and herself, but now, having run out of small talk, the two of them sat in silence.

  “What’s wrong, Nan?” Shirley finally asked, unable to avoid the obvious any longer.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Mom,” Nancy replied, without looking up.

  “I think something is wrong. What’s the matter?”

  Nancy raised her head and looked across the table at Shirley. “John didn’t ask me to marry him,” she said flatly.

  “I kind of assumed that.”

  “I promised myself I wouldn’t get my hopes up. And I was okay…until he gave me my Christmas present.”

  “What happened?”

  Nancy shivered even though the kitchen was warm. “We were sitting on his sofa last night looking at the tree, and he was saying that Christmas was a time when dreams come true. They don’t always come true, I said, and he said, ‘no, they don’t, but they do sometimes.’ I was wondering what he meant by that, if he meant what I hoped he meant, when he got up and went over to the tree…and came back with this beautifully wrapped little box with a big red bow on it and gave it to me with that smile of his. ‘Merry Christmas,’ was all he said. And at that moment, I knew he was going to ask me to marry him. I just knew it. I knew he had guessed my Christmas wish, and he was going to make it happen. Anyway, my hands were shaking so badly I almost couldn’t undo the ribbon, but I did, and when I got the paper off, sure enough, it was a ring box.”

  Nancy’s eyes filled with tears. “So I open the box, and what do I see? An engagement ring? No! I see a peridot! ‘Your birthstone,’ he says. As if I didn’t know.”

  Nancy shook her head sadly and wiped at her tears with her fingertips. “It is beautiful,” she continued, “but it’s not an engagement
ring. And he didn’t ask me to marry him, and now I’m wondering if he ever will.”

  “Nan, I’m sorry,” Shirley said, reaching across the table to take one of Nancy’s hands in hers. “I wish I knew what to say, but I don’t.”

  “There is nothing to say, Mom,” Nancy replied with a deep sigh. “John and I have been going out for almost a year and a half. We see each other three, four times a week, every week. We talk on the phone every night we’re not together. You know the kind of relationship we have. So I have to think that when a man and a woman have been as…intimate…as John and I have been, and then the man gives the woman a ring—on Christmas Eve of all nights—and the ring’s not an engagement ring…he’s telling her something. John must’ve known I’d think an engagement ring was in that box, so given there wasn’t, I’ve got to assume he was making a statement—telling me this is as far as we go. And if I’m right…well, I can’t stay with him anymore.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying even though I love John and want him in my life forever, I can’t stand the pain of being so close to him and yet so far away. I’m going to leave him. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. And you know what? You were right. You told me there were rules we all had to follow. Rules you just didn’t break. But I didn’t listen. I thought John and I were special. I thought we were different. I thought we could break the rules, and everything would be okay. But everything isn’t okay. John’s not going to marry me. Either because he’s embarrassed by how his parents and his friends have reacted to us, or because he’s ashamed himself at the way we’ve behaved.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m supposed to go over to John’s tomorrow night for dinner, and I will. But soon…very soon…I’m going to tell him it’s over.”