He tossed himself back down onto his side and pulled the covers violently around himself. She pulled back, but he had a handful of the comforter at his chest and he held firm. “If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it right.”
“You and your big dreams for your small town bar. Stop overshooting your demographic. Just pour the beer, put on a game, serve some cheese curds, and they’ll be happy. That’s it. It’s not that hard.”
“If you’re so smart, why don’t you come run the place? Or at least help out a bit? Or are you just going to deride me all the time? Be the machete that hacks my legs out from under me every night when I come home for a few hours rest?”
“Yeah right,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He sat up again.
“Nothing.”
“No, seriously. What’s that supposed to mean?” He wanted her to say aloud what he knew she thought, that the place was a crummy hole that he never wanted in a crummy little town where he never wanted to live, and now that his grandmother was dead, he had no reason to hang onto it.
“How’s a recovering alcoholic supposed to work at a bar?”
He lifted a pillow to his face. He didn’t want to look at her and say what he thought, which was, Stop using your own lack of willpower as an excuse for everything. “Gimme a break,” he shouted into the pillow. He pulled it away and spoke slowly. “You quit cold turkey, dear. Either you have exceptional willpower, or you’re not an alcoholic.”
“The Holy Spirit works wonders on our frail natures,” she said, her voice high and innocent, like a child’s. And then instantly biting, “You taught me that.”
He closed his eyes and counted to five. She knew exactly how to get under his skin. “Sure. In that case, you can do it. And it’s not like you have to be a bartender. Do the books. Take inventory. Order products. Research cheaper deals. Find ways to cut costs. Just help out a little.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
He said nothing more. He got it. He got it all too well. He had left town as a stupid teenager, partly as a matter of conscience to escape the destructive allure of the booze, drugs, and fast crowd, and partly as an escape from a life running the family business—a life that had been planned for him before he had outgrown Little League. And then what did he get for trying to do something noble and right? Skin grafts, brain injuries, and pins in his leg. All of which sent him right back to the place he had left, just so he could inherit the life he had tried to escape.
Even the silver lining had turned ugly when his old friend and confidante had turned into a beautiful woman and swept him up in a love that he never knew they shared. And then she married him—scars and all—before revealing herself as a clone of her mother. Or more accurately, since she kept it as no real secret, when he allowed himself to recognize what he had always known.
He got it all right. How could he not when she had made it so evident last year? He had come home from physical therapy, and at four o’clock in the afternoon—before most people even got home from work—she was curled around the toilet. She was drooling into the bowl and sleeping with her face squashed against the porcelain rim. She had little chunks of vomit on the ends of her hair. He had woken her, wiped her face, prayed for her, undressed her, bathed her, and cleaned her up. He then sat behind her on the floor and brushed the hair on her lolling head, but when he rose to help her into bed, she slapped his hand away.
She had slapped his face and said, “Don’t you look at me like that. Don’t you dare pity me.” She slurred and spittle flew from her mouth and she cried, “I pity you.” She wiped her mouth. “I pity you,” she whispered.
Nick did not believe she had said it reflectively, as in, I pity you that you have to put up with a drunk for a wife. No, he believed she had meant she pitied him for his scars, for how he looked, and for how he would always walk like some sort of cripple. And at that instant, in his shock and pain and misunderstanding, he told her she should pity him. He stood and left her there on the floor, and looking down on her he had said, “You should pity me. You should pity me that I’m stuck with you. You should pity me that I was duped into spending the rest of my life with someone who only married me because she felt sorry for me.”
He left her there and didn’t turn back when she crawled after him. He didn’t turn back when she pressed her face against the glass of the living room window and pounded on it as he climbed into his truck. He drove to the bar and slept on a couch in the back office. He was convinced that his marriage was a sham bred from pity. At the same time, he was terrified the end of his marriage was imminent. He wasn’t stupid or deaf. He had heard things—rumors about her on the loose lips of heavy drinkers at the bar. It wasn’t like this was an isolated incident. Far from it. He had cleaned her up and put her to bed in the same fashion a hundred thousand million times. Gone most evenings. Stumbling in during the early morning hours. Possessive about her cell phone on which she was constantly texting. E-mailing old high school boyfriends. Changing her Facebook passwords. The signs were all there and he had been an oblivious idiot.
He had put a sign on the door of the pub, unplugged the phone, and gone on a three-day bender himself. He didn’t go home the entire time, and he didn’t hear a word from her. It wasn’t until Uncle Thomas finally drove to Bangor, broke a window to get in, and rebuked Nick for his drunkenness, selfishness, and the abandonment of his sick wife—who was now threatening suicide—that Nick finally went home, took a shower, and brushed his teeth for the first time in over seventy-two hours.
Although Nick asked, Uncle Thomas refused to provide counseling because of the family connection. He instead recommended a colleague from across town—Reverend Bartles—to bring them through what he referred to as their dark night of the soul. When they had walked in to meet the man at his church in what looked like a broom closet attached to the sanctuary, he had them sit in two folding chairs.
He immediately launched into a lecture. “If you’re sitting in my office for marriage counseling, it means you’ve reached the point where you need the directions spelled out for you in black and white.” He leaned back in his own metal folding chair, and he put one hand in the white hair behind his head while he rested the other arm across his portly belly. He looked at the ceiling in exasperation.
“Well, I guess it’s inevitable sometimes. But when a marriage reaches this point—and I don’t care whose fault it was or who said what or who started it or who bears most of the blame—you only have two options left.” He slammed his hands back onto the table. “And this is what they are: The first option,” he said without a hint of irony, “Is that you can be absolutely miserable together.” He made eye contact with each of them in turn. “Would you care to guess at the second option?”
Nick folded his arms and looked down. “I dunno. We can leave the church and get a divorce?”
Once again, Pastor Bartles looked at the ceiling in exasperation, or maybe it was in commiseration with God, as if he were saying, Look, Lord. Look what I have to deal with down here. And these are supposed to be your people?
He drew out his words like a moody teenager. “Wroooong. Wrong wrong wrong. Your other option?” He leaned forward again and smiled broadly, spreading his fingers and turning his palms up to show them it wasn’t magic and that he had nothing up his sleeves. “Your other option is to be happy together.
“But, that’s it. Those are the only two options. Be miserable together, or be happy together. Divorce is not an option. If we can start from that premise, we can work together. If not,” he shrugged. “Your loss. The bottom line: This is marriage counseling. Not divorce counseling.”
Nick looked at Eris. Eris looked at Nick. Staying together and being this miserable for the rest of their lives was not an option. Being happy seemed impossible because they were young and had not yet learned how to fight for each other. They were young and had not yet learned to forgive. But there in that little closet that the pastor liked to call a
sacristy, they decided to try.
In that little room, they were more open with each other than they had ever been before. Nick finally yelled and let his frustration out. He recounted the whole messy scene for Pastor Bartles, detailing the hurtful things she had said. He explained how he understood the drinking was a sickness. He had seen her mother growing up. He had seen how Eris had tried to change so many times and he was proud of her for continuing to try. And it’s not like he didn’t have his own problems, Lord knows he did, so who was he to judge? He would patiently wait with her and hold her hair over the toilet for as long as they lived, in the same way he’d hold her hand in the hospital if she had cancer. In sickness and in health, right? But he made it clear in no uncertain terms that he could not live with someone who felt sorry for him.
Eris explained with tears and sobs that she didn’t remember saying she pitied him. She had never pitied him. The scars were a reminder of everything that made him good and pure and righteous and bold. And she pushed the folding chair behind her; she actually got on her knees, put her head in his lap, and let her tears run onto his jeans as she pleaded with him to believe her. “If I did say that I pitied you,” she had said between sobs, “It was because you got stuck with a drunken whore for a wife.”
This admission, coupled with her insistence that she didn’t even remember the exchange, made Nick feel like he should be the one on his knees begging for forgiveness. He had never wanted anyone else, and in fact, had never been with anyone else. Sitting there with her head in his lap, humble and completely broken of spirit, he couldn’t help but push his own chair back and get down on the floor. There on his knees he confessed his own shortcomings to her with tears in his eyes so he could profess his forgiveness and receive hers. They embraced right there on the floor of the little sacristy as if no one were watching but God.
That is, until Pastor Bartles cleared his throat. “Okay, okay. Get off the floor. This isn’t a Nicholas Sparks book.”
Pulled from the moment, they sat back in their chairs.
The old pastor raised a hand off the desk. He gestured in front of him, his hand shaking as if he were getting ready to throw the dice at the craps table. “This is all good and beautiful and necessary,” he said. “But it isn’t that simple. This is only the beginning. The rest of it—well, the rest of it takes actual work. It’s easy to say you forgive; it’s easy to say you love; but to do it?” He slammed his hand down on the Bible, making them both jump. “To do it is a different matter. You must do it every day. Sometimes every hour.” His voice raised in a crescendo. “Sometimes every single stinking second.” He had reached the point of yelling. Nick imagined the fire and brimstone sermons the man must be able to deliver on Sunday mornings. “And you will both fail. Time and again you will fail and it will no doubt be just as hard in the future as it is now. Words are cheap. Tears are cheap. But sacrifice—taking action to sacrifice, to give of yourself to show love—to show it and not just say it—that kind of sacrifice—” He lowered his voice to a growling hiss. “Well, it actually costs something.” His eyes blazed and once again he made eye contact with each of them.
“Thankfully,” his voice ascended on an optimistic scale. “You don’t have to do it alone.” He looked up. “Jesus Savior,” he said. “Jesus Savior pilot me. Our battle here is over, done, and won. Easy peasy apple pie. Nothing easier in the world.”
Sitting in that office with the blazing eyes of a man who cared nothing for their self-esteem, it did seem as simple as that. In a way, it reminded Nick of his time in the military. He was given a mission and feelings just didn’t play into it. The truth counted. The actions counted. But the intentions? The words? Cheap. His mission here was to love his wife. He intended to do that.
When they had returned home, it still seemed that simple. That’s not to say it didn’t take work, but it wasn’t complicated. Doing the right thing usually isn’t complicated, Nick figured. It’s just hard. Eris quit drinking cold turkey and started going to some meetings. Now she even had the idea to go to grad school to counsel other people suffering from addiction. They continued to meet with Pastor Bartles once a month just to follow up and hear what they needed to hear. They threw themselves back into the community of their own church—Uncle Thomas’s church—with a vigor and enthusiasm they didn’t have before. They spent more time in Bible study and more time volunteering. Even their lovemaking had grown more frequent and passionate. Things improved and, until recently, had never been better.
Then when Nick caught Kathy cooking the books and siphoning cash orders into her own pocket, everything exploded again. Nick refused to call the police and press charges; nor would he take her to court to sue for restitution. The issue had caused Eris to fly off the handle, but he would not bend, preferring instead to fire Kathy quietly, forgive her, and turn the other cheek. His compassion moved Kathy to return $763.14, but that was not enough for Eris, and it was peanuts compared to what she took.
The result was that Nick had to pick up the slack. He couldn’t afford to hire anyone full-time so he worked insane hours trying to keep the doors open. He had a handful of bartenders and a short-order cook, but they were part-timers down on their luck, and he certainly couldn’t trust them to run the place. He slept at home, took Sundays off for church, but had time for little else. He rarely saw his wife, and on nights like this one—nights in which she picked at everything he did, second-guessed his decisions, criticized the way he supported their small family, and essentially derided his humble inheritance—he felt the pain return. The old questions and insecurities nagged at him all over again. He slept without sleeping, the little earwig of doubt worming its way through his thoughts and keeping him from rest. She pities you. She pities you. She pities you, it whispered.
3.10 I SWEAR THIS ISN’T FAN FICTION, BUT EVERYONE’S INSPIRED BY SOMEONE
OR
LEAD ME NOT INTO TEMPTATION
Eris returned home from work each day shortly after five in the afternoon. It seemed that Levi typically woke and got his day started slightly earlier than that. Nearly without fail, the shower floor would be wet when she returned. The chemical scent of a man’s mountain fresh or cool spring body wash lingered in the air.
It had been Eris’s habit to do a load of laundry every other day as soon as she returned from the bank, but with Levi living in the basement, she decided to wait for an opportunity when he wasn’t there before going down to do her work. She didn’t want to intrude on his privacy. During the first week, she came home and watched television. She made dinners that required little effort to prepare—cup of noodles, grilled cheese, tuna with crackers—and she went to bed without hearing a sound. Apart from the Blazer parked in front, there was no indication that she was anything but alone in the house.
By the following week, his odd hours forced her to go down there to start working through the mountain of laundry that had built up on the floor of the master bedroom. She carried a pink basket downstairs on her hip. Levi lay on his stomach in bed writing in a notebook. After starting the laundry, she stopped on her way back up.
She walked over to the bed and picked up a paperback, A Farewell to Arms. He looked up at her.
She wrinkled her nose. “Yuck.”
“You don’t like?”
She shook her head. “He believes in heroes. His men are hopeless barbarians. And his women are fools for loving them.”
“You know nothing about it.”
She was not offended. She threw the book back on the bed.
“Who would you rather I read?”
“Danielle Steel.”
“Shut up.”
“Tim O’Brien.” She had read a lot of war literature since Nick had come home. Anything to learn what he was about.
He nodded and went back to writing.
“You sure write a lot for someone who doesn’t want to be a writer.”
He looked up. “Do you want to be a boring old banker?”
She shook her head.
>
“You sure spend a lot of time working at the bank for someone who doesn’t want to be a banker.”
He wrote. She lingered.
“War stories?” she asked.
“A love story.”
“Yeah right.”
“Yeah right?”
“There are no true love stories.”
He closed the notebook, rolled over, and sat up. “Trouble in paradise?”
She looked down, embarrassed. “Forget it,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t know why I said that.”
He gestured to a folding chair in front of the bed.
She stayed where she was. “Forget about me. Are you going to tell me about your adventures over there?”
“We braided bracelets from parachute cord.”
“What else?”
“We played prison card games and gambled for cigarettes.”
“What else?”
“We started our Humvees and let them run. We checked fluids and tire pressures and lights.”
“What else?”
“We oiled our weapons.”
“What else?”
“We waited for the field telephone to ring, for someone to tell us we had a mission.”
“Did it ever ring?”
“Did it ever ring. Are you going to tell me why there are no true love stories?”
“Maybe I was wrong.”
“Or maybe you were right.”
“A true love story is never romantic.”
“It only instructs, encourages virtue, suggests models of proper human behavior, et cetera?” he asked.
She nodded sadly. “We’re incapable.”
“You can tell a true love story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to selflessness and sacrifice?”
“And unhappiness,” she said. “A true love story must be full of much unhappiness.”
“What else?” he said.
“Another time,” she said before walking upstairs.
The next night she invited him up for pizza. He joined her, and he did not take his eyes from her the entire meal. Even as she looked down and cut her slice with the side of a fork, she could feel his eyes on her.
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