“Well, you never want to,” he said, not answering the question.
It was true. I had no desire for anything between the sheets with a man who had no respect for me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had any sort of romantic inclination. I vaguely recalled a starry-eyed fantasy about snuggling my sweetheart, fireside, in a darkened room under a dimly lit Christmas tree, losing ourselves in each other while a soft holiday ballad played in the background, and outside, howling snow-filled winds blew. That fanciful part of me, which was once white hot, had been snuffed out. Any desire for a romantic candlelit dinner had long been extinguished. The most recent romantic thing I could imagine was not having a fight for a few days.
“I’m tired,” I said, meaning physically, emotionally, and tired of him, tired. “I work full-time too, but I’m the one who drops off the kids. I’m the one who picks them up, gives them baths, packs their lunch, helps with the homework, makes dinner, does the laundry, washes the dishes, cleans the house. What do you do? Work, and sit on your ass. Oh, and rendezvous with the computer because your wife’s not interested,” I said, pissed.
“I do not,” he said, “but if you’re going to accuse me of it, I may as well.”
“Do you have any idea why I’m not interested?” I asked, further upset with his comment. I wanted to hit something. His sensitivity routed through his logic circuit rather than through the compassion circuit. I wondered if it was the same thing that scrambled cranial messages before they got to the manual output, if his dyslexia crossed more than just words from his brain to the written page. He held company with Einstein, dyslexic and relationship-challenged, throw in a touch of savant.
“I don’t know. I’ve tried everything. I’ve gotten you candles, sexy nighties, suggested a few movies to get things going. Nothing works. You don’t want to do anything. You’re not trying anything. You just say no, no, no,” he said, masterfully twisting my woes into something that was my fault.
I may have broken down his wall years ago, but not his electric fence just inside the felled brick one—the fence I hadn’t known was there when I said I do. He could see out, so he was fine with it. Most of the time he had no clue the power was on. The mere mention of it rendered him incapable of turning it off. In fact, often the power surged instead. We were as close as zoo animals—close enough to be together, but not able to pet.
“Maybe I don’t want to because you’re not doing anything around here,” I said, looking around the room at the very same clutter just yesterday he had complained about, half of it being his.
“The man is the head of the household,” Mother had always said, spouting scripture. I always thought it was the most stupid and idiotic thing I had ever heard . . . until now. Glenn indeed, set the direction for this household, steering it around to harmony or discord. I had spit and hissed, following his lead. If he was nice and kind, I’d purr in his hands. And it didn’t work the other way around, at least not in our home. I had been thoughtful and kind and he didn’t seem to much care. Mother spoke the truth: he set the course. He was the head, leading by example.
“So you’re saying you’ll want to have sex if I pick up the house,” he said, unconvinced, sounding disgusted that I would put conditions on our lovemaking, a generous term.
“No,” I whined, equally stymied that he just didn’t get it, that I would have to explain in excruciating detail what a loving relationship was all about.
“Then what are you saying?” he challenged.
“I’m saying that if I got some support around here, some consideration, that if you see unfolded laundry that you just do it, that would help.”
“Maybe if you’d have sex more often, I’d want to help.”
“You can’t tell me that the only way you are going to do anything around here, normal things in running a household, is if you get some,” I said, infuriated. “It isn’t about doing something nice because you expect something in return. It’s about doing something nice because it’s the right thing to do, because you want to out of the goodness of your heart.”
Glenn looked as though he had spoken words he regretted, then said, “Why don’t you just ask if you need some help?”
“I have!” I said, about to explode, thinking of all the times I had asked, receiving no help, but only broken promises. “If I ask for help with the dishes, I don’t mean next week.”
Glenn remembered a couple of incidents too, and said, “I was planning on it.”
“That’s the thing. You PLAN on it. Planning on it doesn’t help me one bit,” I said through clenched teeth. “If you tell me you plan on something, I process that as a ‘no’ because that’s what’s going to happen. Nothing.”
“What are you talking about?” Glenn asked, incensed. “I emptied the dishwasher last week.”
“I stand corrected. Yes you did,” I said, my voice calm, cold, measured. “It was the first time this year. What month is this?”
“June.” Glenn sat, having nothing more to say.
“I didn’t marry you to make up for my shortcomings. We each need to bring a whole person to the table, giving a hundred percent each,” I yelled, “not me giving a hundred and ten and you giving fifty. When we were dating, people told me I was too nice to you. I didn’t think it was possible to be too nice. It’s only possible for someone to take advantage of it. And you know what?” I said, letting out years of pent up anger. “You were the one telling me I needed to stand up for myself so people didn’t run me over and take advantage of me. The only person who took advantage of me was you,” I shouted, “the first person who should protect me from it and the last person I’d expect it from.”
I graduated from doormat to gatekeeper.
Glenn looked down, shamed.
“And it’s not just about housework,” I went on. “It’s about when I tell you that I’m overwhelmed by everything that has to be done, that you don’t tell me I shouldn’t feel that way.” My eyes narrowed into laser beams. “You don’t tell me what I feel.”
“What am I supposed to say?” Glenn asked, genuinely at a loss.
“Say you’ll help and then do it. Say you understand. Say we’ll get through it together.” I got up from the couch and started pacing in front of the fireplace. “When you tell me I shouldn’t feel a certain way, you may as well say, ‘that sucks for you’ because that’s how it comes across. Like you don’t care.”
“I’ll try,” Glenn said, like he would, but without rock-solid conviction.
I wondered if he possessed the capacity to be nurturing because I didn’t have the capacity to not need it.
“Just because I let you down doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” Glenn said, his first attempt to bridge the gap.
“No,” I said feeling a speck of truth in his words, “it just means I can’t feel it.”
* * *
A bouquet of red roses, locked in my car, surprised me the next day before lunch, the first flowers I had gotten since the Valentine’s before our wedding. I carried them back to my office and e-mailed Glenn.
Thanks for the flowers. Love you. XO
Camryn
What else was I supposed to do?
An e-mail from Megan, which I am sure she meant as a comfort, arrived.
Honey, I know how much it hurts. I know how I felt when I found Steve’s Hustler magazines after we’d been together three years, but they all do it.
She sounded so accepting. That it was part of our plight as women.
They all do it. It was something I didn’t want to hear and didn’t want to believe. It was something, Glenn’s mother confirmed for me, that happily married men should not do expecting to stay happily married. “I’d be kind of hard to get along with if my husband did that to me,” she had said. “Not all of them do it.”
* * *
The Harley arrived a month before Sturgis. He had almost lusted after it, flipping through the motorcycle brochure daily until its arrival. He even had its centerfold pinned on the wall above his
desk at work. The swine finally had his hog.
“Make sure you get a sitter for the girls lined up. We’ll need two weeks,” Glenn ordered.
“Two weeks is an awful long time,” I said sheepishly, not wanting to cause a fight. “If you want to go so badly, why don’t you go by yourself?”
I wanted to say, we’ll be fine while you’re gone, there’ll be no one here to yell at us.
“Why don’t you ever want to do anything with me?” Glenn asked, insulted.
“I do. I’m just not into bike rallies.”
“I do things with you even though I’m not into them, just because I want to be with you.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like go to movies,” he said, as though it was a fair comparison. “Why can’t you do things with me just because you want to be with me?”
“I feel weird being away from the kids . . .” I said, not directly addressing the question.
“What about ‘us’ time? Do we have to have the kids with us all the time?” Glenn asked, frustrated.
“No, but two weeks is too long.”
“If we don’t do things together, just the two of us, then why bother?” Glenn slammed down his owner’s manual. He gave me a vicious glare, his own hurt hiding behind it.
“I’ll find a sitter tomorrow,” I said, stifling tears.
“Be nice if you really wanted to.” Glenn stalked out the door, taking his Harley manual with him as if it were his only friend.
* * *
“Mama no go,” cried Elizabeth, clinging to my leg and tugging at my heart.
“I have to, Honey.” I bent down, holding her little cheeks in my palms and said, “I love you.” I kissed her forehead, and despite my best efforts, my teardrops wetted her hair.
“Mommy, you look like a ghost,” Sydney said.
“I do?” I said, trying to downplay her comment. “Boo!”
I felt like a ghost too.
“I don’t want you to go,” Sydney whined.
“We’ll be back in two weeks. Before you know it,” I said, faking strong.
Glenn revved the engine. Sound exploded from the custom pipes (to his delight) and we zoomed out of the driveway. From my seat behind Glenn, I saw Elizabeth scream, eyes frightened. Both girls held their ears and huddled in with the sitter. I waved a guilt-ravaged goodbye as we drove out of sight. I was sure this was my lowest moment. Surely God would pull me out of this prison. I felt like I was serving a death-row sentence: incarcerated in the institution of a bad marriage rather than living a happily ever after. My crime: not being true to myself, not knowing myself. The past always catches up. There was no statute of limitations.
“Let’s stop for lunch,” Glenn yelled over the rushing air. Typical. We had only been on the road an hour. It was ten in the morning. I enjoyed a nice meal on the road, but when supper plans were first priority before the last bite of lunch was gone, all the fun drained out of it.
I spent hours on the hog’s back contemplating the merits of divorce. We traveled some of those hours doing ninety, weaving in and out of traffic. All I wanted was to get back home to the girls alive. I thought about the precious moment when Sydney made me laugh trying to teach Elizabeth math. “If I had three gummy fish and ate one, how many would I have left?” she had asked. “If I ate two more, then threw one fish up like a mommy penguin, how many would I have?” The worst of the ride came when a Corvette cut us off, jamming Glenn’s road rage into high gear. He raced to catch up. Flipped the guy off. I pinched Glenn to get him to stop, the noise too loud to shout over. He swatted my leg, enraged at me too. We had words at the next rest stop.
“Why are you going so fast?” I asked, checking my head, making sure it was still attached. The weight of the helmet and rushing wind made my neck ache.
“Don’t tell me how to drive!” Glenn screamed at me, furious beyond measure.
“I will tell you how to drive when you are being insane, endangering our lives!” I wanted to run away, not be with him, but there was no place to go. “The girls need us, and I happen to want to live,” I said, mad, but wanting to cry.
“But he cut me off!” Glenn crucified me again with his angry tone.
“Who cares if that guy cut you off. It’s not worth it. What’s more important, revenge or our safety? You’ll never see him again anyway. Let it go.”
But Glenn didn’t let it go. He screamed at me for the next five minutes about how out of line I was. After a few moments of me being in heart-pounding shock, he offered to get me a Starbucks just to prove he still loved me despite how wrong I had been. He thought I should see his benevolence and easy forgiveness. I wondered how he got over such rage so quickly. And when I didn’t recover from incidents like this for hours or days, he said I held onto things too long, like I had serious issues.
Back on the bike, my thoughts drilled into the back of Glenn’s head. It must suck to be you—. About as much as it sucks to be me, having to deal with it, a thought which had crossed my mind more than once.
One time while eyeing some pills, I had considered in the span of five seconds, ending my misery, but I couldn’t do that to the kids, leaving them to fend for themselves. Who knows how they’d turn out without a mother, perhaps like me.
The thought of being smeared across Interstate 90, leaving Sydney and Elizabeth as orphans sickened my stomach. My entire relationship with Glenn had been a roller coaster, the ups and downs of which made me want to puke and get off. A bemusement park ride. I thought, that which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. I must be Hercules.
I remembered driving to work with Glenn, back in St. Louis, behind a slow, curb-feeling, ghetto-blasting caddy. Glenn had said, “Damn nigger,” for the zillionth time. I had said, standing up to him for the first time, “Can’t you just call slow drivers jerks? It doesn’t make me proud of you when you say that.” I wasn’t proud of him this day either.
Unable to emotionally hold on, the rest of the ride lulled me into a meditative trance. With my mind empty, a swooping thought filled the quiet space. My situation, my life not having followed an ordinary and normal plan had nothing to do with what I had done to deserve this, but had everything to do with everyone else—for everyone else. As I pondered the concept, ‘self-sacrifice’ flashed through my mind.
I wondered where these nuggets of wisdom came from, popping into my head from nowhere, but I had noticed it happened more often since Father passed on. Again, wondering why, the answer came—sometimes we listen better when the speaker is dead.
More answers became clear, the reasons for my own crucifixion. Crucifixion . . . . It dawned on me what the Crucifixion was really about. It wasn’t a one-way ticket to heaven, free of charge, paid for by Jesus Christ. It was a road map, charted by dramatic example, of how to get your own self there. Everyone’s rocky road journeys through Good Friday before Easter arrives. I was headed the right direction, driving the right bus.
This enlightened perspective gave me new appreciation for the Bible and ‘what it all’ means. Jonah could have been swallowed by the equivalent of a modern-day crack habit rather than a literal whale. Many a whale had spat me out, not the least of which was the whale of insecurity.
Mother always said no marriage was better than a bad marriage. She wasn’t right about everything. She was only right about some things. A few things. Mostly, she had no clue. She was an ostrich, sticking her head in Biblical sands, not knowing anything else—nothing about the Bible’s practical application, nothing about practical living in the real world. I would have been just fine if I wanted to be an ostrich too, but I didn’t. My ostrich mother was no help teaching me how to live with leopards.
It was counterintuitive that multiple wrongs made a right. Sometimes a second, or third, or hundredth wrong caused a break in the vicious cycle. The buck stopped with me. I’d suffer a thousand humiliations and a million harsh words if it meant my daughters not having to endure one. I would not have learned to live with leopards and been abl
e educate my children with those lessons if I had lived life with a pussycat. Glenn made me a better mother.
* * *
We pitched a small tent at Sturgis. I wasn’t sure why we bothered because there was no sleeping.
“I’m sorry,” Glenn said right after the thirteenth pack of rumbling motorcycles thundered past. “We’ll get a room next year.” Regretting our current circumstance, he said, “I thought camping would be fun.”
“I won’t be coming back. I didn’t want to come in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” Glenn acted shocked by the revelation. Then he got mad. “What did you come along for if you didn’t want to? Damn, Camryn! Why can’t you just be honest with me for once?”
I saw ferocious flames in his eyes. If they were laser beams, I’d be dead. Then he punched the side of the tent. For the tenth time, I wished he had hit me. Leaving him would have been a no brainer.
But he never struck me, not once. His repeated verbal assaults left scars no one could see. Megan knew the scars were there. We talked about battle wounds many times. She had said, “Marriage licenses are just licenses for the one you love to shit on you. They know you aren’t going anywhere.” It was no wonder she hadn’t found Mr. Right. I wondered if there was no such thing as Mr. Right, only Mr. I’m Gonna Teach You a Lesson.
* * *
Glenn took me to Mt. Rushmore at dawn, gliding over the highway at a measured pace. I hoped it was a lesson learned from the road outrage the day before. It was almost an enjoyable ride, and could have even been romantic if I had felt like holding onto him tight. The sun highlighted Lincoln’s face.
“Makes you feel small, doesn’t it?” Glenn said, admiring their magnificence. “They were great men.”
He stared at them, seeming to get choked up by his thoughts. I pondered Lincoln’s greatness, the freeing of slaves. I wanted to be freed. I’d had my fill of the Sturgis nightmare, just to find out the next day I had capacity for more.
Love, Carry My Bags Page 39