The Space Between Promises

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I know that it will not happen overnight. Ten years of mistakes will not be easy to undo. A decade of damp little knots of hair, pulled mercilessly away from my face will not be undone by a few days of waving my hair and freshening my face with a light coat of make-up. An entirely new wardrobe will not appear magically on a part-time income. "I'm sorry," will spill out automatically when Gregory is on the warpath. Giving up baggy pajamas and cotton underwear will be a sacrifice. It will be a string of strategies, not necessarily connected by similarity, but forced together for a common goal. Gregory's desire. What I have now is love bridged by the passage of time, duty by vow, fidelity secured by his sense of morality. I am in pursuit of his promise to love, honor and cherish me. I fell under the wheels of motherhood, financial dependence, and unfulfilled dreams. But I was not broken. Unrecognizable perhaps, but not destroyed. No man would ever have the power to break me. Maybe, in the end, it would not be Gregory that I would even want, but it would be Gregory who would want me. I would see to that. More importantly, it would be me who wanted me. And from that outcome, would pour many possibilities.

  I apply a thin coat of coconut oil to my freshly shaven legs, followed by a mist of body spray thick with sensual notes of vanilla. I slip into a deep purple nightgown, long, with a Grecian style neckline. A hint of lip gloss. Without saying a word to him, I brush past him, smile, and make myself a snack. I slip under a blanket and fall asleep on the couch, but I do not come to bed later on. Days later, I quietly slip five new pair of lace panties still with tags on them in my top drawer, and I make an effort to partially dress in front of him, allowing him a glimpse of black or red lace. At the end of the day, I intentionally leave the panties on the bathroom floor, so that he is aware that I have emerged from my bath and oils in a nightgown and am not wearing underwear. He eyes me carefully from his chair, and I smile innocently, and say something neutral to which he responds with equal neutrality and I return to my movie or TV show. I do not ask if he would like to watch a movie. I do not invite him into my sensual world.

  It has been several weeks since we have made love, and I know Gregory is becoming irritable and as it is not his habit to initiate, he miserably awaits my invitation which does not come. I fall asleep on the couch satisfied with the solitude. Later that night, I will open my eyes and see him approach me. He is surprised that I have sensed him, and he smiles sheepishly. He pauses and then proceeds into the kitchen for a drink. I close my eyes, satisfied. He was going to kiss me in my sleep. He has a habit of doing this. He'll lean over and gently kiss my forehead and then step away. Most times, this simple act will cause me to rouse from sleep, long enough to smile and drift back into dreams. I've never quite understood the meaning of these Sleeping Beauty kisses, but I've accepted them and never asked why. Tonight, when I woke, the kiss was lost to him, and the satisfaction was mine, knowing that a kiss is the single most important act of love. It opens our soul, leaving us vulnerable, yet filling us completely. All of my efforts would lead to this one place. His desire to touch my lips with his. We made love the following night, and three times his lips sought mine, and I cleverly avoided them by nibbling his neck, breathing in his ear. To leave him hungry. This is where it would begin. And I could not fathom where it would lead. Risking everything and nothing at once. What a beautiful war this is. Win or lose. Either one would prove to be a victory, and I would emerge triumphant. With or without him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  There would be dozens of men, and hundreds of meaningless kisses between Cade and Gregory. College parties would surrender nameless faces, firm bodies, eager to advance in the world of love. I would hold them all at bay, enjoying practicing the art of kissing on threadbare couches, fueled by beer, which I finally learned to accept. There would be clubs and bars, and there would be the beautiful black man whom I had never seen that I would approach in a parking lot and begin to kiss fervently until a few friends would remove me from his amused embrace and we'd stumble on to another bar. There would be kisses that I would never remember, a trip to a friend's apartment where I would vomit four pints of Guinness into his garbage can and pass out on his bed. He would be one of the many men who hoped for more, left wanting. Not with intent to punish or tease. Simply because there was no amount of alcohol that could separate me from my dream. To belong wholly to one man, and one man only. Miraculously, because of this, there was not a man between Cade and Gregory who begrudged me. Those whom I knew became friends who cared for me, and those who I had not known disappeared entirely. The trouble with this life was that there hadn't been a kiss since Cade's that was real, one that wasn't looking for something more, and there wasn't another man in the world, I was convinced, that I desired the way that I yearned for Nate, whom I had not yet kissed.

  I had met Nate through friends when he was home for a college break. Although I was a hopelessly romantic, I never espoused the idea of love at first sight. Even then, I did not recognize it for what it was. I scanned the table, and my gaze fell on him and I felt myself pulled, rather than walking, to the table. I listened intently to everything he said, memorized his sarcastic smile, studied the sharp movement of his eyes, acknowledged his superior presence as he carefully outwitted everyone at the table, charming them with intellect beyond their understanding. Beautiful manipulation. Masterful egocentrism. Sensual vocabulary. A match.

  I could think of no one but him for the months that followed his return to college. Every man I kissed was a poor substitute for the man who had thieved my heart, without me knowing it was missing and without him knowing he carried it. My fortune improved when he finished his final semester and began to work in the restaurant where a few friends worked. Weekend would follow weekend and we'd be out together, often the last two in the bar when 'last call ' rang out. We'd sit on a fence post until dawn sharing details of our family, the worlds that separated us. We shared nothing in common but our love of literature and writing, paired good looks, and an attraction that only I was not afraid to admit. And when the time came, following three shots of vodka, that I slid into him, pressing him further into the wall, kissing him, he kissed me back. I may have been encouraged by the vodka, and I may have boldly taken what I wanted without invitation, but he did not courteously allow the kiss and then gracefully bow out. He returned the kiss. Over and over. And it would be the first of many nights that I would spend in his basement apartment, only ever kissing. Nothing more, except perhaps a bit of fondling. He was the only man since Cade that never asked for more. The first man to understand that although I had reached sensual maturity, I was waiting for more than he could ever give me. And though he was sure he had taken nothing, nor was his intent to, my life would never be the same. I would remember for an eternity the two most important kisses I had ever known. That first innocent kiss with an experienced college playboy who walked away a gentleman, and my first kiss with the man I had fallen hopelessly in love with. But try as I may, I cannot remember the first kiss that I shared with the man who is now my husband. The one to whom I gave all.

  ***

  In this quest to discover external beauty at thirty-five, certain comfort items had to be purged from my identity. Flip flops were one such item. Although I was convinced I that I was born in heels, and I wore them faithfully to church and work, as soon as I walked in the door, I would strip out of my dress or skirt and heels, and don a pair of faithful pajamas and flip flops. The nice thing about flip flops was that they could worn with that same lovely cotton skirt on a weekend, and there was a certain liberation afforded by the thin layer of plastic standing between naked feet and ground. I would have rather died in college than wear a pair of flip flops. I always felt that they had a slothful and grungy look, generally associated with multi-pierced girls in dread locks and dirty jeans. Instead, during the warm months I would wear espadrilles which afforded similar comfort with the sexy look of a wedge heel.

  Somewhere between motherhood and depression, flip flops
became my every day shoe during the spring, summer and fall. Coupled with frayed pajama pants in the middle of the day, I realize this is how Gregory came to view me. Pristine at church and work, yet unkempt and generally sloppy in the home; his space. How then could I ever hope to keep his attention and respect when I was invisible in his presence. I didn't always wear the flip flops though. I would kick off my heels and plod around the house barefoot and happy. There was a time that I didn't own flip flops in the winter. One cold January night changed that for me.

  "It is OUR computer!" I shouted, furious that he was monopolizing it for the duration of his day off. I wanted to check my e-mails, ten minutes, and he had refused to get off, flat out telling me no. "You have no right to tell me I cannot use it." That was it. Sam peers up from his tiny red Radio Flyer tricycle, not quite two years old, distracted by my unusually raised voice. Gregory lunges out of his chair and swipes the keyboard to the floor, instantly enraged. "Rights? Rights? You think you dictate what rights I do and do not have?! This is MY home, I am the head of this house, and you do as I say, not the other way around."

  I pick Sam up, deposit him in his crib and close the door. Reeling around the corner, I screamed back, ready to take him on. I've got news for you. This is just as much my house as yours and I'll do as I please, and use what I want to use in it!"

  "You have two choices," he responds, his jaw set. You either willingly leave this house right now, or I will throw you out."

  I stand, unmoved by his threat. Daring him. He is instantly at my side, cupping, rather than grabbing my arm, cognizant of the implications of physical violence. I know that if I refused to budge, he will pick me up and carry me down the stairs, and I prefer to walk on my own. I allow him to painlessly coerce me down the stairs and out the door, into the cold January night, in my bare feet. The door locks behind me. I walk next door to the neighbor's house, and call the police. Gregory was arrested on a technicality. Hours later he is released by the judge without being jailed, which was acceptable to me. The point had been made. There is always someone whose authority, just or unjust, supersedes one's own, and I had made that abundantly clear. My pride at resorting to calling the police was a small price to pay.

  It was the last time in our marriage that Gregory ever threatened to throw me out of my home. Over the years, his comments would be, "If don't like it, there's the door." And though he would never threaten to toss me out, I began to wear flip flops in the house year-round, and with each passing year, became less concerned with my appearance in his presence.

  This is not a battle of words, or battle of wills, or a challenge of authority. This is a silent war. A war in which I will physically transform and begin to breathe again in his presence. I will take back lost ground, one pair of lace panties and colorful espadrilles at a time. It is a war I know how to win, if I remain strong. I toss the black flip flops into the garbage, and carefully apply a French pedicure to my clean, polished bare feet.

  ***

  The months following Gregory's arrest were clouded with despair, doubt and strife. There had been a short separation, many entries in my journal, talks of him getting his own apartment. Anger ran deep in him, and he became more of a stranger to me than ever. He would come home from work in the late evening, wake me up, and berate me for one thing or the other. If I was silent, he would demand answer and when I would begin to speak, he would shout over me, not allowing me to answer. If I was fool enough to buckle under interrogation and begin to cry, he would scrunch his face in a grotesquely twisted manner and mimic me by making squealing sounds. No words. Just squealing sounds, like a pig being slaughtered. If I tried to leave the room, he would scream for me to get back until he was finished with me. Finally, I would crumple into a thousand apologies and beg for his forgiveness, which he would always deny. Satisfied with my brokenness, he would say that I needed to take responsibility for my actions and if that meant I didn't receive the comfort of forgiveness, so be it. He became a monster. I had dared to resist his power the night I called the police and I would be made to suffer for it. And suffer I did.

  I would hide him in my closet, and like a child, I would fall asleep praying that he would stay there, for who was there to save me? I would drown in my private pain. I would stay quiet and out of his way, for Sam's sake. My sleep was heavy with burden. I would fall asleep after crying until my eyes were swollen, and it would be as though a boulder was tied to my chest, pulling me to the bottom of an ocean. Each breath seemed labored. The bed would be empty night after night, thank God, but it was unnatural for me to accept that my husband, the father of my son, was my greatest source of pain.

  Deep in the vast quiet of sleep, I see a choir larger than the entirety of my father's congregation. Hundreds of faces inches apart, bodies clothed in choir robes, and a song rising, swelling around me. I cannot make out the words, but they surround me, fill me, and seem to lift me from my pillow. It had been months since I had felt any relief from the tremendous pressure that bore down on me. My body is light. My mouth is moving, joining the choir in song. I am asleep but I feel myself crying tears of joy. "Holy Spirit," I sing ... "Holy Spirit." I am moving higher and higher, lighter and lighter, and somehow I know that I am close to waking up. I can feel myself fading into the dream, the words of the song drifting away, the faces fading from view. I open my eyes to the sun and the wetness of my pillow. Something has changed. A new strength is born in me. I am not alone, and it would be in my praise that prison doors would open. When the nights became long, and sorrows heavy, a song would come to me, and its words would carry me through the days to come. It seemed to be the way God spoke to me. In dreams and songs.

  I knew Gregory's reign of terror would not last forever, and one evening, he announced quite matter-of-factly that he was having severe chest pains. I did not react, hoping against all hope that this beast of a man was suffering a heart attack and that I would be free of him once and for all. Sam was only two years old, he would never remember. I could remarry, start over. Sam could have another father, and life would begin anew. I would not know this mercy, though. Unmoved by his admission, I announced that he would need to drive himself to the emergency room, and he did.

  "It's my blood pressure," he explained after a night in the emergency room. "It's off the charts." He paused long enough for me to ask how high and he didn't want to answer. As if I cared. "It's unregulated and I have to go on medication." Suddenly, a series of memories came into focus. So many evenings where he would sit in his chair staring at the walls and say, "I don't feel well. Leave me alone." He could never explain it. Just that he was irritable and needed to be left alone. Other evenings where he would warn me that his "head was about to explode," and could I please, just please be quiet. These episodes generally precipitated a fit of rage, and very often, he would not remember the argument days later.

  He is sick. It sinks in, slowly, measured by memories. I am not insane. This Jekyll and Hyde nightmare is real. It isn't because I am an awful wife who burns pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. It is him. Thank God, it is him. Following a series of tests, a heart catheterization, and a daily dose of medication, signs of the man I had fallen in love with returned slowly, like spring leaves to a naked tree. One small beautiful bud after the other. Peeking out, a sign of promise.

  In just a few short months, my smiling husband would pass me changing in the bathroom, and say, "Honey, are you pregnant?" I would laugh and say of course not. "Are you sure?" He presses. "I'm sure."

  "Okay," he concedes shaking his head and chuckling.

  It was Maggie that I was carrying, born later into a quiet time in our lives, when demons rested and angels' wings could almost be heard rustling against the walls and windows of our peaceful home.

  ***

  He opens the door singing ... "You are so beautiful to me ...” He mounts the stairs with a broad smile, and I meet him at the landing opening the baby gate to greet him. He leans forward to kiss me and I turn in time for him to br
ush my cheek. He is unruffled. Hi baby," he chirps, "How was your day?"

  "Good," I smile, "You hungry?" Mid-shifts are nice because he is home before the kids go to bed. He isn't hungry, he says, squeezing my waist and making a beeline for Sam and Maggie. Sam runs into the bathroom, locking the door, giggling hysterically and Maggie, excited on his behalf ringing out, "Get a bobby pin, Daddy! Pick the lock!" Cat and Mouse goes on for some time, and I quietly ponder the effects of the Great Kiss Embargo from the kitchen, where I am of course tidying up.