Love Is a Rebellious Bird

by Elayne Klasson

  But there were only to be those six brief years with Walt. I remember our marriage as the idyllic island Walt rowed me out to after the turbulent storms of my younger years: Seth’s infidelity, our subsequent divorce, the scrimping and saving. The loneliness of being a single mother on a street full of families. Dining alone. Sleeping alone. Then, the respite was gone. For Walt was diagnosed with cancer in his mid-forties, already metastatic when discovered. This illness left few survivors, and the oncologist could not look us in the eye as he delivered the bad news.

  “The expectation is one to five years,” the doctor said. He hadn’t wanted to tell us this, but Walt insisted. He thought he wanted all the information laid out before him and would not stop asking the doctor questions.

  “One to five years in what percent of people?” asked my husband, a man of numbers. He had always found consolation in facts and figures, and I suppose he thought it would be true with this as well. But this was his own body he was asking about. Not some theoretical problem. I wanted to run out of that room and search out a bathroom somewhere in this medical complex. I wanted to find a bathroom and lock its door, then pound the tile walls and howl. But I forced myself to stay at Walt’s side, expressionless, while he forced the grim reaper oncologist to recite the horrifying statistics.

  “Ninety-five percent of those people with your diagnosis live one to five years. A few live even less, months. Some, even fewer, have been recorded to live longer than five years.”

  Walt finally stopped asking for numbers. They were brutal and provided no consolation at all. When we returned from the oncologist’s office, he silently climbed the stairs to our room and began to get his affairs in order. Methodically, Walt went through papers, made sure all was as it should be. He wanted to organize his files, make our finances easier for me to understand, before he got too sick. He wouldn’t talk about his anger or sorrow or fear. Except for one night, when tears rolled down his cheeks and he said, “Too short, it’s been too short.” The survival statistics revealed that Walt was in the minority—the people who did not make it one year. In a matter of just five months, he was gone. He’d organized his papers with meticulous care, but there was so much I did not and would never understand.

  I remember how loved and completely accepted by Walt I was. There was nothing he wanted to change about me, while I was forever trying to fix things about him: his brown wardrobe, his bushy beard, his quietness. Why wasn’t I more content with what we had? I had my moods, strong emotions both high and low, while Walt was so calm. At times, his calm maddened me, yet provided a safety net I took for granted. When he was gone, I desperately wished I hadn’t always been trying to redo him, as if he were a home renovation project.

  For example, there was the way he smelled. I have always had this inordinately powerful sense of smell, like that of an animal. I walk into a room and can tell you what was cooked two days before. I can sniff out a child’s damp bathing suit shoved under the bed where it is about to get moldy. And, I am drawn to some people’s smells, but not to others. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t drawn to Walt’s smell. I wasn’t attracted to it. Don’t get me wrong, I loved him. I really did. It wasn’t a marriage of convenience; it wasn’t the money. I really loved Walt and I loved our life and I wanted to love Walt’s smell.

  I tried. It wasn’t a bad smell, not at all. Walt was a clean, almost fastidious person. I told myself that it was an interesting smell, complex and perhaps possessing a lingering hint of the science labs he worked in. I even concluded that this was the smell of intelligence. Intelligence is quite sexy, isn’t it? Why else do they say the brain is the most sexual part of our body? Walt’s IQ was off the charts. But Walt’s smell never caused the seismic shudder I craved.

  Eventually, I thought of a solution. A renovation of sorts. I went to the men’s section of a large department store in San Francisco. There, I tested as many men’s colognes as the patient salesman allowed me to sample. I tried to describe what it was I was after. Woodsy, but not herbaceous. Citrus, but not sweet. The salesman sprayed cologne after cologne on thin balsa wood sticks and waved them under my nose. He sprayed his own wrists—back and then front. He sprayed my wrists. I sniffed coffee beans after sniffing every few brands, the salesman saying this would act as a cleanser for my sense of smell. After two hours in the men’s fragrance department, I chose a very expensive brand from a famous designer. It had a musky, woodsy smell. I kept a bottle in Walt’s and my bathroom and replaced it every year so that it would always be fresh. I encouraged Walt to use it liberally, but not excessively, whenever we went out. I packed it when we traveled. I let Walt know that when I sniffed that cologne, it put me in a very good mood—an obliging mood. And though I could lean into his neck and say, objectively, that I found it a sexy smell, never did I become dizzy with desire.

  Do I mean that it didn’t attract me as your smell did, Elliot? Because from the time we were children, I’d always loved your smell. When I was with you and inhaled deeply, that smell went right through me and intoxicated me. Honestly, it made me dizzy. It didn’t matter if we were in the dark, whether we were indoors or out. Your smell filled me with desire—even before I knew to call it desire. In particular, if I smelled your neck, the crook of your neck right under the jawline, I became weak and started to tremble inside. Damn you, Elliot. After Walt died, I never wanted to smell your smell again. Was I being punished? I wondered. Because I had not appreciated Walt, had wanted more, had wanted you, was that why he was taken away? I know now that there is no reason these things happen, at least nothing that makes any sense. But in the weeks and months after Walt died, lacking any other explanation, I decided that when we do not appreciate a gift, it is taken from us.

  9

  Being Seen

  One night, in the early 1980s, a few years before I’d married Walt, I hired a sitter for the twins and drove over the Bay Bridge at dusk. I arrived early at the Herbst, the beautiful beaux-arts hall on Van Ness, so I’d get a good seat. Two of my favorite writers, a husband and wife, were appearing as part of a series sponsored by the Friends of the Library. The lights dimmed and a host of a local public-radio show enthusiastically introduced the writers. The audience applauded wildly. The married couple were attractive, even more appealing in person than in their respective book jacket photos—two of which I held on my lap. The man sat down, crossed his long legs, then raked his fingers through his thick blond hair. His jeans, faded, but with a carefully ironed crease, were sexy and tight. His shoes looked expensive and stylish. The wife, tall and willowy as her husband, wore a demure jersey dress that covered her knees and, while proper, showed off an excellent figure—full breasts and slim hips. She was dressed as any number of the women in the audience were, many of whom were surely librarians or teachers. However, the writer, with her long, brown hair and flashy gold hoops in her ears, was much prettier than anyone I saw in the audience. She was the picture of serenity, not in the least self-conscious in front of the overflowing crowd.

  During the couple’s prepared talks, and even more so in the question and answer period, a nasty taste of jealousy began boiling up within me. This ugly emotion was visceral—I felt it rise through my body, from my gut and then spilling into my throat. As I watched those two on the stage, I saw their beauty and imagined their marriage. They were perfection—this husband and wife—both successful writers. Before they answered questions, they glanced meaningfully into the other’s eyes. Each time one spoke, they leaned toward the other, her posture ramrod straight, his a careless slouch. As they decided who would take the next audience question, a small nod was exchanged, followed by an ironic smile. Their smiles reflected a private world, unspoken words. What are we doing here, on this stage, in front of these hundreds of people? the look seemed to ask. So silly. A colossal waste of time. They made me think that despite their full household of children (for they had six between them) and the astonishing literary output of both, they would still prefer to be alone, in their bedroom, wh
ere really hot sex and an endless riff of scintillating conversation awaited them.

  It was just too much. Christ, they finished each other’s sentences. They even confessed that they passed their work back and forth, sometimes adding or deleting words as they read from each other’s novels or stories.

  How I wished to be looked at in such a way. I was still alone, divorced for some years and had not yet met Walt. True, Seth had sometimes finished my sentences, but, unfortunately, only with his own opinions. If he did see me, it was at the beginning, when I was still his groupie. I had hung on his stories back then, watched as he mesmerized people, recounting adventures one after another. When I’d tired of these stories, we drifted apart and he looked for new admirers. Being married to Seth was a young woman’s game. It was exhausting providing the admiration he needed, even more so after the twins were born. The fish he speared scuba diving were bigger than anyone else’s, the cars he drove faster. When, God help me, he became enamored with guns, he boasted that, in a disaster, he’d be safe at home, where he kept an arsenal and food to last a year. Seth certainly did not see me in the way I craved, the way that famous writer had gazed at his wife.

  Although most, including me, would agree that my second marriage was happy, still no one finished my sentences. Walt adored me, but often I could tell he was pondering a problem from work. At times, he was so distracted by his thoughts, he neglected to even finish his own sentences, let alone mine. We were so different. I know that many things contribute to making a good and satisfying marriage, and that Walt and I had most of them. Still there was that longing I felt to be seen: to have my innermost thoughts and emotions affirmed.

  When we went to bed, Walt fell asleep almost immediately. He was a sound sleeper, light snores coming within seconds of his head hitting the pillow. Although I understood his tiredness, for he left for his job at the lab in early morning, and worked very long hours, I was aching for companionship. One night, after we made love, I was again left lying awake in the dark. How could this man fall asleep so quickly, truly as soon as his head hit the pillow? Frustrated, I punched and repunched my pillow. I switched on the light atop my bedside table, for nothing woke Walt once he was asleep, and read until my eyes burned, but was still unable to find sleep. It was not that Walt was a selfish lover. Just the opposite, he was a careful and considerate man, in bed as in every other aspect of his life. Yet his lovemaking was tentative and he was unwilling to experiment. I blamed his fastidiousness, as I usually blamed all our differences, on Anna and Joseph. He’d been utterly controlled as a child, not allowed to get dirty or make a mess. It had been a childhood of inviolable rules. If he lay down on the couch, Anna was immediately there to put a towel under his feet. (He’d already removed his shoes, but even socks were not allowed to touch the furniture.) Sex, like everything else for Walt, had a protocol. It drove me crazy. After a couple of hours of this restlessness, I switched off the light, threw the covers back, and got up, my thoughts as dark as the stairway I descended.

  The rooms below were lit by moonlight as well as the twinkling lights from San Francisco in the distance. I was barefoot, wearing only a thin cotton nightgown, and could not stop shivering. In the dark, cold house, for the thermostat was set low at this time of night, I made my way to the sofa and wrapped myself in the knitted blanket I kept in the living room. I stared out the big windows, still shivering uncontrollably. Usually, the lights of San Francisco seemed beautiful, but that night, the view in the distance increased my loneliness. The world seemed too far away, human companionship unreachable. I so desperately wanted to talk, but Walt was usually tired and not interested in going over the day. The concept of pillow talk was foreign to him. I wanted to lie in bed, telling long, slow stories, voices hushed, until, later, much later, perhaps after sweaty sex, we drifted off to sleep—our awake selves gradually melding into our dreaming selves. But, alas, Walt sometimes fell asleep as I was still speaking. Remember that joke? About men having only two speeds: on and off. Walt was just such a man.

  When we did talk, it was invariably about the kids—Evan and Miriam, and later Joseph, the child of our early middle age. The twins still visited Seth on alternate weekends, but then the baby was born and Walt and I rarely had time alone. Even when we did steal moments away by ourselves, it was usually the kids’ needs we discussed. Sometimes we considered household purchases and occasionally we talked about our jobs, mine at Alameda County Social Services and Walt’s at the lab. But my unscientific brain only skimmed the surface of understanding Walt’s research, while he admitted it was hard to keep the stories of the many children in my caseload straight.

  We were partners, to be sure, and I am positive that I loved Walt, but I did not feel the understanding at my core that I craved. The real me was not seen or heard. Was I unhappy? Fortunately, those moments in the dark in the middle of the night did not come often, and I’d been single for so long before meeting Walt, I knew what being alone really meant. I’d learned by then that the quiet comfort of companionship in bed and at the table is worth quite a lot.

  But that night in the dark, I had treacherous thoughts. I could not explain the way I saw the world to Walt. When I shared my most intimate ideas and passions, he often looked at me, puzzled. I wanted to discuss the latest award in literature, or the music that inspired me, or to analyze the people we’d invited to our house for a dinner party. I wanted to take apart, scene by scene, the movie we had just watched. Walt’s world was simpler; he saved complexity for the knotty problems he solved at work.

  Did Walt feel misunderstood? Unseen? To all appearances, he did not. My husband seemed genuinely delighted with our union. I’d asked if he felt frustrated because he could not share his life’s work with me. After all, he was an important scientist who regularly published in journals and presented papers—papers I did not hear or read, knowing how little I would absorb. We had friends of a scientific bent, and with them I heard him speaking animatedly. I’d smile at the excitement in his voice. I was pleased to hear my normally sedate husband speak with such passion, yet disappointed that I rarely heard it in our own conversations. Certainly he could not tell me about the research questions he was currently investigating. After the first sentences, I’d feel my eyes glaze over. I couldn’t even formulate a question worth asking about his research. It was people who interested me. I asked questions about the people he worked with, but rarely about the work itself.

  “Marlene, the biochemist, is she married?” I wondered one day after he told me about a meeting at the lab. I always asked who’d been at the meetings, not what the meetings were about.

  “Marlene? Married?” I saw Walt puzzling over my question while he continued to carry dishes to the sink. “I’m not really sure. Wait. Yes, I think she said ‘we’ when she came back from vacation this week.”

  “Oh, she’s been on vacation?” I asked enthusiastically and stopped rinsing the dishes. Marlene was Walt’s colleague, a brilliant woman who’d gone to MIT before she’d begun working at the labs. Walt mentioned her frequently through the years, although I’d never met her. “Where did ‘they’ go on vacation?”

  “Hmmm,” Walt said. He stopped clearing the table and stared out the window, pondering this question. “I don’t believe she said. I’ll ask her tomorrow if you like,” he added agreeably.

  “No, it’s not important,” I answered, all the while thinking that I could not imagine working with a colleague for five years, as Walt had with Marlene, and not know whether she was married. Or where she had just taken her vacation. But then, I had no idea what my husband and Marlene had been talking about in the meeting that afternoon. For all I knew, their meeting could have consisted of fucking on the conference table. I turned around and studied Walt as he methodically sponged off the counter, covering each inch, not missing a spot. No, they had not been doing that. One of the reasons I had married Walt was precisely because I knew he would not be making love to other women in covert places, as Seth had done more than
a few times during our marriage.

  I cannot proceed without revealing the dénouement of the story about the literary couple I envied at the San Francisco lecture. Some years later, I read shocking news about these writers. The paper reported that the husband had checked into a cheap motel near their bucolic home in New England. There, he had placed the barrel of a shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. This suicide occurred the night before the very day the district attorney was to charge the writer with heinous crimes: sexually abusing his own and his wife’s female children. The couple had been separated for some time before his death, yet even after his suicide, the still-beautiful wife refused to speak publicly about these events. She had reportedly been the one to accuse the writer of abusing their daughters, but after his death, she never spoke of it again. She was the real deal: the same elegant, imperturbable woman I’d seen on the stage nearly two decades before. But the marriage was definitely not what it seemed.

  Despite this unfortunate evidence that we cannot understand nor truly know what goes on in other people’s marriages, my hunger persisted. Does anyone get seen? Is this desire for understanding a fantasy? Like Goldilocks, I’d whined—too hot, too cold. Had I ever come close to this recognition? Who does, anyway?

  As a girl, I had felt truly seen by my father. Not surprisingly, I’d worshipped the man. I’d come down the hallway late at night when I was a teenager—knowing he’d probably be awake, reading his newspapers. As he talked about the state of the world, I’d stare at his handsome profile, illuminated by the light of the table lamp next to him. He’d hold his unlit pipe and poke the upraised paper with it while he read one story or another aloud to me, exasperated at the stupidity of our country’s leaders—Eisenhower, then Nixon (how venomously he hated the Republicans. The only time I saw him weep was when Stevenson was defeated the first time by Eisenhower).