A Cup of Comfort for Couples

by Colleen Sell

  Forget the roses, the Riesling, the Lucinda Williams tickets. (Well, don’t forget them entirely.) I thrill to the thought of my partner rushing out to Home Depot to find the perfect wrap for the tank that will give us a stream of continuous, hot water.

  In these tough times, is this the new language of love?

  Later that evening, while we’re at an antiques auction, he returns to the topic. “Maybe you’ll help me pick out the water heater jacket.” He nudges his seat closer to mine. “They have different types, you know.”

  “They do?” Okay, now he’s pulling my leg.

  Up front, the stern auctioneer with the ricochet voice is belting out prices, trying to coax the crowd to bid on drop-leaf tables, brass footstools, art deco ashtrays.

  “Really,” my guy says.

  “They don’t,” I insist.

  “Plaid.”

  “They make Burberry jackets for water heaters?”

  My guy smiles. I smile back. My thoughts are warm and cozy.

  In another lifetime, another partner, this one a husband, wrapped me in mink. But this seemed to have everything to do with him, nothing to do with me. Status.

  Don’t get me wrong, I took the fur and wore it for years before my conscience kicked in. I sold it for a fair price to a stranger with cancer who said she wanted to own a fur coat before she died.

  But wrapping the water heater has everything to do with me and the man in my life, and more importantly, with us.

  Living together means planning for the future. Last weekend, at another auction, we bought a set of midcentury Adirondack twig furniture — beautiful settee, two matching chairs, and a table — for the house in the mountains we don’t own but might some day.

  Being coupled means taking a leap of faith, even when you feel the other person is cramping your style. And learning that love can thrive in that slippery, uncomfortable space between feeling stuck and preparing to soar.

  — Tina Lincer

  As Long as Forever

  Wearing an old black overcoat to warm his frail body, an argyle sock on one foot and a black dress sock on the other, Dad leaned forward in his easy chair, staring disconsolately around him. “I’m looking for something,” he told me.

  “What is it, Dad?”

  “Well, it’s about this big,” he began, raising a hand up from the ground, “and it’s hard to describe, but . . . well, I can’t quite get a hold of the, the . . .”

  “The name of what it is?” I wondered aloud.

  “Yes. What is the problem? I need to know.”

  He got up and began wandering about, through the kitchen, past the couch, back to his chair, and stopping when he was once again in the kitchen. Then he walked back to his easy chair again.

  “Did you remember what you’re looking for, Dad?”

  “It’s just that I need to experiment so I can think. I can’t think, for some reason.”

  “Do you need me to get you something, Dad? Maybe a snack?”

  “No. I’m not hungry. Well . . . yes, I need something, but what is it? I don’t remember. It’s so irritating when I don’t remember.”

  I sighed, wishing I could do something to help him. I was babysitting Dad for my mother, his main caregiver. Dad has Alzheimer’s, and Mom can’t get away to do anything unless someone can watch him. That night, she had to spend the night at a hospital for a sleep test, so I stayed with him — my first time spending the night at my parents’ home in years.

  “Dad, maybe you’re looking for Mom?”

  “Yes, that’s it! Where is she?”

  “She’s at the hospital getting a test. She asked me to stay here with you so she could go get the test because she needs to find out what’s wrong to get better medicine. She’ll be back in the morning.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “But it causes a problem for me. I have to call someone to come pick me up.”

  “Dad, if someone takes you somewhere, you won’t be here when Mom gets home and she won’t know where you are.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I guess I’m just stuck with a problem then.”

  He walked around the island separating the living room from the kitchen and rummaged around in a drawer for a few minutes. I heard him mutter, “A tablespoon. That will do.” Then he went over to the cupboards. There, he pulled out some napkins and paper towels and headed over toward me.

  “What are those for, Dad?”

  “I have to think. If I do this thing . . . what is it called . . . I can’t think of the word . . .”

  “You mean experiment?”

  “An experiment. Yes, that’s what it’s called. If I do that, then I can think.”

  He sat down, pulled two handkerchiefs out of his pocket, and became absorbed in arranging all the stuff he had together on a round lamp table next to his chair.

  I began thinking about one night when I was around sixteen. I’d been crying because a boy had broken up with me, and Dad hugged me tight.

  “Dad, why can’t things be easy?” I’d sobbed. “All I want is to be happy.”

  He had replied, “I know, honey. It hurts, but in time things will be okay. You’ll meet the right man, one who will love you forever, and you’ll forget the pain.”

  “When you met Mom, did you love her forever?”

  “Ah, your mother.” I watched his face as a look of satisfaction washed over it. “Yes, I was nineteen at the time. I went to a youth group at church, and I saw her and thought, ‘Wow!’ I asked my friend who she was. He told me her name was Marilyn and she was only fourteen. I said, ‘I’m going to marry that girl someday.’

  “I had to go into the Navy right after that, because the war started,” he continued. “So I waited until she was sixteen. Then I wrote to the leader of the youth group, asking if she’d have Marilyn write to me to tell me news of home. We wrote pretty regularly for the next two years. When I got out of the service, she was eighteen, and I asked her to marry me then and there. I’ve been in love with her since she was fourteen, and I’ll love her until the day I die.”

  Somehow, the thought of his undying love for my mother helped, and my tears had dried up, for the moment, way back then. But now . . .

  I watched Dad fold the napkins, paper towels, and handkerchiefs into two lumpy white piles, then carefully place two silver tablespoons upon the piles. He laid one spoon on a napkin pile at the right side of the lamp neck, the other spoon on a napkin pile mirroring it on the left. He turned off the lamp, turned it back on, then picked up the spoons and moved the piles of napkins so they formed two long piles with two shorter piles at one end of each pile. Then he laid the spoons gently down on the longer piles, with the bowls of the spoons on the two shorter piles, still separated by the lamp’s neck. Once again, he turned the light off and on, staring intently at the spoons as if he expected something to happen.

  “Dad, are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I just have to think, you see? Doing these . . . I can’t think, you know . . . so doing these . . .”

  “Experiments?” I suggested.

  “Yes. Doing experiments helps me think.”

  He picked up everything off the lamp table and reorganized it again.

  Poor Dad. He used to be a scientist, so now he makes up pretend experiments. It’s so awful; he can’t think or talk about things. Poor Mom. She has to watch him all the time. She never gets a break, never gets to go places, and hardly gets to visit with people outside church on Sunday. I wish we didn’t live over 200 miles away. But when she was leaving to go to the hospital for her test, she’d told him, with shaking voice, “I know I’m going to miss you, because I miss you already and I’m not even gone yet! But I’ll be home soon.”

  My soul cried out for help, for something that could take away the hard times and help my mom and dad to be happy.

  Dad continued playing with his napkin piles and spoons for over an hour while I read a book, waiting for him to get sleepy and want to go to bed.

  Finally, I said, “Dad
, it’s after eleven-thirty. Don’t you want to go to sleep?”

  “Can’t go to sleep. No. There’s more people involved now.”

  “Do you mean Mom? She’ll be home soon.” I explained, once again, how she was at the hospital getting a test and would be home tomorrow morning. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to bed?”

  “No, I don’t. I want to get a feeling for things,” he replied. “With my . . .”

  “Experiments,” I whispered, as he began moving the piles and the spoons around again, turning the light on and off again, and staring hard at them as if something in this setup would solve the problem of Mom’s being gone overnight.

  Dad’s head began to droop, and soon his chin rested on his chest. As he started breathing more slowly and regularly, I went to let the dog out. When I opened the front door, Dad jumped up and walked quickly over to me.

  “I have a problem, and I need someone to help me,” Dad said, in an uncharacteristically shaky voice, his eyes brimming with tears. His face somehow reminded me of a lost little boy.

  Gently, I asked, “Dad, do you need a hug?”

  “No. I need help is all. But I can’t remember what it’s about.”

  “Is it because Mom’s gone?”

  “That’s it!”

  I explained it once more. His voice still shook a little, but he agreed that it was good she was getting a test. He walked back to his easy chair and sat down.

  Dad picked up the spoons, pushed all the napkins together in one big pile, and set the spoons right next to each other on the pile of napkins, stared at it with a smile, and turned off the light. Then his face went blank, and in the dim light from the lamp near me I watched as, again, he took the spoons off the big pile and divided up the napkins into two piles.

  “Dad, what are the tablespoons for?” I finally asked.

  “They represent who lives at this house. There are two of us who live here. And one is gone,” he said. “You see my problem? The equation won’t work.”

  I felt my throat squeeze in on itself. The piles of napkins and handkerchiefs were beds, pillows, and blankets. The spoons were Dad and Mom.

  He moved the spoons and piles apart, divided by the lamp neck once again, then put them together again, trying to see what he could do to stop the pain of being unable to be with the one he loved. He couldn’t understand it, he couldn’t explain it, and he was doing his best, in his own world, to try and resolve the problem.

  Tears spilled as I said, “Well, Dad, I know Mom loves you, too. And she’ll be back in the morning.”

  Dad took the spoons and tied them with the handkerchiefs, over his mismatched socks, to his feet.

  “Dad, it’s almost midnight. Do you want to go to bed?”

  “No. I’ll wait.”

  He sat on his easy chair again and leaned back; soon his head drooped and a quiet snore drifted out. He couldn’t have been comfortable at all, with his clothes still on, with his feet tied up in handkerchiefs and spoons, and with nothing but the thin overcoat to keep him warm. I covered him with a blanket and lay down on the couch. I wouldn’t wake him. After all, if a man loves a woman as long as forever, he might at least be allowed to wait for her in the room closest to where she’ll return in the morning, so they can be happy together once more.

  — Suzanne Endres

  The Almost-Proposal

  Sam and I aren’t married yet. We will be married some day; we just aren’t married yet. We haven’t even discussed marriage. I’m in no hurry. He’s in no hurry. Things are good. Things are so good Sam has moved in. I’m happy. He’s happy. His cats are happy. My dog is happy. The bills are paid. The refrigerator is full. The sky is blue. Life is good.

  But there is a little problem: marriage is on Sam’s mind. I seem to be oblivious to his hints. We are still learning about each other, and I can’t always tell what he’s thinking. I am in love and thrilled that our relationship is so easy.

  We’ve both arranged for the same vacation time and have planned our first trip together. Our itinerary is to drive through New York State to Niagara Falls, then up to Toronto, south through the Thousand Islands area, and back to New Jersey through the Finger Lakes. I’m thinking of it as a romantic adventure with Sam; Sam is looking at it as a pre-honeymoon, and I miss all the signals.

  I have not yet developed the intuition of a wife or mother. That comes with time and stretch marks. I know nothing about signs, hunches, or gut feelings. Things don’t gnaw at me yet. Things don’t play themselves over and over in my mind until I have to wake Sam in the middle of the night because something pissed me off six hours earlier. That will come later. Now, Sam has a plan, and I’m lost in dense fog as we head north to our winter wonderland.

  When we leave for our trip, snow is piled on the side of roads and salt stains are on cars. Our heavy jackets are thrown onto the back seat, and the heater is roaring inside the car. Yet, I am so oblivious to Sam’s plan that traveling north in the winter to Canada where it is cold doesn’t even make me raise an eyebrow. We are headed in the general direction of Niagara Falls. Our plan is to drive through the New York side and then to Niagara Falls, Ontario. Sam is driving; I’m navigating.

  For the record, Niagara Falls are blow-your-eardrums-out loud. As you approach Niagara Falls, you can hear the thunder of water pushing off a mountain and crashing onto the rocks below. They are raging loud. Imagine trying to talk while a subway screams past you in your living room. I have read that people who are deaf can feel Niagra’s vibrations.

  When Sam pulls over and says I picked the wrong turn-off, I tell him I didn’t.

  He sits there with Niagara Falls booming behind him and screams, “You missed the turn! You are not always right, you know!”

  I look up from the map, amazed. “Don’t you hear anything?” I scream calmly.

  “Give me the map,” he says.

  “You are ridiculous,” I reply, cupping my hands over my ears.

  “You know, I was going to propose to you this week, but I don’t think I can live with such a know-it-all,” he mumbles, loud enough for me to hear.

  Five minutes later, we are driving past Niagara Falls and Sam is saying, “I knew we were almost here.”

  In the winter, Niagara Falls has a different appearance than it does on postcards and in travel brochures. The water freezes, forming beautiful ice creations on many precipices. There are also no tourists — except us.

  Something else is very different, too. Now I know Sam’s ulterior motive for the trip. Sam has, in his moment of moronic rage, spilled the beans. I’m not sure if Sam remembers what he said in his side-of-the-road temper tantrum, but I certainly do. Suddenly, to me, this trip is different. Before, I was traveling with my boyfriend, my roommate, my best friend. Now I’m with someone who wants to live with me for better or for worse, forever after, until death us do part. Before I was relaxed; now I’m wheezing.

  We check into our motel. On the surface, everything looks acceptable. It looks clean and things match. I am afraid to look under the bed. I will not stretch out on the carpet to do my sit-ups, but walking across it doesn’t seem to be too disgusting as long as I have on shoes.

  As I get farther into the room, I notice the picture over the bed, a print of a hill and a field, and in the distance Niagara Falls. It makes sense that they put a picture of Niagara Falls in a room near Niagara Falls. I’m imagining the exact same picture hangs in every room in this motel when I notice something strange about our picture — dirt or something is in the field below the hill. I put on my glasses to get a better look. It seems some previous resident took a pencil to this picture and added little X-rated stick figures, tiny characters doing things in positions that defy gravity and the laws of science. There are anatomically gifted male stick figures and well-endowed female stick figures frolicking on a hillside near Niagara Falls, their exaggerated teeny-tiny privates sticking way out. Discovering the stick figures puts Sam and me in better moods. We’re laughing, and he’s my best friend aga
in. We forget the side-of-the-road argument. We are both hungry.

  I decide to take a quick hot bath to warm up. Sam turns on the TV to check out Canadian broad-casts. Sam cannot be in a room without a TV on. It is still the first thing he does when he comes home from work. The TV runs constantly in our home, even when there is no one in the room. I walk through the house turning off the unwatched televisions, only to find them on again five minutes later, once again with no one watching them.

  I wash the motel bathtub using a lot of disinfectant. I fill the tub and add the scented bubble bath I brought with me. I pile my hair high on my head and slip in. My eyes are closed as I soak and relax. Then it happens.

  “Honey?” says Sam, standing in the doorway. He is not in the bathroom or the bedroom but sort of half-way here and halfway there with his eyes on the TV.

  “What, Sam?”

  “Want to get married?” Now, this is said with the same type of romance as “honey, I’m going down the hall to get a bucket of ice” or “honey, when was the last time you had the oil changed in the Toyota?” He is not even in the room. He is in the stupid doorway. He is not even looking at me. He is looking at a rerun of One Day at a Time.

  “I’m in the tub, Sam!”

  “Oh, okay,” he replies.

  He plops down on the bed and continues to watch TV while I bathe.

  I sit in the tub contemplating what just happened. Sam’s romantic nature may be stretching itself to the limit at this point. Then again, I could be hallucinating.

  A little while later, we are at the motel’s restaurant. Everything matches here, too. Tables match the carpet. Carpet matches the window treatment. Window treatment matches the waitresses’ uniforms. In fact, the colors are identical to our room. There is even the same painting over our table — although it lacks the anatomically gifted stick figures. We both notice it. It’s the level of cleanliness in this place that worries me. I mention this to Sam.

  “I know it isn’t your mother’s kitchen,” he says. “Jeez. Stop being such a clean freak. We’re on vacation.”