A Cup of Comfort for Couples

by Colleen Sell

  In the lush gardens of Grounds for Sculpture, we linger beside a beautifully landscaped pond. A ghostly bronze face hovers over the face of the water, brooding in the soft mist.

  “She looks like the Lady of the Lake,” I say, a reference to a character in English literature, which, I realize after I say it, he might be too distracted to pick up on.

  Amidst the green, a flash of rose catches my eye. I stray from the path to investigate. “Wait, Bart,” I say to his back.

  Lost in thought, he plunges on ahead of me.

  “Bart,” I repeat, a little louder.

  He doesn’t even hear me. I know in his mind he’s second-guessing his actions, worrying that the business his father and he built might be in jeopardy.

  “Bart!” I scamper up to him and touch his shoulder. “Check this out!”

  Taking his hand, I lead him into the trees. Our eyes adjust to the mixture of shade and light. We seem to have interrupted a conversation. Two men in nineteenth-century morning coats laze on the grass, the one on the right wearing a straw hat and gesturing with one expansive arm. The woman seated with them looks straight at me. Her fingers rest on her chin. Her skin glows in the dapples of sun. She’s naked.

  Instantly, we smile. We’re standing inside a painting translated into three dimensions, the famous and enigmatic “Luncheon on the Grass,” by Édouard Manet. The real-life trees, river, sunlight, and boat in the background all perfectly re-enact the painting I know so well. Crumpled behind the nude lady are her hat and flouncy blue dress. Apples and bread spill toward us from inside a wicker basket.

  I hand Bart my camera. “Take my picture as if I’m in the painting!”

  I jump into the scene between the naked woman and her luncheon companions.

  Bart is fumbling with the camera. He has only come here to humor me, I realize. Yet I see those eyes crinkle; he seems to enjoy my enjoyment, so maybe it’s doing him some good anyhow.

  I jump out of the picture, instruct him, then hop back in.

  Snap.

  We were married the day after my twenty-fifth birthday, in an informal ceremony in my parents’ living room. My dress cost thirty-five dollars, and when people commented that I still used my maiden name, Bart quipped, “I didn’t change my name either.”

  On our twenty-fifth anniversary, the day after my fiftieth birthday, I woke up in a hotel in the Bahamas, our three brown-eyed sons asleep in the next room dreaming of a snorkeling day.

  Rolling over, I said, with a hiccup of laughter, “I just realized something: I’ve been married exactly half my life.”

  “You’ve been a good sport about it,” my husband said, with a kiss.

  In the park, a family of live peacocks scampers out of our way. We pass a rough-hewn Stonehenge object decorated with carved whirls and swirls, and a fiberglass Loch Ness monster flailing its tentacles out of a fountain. I’m lost in exploration, the music of water playing over soft rapids. Then I make out a form in the shadow, my husband on a marble bench, his dark eyes turned inward. Suddenly, I’m aware of the sun’s heat pressing on the top of my head.

  What am I trying to do, I ask myself. I can’t force him to lift his eyes, to look, to smile. I can’t make him get over his frustration by artificial means. Maybe it isn’t right to distract him from his loss. He has a right to his feelings.

  “I used to think I was a good judge of character,” he says as I approach him.

  “Come on,” I say, prying him off the bench. “Just a little farther.”

  And then I add, “You sensed something was wrong, remember? You kept saying, ‘I’m concerned about Susan. She always makes excuses not to have lunch with me anymore.’ Now we know why. She couldn’t face you. Her conscience was bothering her.”

  We talk as we walk, that familiar glow between us. I don’t have anything profound to say or any solutions to offer, but maybe, like the Hindu chant music playing in his office, after half a lifetime of practice my presence just calms him down. If there is a secret to our longevity, maybe it is in this.

  “We’ll be all right,” I tell him.

  At the top of the observation tower, I snap a photo of Bart, a slightly more relaxed look on his face, as in the background the sun and clouds knit together.

  Our feet back on the ground, my husband says my name. “Faith?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for marrying me.”

  Suddenly, in front of us, a grassy hill arises, dotted with bright red poppies. A woman stands on top of the hill, captured in the instant when she whirls around to glance at us, her long skirts swirling in the wind, her lips parted, scarf flying, green parasol tipped.

  A shared breath escapes both of our mouths. “Wow.”

  We both recognize this as a 3-D replica of Claude Monet’s painting “The Stroll.” The steep slope evokes the upward perspective of the vertical canvas. The woman at the top of the hill is Monet’s wife, Camille. Throughout their years together, Monet painted Camille more often than any other model, his brush snatching single moments before they evaporated into the air, right up until his last depiction of her, a work called, “Camille Monet on Her Deathbed.” Yet, here she is, high above us, alive, fresh, and young.

  My sandals keeping pace with his sneakers, in this place that marries art and nature, I soak in a little of what the Impressionists knew. That a shared moment is a complete composition. That if we stroll together today, as colors flicker in our eyes, then yesterday and tomorrow will take care of themselves.

  As we pass, Madame Monet seems to smile at us, just as her husband painted her, with her young son Jean partly visible in the background, dancing between the sun and wind on a hill sparkling with poppies.

  — Faith Paulsen

  The artworks described in this piece include “Dejeuner Déjà Vu” and “Poppied Hill,” by Seward Johnson, at Grounds for Sculpture in Harrison, New Jersey.

  Willow Weep No More

  They have seventy-one years of marriage between the two of them, although together they just celebrated eighteen.

  Mom says, “He is my third marriage but my first husband.”

  My parents, Trudi and Marty, met in 1963, when both were involved in the Midwest region of United Synagogue Youth. Mom lived in St. Louis and Dad lived in Des Moines. Over the next two years they saw each other only six times, but they sent letters daily. When Mom arrived at camp the summer of 1965, she saw Marty holding hands with another girl. She cried for two weeks.

  In the fall, she started her senior year of high school. In art class she expressed her feelings through painting with a self-portrait entitled “Willow Weep for Me.”

  The next summer, Mom and Marty saw each other at camp again. Although they did trade a glance or two, they did not exchange a single word.

  Two more years passed, and no letters passed between them. Eventually, Mom accepted an engagement ring from another. Then, on a Thursday night, she received a phone call.

  “Don’t get married,” Marty said. “Come to Des Moines and meet my parents.”

  She agreed and went to tell her parents.

  Her mother’s reaction was quite simple. “We have two-hundred-fifty Cornish hens ordered for your wedding in two days.”

  The trip to Des Moines never happened.

  After fourteen years of marriage and three daughters (I am the middle one) my mom’s marriage ended. After some time and consideration, she decided to find Marty. Going about things the old-fashioned way, without the luxury of Google, she talked with friends and went to the library for phone books. She took a chance and called the now “Dr. Rosenfeld” at his office. It was a simple conversation.

  “Hi. I’m divorced, and I heard you were, too.”

  His reaction was not what she had hoped for.

  “I remarried, and we just had a baby,” Marty said.

  Again, she hung the self-portrait on the wall . . . and wept.

  My younger sister, Tiffany, followed in my mother’s footsteps and joined the same region of
USY that Mom had been in almost thirty years earlier. She attended the fall conference in Des Moines. One evening during a large group dinner, a gentleman in a light-blue sport jacket walked on stage and, amid the hundreds of teenagers, took the microphone and simply asked, “Does anyone out there know Trudi Lasky?”

  My sister, very shy and quite surprised, raised her hand, stood up, and said hesitantly, “That is my mom.”

  Marty introduced himself to Tiffany and explained how he knew Mom (although I am pretty certain he left out many details). She snapped a few pictures and accepted his phone number, assuring him that she would pass it along to Mom when the weekend conference was over.

  But my sister was a little uncertain. Mom was in the middle of her second divorce, and that marriage, like her first, was far from healthy. Tiffany wondered whether she should develop the pictures and give Mom the phone number now or wait until some semblance of normal returned to our lives. Then again, what was normal? Why not give this a shot and move ahead with a new normal?

  Tiffany told Mom about her surprise visitor in Des Moines, and the two decided they should develop the film immediately. After all, Mom had not seen Marty in almost three decades. However, by that time, the new puppy had decided the roll of film was a chew toy, so there were no pictures. But on Tiffany’s urging, Mom called the number, and although she had no picture, she finally heard Marty’s voice again.

  During their second phone conversation, he proposed and she accepted. The ring arrived in the mail later that week.

  Months went by, and just like teenagers, Mom and Marty talked on the phone every night for hours. We all started to notice that this “new normal” could, and did, involve smiles and happiness. The willow tree was no longer weeping. The only problem: he was in Des Moines and she was in St. Louis.

  Fall arrived, and it was time for Mom to take me to college at the University of Iowa — coincidentally, only two hours east of Des Moines. After checking into the hotel, Mom and I had just sat down to relax when the front desk called to say there was something wrong with the credit card Mom had used to make the reservation. She let the desk clerk know she was on her way down to straighten things out.

  When the elevator doors opened to the lobby, there stood Marty with two dozen red roses. He quickly explained that there was nothing wrong with her credit card; it had all been a ploy to get her to the lobby. I will never forget the image of my mom, happier than I had ever seen her, in the arms of her true love. It was kismet; meant to be.

  Many years have passed since my Mom and Dad finally got married. (Although not my biological father, Marty has been “Dad” to me in every sense of the word.) Like all marriages, they have gone through some rough spots, but nothing could have prepared them for what was to come.

  In December 2009, Dad was involved in an incident that left him a quadriplegic. He was on a ventilator in an intensive care unit for six weeks. Mom rarely left his side. She became his advocate, his voice, his calming presence, his angel. They have since left the hospital and for the last three months (and counting) have been at a remarkable rehabilitation facility.

  When Mom feels angry, hopeless, exhausted, helpless, frustrated, or any negative emotion, I simply ask her, “Do you still love him?”

  She answers me without hesitating. “I did not think I could love him more than I have my entire life, but I do.”

  In Hebrew, the letters of the alphabet also have a numerical value. The Hebrew word for life, chai, has the numerical value of eighteen. In February, at the remarkable rehabilitation facility, my parents celebrated their eighteenth anniversary. For them, life has started again.

  Although my mother’s self-portrait is now hanging in my living room, I know the willow is not weeping. It is a constant reminder to me that the power of love can go beyond the past as well as the present to create a beautiful future — such as this “new normal” that has returned my mom to the arms of her true love, her first true husband.

  — Suzanne Yoder

  Love Shack

  I’m quiet. That’s what people who don’t know me say, anyway. I spend hours plotting my next verbal expression. I write conversation starters in my journal. I record funny things I should have said in a situation in which all I could think to do at the time was smile and nod. When I’m in a group of people, I observe, I contemplate.

  Joe likes to talk. He’s the life of the party, the guy with the jokes, the guy who says what everyone else is thinking but is too afraid to say. He has no inner monologue. Before he has a chance to think about what he’s going to say, it just blurts right out of his mouth. “Diarrhea of the mouth,” I call it.

  I’m sweet. Even people who know me say that.

  He’s whatever it is that’s the opposite of sweet. Well, except with me, but no one is supposed to know that. Don’t tell anyone I let his secret out.

  The day we met was an unusual one for me. I was talkative. It was a typical day for him; he was interruptive. I walked into Radio Shack to buy a prepaid phone card for a weekend out of town with my friends. I told Scott, my friend behind the counter, all about the concert we were planning to see. I told him how excited I was. Then I told him that one of the friends I was headed out of town with just happened to have broken my heart the day before. I had found out that he wasn’t interested in me in “that way” and that he had gone out with both of my girlfriends from work on different nights the same weekend he’d taken me out.

  I told Scott that I hated men — except him, of course. He didn’t count because he was my friend. I told him I was done with the stupid pursuit of Mr. Right. I told him about my plan to be the crazy lady with fifty-seven cats and a porch swing where I could sit and yell at whippersnappers who strayed onto my lawn.

  Scott shook his head and laughed. “You’ve already got the crazy part,” he said.

  “I’m not crazy,” I told him. “Men are crazy. And stupid. They pretend they like you when they really don’t just so they can take your heart and break it into fifty million tiny pieces. Then they apologize, and you melt. Your heart gets glued back together for half a minute — just long enough for them to break it apart again.”

  The new guy at The Shack — the one with the intentional baldness, the surfer dude necklace, the strong cologne, and the runny mouth — interrupted my hateful spiel. “That’s because you’re dating boys,” he said.

  I shot him a glare and continued my tirade. “And then the ones who aren’t out to break your heart act like they just can’t live if you aren’t by their side 24/7. They act like — ”

  “Okay, here’s what you want in a man,” the new guy interrupted. “You want a guy who is nice but not too nice. If you wanted one of those sweet and sensitive ones, you’d want to date girls. Right?”

  He didn’t wait for my response before he continued. “You want a guy who will open doors for you but will also let you do things for yourself . . . ”

  I glared at him as he proceeded to tell me everything I had ever wanted in a man.

  “And you’re glaring at me like that because I’m right and you know I’m right, but you don’t want to let on that I’m right. Right?”

  “No!” I protested.

  He smiled victoriously and slid a piece of paper across the counter. “Here. Write down your name and I’ll freak you out even more.”

  I looked at him questioningly and then wrote my first name only on the paper.

  He picked it up and studied my penmanship as he ran his hand over his goatee and hummed. “Hmm . . .”

  “Your letters curve to the left. This tells me that you are somewhat introverted. The loops in your letters tell me that you are happy and bubbly . . .”

  He was right on. And yes, it did freak me out. I told him so, too. Before I walked out the door I looked over my shoulder and said, “You’re weird. Stay away from me.”

  But I couldn’t stay away from him.

  The next week I was back in the store for another phone card. I did need one, but what I really
wanted was to see that new guy. This time I examined his empty left ring finger and noted the name printed on the pin on his shirt.

  “How was the concert?” Joe asked.

  “Awesome,” I said as I tried to keep my cool.

  “How were things with that guy all weekend?”

  I laughed. “Fun for us. Miserable for him. We didn’t talk to him, and he kept asking if we were mad at him.”

  “That’s pretty cold,” he said.

  “Maybe. But so was what he did to us.”

  “You know, you need a guy who — ”

  “I know,” I interrupted. “You told me what I needed last week, remember?”

  The speaker was speechless. I grabbed my phone card and left.

  Every time I went into the store, we talked a little bit more. One day he ripped off a piece of receipt paper and jotted down his number. “Here,” he said as he slid it across the counter. “You can call me sometime if you want. If you ever need to talk to someone about how stupid men are. Or whatever.”

  I kept his number in my wallet for weeks. Throughout those weeks, I studied The List. You know what I’m talking about: The List of What I Want in a Man. Every woman has one. And if they don’t — well, they should.

  There were a few things on The List that didn’t quite fit him. I drew a small X for “nope” next to “must have a cat,” “must be in a rock band,” and “must have blue eyes.” However, a lot of the things on the list fit him perfectly. I made giant check marks next to the good qualities he possessed: charm, sense of humor, smarts, a job . . .

  But there was one item on the list I didn’t know about, so I finally called him. After the preliminary “How ya doin’s,” I asked the question: “What’s your last name?”