A Cup of Comfort for Couples

by Colleen Sell

  “Hozey,” he said.

  I threw up in my mouth. “Hozey? Seriously?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Why?”

  I looked at The List in my lap and drew a great big red X next to “must not have a stupid last name.”

  “Oh. No reason,” I said.

  I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was the confidence and charisma. Maybe it was the cologne and surfer dude necklace. Maybe it was the way he made me want to punch him every time he opened his mouth. Or maybe it was the fact that he always seemed to know what I was thinking and blurted it out before I even had a chance to spend an hour contemplating how I was going to say it. I don’t know what exactly it was, but a little over a year later I walked into the Social Security office and officially changed my last name to something stupid.

  — Michelle Hozey

  A Room of His Own

  My husband’s room is at the back of our apartment, next to the kitchen. How many times have I walked by and wanted to haul out his clutter and hurl it into the trash? Sometimes, I’ve kicked a box out of my way en route to his desk or thrown a stack of papers on the bed because I couldn’t find the latest PTA notice. But I controlled the impulse to clean up. If he wanted to spend the better part of his days in clutter, so be it.

  Back in Harry’s bachelor place, it took many arguments to convince him that a coat rack did not belong in front of a bay window. Now, cardboard boxes are stacked higher than the windowsill. The guest bed and Harry’s desk occupy most of the nine square feet; what’s left is a three-foot-wide corridor where he swivels around on his office chair. He spends hours in front of the computer, his back to the door, slumped from bad posture. When he talks to friends on the phone, he rests his calves on the desk. Then his laughter rings over into the kitchen. For more serious conversations, he slams his door shut, especially when our toddler decides that Daddy’s threshold is the best place to toot his fire engine.

  The walls are unadorned; there’s not even a bulle-tin board. Whatever artwork the kids bestow on Daddy is scattered on the desk, curling from the humidity that seeps in from the kitchen or yellowing from sunlight. The kids’ paper frogs with glued-on buttons share desk space with unopened charity solicitations, the Paul Fredrick shirt catalog, pink car-repair receipts, doctors’ business cards, and Post-it notes from me. A Plexiglas bin overflows with coins. Cardboard cartons, a shredder, and filing boxes crowd the space under the desk.

  Once in a while, Harry surveys the scene, leans back in his chair, hands crossed behind his head, looks at me, and moans: “What am I supposed to do with this mess?”

  “Clean it up,” I’ll say, leaning in the doorway, hand on hip.

  “Yes, but how?”

  “You take a pile, go through it piece by piece, throw out what you don’t need, and file the rest.”

  “Yes, but I can’t do that without you. I need you to help me.”

  So far we have left it at that, both of us unwilling to commit what little time we have as a twosome to cleaning up his room. We’d rather hang out and talk.

  I tease him that, here in our Chicago apartment, he has recreated the disarray of his father’s wholesale shop, where out-of-fashion sweaters, skirts, and scarves were never weeded out but wandered up another level on the shelves that reached to the fifteen-foot-high ceiling.

  Harry grew up in the back room of that store in Munich, Germany. A cardboard box was his playpen. The room smelled of dust that had absorbed years of cigarette smoke, textile dye, and polyurethane bag odor. Of the secretaire desk, only the hutch door with its stained glass tulip window was visible under heaps of order forms, customs declarations, and shipping documents. Oil-heater grime had blackened the walls.

  Maybe that is why Harry insisted the walls in our condo be painted white and he is reluctant to hang anything on the walls. His room now does not have a particular smell, but when I snuggle into one of the sweatshirts cast off on the bed, I breathe in traces of his Paco Rabanne Eau de Toilette. sometimes we push the PC World, Popular Mechanics, Car & Driver, and Men’s Health magazines on the bed against the wall, lie down, and watch a DVD movie on his computer.

  One night I rested there, icing a bruised shin.

  “Would you like a cookie with your coffee?” Harry asked from the kitchen.

  While I waited for him, my gaze drifted over the flickering screen, the desk lamp that bends down too low, the picture of his father half hidden behind a cup stuffed with ballpoint pens, the box that covers part of the window. And I felt transported to a time when we were still girlfriend and boyfriend, when I woke up early and lay next to him, contemplating his bedroom: the naked floor-to-ceiling windows, the sleeves of his suit jackets queued up on the coat rack, the bare walls, the king-size mattress on the floor.

  It dawned on me then that, in the little room next to the kitchen, Harry had preserved his “this-is-how- I-live” identity, not hindered by my decorating efforts or the family that has grown up around him. I recoiled at how often I had been tempted to reach in, pluck paper after paper, and drop it in a plastic bag. I was grateful I had never torn this room apart in a frenzy of homemaking, had not destroyed the habitat of the twenty-five-year-old I fell in love with. He still lives among all those boxes. It is his room.

  — Annette Gendler

  Wildly in Love

  With my husband by my side, safety is never an issue. Michael could get us out of a tight situ-ation with such ease and finesse that we’d be out of danger long before I’d realized any peril had existed. The day Michael looks alarmed, we are guaranteed goners. Michael exemplifies “the three Rs”: rugged, resourceful, and risk taker — qualities I find endearing in people other than myself.

  Marrying a scuba diver, mountain climber, and cross-country hiker granted me a thrill by associa-tion. For eight years, I’ve encouraged his free-spirited activity, flashing him the thumbs up from the safety of the shoreline, the window of a luxury cabin, or the well-traveled pathway at the foot of the mountain. While he dives into the throes of adventure, I dive under a throw made of chenille to read a great book until Michael returns to share his close encounter with the protective mother bear and her cubs; the treacherous mountain trail with a drop-off, where his foot wandered a bit from the path; or the copperhead that slithered under his boot. I acknowledge a twinge of jealousy when listening to what I could’ve seen firsthand.

  “Did you enjoy your leisurely bath?” he asks, with too much emphasis on the word “leisurely.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess it was okay,” I say.

  “Good. I’m glad you could relax while I was scaling the cliff.”

  The need to correct his false perceptions of my complete safety within the cabin’s walls overtakes me, and I point to my calf. “See that?”

  “What?”

  “That cut. Used a new razor in the tub. Bled all over the place.” I throw him a sideways glance. “Thought I’d need a Band-Aid.”

  “Hmm, that so?” he says while making a high-protein drink to reload for his next death-defying feat.

  “Yeah. And my pumice stone . . . I swear it has teeth.”

  He ignores me while he checks his hiking gear.

  Annoyed, I thrust my hand near his face. “Have you ever tried to give yourself a manicure without the proper tools?”

  He fails to respond to my plight, obviously not recognizing my challenges when holed up in the mountains. Then, suddenly, I’m bored with myself.

  “Would you like to join me on a hike tomorrow?” he asks. “Maybe we’ll see a black bear.”

  The excursion sounds outlandishly dangerous. It’s not that I don’t like nature; I do — from a distance. I could sit and look at wildlife for hours as long as a screened porch, an Adirondack chair, and a café latte are involved. I’m not one to find excitement as the lone person in the forest, noting changes in the wind currents, identifying different types of animal scat, or acknowledging various species of plant life while I’m carrying nothing more than a canteen of water and a gr
anola bar in the event that unforeseen circumstances force me to spend the night in the woods. Instead, I stay indoors and indulge in niceties for myself while Michael partakes in his dangerous, testosterone-packed jaunts. After all, if I’m going to be a young widow, I need to stay somewhat attractive.

  Yet, when I look at my husband’s peaceful demeanor, I feel the urge to mingle with the fragrant rhododendron, stumble upon a refreshing waterfall, and gaze admiringly at a wide-eyed doe with her wobbly legged fawn at her side.

  Michael says, “Today, a man spotted a bobcat.”

  With those words, a snarling cat perched atop a rock and ready to strike an unsuspecting hiker replaces my image of the precious fawn. “Bobcat? Aren’t those dangerous?”

  “Can be.” He looks at me. “If you’re worried, maybe you should stay here.”

  And I do. All week. As we leave the luxury cabin to return home from the mountains, I vow that next time will be different, promising to let myself go forth into the wild.

  I should not have made that vow aloud.

  Upon our return to Missouri, my husband suggests that we ease into my promise with a simple canoe trip down the Meramec River. I agree to go, even though rain is forecast. After all, I don’t want to look like my same old, unadventurous self.

  The ninety-minute drive allows time for contemplation. “What if we capsize?” I ask.

  “Then we get wet,” he says.

  “But what happens to our belongings?”

  He laughs. “They get wet, too.”

  I realize I can’t stoke concern where there is none, so I stop asking questions.

  Upon our arrival, we go to the canoe rental office, where the woman not only charges us thirty-eight dollars to risk our lives but also insists that we sign a hold-harmless waiver, relinquishing them from any liability for our bad judgment.

  “It’s early in the season and the river is high, but the water’s still within the riverbanks,” the woman says.

  Well, how lucky can we be? I have the urge to say. I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of a flood. She warns of the fast-paced current, fallen trees, and other assorted debris around which we will need to navigate with help from the river patrol. The words “fallen trees,” “debris,” and “river patrol” clog my mind. I’m now convinced I will battle the evils of the underworld, but unlike Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and Dante, I will not emerge a better person for it.

  My anxiety level subsides a bit when I see the orange life vests. The color is fitting, I think, seeing as I’m a prisoner on the river for the day.

  After realizing I’m the only adult holding a vest, I say, “You can’t be too safe, you know.”

  “Good idea,” Michael says.

  I examine it with hesitation. “Has this been washed?”

  “You mean this year?”

  “I take that as a no.”

  We board an old, rickety bus that once passed inspection for the safe transport of children to school. Now, it hauls half-crocked adults to the river’s edge. I eye the bus driver with suspicion after noting the colored sketch of two frothy beer mugs posted above the rearview mirror. Everything will be fine, I assure myself, while a nearby cattle dog sits on his owner’s lap, eagerly waiting for the bus to pull out. Obviously, the dog has done this before. I’m jealous that his doggie life vest complements his fur. “Isn’t that cute?” people say as they pass the dog. They fail to acknowledge an orange vest on a middle-aged woman.

  As we travel down Possum Hollow Road, I over-hear snippets of conversations about snappers and snakes. I try to distract myself by looking out the windows. Abandoned shanties, rusted-out camper shells, and dilapidated chicken coops remind me that we are far from my comfort zone. I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved when we make it to the riverbank.

  I search for the safest canoe, but I’m not sure what to look for. Perhaps the one without a hole? Michael makes our selection and ties our cooler to the boat with a bungee cord. What if I fall in? I wonder. Why didn’t he bring one long enough to secure me to the canoe? Are a sandwich and a bag of chips more important?

  He instructs me to sit in the bow, and he sits in the stern, promising to do most of the work. Michael tells me to watch for snags. Snags? I can’t admit that I don’t know what they are, but I decide these snags are more daunting than, let’s say, a sweater snag or a snag in my stockings. Within moments, our canoe nearly topples from my lack of proper attention, and I realize that the snags are nothing short of underwater land mines.

  “So how far are we canoeing?” I ask.

  “Ten miles,” Michael replies.

  “Joking, right?”

  “No.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Four to six hours . . . unless we’re in a hurry.”

  I let out a nervous laugh that echoes off the limestone rock formations. I wonder how I will sit like a soldier for that long, since I’m afraid to move the slightest degree to the left or right for fear of tipping the canoe. Settling the best I can, I stare at the dirty water that surrounds me.

  “Could have cleaned the place up a bit,” I say.

  My husband chuckles as we pass a bobbing kitchen chair and a porcelain toilet on the left bank. Pointing to the toilet he says, “Let me know if you need to stop.”

  There is no way I can admit that I need to use it.

  Soon we pass two rafts tied together — twelve women in all. Their hoots and hollers tell me they are here by their own volition. One woman asks the others, “If you could be the opposite sex for the day, what is the first thing you’d do?”

  I secretly ponder this question, and my husband eventually asks, “Well, what would you do?”

  “Fart in public,” I announce, and Michael tells me that life on the river suits me well.

  I straighten on the bench, basking in my new image as a river rat, when a strange sound draws my attention. “What was that?” I ask.

  Michael points to the riverbank, where a herd of cattle stand both in and out of the water. No wonder the cattle dog needs a life vest. The cows are snorting, moving a little too close to the canoe.

  “We’re fine,” Michael assures me, but for the next few miles, I watch for angry cows, snakes, snappers, wayward fishing lures, and drunken boaters. Just when I decide the dangers on the river are behind us, the sound of thunder erupts.

  I look at Michael to gauge his concern. “Hmm,” he says, “guess it’s time for you to paddle.”

  Lightning. Aluminum boat. Water. I begin paddling . . . quickly.

  Michael has yet to show signs of real concern, which provides some relief. As the wind whips up a cool breeze, the rain pours from the sky, and the lightning crackles overhead, I search for anything that might delay our arrival to the landing. The rain pelts my skin, and the canoe begins taking on water, negating my efforts to keep dry for the past eight miles, and I begin laughing. Michael asks me why I’m laughing, and it suddenly occurs to me that it has been a long time since I let myself go.

  “Can’t a girl laugh when she’s paddling for her life?” I ask.

  For the next two miles, the storm worsens and the river rages, but it doesn’t matter if we capsize, if a snake slithers on board, or if we’re rammed by an angry steer. I realize that I’m having fun and, more importantly, I’m helping to save Nature Boy’s life (a story my husband will deny every time I tell it). Salvation soon appears at the takeout landing — the old, rickety bus with the beer-touting driver who will deliver us safely to our car.

  Once aboard, Michael glances at the lightning strikes behind us. “That was a little too close.”

  “Now you tell me,” I say.

  On the way back, I listen to people brag of cheating danger, and I know I can do the same.

  Once home, I relay our harrowing adventure on the Meramec to the children, wherein they reply, “That’s nice, Mom. But what’s for dinner?”

  Michael looks at me and says, “Yeah, what is for dinner?”

  “Whatever
you decide to make will be fine. I need to book our reservations in the mountains before the cabins fill up.”

  “We could always use a tent, you know,” he suggests.

  “Why don’t we compromise? A pop-up trailer . . . with a full kitchen.”

  “Sure.”

  “Toilet and shower?”

  “Absolutely,” he assures me.

  “Washer and dryer?”

  “Uh . . . no.”

  I sigh. “I suppose I’ll survive. Barely.”

  Michael puts his arm around me and pulls me closer. “I’ve been thinking . . . How about a little white-water rafting this year?”

  — Cathi LaMarche

  The Piece of Paper That Almost Blinded Me

  I was feeling particularly organized that Friday afternoon. The kids were safely tucked into daycare, and I was plodding along with my daily companion — my To Do list. It was a tattered piece of notebook paper, and in those days, a newly scribbled one accompanied me everywhere I went. With a family wedding in Manhattan in a couple months, I attacked the project of finding the best airfare possible. When satisfied, I proudly e-mailed my husband, David, to let him know what I’d come up with. Surely he’d be happy with my efforts to not take him away from his clients for any longer than necessary.

  His response came swiftly and dealt a life-altering message. “We won’t make it that long.”

  Grasping for a reason for my husband’s uncharacteristic cruelty, my first thought was that somehow his computer had been taken over by an office prankster. Then I had no choice but to take a long, hard look at my marriage and how we had come to this point in just under seven years.

  To be honest, David’s e-proclamation shouldn’t have come as any big surprise to me. I knew that he and I had drifted apart. Many days, we didn’t even feel like friends, let alone lovers. But it was easier for me to chalk it up to the fact that we had two young children, a puppy, a stressful new job for him in a new city, and a new identity (or lack thereof) for me after having worked for sixteen years in an office and now trying to freelance from home and do laundry at the same time. No, we weren’t very close these days, but I still had high hopes that things would get better in the future. The problem is, he had no way of knowing that.