'til Death or Dementia Do Us Part

by Marilyn Reynolds

“It didn’t seem like it. You were either angry or on the verge of anger the whole time. You were rude and inconsiderate of others. I’m not doing it with you, here, next year.”

  After telling the rest of the family of my decision, I called the Aliso Creek Inn in Laguna Beach and reserved three separate condominiums for December 23 through 26, 2008. Aliso Creek had long been a family favorite of ours, and it would certainly be a change of Christmas scenery. When I showed Mike the reservation, he said he wasn’t going to Laguna for Christmas. He was going to have Christmas at home, just like always. I said fine, I’d miss him. But I would be in Laguna Beach.

  WITHOUT A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN

  2008

  Mike had for some time been directing Chanteuses, an a cappella ensemble of 16 or so women singers. He loved working with Chanteuses, all excellent singers and accomplished musicians, willing to experiment with a wide variety of pieces. He loved them, and they loved him. He would often remark that it was a joy to work with such fine singers. The Chanteuses women were equally appreciative of Mike’s leadership—his capacity to bring out the best in them musically, his sensitive interpretations of a broad range of compositions, his precision, his warmth and humor.

  He also sang with Camerata California, a group of professional singers and instrumentalists. Again, a group with a weekly evening rehearsal. The Yip Harburg project was stalled, probably dead. Mike was happiest when he was busy, and with his music activities now mainly consisting of only two enterprises, he was left with an abundance of time on his hands.

  In early January, Mike got an email from the minister of a nearby Presbyterian church, asking if he would be interested in their newly opened position as director of choral music and, if so, might they meet within the next few days. Mike was hesitant, not wanting to again be tied down on Sundays, but I encouraged him to at least meet with the minister and give it some thought. My hope was that adding more to his music plate would have him less often in the doldrums. Also, with the downturn in the economy and my lessened book income, we sorely missed the income Mike lost when he resigned from UUSS. In January 2008, Mike started as choral director at Northminster Presbyterian church.

  Although the theology was not as close to Mike’s take on things religious as had been the case at UUSS, the setting was more compatible. There was a designated space for the choir in the sanctuary, a designated choir room, and choir robes—all things that had been missing at UUSS, and things that Mike considered to be important in the life of a church choir. He was welcomed warmly at Northminster, and both choir and congregation expressed great appreciation for his talents and leadership.

  During this time, Mike continued taking Cymbalta and meeting with Dr. Bertoli on a weekly basis. When he returned from a therapy session, Mike invariably said it had been a good time. He appreciated her insights. Occasionally after a session he would even say, “I think I’ve turned a corner.” Such shifts in attitude rarely lasted for more than a few hours. He was increasingly discontent.

  It was becoming more and more difficult for me to write at home. Previously respectful of my work time, Mike now came into my office whenever he felt like it. “Let’s go to a movie,” he’d say, or “I’m feeling depressed,” or “I can’t get the email to send!”

  “Interrupting writing time is like interrupting a dream,” I reminded him. “It’s hard to get back to it once the flow is disrupted.”

  “I’m sorry,” he might say, but it wouldn’t be long before he would open the door to my office again. “Just one quick question, then I’ll leave you alone.”

  While teaching full time, I’d managed to publish three books in a series of realistic teen fiction. Juggling writing time and teaching time, family time and time with friends was demanding and frustrating. I began toying with the idea of an early retirement. At 58, I would receive much less in retirement income than if I’d continued teaching until 62, or even 60, but I was eager to make the shift from full-time teacher/part-time writer, to full-time writer/part-time teacher. Money from royalties was gradually increasing, as was income from writing-related speaking engagements. That, coupled with a retirement plan that allowed for 30 days of school district work each year for the five years following retirement, made it seem possible. A reach, but possible.

  As I was struggling with the early retirement decision, Mike and I were leading a small group of adults through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a book devoted to nurturing and developing creativity. One of the pieces of advice that seemed appropriate to me at that time was, “Leap, and the net will appear.” That spring, in 1993, I took the leap. I wasn’t up for following Ms. Cameron’s advice when it came to walking over bridges, but it was a useful metaphor with which to counteract my overly cautious natural tendencies. It’s still a useful metaphor.

  Between my retirement in 1993 and this time in 2008, I’d published five more teen novels and one nonfiction book meant for teachers, I Won’t Read and You Can’t Make Me: Reaching Reluctant Teen Readers. My general practice during those years had been to maintain a five-day work schedule—getting started sometime between 9 and 10 o’clock, after a leisurely breakfast and paper perusal with Mike, taking a lunch break near noon, then quitting sometime between 3 and 4 in the afternoon. I sometimes ignored the self-imposed regimen if the grandkids were coming over on a Friday afternoon, or if we had out-of-town visitors, or if we took a short getaway to San Francisco, or to visit the Woodacre family, but I was otherwise fairly disciplined in my work habits.

  Usually I spent the morning reviewing and making changes to the previous day’s writing, then completed another four or five pages that moved things along in whatever story I was working on. In the afternoons I did book/education-related business, answering email and phone calls, sometimes arranging for author visits or planning teacher workshops, though since the recession, the time needed to arrange author visits or workshops had dwindled. I made it a point not to work on weekends. But in spite of my limited and flexible work schedule, Mike became more and more resentful of any time I spent in my office.

  One morning, just minutes after our leisurely breakfast time, as I was settling in to work, Mike stormed into my office and shouted angrily, “I didn’t get married to live alone!”

  I was generally slow to anger, but on this particular morning I snapped back.

  “You so don’t live alone! We have mornings together and all day after 4 o’clock. It’s nothing like when you were teaching, singing regularly with the Master Chorale, doing other singing gigs and sometimes juggling a church job! Now all of a sudden you want my exclusive time and attention? Too bad! I want five to six hours a day out of 24. Weekends free. That’s hardly excessive!”

  A less defensive response would have been kinder, and might possibly even have been more effective. But I was worn down and, at least with Mike, had lost sight of my better self.

  Another time, after a series of morning interruptions, I said, “I wouldn’t think of interrupting you during a rehearsal. How can I convince you to at least wait until after lunchtime, when the creative part is done?”

  “Okay!” he’d said. “I won’t bother you!”

  He was back within the hour. It seemed no matter how I tried to renew the idea that my work time was sacred, Mike continued to barge in whenever the impulse struck him.

  For three decades of marriage I had readily adapted to Mike’s busy teaching and music schedule, working around his activities to squeeze in a little piece of time with him, maybe a movie, or a dinner out, but mostly he was on the go, including Sunday mornings. It seemed totally selfish and unreasonable for him, now, to expect me to drop everything at his slightest whim. I needed a way to protect enough chunks of time to stay with my writing projects. It seemed my only choice was to take my laptop elsewhere for uninterrupted writing.

  As resentful as Mike had become of my writing time, I was equally resentful of having to leave home in order to get any work done. I loved my home office, a whole w
all of built-in book shelves, the 3-foot-by-6-foot tabletop desk that allowed space for several stacks of projects without feeling cluttered, the window that looked out on a giant redwood and, in season, flowering plum trees and crepe myrtles. But the only way to find uninterrupted time was to get out of the house. So I did.

  Note: Unlike the other pretend letters to Mike that could never be read by him, this is an actual letter that I wrote on the stated date and planned to hand-deliver to him. However, upon re-reading what I had written, I realized the futility of expecting him to understand any of my frustrations and tucked the letter away in what was a fast-growing “Mike” file.

  October 28, 2008

  Dear Mike,

  There is so much I want to say to you, and so little I think can get through. My life with you now is unbelievably frustrating. I would have never predicted that we would become so alienated in what had promised to be exciting, free times for us. I believe that you love me in an abstract way, but I no longer believe you love me. Most of the time you seem angry and withdrawn. I no longer feel that you know me, or that you even care to know me. Do you ever wonder what’s going on with me, either physically or emotionally unless it’s directly related to you?

  I cringe at so much of what you have to say these days, your puffed up, narcissistic Leeta*-like pronouncements: “I’m never wrong!” “I hate praise music!” “I hate the guitar!” “Nothing embarrasses me!” Unlike you, I am often embarrassed by such posturing. It leaves no room for real conversation and indicates a small, closed mind. So unlike the you I once knew.

  Your response to the gaffe of putting the knife and spoon on the left side of plates was to yell, “Well, they’re wrong!” when you saw that the Better Homes cookbook showed the opposite. Rearranging the utensils, as if to humor me, you announced, “We can do it that way if that’s what you want.” In reality, I didn’t care how the table was set as long as everyone had utensils with which to eat and a plate to eat from. You knew that, once.

  I am so overwhelmingly weary of waking up to your litany of unhappiness. The church. Sacramento. My work. Politicians. Neighbors. At 7 o’clock in the morning, that martyred sigh, “I have such a long day today …” It’s hard for me to sympathize when you’ve got a whole day before you until 4 o’clock, 3:30 if we count drive time. And then you’ll be back by 9:30 or 10 o’clock? Hardly like those earlier days when you were often out of the house by 6 in the morning, and not home until 11.

  I am caught in an ever tightening vice. Whatever I try to talk with you about elicits some kind of knee-jerk response—you don’t get me, or nobody can tell me what to do, or … whatever. I’m left without a voice.

  You’re resentful of your life being “monitored.” As distant as we are from one another now, I am still greatly concerned for your well-being. It is disheartening to me that you’ve let yourself go physically. You who have so carefully nurtured your God-given musical talent and voice, are squandering your God-given strong, healthy body. Your diet is atrocious, and you’ve tipped the scale to obesity.

  Enough for now. I have so little hope for us, and every time I allow for hope, it all vaporizes into thin air.

  Ever so sincerely,

  Marilyn

  *Leeta was Mike’s very difficult mother—narcissistic long before it was ever designated as a personality disorder by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

  I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE

  2008

  The middle school librarian who had successfully fought the strongest challenge of the 2006 challenges that put Detour for Emmy on that year’s top 10 banned books list received the 2007 Texas Library Association Intellectual Freedom Award. Although she was definitely the one on the front lines of the censorship battle, I had helped with backup information and an op-ed for their local newspaper. As a result, the two of us were invited to speak at several library association conferences, one of which was the 2008 Texas School Library Association gathering in Dallas.

  I checked the map and found that while in Dallas, I would be a mere 230 miles from Macedonia, Arkansas, the place where my father and his 10 brothers and sisters grew up.

  I called Dale. “I don’t think I can be so close to Macedonia and not drop by. Wanna do a road trip?”

  A week before the conference, Dale and I flew to Dallas, rented a car, and made the pilgrimage to Macedonia. Well … we actually headed for Magnolia, the town a few miles north of Macedonia that had a motel and several little cafes.

  We had a long history of such pilgrimages. During the time of our growing up, our father allowed himself the luxury of a vacation every four years, and we would make the road trip from Temple City, California, to Macedonia, Arkansas.

  Although Dale and I didn’t see our Arkansas relatives often, we were nevertheless closely connected. As adults we continued the visits, though the timing wasn’t as predictable as the old four-year cycle.

  By this time, all of our father’s laughing, storytelling, salt-of-the-earth brothers and sisters were gone, as was he. Most of our cousins now lived elsewhere. But our 90-year-old cousin, Pauline, was still alive and in her house in Macedonia. We decided it was best not to tell Pauline we were coming. She was wheelchair-bound, but we knew she would want us to stay with her. We also knew she would have been undone by not being able to offer the level of hospitality that would live up to her standards.

  Other than Pauline, we weren’t sure who else we might see.

  We spent the night in Dallas and called a cousin, Billy Wayne, who lived in Longview, to say we would be traveling through and did he want to meet for lunch. He told us he’d meet us at a Waffle House just off the I-20 and gave directions complete with the freeway exit number and plenty of landmarks. Had it been 20 years since we’d seen him? More? We took up where we left off.

  He’d retired from Eastman when they expected him to start using a computer. He loved retirement the first few years, but then his wife, Beth, retired from her work as a school librarian.

  “I could hardly stand that! I guess she couldn’t either ’cause she went back to work six months after she retired.”

  “How much longer will she work?” I asked.

  “’Til one of us drops dead, I hope.”

  Once settled in our motel rooms in Magnolia, it was with some trepidation that Dale called Pauline. Would she be alert? Would she remember us? She answered the phone. “Where are you?? Get yourself on down here,” she told him, laughing her raucous, distinctive laugh.

  We were welcomed by cousins we’d not seen in decades. David, the cousin we’d kept in closest contact with over the years, was just two years younger than I. We’d not seen each other often as kids, but when we did, we were immediate good buddies. He and his stepbrother, someone we’d also been quite fond of, drove down from Monticello, Arkansas, to see us. We all gathered at Pauline’s one afternoon. She told story after story, some we’d heard over the years and some with pieces of new information. It was a magical time.

  I emailed Mike with pictures from our gathering at Pauline’s, telling him how lucky I felt to be reconnecting, and how easily things had come together. When I talked with him the next evening, he only wanted to know when I was coming home.

  “Did you get my email with the pictures?”

  “Yes,” he said, but he had nothing to say about them, or my account of our time with Pauline. Mike had visited Pauline on two different trips. When we were there in 1994, he’d been so impressed with her tomato “piccalilli” that he’d watched carefully while she put a batch together, writing down approximate amounts of ingredients and the steps to completion. It looked so easy when Pauline was doing it, sitting in her chair in the living room, cutting up tomatoes and onions and various other vegetables, dropping the pieces into a big pan that sat on her footstool. When the pan was full, she carried it to the stove, turned the fire on under it, and soon we had that wonderful relish.

  We’d determined to make some when
we got home. It took us most of one full day to gather the ingredients, cut them up, and cook them. We ended up with three puny jars. Mike’s take on it was that only Pauline could be Pauline. They’d connected on both of Mike’s visits, and he was one of the first people she asked about when we got to her place that April. But Mike seemed indifferent to anything I had to tell him about her—eager for me to finish the story so he could ask when I was coming home.

  Every phone call between us started and ended with Mike asking, “When are you coming home?” I would again tell him the date. I’d remind him that my return flight information was written on the calendar and also that he had my itinerary in his email. But the next conversation would be the same. Once he’d called in the middle of the afternoon. When I picked up, he didn’t even bother to say hello, just, angrily, “When are you coming home?”

  In contrast, Marg was soaking up every detail of Dale’s emails and phone calls. She could not have been happier for us—how happy she was that we were reconnecting with these dear people. How lucky for Dale and me to have this time together, etc. I wanted some of that same enthusiasm from Mike, but what I know now that I didn’t know then was that he had already lost the capacity to resonate with anyone else’s emotions or experiences.

  Once I got back home, Jeannie told me of a strange experience she’d had with Mike. They’d met for lunch, as they did fairly often. Over lunch Mike had told Jeannie, “I have no idea where Marilyn is.”

  She was taken aback.

  “I know where she is,” she’d said. “She’s with Dale in Arkansas, visiting family.”

  A little later over lunch he’d made the same remark. “I have no idea where Marilyn is.”

  When our Arkansas visit was over, we drove back to Dallas where Dale caught a flight back to Sacramento, and I went on to the conference. It was a great success, fun and, according to participants, informative regarding ways to meet book challenges. But Mike was as indifferent to talk of my conference experiences as he had been to my Arkansas experiences. I took it as further evidence that he had simply ceased to care about me.