It Happens Every Spring

by Gary Chapman; Catherine Palmer

  “That’s a lie, and you know it!” Clenching his fist, he slammed it down on the stairway handrail. “I can’t believe this! I don’t believe it! You and that handyman. That low-life weasel covered in paint. You let him put his arms around you.”

  “I let Nick hold me.”

  “Brenda, how could you do that? You’re my wife, and you let another man hold you in his arms. The way I used to hold you. He put his hands on you and ruined you.” Steve’s face was red now, the vein in his neck pulsing. “Did he…did he kiss you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because—”

  “Because Cody came in, right? Would you have let him? Did you want that man to kiss you?”

  “At the time, I did. Now…” She shrugged. “I haven’t answered his calls.”

  “He’s been calling here? Calling you on my phone?”

  “Your phone? Is all this yours, Steve?” she asked, holding out her arms. “Are these your possessions—the house, the furniture…me?”

  “You are my wife. Mine! You made a vow before God to be faithful to me! You gave birth to my children. You belong to me.”

  “What? Like a chair? Or a lawn mower? Or your car? I mean less to you than that stupid hybrid, don’t I? You take it everywhere. You keep it clean and polished, you buy it things, and you brag about it. What about me, Steve? What am I to you?”

  “You are my wife!”

  “What’s a wife? Can you tell me that?”

  “I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not someone who sits around all day long and never even bothers to get dressed. It’s not someone who shudders every time her husband tries to touch her. And it’s not someone who falls in love with an ignorant, worthless, slob handyman.”

  “Nick has exactly the same amount of education as you, Steve Hansen. But I’m not going to try to defend him. Nothing happened between us except a hug, and nothing will. What started is over. It’s finished.”

  “How can you say nothing happened except a hug? You intended for more to happen. You just told me how you felt about him! You wanted more. If Cody hadn’t come in, what would you have done? Would you have gone to bed with the man?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Unbelievable!” He clenched a clump of his hair. “All this time I’ve trusted you and provided for you. I’ve been faithful to you while you pushed me away and refused to let me near. I stayed loyal even though you hid from me under your blankets and bit my head off every time I tried to talk to you.”

  “Don’t elevate yourself, Steve. We both betrayed our marriage vows.”

  “I stayed with you through sickness and health, through richer or poorer—”

  “You started creeping away from me the minute you sold your first house. You fell totally and completely in love with your job. You gave yourself to it, body and soul.”

  “It’s a job, Brenda. You can’t compare it to what you did.”

  “No? Why do you suppose I was vulnerable to Nick?”

  “Because he’s a sleazy con artist who—”

  “Because you had left me—and don’t give me your usual rigmarole about coming home every night and waking up here every morning. You have been gone. Gone, gone, gone! If you had been here, spent time with me, cared enough to honor me with your attention and maybe even a little appreciation, I wouldn’t have left my heart wide-open. Our ruined shell of a marriage is as much your fault as it is mine.”

  “That is bunk.”

  “It’s the truth, and you know it. I’ve admitted my failure. I confessed everything. It was wrong, and I knew it, and I put a stop to it.” She paused and lowered her eyes before continuing in a barely audible voice. “So…can you forgive me?”

  “Forgive?” he echoed. “Are you kidding? I’m not going to forgive you!” He stormed to the far corner of the basement and back again. “You’re trying to make your affair sound as innocent as my dedication to my work. Well, do you know why I work? It’s to provide for you and the kids. Don’t tell me that’s why you fell into another man’s arms. What you did was just good old-fashioned lust, Brenda. A mixed-up kid walking in is the only thing that kept you from having a full-blown affair with your grubby little handyman. And that same kid is the only reason you confessed to me today. If Cody wants hot dogs, you better believe I’ll get him some. But if you want my forgiveness, you can forget it. You betrayed me. Then you tried to blame me for your sins. And now you expect me to just let it go?”

  “I don’t expect anything of you anymore, Steve. I’ve learned you’re never around when I need you. I have no expectations…. I know I made a mistake and I’m just asking for your forgiveness, that’s all.”

  “No way. What you’ve asked for is a divorce—and that’s exactly what you’re going to get.”

  “Strawberries!” Esther sang out, lifting high a pint of the red fruit inside a disposable container. “Right out of Charlie’s garden this very morning. So fresh you’ll just melt when you taste them!”

  Brenda attempted to muster a smile. “Thank you, Esther,” she said. “You can put them in the fridge.”

  “I haven’t seen you since we were here the other day, honey. What have you been—why, you look lower than a dog’s belly! We got you up and out of that chair, and there you are again! At least you’re dressed.” Esther set the strawberries in the refrigerator. “My stars, child, these shelves are almost bare. What’s going on? Is Cody giving you trouble?”

  “No, he’s fine.”

  “Where’s Steve? If you’re feeling this poorly, he ought to be home looking after you. I’m telling you, these men might as well be wearing blinders for all they notice around them. Yesterday I cut a beautiful bouquet of purple irises from the front yard, and then I put them in a vase smack-dab in the middle of the dining-room table. Do you think Charlie mentioned them? Not a word! There they sat, right in front of his chicken-fried steak, and he ate as if nothing was on the table but the salt and pepper.”

  Esther seated herself on the sofa across from Brenda. “I don’t know what I’d do without my Charlie, but sometimes that man makes me mad enough to chew splinters. Do you ever feel that way about Steve? The two of you look picture-perfect all the time, but I’d have to guess you have your moments.”

  Focusing over Esther’s head at the portrait of the Hansen family, Brenda had to suppress a surge of sadness. Had they ever been picture-perfect? No. But there was a time when the world had felt like summer all year round. They’d all been so comfortable with each other. So committed and supportive. Once upon a time, they had all been together. And now…now Steve had vanished. Brenda didn’t know where he had gone the day he vowed to divorce her and went storming out of their home after she told him about Nick LeClair. She had left messages on his cell phone, but he didn’t return her calls. Had he disappeared forever? Gone like a tuft of dandelion seed, leaving behind this bare, lonely stem of a wife?

  “Well, anyway,” Esther said, filling in the emptiness in the room when Brenda didn’t respond to her question.

  They sat for a moment, awkwardly silent. Brenda wished the woman would leave her alone. She didn’t need Esther’s chatter and prying questions. Steve was probably never coming home again, and soon she would have to tell the children about the divorce, and then the black box around her would fold in on itself like an accordion.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about the flower beds at Patsy Pringle’s house,” Esther spoke up again brightly. “The other day I was having my usual set and style at Just As I Am, and Patsy told me that last fall she had planted two hundred tulip bulbs. And do you know what happened?”

  Brenda managed to focus on Esther and shake her head.

  “The deer ate every single bulb! Can you imagine that? Well, of course, now her flower beds are nearly empty except for a few perennials. She’s got weeds, poor thing. Brenda, I propose that the TLC ought to help Patsy by cleaning up her garden and planting a few nice annuals. Maybe some marigolds. I hear the deer wo
n’t touch those.”

  Again Brenda made an attempt to focus on her neighbor and to speak. But nothing she could think of was worth saying.

  “As a matter of fact,” Esther went on, “I’d like for you to come with me to have a look at Patsy’s yard and figure out what we can do. I’ve got the golf cart parked in your driveway, and I’m sure it won’t take but a minute. You’ve always had the prettiest gardens in Deepwater Cove. Oh, come on, honey. Please say yes!”

  Before Brenda could beg off, the older woman was practically pulling her out of the rocker toward the front door. Moving awkwardly, Brenda felt dazed, almost shocked, that her legs still worked and her feet could find their way across the porch. As the women walked toward the golf cart, they passed Cody dozing on the porch swing. He waved at them and put his head down again. As if from some strange distance, Brenda watched herself slide onto the cart’s red vinyl seat.

  “Whee!” Esther said as she put the two-passenger vehicle in gear. “I have to tell you that when I can get this golf cart away from Charlie, I really let ’er go! You know how he always piddles along, checking out everyone’s yards and studying the houses to see who’s home. And, of course, he takes Boofer along with him most of the time, so that means he barely goes two miles an hour. He’s deathly afraid the old dog is going to tumble out of the cart and get hurt, so I say, ‘Leave Boofer here at home, why don’t you?’ But Charlie loves that mutt, and you know how hard it can be to make a man listen.”

  Brenda closed her eyes and leaned back on the seat, realizing how much she had missed the kiss of fresh air and sunshine on her skin. She couldn’t imagine life without Steve, and yet—despite the collapsing black box around her—it had to go on. Beside her, Esther smelled of soft lavender lotion and clean laundry. The golf cart bumped along the road, and the movement sent a tremble of life up Brenda’s spine. She was alive, she realized numbly. Able to feel and smell. Able to walk and talk and do things. As bad as everything seemed, she still had the earth and the sky. Her heart still pumped and her lungs took in air.

  “Men don’t listen, and they never look at what’s right in front of their noses,” Esther was saying. “It’s a wonder to me how they make it through the day. I am forever searching for things Charlie has lost. And complain! I’m telling you that man gripes about every ache and pain in his skinny old body. After he retired, I thought he would drive me crazy as a June bug.”

  Looking around now, Brenda saw that even though her life felt radically different, nothing had changed in Deepwater Cove. Children and dogs played down by the lakeshore. Men mowed lawns. Women washed windows. Cars and golf carts passed each other on the narrow roads. Robins bounced along the ground in search of worms. Squirrels scampered up and down tree trunks.

  “Of course, it didn’t take me long to figure out how to make Charlie happy and easier to get along with.” Esther drove the golf cart into Patsy Pringle’s driveway and switched off the engine. “All he needs is a little cuddle now and then. A pat on the arm. A good-morning hug. A kiss on the cheek. Men just melt in your hands for that kind of thing.”

  As Esther stepped out of the cart, Brenda sat still for a moment, absorbing the simple remedy for marital happiness that her friend had proposed.

  Hugs and cuddles.

  Was that what Steve had been wanting? She could recall his accusations: you never touch me anymore; we never sleep together; you always pull away from me. Her anger and hurt had caused her to shut herself off from him. Of course she hadn’t been kissing or hugging him. He had abandoned her, and it was so painful that she couldn’t bear his proximity in their bed. But maybe she had taken away the very thing he most needed and wanted from her. The thing that would draw him close and make his heart grow softer toward her.

  Brenda left the cart and walked along beside Esther toward the weedy garden patch in Patsy’s front yard. Would Steve even come back? she wondered. Would they divorce? Would he vanish from her life forever?

  “Impatiens!” Esther announced. “Would you look at that? They’ve self-seeded from last year’s batch. A whole crop of little ones. All they need is some tender loving care from the TLC, and Patsy will have herself a pretty bed of flowers.”

  “A cuddle now and then?” Brenda asked as Esther yanked out a dandelion about to go to seed. “Is that really all it takes to make Charlie happy?”

  “Not much more, honey. Oh, you’ve got to feed and water them—husbands, I mean. But really they’re not too different from a flower bed. Most of them aren’t pondering deep matters. It’s football or golf or fishing. A building project or a house to sell. That’s what occupies the biggest part of a man’s brain, honey. That and…well…you know. Women.”

  Brenda had to smile. The thought that knobby-kneed Charlie Moore kept a keen eye out for a pretty woman amused her. But she knew Esther was right.

  “If you want a full, beautiful flower bed in the summertime,” Esther said, “you need to treat it right. That means you’ve got to get your hands in there and make it feel good. Husbands are no different. If you want a summertime marriage—even when you’re as crotchety as Charlie and me—you need to do what it takes. And a man needs his hugs, kisses, pats, and, of course, the rest of it.”

  A summertime marriage, Brenda thought as she knelt next to Esther and cupped her fingers around the fragile green leaves of a baby impatiens. She and Steve had enjoyed that once. Could they ever get it back?

  Steve sat on the end of Deepwater Cove’s community dock and worked a minnow onto Cody’s fishhook. For the past week, he had stayed away from home, unwilling and unable even to look at his wife. After calling his office to let them know he would be away for a few days, Steve had driven to Arkansas and checked into a cheap motel. He’d spent his days fishing and his nights trying, unsuccessfully, to sleep.

  He hated Brenda. That much he knew. She disgusted and revolted him. Every time he thought of her in Nick LeClair’s arms, he wanted to vomit. Sometimes he did. Never in his whole realm of thought had the idea crossed his mind that Brenda could be unfaithful. It was impossible. They had loved each other so long and so well. They shared their three children. Their home. Years and years of memories. Even a cat.

  He could never forgive her for smashing that perfect picture he had cherished in his mind all these years. She had ruined their marriage. Destroyed everything they had worked so hard to build.

  He wanted to kill the handyman. If he could, he would wring the jerk’s scrawny neck. Nick LeClair had come into Steve’s home and seduced Brenda! He ought to buy a gun and blow the guy’s brains out. Holding her and touching her arm—when she wouldn’t even let her own husband near! He’d like to tie them together with a couple of cement blocks and drown them both.

  “I think we could eat these fish,” Cody observed, breaking into Steve’s reliving of the past few days. He pointed to the bucket of minnows. “They’re small, but my daddy and me learned how to eat bugs and crawdads and mice and all kinds of little things. If you’re hungry, you don’t mind.”

  Steve let out his breath. Just thinking about how angry he had been made him furious all over again. His trip had cost him several potentially lucrative house showings, and no doubt his whole office was curious about why he had suddenly vanished. On returning to the area this afternoon, he had decided not to stop by the agency. He hadn’t shaved or slept well, and he didn’t feel up to seeing anyone.

  “People don’t eat minnows,” he explained to Cody. “Big fish eat these little fish. Then people eat the big fish.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s just the way it is.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean, you could eat minnows if you wanted to, but you wouldn’t get full. See?”

  “Uh-huh. But if you’re hungry, you could eat ’em, and your tummy might feel better.”

  Steve gazed out across the lake, remembering again. After those days of fishing, watching TV, and eating Snickers bars and peanut-butter crackers, he had finally decided it was time to d
eal with reality. He would drive back to Deepwater Cove, walk in the front door of their house, and tell Brenda their marriage was over.

  Then he would ask her if she wanted to file for the divorce, or if he should do it. He would give her the house and her car, and they would divide things evenly. Plenty of small homes had come on the market recently, and he could buy one and move in. The kids could visit him and their mother when they had time. Steve would continue working at the agency, and maybe one day he might find another woman to love. At this point, he didn’t even want to think about that. If he couldn’t trust Brenda Hansen, whom could he trust?

  When Steve got home, he had found Cody sitting on the frontporch swing. Brenda was at Just As I Am getting her hair cut, Cody said. So Steve took the boy to a nearby gas station and bought a couple dozen minnows. Then they drove back to Deepwater Cove, grabbed two poles, and walked down to the dock. So far, they hadn’t had a nibble.

  “Did you buy any hot dogs while you were gone?” Cody asked. “I told Brenda I thought that’s where you were, but she didn’t believe me.”

  “I went to a motel and rested for a few days.” He watched his bobber for a moment. “How is Brenda?”

  “She cries and yells a lot, but she still makes me sandwiches. Yesterday she baked a chocolate cake. It was good. I told her she was a Christian for baking me that cake, but she just yelled and cried some more and made me sit on the swing. I like fishing with you, Steve. I’m glad you came back.”

  “Has anyone else been to the house?” he asked warily.

  “Lots of people. The lady and man on the golf cart drive by a bunch of times every day. They wave at me and say, ‘Hi, Cody!’ so I wave back at them. The hair-shaving lady came over to check on my head. She said all the mice are gone, and so is everything else that was hiding in my hair and beard. She and Brenda drank tea on the back porch, but they didn’t invite me. They have a club—the Tea Ladies’ Club—and you can’t be in it if you’re not a lady. I don’t think that’s sharing. All the ladies of the club visited. I swept and mopped the floors in your house, because I’m good at that. When I lived with my daddy, I always kept everything span. Brenda said I could wash the windows again if I wanted to, so I’ve washed them lots of times.”