Even before June fourth arrived, Leta started to dread it. One
morning she looked at the calendar, and realized that in only a few days, her
beloved Albert will have been gone for two years. Was this, she wondered, how
her mother felt after her father left? Actually, the feelings may have been
similar, but the situation was different. Although both men abandoned their
wives, their children and their homes, Leta’s father had only run away. There
was always a possibility that he would return, and he did. Albert, however, was
dead; he would never come back.
She never said anything, but she became irritable and
distracted. She missed him terribly, both physically and emotionally. She
missed their long conversations, his easy laughter, sharing a glass of their
homemade alcoholic brew, his tender kisses, and his warm body against hers in
their bed. She missed how the four of them—Al, herself, and her children Vivian
and Dale would sit at the table for breakfast and look forward to the day.
Two years and two husbands later, Leta dreaded each day.
Whether she spent the night in the bed she shared with her husband Leech or on
the living room couch, morning arrived like a slow burn, gradually dragging her
into another day of silence, grunts, avoidance and gloom.
If I can make it through the day, Leta told
herself, I can make it.
The fourth was a Tuesday. Going into it, she slept fitfully
with Leech snoring loudly beside her. The previous evening he had arrived home
from work as usual, eaten his supper, and then left for four hours. When he
returned, he strode right up the stairs without a word to her; she, however,
had been waiting for him. She needed him to sit with her or talk to her or even
acknowledge her, but he didn’t. When Albert went out in the evening, he would
return with a cheerful greeting, give her a quick kiss, ask her how everything
went while he was away and inquire about the children. If he was home early
enough, he would talk to them, too. Once he had checked in, he would tell the
story of his own evening. He would tease them; they would laugh.
Leta rose early. The room was dark, and while she could hear
the alarm clock ticking, she could not see its face. She put on her robe and
slippers and walked to the window. The drapes were closed. Leech hated to have
the sun glare in. She looked at him, a pile of bedding, underwear and body all
wrapped up together on the bed. The mass seemed to growl a warning at her, but
she turned away and opened the drapes anyway.
If there was a moon, it was setting on some other side of the
house. The sky above her was a dark blue with a few stars. She watched for a
few minutes and could finally make out the light edging its way into the day.
She closed the drapes and left the room. She looked in on each
of her children. Dale was splayed across the bed with all of his covers hanging
off to one side. His pajama top was hiked up around his neck and one arm was
twisted in what appeared to be a highly uncomfortable position. He wheezed when
he slept, taking quick breaths and exhaling much more slowly. She closed the
door and looked into the room across the hall where her daughter Vivian slept.
Vivian slept on her right side, her body elongated but taut. If she slipped out
of bed, one could barely tell she had been in it, so pristine did she leave the
bulk of the bedding. Her breathing was light and quiet.
Leta closed the door and stood in the hallway for a long time.
She had neither the will nor interest in moving. It was as though someone had
emptied her and left her shell in this situation—confused and unhappy children,
an irritable and absent husband, an ugly house. When she finally moved again,
she made her way to the kitchen, like she did every morning. The light was
creeping in slowly, but for the moment, the house was gray and dingy, leaving the
walls, furniture and floors indistinguishable from each other.
She walked through the gray morass and into the kitchen, where
her energy gave out. She dropped into a chair at the table. She felt deserted.
She felt alone. She felt as if she was swallowed by the mass around her and
became part of it. What she was living was not the life she lived with her
beloved Albert. It was some other nonlife, an existence of an aching emptiness.
She was breathing, and that was all she felt she was.
No comments:
Post a Comment