It’s been months since you put him out, your husband. You still sleep on “your side’ of the bed. His body still imprinted on the other. Every time you open the closet or dresser drawer you catch his scent. The DVD’s are still in the order he liked them. You still put the toilet paper on the roll the way he liked it. His body was hard and warm. Heat radiated from him like a furnace when he was turned on. You turn over and gently rub his pillow. The bedroom seems too quiet without his loud snoring. When he was here at least you weren’t alone. Did you make the right decision putting him out?
You feel a shift. The other side of your brain abruptly regaining consciousness with one word: “REALLY!?”
“Let’s explore that”, it says.
When your son needed to be dropped off or picked up for football practice you did that. He left your baby waiting at a dark field, because he was” helping a friend of his”. When your baby girl fell down the stairs and needed to go to the hospital, he dragged his feet. “Why do you need me to go?” he’d asked. When the grass needed cutting you did it, or paid somebody to do it. You can probably count on one hand how many times he’d helped around the house. In your 12 years of marriage the only bill he made sure was paid on time was the cable bill. He’d come in from work and would either stay in front of the TV watching sports, be on the computer half the night, or constantly texting somebody.
You bought the bedroom set. You couldn’t even get him to go to the store with you to look at one. For your anniversary he got you a pair of slippers. The Family Dollar store tag still attached. When Earth Wind and Fire came to town, he bought himself a concert ticket. He didn’t get one for you he said because “You need to stay home with the kids. We’re supposed to be saving money, so it only makes sense that you stay home. Why pay a babysitter if we don’t have to?” The concert started at 7:00 p.m., he got home at 2:00 a.m.
As you think about your relationship with this man, you get more and more pissed off. “That’s right,” your brain says. “You’ve been alone for a long damn time! Long before you found out about the other women, his extravagant spending, and what had become the open displays of disrespect towards you. You were alone and didn’t even know it!”
Over the past 3 years most nights ended with the two of you screaming and yelling at each other. The last time you tried cuddling up next to him, he told you you were crowding him. So you moved back to your side of the bed.
The bed.
Before you even realize what you’re doing the bed is stripped of all linens. You drag the mattress all the way to one side, and with a great deal of effort, you turn it over. You get out those new sheets you picked up the other day. What the hell, the new comforter set is pulled out too. You’ll pick up new pillows tomorrow.
You look at your handy work. Appropriate you think. Everything fresh and new. Symbolizing a fresh start to my life, a new path.
As you slide between the sheets and reach to turn off the light you say to yourself, ”MMMMM…this quiet ain’t half bad!”
No comments:
Post a Comment