Big Cherry Holler (18 page)

O
ne thing is for sure in a small town: if you’re the toast of the town today, tomorrow you’re bread crumbs. And if there are rumors that your husband is having an affair, if you wait long enough, somebody will top it with a bigger story. I’d like to thank Tozz Ball for having a second wife and family down in Middlesboro, Kentucky, and coming clean to his first family here in the Gap during a Sunday Revival at the Methodist Church. Tozz is now the headliner; I am happy to be bird feed.

Jack Mac and I talked about the rumors, in our way. I never directly named anyone (Karen), and he never admitted to anything (Karen). He told me that kind of talk comes with the territory; he works with women now, and people will talk. I told him that I understood, but I didn’t want him to give anyone reason to talk, either.

I don’t know if I’m getting better at following Iva Lou’s instructions or if it’s plain old fear that’s helped me stick with my plan to be the perfect wife. I have been a joy to live with all spring: Upbeat, Warm and Tender, Uncomplicated, and Loving. I am no trouble at all. You could press me in dough and make sugar cookies out of me, I’ve been
so sweet. I’m sure Etta wonders where my temper and occasional blue moods went this spring, but if she thinks about it much, she doesn’t mention it.

It’s the last week of April, which means that my wedding anniversary is coming up. April 29 will mark eight years of married life. On our first anniversary, Jack asked me what I wanted; of course, I wanted our baby to be healthy, and she was. But he wanted to buy me something. So I asked him for a book; not a book with a particular story, but one of those empty books with blank pages. He went over the mall and got me a pretty blue velvet journal and wrapped it up. When I opened it, I thanked him and then I gave it back to him. He looked confused and I told him that there was a second part to the gift. I wanted him to write me a letter every year on our anniversary, and I would write one to him, so that someday we could look back and see what we were. Now, Jack is not a writer, and neither am I, but I felt even a man of few words could come up with a page of something once a year. And he has. There are times during the year when I forget about the book, and right around our anniversary, Jack and I do this funny teasing dance with each other about writing in it; we pretend squabble and he acts like I’m asking him to yank a tooth, but we’ve written to each other every year, without fail.

The book has come in handy lately because I’ve needed reassurance. I wanted proof somehow that I didn’t dream all of this, my great fortune at falling in love with a good person and having two beautiful children with him. I am trying to hang on, so I need to know why I should. I’m a woman of instinct, and my instinct keeps telling me that there’s trouble ahead. I play out the scenarios in my mind: all the horrible ones, like the day he packs his clothes to go, the morning I get the divorce papers, and the day he remarries and I’m alone again. I know it’s crazy, but these are crazy times around here.

The last few years have been so hard, we’ve written very short letters to each other. The year Joe died, Jack wrote: “I love you honey. I’m sorry.” And I wrote the story of Joe’s passing. But that year was the
worst for us, and instead of dwelling on that, I pull the book out of my dresser and read Jack’s first letter.

I take the book and put it on Jack’s nightstand with a pen. Maybe if he looks at what he’s written to me, it will remind him that there is a lot here worth fighting for.

June, the month of Our Big Trip home to Italy could not come fast enough. Now that it’s here, I am filled with hope again. I want to be with my husband in a romantic place where we can be together, talk, and laugh, where no one knows us. All winter the mountains felt as if they were closing in on us. Jack has spent most of the spring working overtime. There’s been very little rain, so he and Mousey and Rick have been working long hours. Construction is all about the weather.

I remember the clothes Jack took to Italy on our honeymoon, and I try to copy the contents this go-round. I’ve asked him a few questions here and there about what he wants me to bring for him, and he just says, “You decide.” So I pack for him.

The night before we’re set to fly out of Tri-Cities, en route to
Kennedy Airport in New York and then to Milan, I check on Etta. She had been too excited to sleep, so I allowed her to keep the nightstand light on and read. It worked. As I pull Beverly Cleary’s
Fifteen
out of her grasp and shove the bookmark into place, she turns over and hugs her pillow without opening her eyes. I give her a quick kiss on the forehead. Her bags are packed neatly and waiting in a row by the door. I can’t wait to see her face when she sees Schilpario for the first time.

I hear Jack park the truck in the side yard. I am looking forward to the long airplane ride. Etta can sleep, and Jack and I will finally get a chance to talk, to catch up. Our happiest memories together are of our honeymoon, and now we’ll get to relive all of that.

I meet Jack in the hallway as he shuffles through the mail. I wrap my arms around him from behind.

“How was your day?” I ask him.

“Rough.”

“I bought you new socks.”

“Why?”

“Your old ones were too shabby for Italy.”

Jack starts to move, so I let go of him. He puts his arm around me and moves toward the kitchen.

“And by the way, these aren’t the socks that come in a pack. They’re the good kind that hang on the rack on the little plastic hangers at Dave’s Department Store. Nothing but the best for my husband.”

“I want to talk to you.” He sits down at the kitchen table. I sit across from him.

“What’s up?” I say cheerily. I can be cheery. Tomorrow we’ll be in Italy.

“I’m not going.”

“Why?” I ask. He doesn’t answer me. “Is it work? Are you behind on a job?”

“No. We’re okay.”

“Then what is it?”

“I think we need time apart.” Jack leans back in his chair and looks at me intently. His gaze makes me uncomfortable, and I look away.

“Why?”

“I think you know why.”

The rumors around town? The long silences in our own bedroom? The way we bury ourselves in work, emerging only to take care of Etta?

“I don’t know what you mean.” Let him explain this. I am tired of filling in blanks.

“I don’t think you want to be married to me anymore.”

“That’s not true! Not at all.”

Jack gets up and turns on the tap. He pours himself a glass of water and drinks it. “Ave, you don’t want to face this.”

“Face what?”

“You do your chores: taking care of Etta, the house, me. And you’re even sweet about it. You’ve been great all spring. But you’re not really here in this marriage, it’s an act.”

“I resent that. I am doing things, living this way, out of love. I’m not pretending.”

“Maybe ‘pretending’ is the wrong word. You’re going through the motions. It’s rote. You do what you think you’re supposed to do. You do it well. And it’s all very pleasant. Aboveboard. Nice.”

“I’ve been doing this for you. It’s not an act!”

“That’s not what I want,” Jack says simply. He moves and stands near the windows, yet he keeps his eyes on me the whole time.

“I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you.”

“No. I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you,” he says, then comes over to sit next to me.

“I’m really afraid right now. These things that you’re saying sound so final to me.” I take his hands into mine. I love his hands, and I don’t want to let go. “Don’t you love me anymore?”

“That’s never been the problem. I love you so much that I’m willing to live an unhappy life for you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t think you would,” he says quietly.

“Jack, you have to explain to me what you’re feeling. Because I don’t get it. Please help me understand.”

“When I married you, I wanted to make you happy.”

“You did.”

“I took it on because I wanted to.”

“Took what on?”

“You. Your ways.”

“Nobody is simple, Jack. We’re all complicated. That’s how people are. And anyone out there who you think is easy, believe me, they’re not.” I want to come out and say, “If you think Karen Bell is a cakewalk, you’re crazy.” But I can’t. I will not say her name in this house.

“I knew it was going to be hard. I know a good marriage is more work than not. But I thought at the time that you would dig in and work with me. I thought that no matter what happened, we would share it.”

“Haven’t we shared everything?”

“No.”

“I thought we had.” I’m lying. We haven’t shared everything, and I know it. “You’re talking about Joe.”

“My heart broke too when he died.”

“I know.” Jack takes my hand.

“And it’s still broken. I’ve felt ready to talk about it, but you seem distant so I give up. The only time you dealt with it, with me, was at the cemetery last Christmas. And I had so much hope that it was the beginning of a new time for us. I felt like maybe you were going to share with me. Grieve with me. But that one day came and went, and that was it.” Jack lets go of my hand.

“You shouldn’t attack me for the way I handled our son’s death. That’s not fair.”

“I’m not attacking you,” he says quietly.

“There isn’t a manual out there that tells you how to handle your
child’s death. Even other parents who went through this, the ones I talked to, couldn’t help me. Us. I didn’t handle it well. But how do you handle something like that well? Is it even possible?”

Jack Mac looks at me. He closes his eyes to think for a moment, then he opens them and looks at me. “I know he came through your body, and that’s something I could never understand, but you pushed me away.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Let’s be clear. You did mean to. You think that there’s only one person in the world who can do things right, and that’s you. You’ve never really trusted me.” I start to object, and he interrupts me. “You don’t think I’m capable of taking care of our family, of you. In some way, you think that I’m not up to the task. Now, maybe you’d be that way with any man, but I only know how you are with me. And you can flit around here and smile and pretend that everything is fine, but you and I know the truth. Underneath this perfectly nice surface is a lie. I really believed in us, and you never did. It’s unrequited love. I love a woman, you, who doesn’t love me in the same way. A thinking man would end it all right here. A thinking man would just say, ‘It’s over.’ But I have always let my heart rule my head. I think you need to take the summer to think about what you want to do. And I need the time to think about what I want to do. And I say we talk after you come back from Italy and we decide how we’re going to proceed.”

“You want a …” I can’t, won’t, say the word “divorce.”

“I didn’t say that. I want you to think about what you want. You may decide that you don’t want to be married to me anymore.”

“And you’re willing to take that chance?”

He shrugs. “I can’t live like this.”

I look at Jack MacChesney, and he is in pain. He doesn’t want to say these things. He doesn’t want to believe them, yet he knows that they are true. I am not really here. When we got married, I thought happiness would come naturally. I thought he could fill me up in the
way that love fills people in storybooks. I thought passion would rule us, that love would overcome any problem we had, that love itself was communication. But it’s not. I haven’t worked on this. I’m afraid to tell him that I don’t know how. And where would I learn it at this late date? He is unhappy. I am not the woman he thought I was. I have turned out to be a disappointment to him. Remote. Private. Unwilling to share. I know myself well. I’ve always been able to take care of people and call it work. But the real work is being honest. The real work is admitting that what I came from had a deeper effect on me than I knew. That when our son died, it was worse for me. Maybe it wasn’t, but that was what I felt. Maybe I believe that mothers are more important than fathers, and Jack sensed that. Sensed it? He downright laid it out plain for me. He has given this a lot of thought. He thinks about this all the time. How much time in a given day do I think about him in this way, if ever? I usually think about him in terms of myself. I do things for him, sure. But I do them because I’m supposed to, out of duty. The same way my mother did things. If the home was orderly and the meals were prepared, she’d provided stability. But my husband doesn’t want stability. He wants a real partner. Someone who is going to dig down deep and work things through with him. I have failed him. I need to own up to it.

“Jack MacChesney.” I whistle low and long.

He looks at me and smiles.

“Lordy mercy. I hear what you’re saying.” I collapse on the chair.

“Don’t kid around.”

“I’m not kidding around. And it doesn’t matter if I agree with everything you’ve said, which, by the way, I don’t. It’s how you feel. And I honor that.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not going to cut you loose.”

“Ave?”

“What?” I sound annoyed when I say this, but come on, how much more am I supposed to take?

“Don’t stay in this marriage for me. Do what is right for you.”

“Okay. But I want to tell you something. And it’s not to dump guilt on you in any way. But I was looking forward to being together in Italy, like we were on our honeymoon. I was hoping that this trip would be a new start for us. I just want you to know that I know you’re not happy. And I wanted to change that.”