not to. She was a little like you.
She volunteered with the needy and wrote theses on applied sociology. Any righteousness she might have been prone to was checked by backed-up fact. She was careful with her facts. She had a stern sense of her place in the world and she won her battles honorably. She was trusted and true, awake and taking full part in the world around her. She held her head high.
She distrusted fiction yet respected Virginia Woolf for the sorrowful beauty of her perceptions. She found her religion in the earth and in herbs, carefully tending the basil and rosemary plants that thrived in her kitchen window. She took part in ritual gatherings of soulful and honest people who gave thanks to the moon and to the soil and to the warmth of a spiritual bonfire not because she was heathen, but because it made natural sense in a world overcome by greed and harsh philosophy. She was a grounded being in a chaotic universe, and expected nothing less from those around her.
She was married ten years when I knew her. Her husband had been her first love and her first lover. She was fourteen when they met and he was fifteen. She knew that in those years he had grown into an extremely handsome man with a keen artistic talent. She was slightly dismayed when he wanted to hone those talents with a university education, but humored him nonetheless. She understood his need to explore his options, but felt safe in the knowledge that he would return to her father's business after graduation. She gently checked his need for an expressive wardrobe, encouraging instead a more staid and respectable look. She let him out with the boys some weekends then gently chided him for coming home at dawn reeking of irresponsibility, too many cigarettes and stale beer.
Those hungover Sundays were his to own in front of the tv, watching handball and dismissing her almost rudely. She never nagged, though, as she knew he needed those occasional outbursts of masculinity. She never asked where he went or with whom. She let him have his secrets because she knew they were innocuous, the stuff of grown men still needing to be teenage boys. By midweek he was always penitent, asking childish forgiveness for his behavior, and their rhythms once again set to one another. Sometimes it amazed her how pliant he was, but she knew that true love was the reason he bended to her more responsible will.
But she lost her husband one summer to a wild and vapid party girl they both knew. She had itched with suspicion for weeks but refused to believe that he would ever be so foolish as to sacrifice their stability for a fling. When he told her he was leaving her for the girl she threw a heavy beer mug in his face, slicing a wide gash in his cheek and causing him a scar he wears to this day. She packed his clothes and put them on the doorstep, regretting the irrationality of her violence and determined to face this new twist in her fate with calmness and logic. He moved into a tiny attic apartment and waited for his party girl to come.
That was ten years ago. The girl never came, and in a series of carefully executed meetings the wife was able to reprimand and forgive her wayward husband. She trusted him, and knew that the fault lay in the machinations of the other woman, and in lust. She pulled him gently back into their world, never speaking again of that summer. She knew her husband sometimes wondered late at night where his girl had gone, and on those nights she stroked him surely and with love so he would know that he was home once more.
She kept her ears open for word of the girl, watched the downtown streets for sightings. It became a strange and secret habit to keep a sort of tab on her. She discovered that the girl had had to leave for the country unexpectedly at the end of that summer to tend to an ill relation, and she thanked the gods and fate for the rightness of it all. She was dedicated, she was sure and she persevered.
But she lost her husband one summer to a wild and vapid party girl they both knew. She had itched with suspicion for weeks but refused to believe that he would ever be so foolish as to sacrifice their stability for a fling. When he told her he was leaving her for the girl she threw a heavy beer mug in his face, slicing a wide gash in his cheek and causing him a scar he wears to this day. She packed his clothes and put them on the doorstep, regretting the irrationality of her violence and determined to face this new twist in her fate with calmness and logic. He moved into a tiny attic apartment and waited for his party girl to come.
That was ten years ago. The girl never came, and in a series of carefully executed meetings the wife was able to reprimand and forgive her wayward husband. She trusted him, and knew that the fault lay in the machinations of the other woman, and in lust. She pulled him gently back into their world, never speaking again of that summer. She knew her husband sometimes wondered late at night where his girl had gone, and on those nights she stroked him surely and with love so he would know that he was home once more.
She kept her ears open for word of the girl, watched the downtown streets for sightings. It became a strange and secret habit to keep a sort of tab on her. She discovered that the girl had had to leave for the country unexpectedly at the end of that summer to tend to an ill relation, and she thanked the gods and fate for the rightness of it all. She was dedicated, she was sure and she persevered.
She has him still in a lovely home in a good neighborhood. They have three children and years of future ahead of them. The girl has faded into their past, and though she glimpses her every now and then, and even understands the attraction as a logical woman, they are safe. She is sure that nothing could ever surpass the efforts of a good wife.
© 2004 Maria Alva Roff
© 2004 Maria Alva Roff
