<\/p>\n
His wife\u2019s hospital room was calm now, and the visitors knew not to visit. Not yet,
\nanyway. He turned to face Greta\u2019s bed. The fresh daffodils he\u2019d put in the vase a few
\ndays prior had started to wilt, and the speckled petals looked a lot like her papery
\nskin. The white walls had the grey pallor of a smoker, and the smell of disinfectant
\nburned his eyes. Greta looked so small hooked up to all those wires. Shrunken.
\nSoon, the beeping machines would be silent and a small family of sad faces
\nwould be huddled round her bed.
\nJack stood by the closed window keeping an eye on the car park down below,
\nthinking about the children. Would they cry, or would they share his relief? A shiver
\nrippled through his body. He couldn\u2019t decide if it was fear or excitement he felt \u2013 it
\nwas so long since he felt anything.
\nAny moment now Liz\u2019s Honda would arrive and he\u2019d put his hand to his
\nmouth to hide his smile, remembering the smell of its interior, a mix of tobacco
\nsmoke and McDonald\u2019s take-out, and the floor on the passenger side covered with
\nempty fast food cartons. He liked Liz\u2019s messy car. How could he not? It was the scene
\nof their first kiss, of his first kiss in more than twenty years. Twenty-two years, three
\nmonths, and ten days, to be exact.
\nDid Greta keep track the way he did? He didn\u2019t know, never asked. There was
\nso much he didn\u2019t say.
\nWas it too late to start talking now?
\nToo unkind?
\nOr just pointless?
\nOne of the machines emitted a flutter of beeps, and he glanced back at his
\nwife, listening for a moment to her mechanical breathing. Not long now, he thought,
\nand hurry up, and how much more of this do I have to endure, and will the children
\nbe surprised when Liz moves into the house?
\nHe felt worst when he caught himself wishing for Greta\u2019s passing. He wasn\u2019t
\nthat kind of man. Not really. Despite her many flaws, he never wanted her to suffer
\nunnecessarily. He knew she\u2019d suffered enough already. He was what Greta called, \u201ca
\ngood egg.\u201d What she meant was: weak. She never used that word, but the way she
\nmocked him made it clear.
\n\u201cFor God\u2019s sake, Jack, take your elbows off the table while we\u2019re eating. You
\nlook like a schoolboy,\u201d she said the night of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.
\n\u201cMy God, Jack, just because you work at a school doesn\u2019t mean you have to
\ndress like a geography teacher,\u201d she said often, a running joke only she was in on.
\n\u201cStop muttering, Jack. It\u2019s a wonder those kids learn a thing the way you talk.
\nIt\u2019s them that should be getting an award not you,\u201d she said the night he won the
\ntitle as the Best Career Guidance Officer at the County Awards.
\nHe wasn\u2019t the kind of man who had affairs, either. But he\u2019d become one.
\nHe checked his watch for the fifth time. Where was Liz?
\nIt never occurred to him he\u2019d be attractive to anyone again let alone Liz.
\n\u201cYou look downtrodden,\u201d Greta said so often it became a self-fulfilling
\nprophecy.
\nHis shoulders started to slump. His hair turned salt and pepper. His cardigans
\ngot baggier, and his socks acquired holes. His belly grew. His biceps shrank till the
\nskin on his upper arms sagged like his shriveled penis \u2013 the penis that Greta refused
\nto touch for twenty-two years, three months and ten days.
\nDown below, the car park was still as a graveyard on a winter\u2019s morning.
\nHe spotted Liz on her first day at the school, in the admin office, with her big
\nhair and friendly smile, the easy way she chatted with the other women, instantly
\ninfiltrating their clique with her common sense and kindness. Something about her
\nmade his heart swell, or crack, or ache in a way he tried and failed to ignore.
\nHe\u2019ll never forget that first conversation with Liz, sitting in her little blue
\nHonda in the McDonald\u2019s car park, eating take-out on a rainy Tuesday afternoon
\nwhile having a heart-to-heart. Greta was bed-bound by then. Liz was just being
\nsupportive. He never intended to be so honest but it all came tumbling out. The
\nrelief of finally telling someone made him cry, big heaving sobs, he was mortified.
\nBut Liz assured him it was healthy, and even congratulated him for being in touch
\nwith his emotions, went as far as to call him brave. He was so grateful to her in that
\nmoment, he could have proposed. Instead, he did something he hadn\u2019t done in more
\nthan twenty years. He took her face in his hand, stared her straight in her brown
\neyes, and kissed her. The windows fogged up. She dropped her chicken nugget on
\nthe floor. That was three weeks ago.
\nHe could see his reflection in the window of Greta\u2019s hospital room, and felt it
\nwas impossible not to notice the change. He stood a little taller. He\u2019d started
\nshowering every day. He bought weights, and set them up in the kitchen so he could
\nbench while he watched the morning news.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re only fifty-eight,\u201d Liz said. \u201cYou\u2019re still a young man.\u201d Damn right, he
\nthought, I am a young man.
\nHe\u2019ll never forget that conversation with Greta, the one when she ended all
\nphysical contact, at first, blaming postpartum depression, and later, her \u201chormones.\u201d
\nShe said it was hormones that forced her to throw out the double bed in favor of
\ntwo singles six months after Rachel, their youngest, was born, almost twenty-three
\nyears ago.
\nDid Greta keep track the way he did?
\nNo, he decided she did not.
\nOr maybe he just preferred to think of her that way, not wanting to
\ncontemplate the alternative, and hating himself for that, for his weakness, his
\ninability to confront his wife, to demand answers, to what? Demand she fulfill her
\nwifely duties? He couldn\u2019t force her to love him. How could he do that? Love can\u2019t be
\nforced. Forced love has no value. Does it?
\nGreta was a force: stubborn, blindly self-righteous, and more disciplined than
\na drill sergeant. She\u2019d been unstoppable, once. Up at six every morning, children\u2019s
\nbreakfast and lunches made before seven, kids out the door by eight, dinner on the
\ntable at six-thirty every evening, beautifully cooked. The thought of the early years,
\nof her sitting in the rocking chair breast-feeding the baby with the smell of fresh
\nbaked bread wafting from the oven still brought a tear to his eye. She was quick to
\nsmile back then, and her obsessive habits seemed harmless, even cute.
\nHe liked that she thought it important to mop the kitchen floor every night,
\nand insisted on color coordinating the clothes in the wardrobe, the toiletries in the
\nbathroom, and the groceries in the cupboards. Attention to detail was her motto,
\nand back then, he was a detail she attended to. It surprised no one when her interior
\ndesign agency won Best Startup at the County Awards the year after he\u2019d won his
\naward.
\nHe\u2019d hated standing on that stage with Greta, her in her linen suit, him in his
\ncorduroy pants, looking like the average picket fence, middle-aged couple, all smiles,
\nand sexless. He\u2019d hated feeling like a fraud. A year later, she got sick and the
\nsympathy cards started rolling in. It took all his willpower not to burn them in the
\nbarbecue pit on their wooden deck.
\nStill, it was her values he imparted to his students, advising them to adopt
\ndiscipline as a path to freedom. He saw every one of those kids as having the
\npotential to live the life he never did, and he made it his business to ensure they had
\nthe motivational tools to strive for the difficult goals, and embrace challenges as
\ncharacter building.
\nHe had given himself the same pep talk every morning for twenty-two years,
\nthree months and ten days, telling himself again and again that any day now Greta\u2019s
\nhormones would snap back to reality, and they could rekindle the romance they\u2019d
\nlost.
\nBefore Liz, all he had was that hope, and fragile as it was, he clung to it, not
\nrealizing he was living in a trance, or not living at all. It was Liz who helped him see
\nthat, coaxing him in her soft voice.
\n\u201cAbuse,\u201d she\u2019d called it. He\u2019d never thought of it that way.
\n\u201cHow did the situation make you feel?\u201d Liz asked, before biting into a chicken
\nnugget.
\n\u201cHeart-broken,\u201d he confessed. That was when the sobbing started, and when
\nLiz put her hand on his arm. He\u2019d stayed for the children. And because he didn\u2019t
\nknow where else to go. He was weak, just like Greta said, a good egg.
\n\u201cOr incredibly loyal,\u201d Liz said.
\nWas he loyal?
\nHe thought of the one time he\u2019d gone to a strip club determined to end his
\ncelibacy. He hated the sticky carpets and the sleazy music and the thought of sharing
\none of those cubicles where so many other desperate men like him had been,
\nseeking out the same relief from their version of hell, tormented by the same
\nfeelings of despair. There was no way he could \u201cjust get into the moment,\u201d the way
\nhis friend Dave urged him to do. At the first chance, he slipped out the door, never
\nto return. To his mind, sex was a private encounter not a public spectacle, and he
\nhated Greta in that moment for reducing him to that.
\nPrivately, he\u2019d grown to despise her bed-time routine, the way she religiously
\nmopped the kitchen floor every night at nine, then showered and spent fifteen
\nminutes rubbing a cocktail of creams on her face, chest, elbows, and feet, a different
\ncream for each body part, the bottles neatly arranged in her nightstand drawer.
\nAfter that, she\u2019d slip into bed, wearing a knee-length nightie, read for twenty
\nminutes, and lights out by ten. By ten-thirty she was asleep, exhausted by the effort
\nof maintaining her routine. She was up by five, and exercising by six, and he
\nimagined her body was in good shape under that nightie.
\nShe could dent his dignity but she couldn\u2019t rob his imagination.
\nThe longing died of its own accord.
\nHe was grateful for that.
\nThen there was the night last week when Greta begged him not to leave her.
\nShe was lucid again, and scared, terrified, like a small child, her bird-like face tense
\nwith fear. He held her all night the same way he\u2019d done when they\u2019d fallen in love in
\ncollege almost forty years ago.
\n\u201cI\u2019ll love you forever,\u201d he said to comfort her. Some small part of him meant
\nit.
\n\u201cI love you more,\u201d she said in that warm voice from their early days, the one
\nshe used while sitting in the rocking chair, talking quietly, not wanting to wake the
\nsleeping baby in her arms, her hazel eyes ablaze with love, her lips as inviting as a
\nhug on a cold night. He\u2019d lost count of the nights he\u2019d fallen asleep, tears leaking
\nfrom his eyes as his body ached to be touched, and his heart wished for words that
\ndidn\u2019t sting. Finally, she was saying them. Finally, he held her in his arms. But she
\noffered no explanation for her absence, showed no regret, shed no tears. She never
\nasked how he felt, or what he wanted, or if there was anything he needed to say.
\nAnd he never said a word.
\nThat\u2019s what enraged him the most: his absence.
\nHis silence.
\nHis participation in his own torture.
\nShe felt so frail in his arms, it wouldn\u2019t take much, no more than a prolonged
\nsqueeze. He could easily hold his hand over her mouth and nose. He thought about
\nit, for a second, how much pressure he\u2019d have to apply. Another shiver, this one
\nstronger, accompanied by a shudder in his stomach. He knew it was fear: the fear
\nhe\u2019d never be able to look the children in the eye again; and hatred of what he\u2019d
\nbecome, what he\u2019d allowed her to reduce him to.
\nBut it didn\u2019t have to end that way. She didn\u2019t have to die thinking she\u2019d won,
\nleaving him alone, a broken man.
\nHe\u2019d found a way back.
\nIt was a miracle.
\nLiz was the miracle.
\nWho knew it would happen to him. Him? Average in every way. Average
\nheight and build, nondescript haircut, glasses and cord pants. His most distinguishing
\nfeature was the bitten fingernails on his left hand \u2013 he\u2019d trained himself only to only
\nchew the nails on that hand.
\nLiz rubbed coconut oil on the cracked skin that first night they spent alone. It
\nwas the most erotic thing he\u2019d ever experienced, he still got hard thinking about it.
\nWhen she leaned into kiss him, he thought he might cry. Instead, he devoured her,
\ntasting every inch of her luscious body, losing himself in her warm flesh. They stayed
\nup till dawn, and in between bursts of passion, they lolled in her tossed bed-sheets,
\nsipping malt whiskey from crystal glasses, feeling giddier than a pair of teenagers on
\nthe hop from school.
\nWhat good could come of telling Greta now except to ease his conscious?
\nOther than to punish her? Let her know she didn\u2019t win?
\nHe\u2019d already won. He had Liz.
\nHe pressed his palms and forehead against the windowpane. The cool glass
\nsent another shiver down his rigid spine. Still, he couldn\u2019t name it, and that bothered
\nhim.
\nDid he owe it to himself to speak up, as Liz said?
\nWould this thing with Liz even last? Could it last?
\nHe was all in, that was sure. Was she?
\nCould he rely on her the way he could rely on Greta?
\nImagine he told Greta and a month later Liz dumped him? He\u2019d have to take
\nit on the chin. That would be the reasonable thing to do. But he was so tired of being
\nreasonable and patient and understanding and forgiving. He wanted to be angry and
\npassionate and loud and selfish and opinionated. He wanted to love and be loved.
\nHe wanted to feel alive, and be alive.
\nHe was alive.
\nGreta was dying, and he was alive.
\nHe would not lose Liz the way he\u2019d lost Greta.
\nHe\u2019d love harder, cater to her every whim, conjure her every fantasy, never
\ndoubt her, and never leave her side. He\u2019d spend his days finding out what she
\nwanted, and making sure she got it.
\nHe\u2019d be brave.
\nAnother flutter of beeps from the machines snapped his attention back to
\nthe room. Down below, the driver of a white Ford Fiesta was trying to park in a tight
\nspot. Behind him, a small voice said his name. He turned to face Greta\u2019s bed.
\nShe was smiling at him.
\nTaking a deep breath, he walked to her, and took her bony hand in his. For
\nthe first time, he noticed how much bigger his hands were than hers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
His wife\u2019s hospital room was calm now, and the visitors knew not to visit. Not yet, anyway. He turned to face Greta\u2019s bed. The fresh daffodils he\u2019d put in the vase a few days prior had started to wilt, and the speckled petals looked a lot like her papery skin. The white walls had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":348,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[396,394],"tags":[398],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n