Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [61]
“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.”
Jack comes to me and puts his arms around me. “We can’t go back to a magic place and hope it fixes us. It don’t work that way, baby,” he says simply, then he kisses my neck.
“As long as there’s one spark here, just one, maybe we can make it work,” he says to me. I smile at him, then I bury my head in his shoulder. One spark. My marriage rests on the notion of one spark. What a delicate, tiny, insignificant little thing. A spark. One glint of light. Is that enough to see with?
Etta walks between Jack and me, holding our hands as we walk through Tri-Cities Airport. When we get to the gate, Jack hugs Etta for a long time.
“Etta, wait for me by the door,” I tell her.
“Okay, Dad, that’s enough,” Etta says as she gives her father a final hug. She adjusts her backpack and goes to wait for me.
“Jack. Look at me.” My husband looks at me. His eyes are full of pain. I can see that he is torn, that he would like to go with us. But he too has a plan, and he is sticking with it.
“Not here,” he says softly.
“No, I have to say something to you. You told me last night that you want me to decide if I want to be married to you. And I promised you that I would think about it while I was in Italy, so I will. But I want you to