Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas - Maya Angelou [15]
I said nothing.
“I told her no one who lived here was going to be baptized. Anywhere. At any time.”
I made no protest, gave no confession—just stood silent. And allowed a little more of my territory to be taken away.
CHAPTER 5
The articles in the women's magazines did nothing to help explain the deterioration of my marriage. We had no infidelity; my husband was a good provider and I was a good cook. He encouraged me to resume my dance classes and I listened to him practice the saxophone without interruption. He came directly home from work each afternoon and in the evening after my son was asleep I found as much enjoyment in our marital bed as he.
The form was there, but the spirit had disappeared.
A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications.
“How are you?” Does he/she really care?
“Fine.” I'm not really. I'm miserable, but I'll never tell you.
Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.
Bacon and coffee odors mingled with the aseptic aroma of Lifebuoy soap. Wisps of escaping gas, which were as real a part of a fifty-year-old San Francisco house as the fourteen-foot-high ceilings and the cantankerous plumbing, solidified my reality. Those were natural morning mists. The sense that order was departing my life was refuted by the daily routine. My family would awaken. I would shower and head for the kitchen to begin making breakfast. Clyde would then take over the shower as Tosh read the newspaper. Tosh would shower while Clyde dressed, collected his crayons and lunch pail for school. We could all sit at breakfast together. I would force unwanted pleasantries into my face. (My mother had taught me: “If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘Good morning’ at total strangers.”)
Tosh was usually quiet and amiable. Clyde gabbled about his dreams, which had to do with Roy Rogers as Jesus and Br'er Rabbit as God. We would finish breakfast in a glow of family life and they would both leave me with kisses off to their separate excitements.
One new morning Tosh screamed from the bathroom, “Where in the hell are the goddamn dry towels?” The outburst caught me as unexpectedly as an upper cut. He knew that I kept the linen closet filled with towels folded as I had seen them photographed in the Ladies Home Journal. More shocking than his forgetfulness, however, was his shouting. Anger generally rendered my husband morose and silent as a stone.
I went to the bathroom and handed him the thickest towel we owned.
“What's wrong, Tosh?”
“All the towels in here are wet. You know I hate fucking wet towels.”
I didn't know because he had never told me. I went back to the kitchen, not really knowing him, either.
At breakfast, Clyde began a recounting of Roy Rogers on his horse and Red Ryder, riding on clouds up to talk to God about some rustlers in the lower forty.
Tosh turned, looking directly at him, and said, “Shut up, will you. I'd like a little fucking peace and quiet while I eat.”
The statement slapped Clyde quiet; he had never been spoken to with such cold anger.
Tosh looked at me. “The eggs are like rocks. Can't you fry a decent goddamn egg? If not, I'll show you.”
I was too confounded to speak. I sat, not understanding the contempt. Clyde asked to be excused from the table. I excused him and followed him to the door.
He whispered, “Is Dad mad at me?”
I picked up his belongings, saw him jacketed and told him, “No, not at you. You know grownups have a lot on their minds. Sometimes they're so busy thinking they forget their manners. It's not nice, but it happens.”
He said, “I'll go back and tell him 'bye.”
“No, I think you should just go on to school. He'll be in a better mood this evening.”
I held the