Intervention

I ran out of good ideas. Then, I ran out of bad ideas. How many times can you search the internet looking for crumbs to follow? I could look at newspapers, but from where? I had no starting point any more. Every shaky lead we followed came up a dead end. It was a Friday in early October and I was into my first bottle of wine of the day. The phone rang and I picked it up, expecting a telemarketer but it was Emma. I snapped to at the edge of my seat.

"Oh, Emma, I'm so glad you ..." She cut me off.

"Mom, I think I found Dad. I think he's an artist living in Southern California somewhere. I remembered Dad talking about taking art classes." I hated to admit that I had forgotten all about that, the silly catalogs I dismissed as unworthy. "There's an art show coming up in Indio, California and there's a brochure for it. Dad's in the picture of all the artists.

"Mom, the show's this weekend."

I got an Uber to take me to the airport. I needed the driving time to book a flight. I couldn't get a seat on the next plane to Ontario but there were seats on a late arrival at John Wayne. It would be a long flight followed by a long drive, but I was on my way.

I slept in the rental car on a side street. The plaza where the show was being held was guarded and didn't open until ten. I was hungry but how could I worry about food when I was trying to find my husband. I sat by the entrance nursing a coffee until the show opened. The program was in my hand, opened to the picture of Tom, his face circled by the red pen that I borrowed. I made my way to the section for new artists to ask when the awards were being handed out. My thought was that even if Tom didn't win, he'd go to the ceremony.

"That was yesterday. We had an award dinner last night and we're switching the space over to a pottery show starting this afternoon." The woman, her name was Daisy, turned away to resume taking the paintings down and carefully attaching labels to their backs.

"I'm looking for one of the artists to see if he has more paintings for sale." I showed her the picture and saying that I was looking to buy made her far friendlier.

"Oh, that's Bob Harris. He's very nice and a tremendous new talent. My studio is his exclusive agent."

This was no time for subtleties. "I'd love to see more of his work, but can you give me his address? I was hoping to actually meet him." I suggested she put some times down for me to stop by and I was on my way as quickly as I could.

I came over a hill and saw where Tom lived. It was just as Daisy said, the shiny metal trailer, the blinding white canvas. I pulled over, too upset to drive. What would I say? Unbelievably, it was the first time I thought of that. What could I tell my husband? Could I win ever him back?

I couldn't say I'm sorry. Why bother to come all this way if all I had to say was "sorry." I had taken him for granted and I lost him. Even to my tone-deaf ears, whatever I had to say sounded pathetic, like nothing had changed. I broke into sobs as one pitiful excuse after another limped into my mind. I could think of nothing worth saying, nothing I thought might make a difference. Defeated, I surrendered to what I expected to be my utter failure, took my foot off the brake and hoped for the best.

Tom was bare from the waist up; he was so brown. Tom was painting something, maybe a picture of the desert. I wasn't sure. He didn't turn around as he dabbed some color on to the canvas.

"I'm trying to catch this color and the light's changing so do you mind much if I don't turn around yet." He was speaking to whoever was approaching but he clearly didn't know it was me.

I allowed myself a shaky smile. "No, I don't mind."

Tom's hand stopped. Slowly, he straightened up and looked back over his shoulder. "Nicole?"

"Tom, I've been looking for you for a very long time." He looked at me, more with curiosity than anything else. That threw me. I expected anger.

Tom stood up and walked to a long table, filled with painting supplies. He slowly wiped a brush as he did. "Why did you go to the trouble, Nicole? When we parted ways, it was pretty clear to me that we were done." I needed to be closer. I wanted to touch him if Tom would let me.

"Tom, I have a lot to say but I don't know how much time you'll give me to say it.

"I made a mistake, a terrible mistake. I thought I knew everything. I thought I was smarter, better than anybody else. My mistakes hurt a lot of people and those people are still hurting. Most of all, I hurt you. I lied to you. I made you believe that something horrible was true when it wasn't. I made you run away from everything you loved. I took away from you the life that you had spent years building."

Tom looked off into the distance for a moment as if he was reminding himself how terribly things had gone, and then shaking those memories off. He leaned back against the trailer and sighed. "I'm sorry, Nicole, that you went to all this trouble. I'm not stupid, although I know you think otherwise. Things must have gone to hell back there and now you're trying to clean up the mess you made at home. What? Did they all stop talking to you? Did your boyfriends dump you? Why the hell are you here and what do you want from me?"

I thought he might try to leave and tried to block his way. Tom saw what I was doing, and smirked. Did that count as a laugh? Was I getting through to him or just making a fool of myself?

"Tom, I'd do anything I could to make things the way they were, but I can't. All I can say is this. I have searched for you every day, 24 hours a day, for more than 600 days, everywhere and anywhere you might be, to find you here and now. I am never going to lose you again, no matter what I have to do. So, if you want me to go, you're going to have to the police drag me off." Tom got back on his feet and put his paints and brush down. He took a rag and slowly wiped his hands clean. His eyes never left me.

"Nicole, tell me the truth. What happened? No lies, no bullshit." I told him everything, nothing held back. I could see his face get red as he became angry. When I finished, he walked up his drive and down the road. I could see him off in the distance, walking and stopping, walking and stopping, arguing with himself. That's what Tom does; he talks things through with himself and makes up his mind. I watched a long time as Tom walked back, went into his trailer and came out with a bottle of water.

"Nicole, I won't go back. The cluster-fuck you created is your problem and it's up to you to make amends for it.

"I have a new life that I love. It's not the kind of life you like. I don't do fancy dishes. My drapes don't match the rest of my décor. I live in a trailer built for comfort and I fill my days with the things I love and want to do. I built my new life around people I want to be with and who want to be with me. "

Tom started walking towards me. Here comes his ultimatum; I just hoped I could live it. I started to cry.

"So, you saying you want to be with me again, ... Nicole, before I believe a word that you say - which will be very hard to do - you have to make your words mean something, here and now. I live my life day-today.

"What you call your 'standards,' the way you judge and look down on people, lecturing people on what they should think, not accepting people as God made them - all that bullshit goes. You need to leave that back where you got on the plane. Or, you can get back on that plane and go home. If you want to stay, you get honest with yourself and me, and treat the people I share my table with kindly.

"Another thing, Nicole, I moved on from you. I share my bed with some nice ladies from time to time. If you're asking me to go exclusive with you, you're going to have to lighten up and enjoy your time with me when we have sex. I was tired of the way you treated me like a stupid schoolboy every time I tried to get you going. I like sex and my lady friends do too. If you want to jump to the front of the line, you need to get your shit together."

Okay, here's honesty being shoved in my face. I been a lecturing, loveless, harridan wife. I was so smug and arrogant that I had to destroy my marriage to find that out. When I said my husband was bad in bed, was that just an excuse to cheat? Were all our problems of my making? I didn't know if that was more honesty than I could swallow but I had nowhere else to go. So, I had better start live up to what Tom demanded or accept what I'd done as my future.

I never went back. I started by joining Tom (I can't get used to calling him "Bill") on his morning runs. We added an afternoon visit to the gym for air-conditioned workouts with machine and free weights. You wouldn't recognize us, lean, fit and I do not have a single tan line. We invited everyone to come out and visit at Christmas. Tom and I added tables, flew more canvas, catered in food, served way too much alcohol, and had a great and healing time. One by one, I sat with the people I hurt and made amends. The rift between Tom and his mother hasn't healed. I have no words to explain my guilt at that.

Tom made me look at myself and ask what I really wanted to do. I had been an accountant for a big corporation. I made rich people richer. The girls were over one night for barbeque when Tom was out of town for a show. Daisy told me that the local accountant who helped seniors with their taxes recently died. Say hello to Riverside County's new low-cost tax preparation service, helping elderly and financially distressed people. I don't make much, but I like the smiles.

It's a full moon night and Tom has a scrap wood fire going. I just brought the ice tea and sliced fruit out; I'm naked. Tom comes up behind me and studies the sleeve of floral tattoos that climbs my left arm from the hip to the shoulder. It continues with the roses that cup my right breast and curl to my right hip. I feel young and alive. I can't wait for my husband to take me in his arms. I know he has something special in mind for tonight, but it doesn't much matter to me much what it is. As long as we're together, I'm good.

Next week, I'm going to get a new tattoo, this time on my collar bone.

Back to Back - Eye to Eye - Together Forever.