Life the Second Time Around

This is just a tail about the death of a marriage. You might argue it was attacked from without, or it failed from within, or maybe it was a bit of both. People are frail and complicated. There's not a lot of action in this one and it is probably painful to read if I wrote it the way I intended. No one gets burned, except for those who burn themselves, and even that's not clear. It's about taking stock, making peace with your life, and moving on. As in life, there is no revenge in this other than living well.

* * * * *

These are the days I live for. I have friends who live in sunny southern California and others who live in the arid southwest where the only seasons are wet and dry. I even know a few snowbirds who fly south every winter, but I learned a long time ago that I need all four seasons. Everyone complains about winter, but for me it is the time when the world around me rests. I pile up my books, make sure I have a good supply of cord wood for the stove, and quietly recharge my batteries for what is to come. Winter passes and then comes spring and the great awakening. Life sprouts from the ground and the garden wakes up, the days lengthen and the sun warms, until new life is all around. Summer is nonstop action with cookouts, softball, vacations, and canoeing just to mention a few things. Then autumn comes and the days grow shorter, the wind has a chill in it, the colors in the trees take my breath away, and I'm preparing to rest again. I need the changing seasons to keep me alive, to keep me interested, and to mark the changes in my life.

It's autumn now and winter is approaching. The afternoon sun is warm, but the wind is cold. That's the way of things. You soak in the warmth of the sun, brace yourself against the cold winds, and between the two life goes on. I'm sitting on my back deck with my collar up, sipping my coffee, and looking across the yard where the last of my gardens and fruit trees have given up their treasures to fill the jars on the basement shelves. It's on days like this that I take stock of my life, reflect on the past, and plan for the future. That's the thing about the sun and wind, the warmth and the cold. You take them both and together they measure the passage of time. I count my blessings and I am blessed despite the wind.

It hasn't always been this way. There was a time when I thought my life as I knew it was over. It's good to reflect on times like that because it helps to put perspective on the present. I grew up being told "Count your blessings!" every time I told my parents about my adolescent problems or my latest wants and needs. I hated that expression and now it's the source of my greatest joy.

We met in our second year of college. Her name was Joy. Well, looking back it seems like a cliché, but that was her name. I was in the dining hall, and I dropped my tray on the rubber belt that would carry it and my dishes back to the dishwashers. I spun around to leave and walked into her with an explosion of dishes and glasses, silverware, and that big plastic tray all flying in the air to be scattered on the floor. If she hadn't bumped into her friend, she'd have been on the floor, too. She told me later that she was amused by the way I gathered her things as I apologized in every manner I could think. I was sorry. I was clumsy. I wasn't looking. It was all my fault. I wanted to make it up to her. And all the while she had that impish smile and those sparkling eyes. I couldn't take my eyes off her and I was babbling. I was smitten. I asked her out and she said yes.

Being smitten is a dangerous thing. It blinds you and takes away the rational mind so that all you see is beauty and that smile. I'm not complaining, mind you. I was in love and for a long time I knew that I had chosen well. We had many good years together until the marriage died.

Our college years were typical for young couples in love. We dated for a few months, quickly becoming exclusive, and went to bed together after that first semester. I suppose by some standards we took it slow, but we both came from very traditional families, and we didn't jump into bed just for sport. Once we did, we knew our fate was sealed. She was everything I wanted in a mate and all I could ever hope to find. We graduated, found jobs, and decided to shock the parents by living together for a year before getting engaged. There was an audible sigh of relief from all four parents when we finally announced our engagement and we laughed about it on the drive home that night. They never really knew, but we were more traditional than they thought. We just wanted to get settled and have a year of normality before we began the insanity of planning a wedding.

We married and life together was better than I ever imagined it could be. We both worked hard, established ourselves, and advanced in our jobs for three years. Then we decided it was time to start the family. Like everything else she did, she was organized and determined. There were times when it seemed more like a military campaign than an act of love, but she knew what she wanted, and she wanted children. It didn't take long and in short order we had a baby girl. We named her Anna Marie and called her Annie.

Six months after presenting me with Annie, my wife announced that she was pregnant again. I was overjoyed and overwhelmed, but her second pregnancy was difficult. She spent the last two months in bed under doctor's orders. Jonathan Henry arrived at three in the morning on a cold winter's night, but we had no idea of the time or the temperature. We had waited and struggled for his arrival and Joy was the happiest I have ever seen her. I remember she said, "Come here, husband, and hold your son." I loved my daughter beyond measure, but I was busting buttons holding my son.

As I held him in my arms, I pictured him growing up, playing football, running track, getting top grades in those hard classes, and dating the prettiest girls in his school. Sadly, it was not to be. At four months of age Jon Henry died in his crib one night without warning, without a cry, alone. His mother and I were devastated, and without any logical reason Joy blamed herself.

Joy became a nervous wreck and took medical leave from her job. She watched over Annie every minute, worried that something would happen to take her from us.

I remember the night when I finally reached her. "Sweetheart, you can't go on like this. You are a wonderful mother and Jon Henry was not your fault."

"I can't help it! He was here, right here in this house, and he died while we slept. I won't let anything happen to Annie; I swear. I promise! I won't let you down again!" She was weeping and holding me tight, as if she were afraid that if she let go she might lose me, too.

"Joy, please, we need to go see a counselor. We need to work through what happened so we can move on. It isn't anything you or I did, or anything we didn't do. We need to talk with someone and work it out. If we don't, we'll drive Annie mad with all the protectiveness and worry."

Joy agreed, reluctantly, and we met with a therapist for about four months and our pastor for almost as long. We also sat with our pediatrician to better understand how our son died. It seemed to do the trick. Joy slowly returned to her old self and Annie returned to being the happy and independent child she had been. I breathed a sigh of relief and then just when Joy was making noises that she would return to work, she announced that she was pregnant again. Glory Agnes was born in mid-afternoon on a sunny summer's day, screaming at the top of her lungs and announcing to all the world that she had arrived.

Joy redoubled her efforts to be the perfect mother, and I was working to learn how to be a father to girls. Fathers know that with a son they have someone to horse around with, to do guy things with. We teach them to play sports and we teach them to fish. We show them how to maintain the house with basic carpentry, plumbing, and painting skills. What do we do with girls? Well, our wives slowly teach us that we do all the same things with daughters that we imagine doing with sons. Instead of football, we teach them soccer. Instead of fishing with worms, we teach them to fish with flies. We raise them to be independent and capable, and then they add to the mix those unexpected and essential skills like cooking and decorating, fashion and culture. Together, wives and daughters wear away the rough edges on husbands and fathers and make them better men than they thought they could be. A man with daughters is blessed and I was twice blessed. They were loving and emotional, brave and disappointed, nurtured and nurturing.

We slowly put Jon Henry's death behind us, or so I thought, and life became a wonderful version of normal. The girls grew up and they became those excellent students I always hoped they'd be. They played soccer and ran track in school, cultivated friends that I liked and admired, and found boyfriends that I actually trusted (as much as any father of girls will trust any boy). I saw the whole world in front of them with infinite possibilities and relived my youth and dreams through them. Can life get any better than that?

It all started to unravel when I least expected it. Our oldest was a senior in college and our youngest was starting her freshman year. We were empty nesters and I had visions of chasing my wife through the house and catching her in every room. We would take frequent and distant vacations, spend long weekends by the shore, and go out to dinner often. I even planned that we might take dancing lessons together and we did all those things for a time. Joy started working half time and then one day I came home early and found them together. That's right, there she was on the living room floor making those noises that I knew so well. She was with not just one, but two young children playing the same games she'd played with our own children years ago.

"Who do we have here?"

My wife looked up with a broad smile on her lips and said, "Well, sir, I would like you to meet Deborah and Peter Jenkins. Deborah and Peter, I would like you to meet my husband."

"Hello, sir!" they said together as if one.

"Well, hello. And what brings you to our fine home this afternoon?"

Peter was only about four where Deborah was six. Being a few years older than her brother, she became the spokesman for the two. "Mrs. Clarkson had to go to help her daughter and brought us over here until daddy gets home from work." I knew Mrs. Clarkson. She was a widow from the neighborhood with grown kids and grandchildren.

"Oh, I see. Well, I hope Mrs. Clarkson and her daughter are okay. Did you manage to have a snack, or has my wife been monopolizing all your time?" That got me a giggle from the two of them.

They looked at each other. "What's monopo... manopa..."

"Monopolizing? It means is she not sharing you with anyone else and making you play the games that she likes?"

They giggled. "We had milk and cookies and Mrs. Stevens said we could stay for dinner if we wanted."

"Oh she did, did she?"

My wife, the Mrs. Stevens, was smiling up at me. "Their father needs to work late, and it's been a long time since we had young ones in the house."

"Well, don't forget they're just loaners." That got me an even bigger smile. I could see that my wife was in her element and getting that young child fix she needed, so I said, "Well, I think it's my turn to fix dinner tonight, so what does everyone want?" That was a mistake. You don't give two excited young ones a free choice in what they might want. I got a barrage of requests and had no idea how to fix half of what they wanted. I suspect many of the recipes were family inventions. "Right! Pizza it is!" In their excitement they hadn't mentioned pizza, but they applauded the choice.

"Pineapple and anchovies, right?"

"Nooooooo!!!" Their giggles were infectious.

"Okay, what would you like?"

"Plain cheese!" Right. I'd forgotten what the four-year old palate is like.

"Plain cheese it is." I decided right there and then that I'd have mine with a bourbon.

I have to admit that the kids were delightful. It was fun to have little children in the house. Joy quietly explained to me that their mother had died about six months before and their father was struggling as a single parent.

I suppose I should have seen it coming, but Mrs. Clarkson never returned to care for the children. She didn't return that night, or the next day, or the day after that, or ever. Her daughter had been T-boned when a drunk driver ran a red light. She lived, but she and her kids needed months of help as she slowly recovered from her injuries. My wife took another leave of absence from her job and became nanny, caregiver, and surrogate mother for Deborah and Peter. Deborah would go off to school in the morning and need supervision in the afternoon, but Peter was too young and would not start kindergarten until the next year. Nothing was ever said, but Joy never returned to her job. That by itself didn't bother me, although it did trouble me that she seemed to make the decision without the usual discussion that enables a couple to make a decision together. Still, she was happy, and I made enough for us. We'd saved to establish a college fund for both girls, so financially we were fine. Life went on and we were happy... for a time.

* * * * *

I sat on my back deck, now sipping a beer, and I thought about how it all transpired from there. At first, Joy kept the children at our house while their father was at work, but after a time she told me that it would be better for the children to be in their own home. It made a certain sense, everything she said made a certain sense, but I had a growing unease about the way this new commitment was beginning to consume her time and every thought. If I were honest with myself, I'd admit to being a bit jealous. This was supposed to be our time and I was seeing less of my wife than I did when we were raising our own kids.

"Plenty of women older than me care for their grandkids while the parents work. I'll be fine."

"Joy, this was supposed to be our time. The kids are out of the house, and we were going to enjoy ourselves."

"We'll still enjoy ourselves. I'll just be caring for them until David gets home from work. You'll be at work, too, and then we'll have our evenings together."

Like I said, it all made a certain sense. The only real problem is that she never discussed her thoughts with me before making decisions that seemed to affect us both.

"What about weekends?"

"David can care for them on the weekends. Well, I mean most weekends. He needs to work some weekends and I can take care of them when that happens, but that won't be all the time."

"How long is this going to continue? What about summers? Are we going to be able to go on those vacations we planned?"

"Of course, dear. Well, maybe not as often as we planned, but we'll get away. I promise, you won't even know I'm not in the house while you're at work." She promised and I'm sure she meant it when she said it. That promise didn't even last a day. The next night I came home to an empty house and a cold kitchen. David had to work late, and I was left to fend for myself. There were a lot of nights like that. It wasn't that I mind fixing dinner. I always did my share of that. I missed the company of my wife.

* * * * *

As I sat there on the deck, sipping my beer and reliving those days when my marriage went sliding into oblivion, I wondered why I didn't see it more clearly at the time. I was a frog. That's it. How does that old story go? How do you boil a frog? You put it in a pot of cold water and slowly turn up the heat. At every step the frog adjusts until the water is boiling and the frog is dead. Was I the frog, or was our marriage the frog? Maybe we were both the frog.

I remember the night when I first feared the frog was dead. It was a Tuesday. Once again, I came home to an empty home. I threw my briefcase on the sofa and walked down the street to David's house. I was going to have it out with my wife, and I didn't care who heard it. As I walked to the front door I happened to see inside. My wife, David, and the kids were sitting together at the dining room table eating dinner, a dinner that my wife had obviously prepared for her surrogate family. I felt broken and the fight drained out of me. I turned and I walked home a beaten man.

When Joy returned home late that evening, she found me sitting in a darkened living room with a glass of bourbon that was just my second for the night. That's the way I am. When I have a lot to think about, or when I'm angry and I've been dealt a cruel blow, or both, I just sip a little bourbon and I think. I stay clear headed, sharp, and focused. I've never been one to drown my sorrows in alcohol. Instead, it's just a small distraction as I work through my thoughts.

"Are you drunk?" She had the nerve to be angry with me.

"Are you my wife?" I wasn't backing down this time.

"Of course I'm your wife. Your drunk!"

"No, I'm stone cold sober. Where were you tonight?"

"I was taking care of Deborah and Peter. David had to work late."

"David was home and the four of you were eating dinner together while I ate alone."

She had the decency to look embarrassed, but she recovered quickly. "Well, David got home in time for dinner, and they invited me to eat with them."

"And what about me? If I extend an invitation to have dinner with me, will you grace me with your company for once?"

"I can't talk to you when you're like this!" With that, she went off to our bedroom and slammed the door. To hell with her, I slept in the guest room that night.

When I got up the next morning, I shaved, showered, and dressed for work. In the kitchen I found a very different, very contrite wife from the night before.

"I'm sorry. I should have called and told you I was having dinner with Deborah and Peter."

"And David."

"Yes, and David. It was just dinner."

"It was more than just dinner and it was more than just last night. You spend more time at their house than you spend in our own home. I saw the four of you. You aren't just taking care of those kids; you're playing family in another man's home. You're more of a wife to David than you are to me!" That last bit slipped out and I didn't really mean it. However, the look on her face scared me like I hadn't been scared since Jon Henry died. For the first time since it all began, I saw guilt. For the second time in half a day, I felt the fight drain out of me. I couldn't bring myself to ask the question, so I quietly turned, picked up my briefcase, and headed off to work. It was not a productive day.

When I got home that night there was dinner cooking in the oven and a wife to greet me.

She kissed me. "I want you to get changed and put on some comfortable clothes. I'll fix you a bourbon and dinner will be ready soon. Then we can talk. I love you, my husband. I'm sorry for last night and I'm ready to hear anything you want to say."

I felt a terrible weight lifted off my shoulders, smiled, kissed my wife again, and headed up the stairs. We had a good night that night, probably the first in several months. We talked it out. Joy had not done anything inappropriate with David. The guilt I saw on her face that morning had been from the realization that she had been neglecting her husband and was getting carried away with her attachment to the children. She promised she would talk with David and set boundaries. Later that night, Deborah and Peter called to wish Joy a good night's sleep and I didn't feel the least bit annoyed by it. In fact, I thought it was lovely.

Optimism may be the death of me, yet. The new normal hardly lasted a week. At first, she would come home to have dinner and spend the evening with me every night. Then she was coming home for dinner and returning to tuck them in at night. Within two months she was staying with the kids to help them with their homework and put them to bed.