WORDS

This is a piece that I started years ago.  I'm curious to see how others react to it.

Wednesday morning greeted Mags with sleepy eyed smiles on a 2 year old boy on the potty and a curly headed girl reaching up to her from the crib. They had all slept soundly through the night. The first in so many that she couldn’t remember the last time it had happened. The dawn shone a light on what had been niggling the back of her mind. Days starting like this are how life is meant to be lived.

On the Sunday before she had spent the day helping to prepare for a trip. One that he needed to take to regain his balance. She did what she needed to. Kept the kids out of the way, packed all that was on his list just the way he liked it and said all the things that he needed to hear. “How will I handle it without you here?” ”The kids and I will miss you so much.” “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

Not saying what was truly on her mind came naturally to her. It was what she had learned from an early age. One of the great life lessons that Norma had given her. Not in so many words, but in her actions.

Margaret knew that what she was living was no different than what she had grown up in.  She had sworn she would never repeat it. Mag watched her mother suffer through decades of abuse, both physically and emotionally, delivered from one of the most charismatic men she had ever encountered-her father. All her young life she had promised to never put up with that and yet here she was. Here she was, 21, with two children and living under a spyglass.

Sunday morning was spent prepping his hiking supplies for the week. She hadn’t realized that by Wednesday she would feel a profound sense of tranquility. After 4 years of anxiety in the first person and a previous 17 years of observed and peripheral anxiousness, this was a strange situation. Not watching the clock to see when he would be home and ensuring that she could account for every moment of the day including each encounter with someone. She didn’t have to stay within earshot and a two ring answer of the telephone. He was completely isolated on his climb and couldn’t get to a phone to check up on where she was, who she had run into, how long she was gone, what she was wearing.

As Wednesday evening faded and she sat rocking the younger one in the chair by the window with the blinds partially open her thoughts drifted freely. Is this what the other people in the other homes felt? This sense of not having to share, edit, hide a part of their lives from the scrutiny and judgment of the people who loved them?
Her boy was asleep in his bed with the blankets askew. 2 years earlier she had prayed for guidance in making her decision on whether to stay or go and asked that the gender of her child be the sign. If a boy came into the world she would go. A boy would be able to withstand the pressures of life without a male influence.  Her brothers would be able to act as his mentors. She hadn’t heeded the sign then. 

Now as she rocked her curly haired daughter she wondered if this sense of peace would be what she could give them as her gift in life. She knew that the handling of all practical matters would be easy enough….she did all the daily stuff now. She could do it. She would do it.

On Saturday evening he opened the door and called out. Why was the living room empty? He called out down the hall and his voice echoed. As he moved further in slowly there was a different scent. Ahhhh, the little woman couldn’t have known what time he’d be home – in fact, he hadn’t been due home until tomorrow and yet she had the furniture hauled out of the living room so that the freshly shampooed carpets would dry. She knew how to keep her man happy.