Writing That Should Have Never Been Published, Part 3

AKA

So this is a good marriage?

This scene takes place toward the end of our marriage project. It was precipitated by a Marriage Builder exercise that pressed us to talk about what we found annoying about each other. My husband told me that he found me “controlling.” I did not see myself as a controlling person, so I asked, “How am I controlling?” He sensed danger and backed down, claiming that he wasn’t sure. So what did I do? I became controlling about forcing him to tell me how I was controlling. I think I cut this scene because I didn’t want readers to think I was controlling. I was worried they might side with my husband. Now, however, it has been three years since this incident and I can tell you this. If I am controlling, I like the controlling person that I am. And I think my husband likes me, too.

He’d admitted to me that he thought I was controlling, and I’d been asking him ever since to explain how and when he found me that way. When I first asked, he couldn’t think of a way to elaborate. He told me he didn’t want to talk about it because he was exhausted from staying up until 3 a.m. each night while he was in Vegas on business. He told me he needed to get more sleep. After he was more rested he was sure he could more clearly explain his feelings on the matter.

I waited.

I’d asked him again Sunday night, but he told me he was tired and wanted to go to bed. It was now Monday morning. He couldn’t possibly be tired now. He’d had 4 days to think since the first time I’d posed the question. We were alone in his shop. I was sipping coffee that he’d made for me. Everything seemed calm and peaceful. He was washing dishes at the sink, his back to me.

I asked jovially, “Do you know why you think I’m controlling?”

He spun around to face me, his face tense. In a flat, cold voice he said, “I don’t have time to talk or think about this. I’m working. Don’t ask me this again while I’m working.”

Tears formed in my eyes. He walked away. He busied himself with putting away merchandise. I sipped my coffee. It was only a matter of minutes before the tears would stream down my face. If I tried to talk now, I’d turn into a blubbering, snot-producing mess. I was hurt, though. These stinging comments of his hurt more now than they had months ago. When I had the armor around myself—when I fantasized about him dying—the comments didn’t hurt so badly. I could mask my hurt with anger. Now that I had allowed myself to love him again, his tone of voice pierced me like an ice pick.

I knew I needed to say something. I told myself that I had to speak my voice. It was me not speaking up that had caused us so many problems. I told myself that he needed to know about my pain. I told myself that I should talk, that I should not sit here silently.

I watched as he moved through the store, putting boxes away. His facial expression was hard. His movements were tense. His entire persona seemed cold and resentful. If I brought up the comment, I worried he would respond with another just as hurtful comment. I didn’t think I could bear any more pain, not at that moment.

I sat and drank my coffee. I took deep breaths. I closed my eyes, focused inward, and tried to gain control of my feelings and my thoughts. I tried to remember exactly what he had said and how he had said it. I tried to think of a non-threatening way of explaining it to him. I kept coming up short. I couldn’t think of how to confront him without starting a fight.

I thought about walking over to the sink, dumping my coffee, and walking out. “That would be passive aggressive,” I told myself. “I can’t do that. I’ve moved beyond that,” I reasoned. I was assertive now. I needed to be assertive.

Then he spoke. He asked me to mail a box. I thought about the fact that I was already behind schedule. I’d already agreed to run to the bank for him. It was a Monday. There would be a long line at the post office. And, of course, the kicker: why was I taking time away from my high paying work to run errands for the store, which earned us next to nothing? Why was I doing this, especially given the lack of appreciation coming from my husband, the person who couldn’t even take five minutes out of his day to answer a simple question?

If I expressed any of this, the tears would come and I’d start a fight. I didn’t want to start a fight in the middle of his store, so I asked, “Does it have to go today?”

He took the box, threw it on a pile of merchandise, and said, “I’ll get someone else to do it.”

He walked away. The silence between was thick. The tears were threatening to break through. I chugged my coffee. I needed to get out of the store. I wanted to be anywhere but near my husband.

The door opened and a customer walked in. I shielded my eyes with one hand, wiping tears out of the corners of my eyes as I did so. I sniffled the snot that was forming quickly in my sinuses. The tears were not cooperating with me. I continued to wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands.

The customer sat next to me, a muffin in his hand. He said hello. I said hello back, staring straight ahead so he could not see my eyes.

“How are you?” he asked.

Why do people feel the need to ask this question? No one ever answers it honestly. We all say we’re fine or good or well no matter whether or not we really are. I could be dying of cancer. If someone asked me, “How are you?” I’d answer, “good,” before explaining how the chemotherapy or radiation had made all of my hair fall out.

“Okay,” I said quietly, almost in a whisper. “I’m really overloaded with work right now. I feel buried under a ton of bricks.”

“Oh,” he said. He seemed to sense that something was very wrong, but he seemed too uncomfortable to ask me about it. That was good, because I really didn’t want to break down into a messy state of tears and snot. I finished my coffee. Mark had taken out the trash and was out back, behind the store. I put my mug in the sink, grabbed my bag, my keys and the cursed box, told the customer bye and walked out.

Mark caught me as I was tossing my bag and the box into the passenger seat of my car.

“You didn’t say bye,” he said. “Why didn’t you say bye?”

I turned and walked over. The  tears  streamed down my cheeks. He hugged me. I sniffled and said through a squeaky, tense voice, “My feelings are hurt.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “What did I do?”

I heaved and cried. He really didn’t know. He really was clueless.

“Come over here,” he said, leading me to a cement wall outside the store. “Sit down.”

I did. He put his arm around me.

“What did I do?”

“It’s how you talk to me,” I said. “I asked you about how you find me controlling, and you answered as if I was the biggest pain in the ass customer you’d dealt with today.”

“I’m not good at talking, am I?” he said.

“No,” I said through my tears.

“What did I say?” he asked.

I looked at him. I couldn’t remember the exact words he’d used. I only could remember how they’d caused me to feel.

“I don’t know exactly. It’s how you said it. You said it as if I was bothering you, as if you didn’t love me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I have a lot of crap to do. I wasn’t anticipating having to deal with it all. I’m tired of working so much. I guess I was in a bad mood. I’m sorry I took it out on you.”

I sniffled. I looked up at him and smiled.

“I need to work on this. How should I have said it?” he asked.

“You could have said, ‘Honey, I’m really busy and I’m really stressed out. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to think about your question. I know it’s important to you. I’ll try harder.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try to word it like that next time. I promise to think about your question. When I get home tonight, after we put Kaarina to bed, we’ll talk about it. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

We stood. We hugged.

I ran the errands. As predicted, I stood on line for 15 minutes at the Post Office. It took 10 minutes at the bank for the teller to count the store cash. I arrived home 45 minutes behind schedule. About 10 minutes after I walked in the door, the phone rang. It was Mark. “Hi sweetie,” I said.

“I love you,” he said.

“Oh honey, I love you, too.”

UPDATES

* Ruth Pennebaker, a good friend and a talented writer, reviewed PHEA on her GeezerSisters site. Ruth has a novel that publishes next week called Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakthough. This is my favorite line from her review. If you think this line is beautiful, you just might think her novel is a triple orgasm, “The marriage is something else entirely — messy, complicated, convoluted, rich, gritty.  Angels sing and hound dogs bark, hearts break and — ideally — are healed, intimacy is forged by sparks from that same early electricity and from tens of thousands of tiny moments that feature spilled liquids, incontinent animals and children, and knowing glances and belly laughs no one else in this world but the two of you will ever understand.”

* Jennifer Lawler–a book editor, writer and former lit agent–reviewed PHEA at Finding Your Voice. When I offered to send her a review copy, Jennifer was a skeptic and bluntly (but kindly) told me that she didn’t think the book would be for her. Then the book won her over, making this my favorite review to date. Here’s a good line, “Where Bowman really hits her stride is in telling her story as truthfully as she can, with all the parts we usually leave out when we talk about our struggles to keep our relationships together.”

* Kris Bordessa at GeekMom reviews PHEA. Here’s a line from her great review: “Alisa writes in a friendly, accessible tone and I found that even though much of the content made me furious (more about that in a minute), I was staying up later than usual to read just one more page.”

Tagged as: book excerpts