Anniversary (a short story)

Thirty years. Perhaps it would take precisely thirty years. Perhaps even more.

Perhaps it was wrong, no, more than wrong to ask that he surrender so much for her. Yet, she was consumed by need and wished that he gave her every reason to feel this way. After all, it wasn't every day that he was allowed to feel such a love and it wasn't every day that she was keen to these things. To be specific, it was but a moment in time in which the missing piece of the puzzle revealed itself, as mysteries did at every moment. Of course, only specific people were relevant to these phenomena and cared about them at each particular moment.


Perhaps this was their moment, stupid as it seemed, impossible and real...


I swore to myself that I would never fall in love, no matter how much it was needed. Wasn't the truth that everyone knew always a bit false, just because it was on everyone's lips? Still, because everyone says the same thing it becomes a chant and a mold for life. Few are brave enough to ask whether any of these words actually had roots as well as aspirations.


My husband sleeps beside me. We are a part of that delirious, yet unsettled mass of people pretending to believe the same thing. We have been married for thirty years, more or less. For a fact, we are kind, simple, and practical. I have never gone a day without some bit of turmoil over my emotions in this marriage, just like any other couple. Is that supposed to be surprising? That says something, doesn't it?


I turn out the lights after leaving my thoughts away from the bed, so that they are safe. My husband knows that I need to lay there for a while with the lights on, for I do it every night, until I am sure that I will sleep. He simply snores.


Laughable, is it not? Perhaps I snore too. I'll never be sure, but I'm sure that I have my bad habits. Still it is good to know that I can look forward to reassuring silence upon these doubts the next morning. I will most likely wake up with no smile on my face, except for the one that I must give my husband as he wakes and keeps...surviving for our sake. It is as if my smile hangs on the bedpost, waiting for me on its hook in the corner.


I make toast and coffee, the rich aroma and the same bread never quite leaving this corner of the kitchen, this niche of our lives. Even so, it is always alive, always fighting back the years and the empty dust that would exist without its tiered, multi-dimensional scent that seems to catch the morning in multiple places. I think we've tried several different kinds of coffee in our three decades or so, and that is why the smell is layered. The toast is the only thing that can wash down so many years of unchanging starts, brand new days. We will probably never give it up.


"The toast is good today." He jokes. He'll probably make the same joke after cutting, pasting, rearranging the words to make them fit in his briefcase. He'll save it for his boss or a coworker. I nod, knowing that it will suffice. I swore that I would never fall in love, after all. I turn around to pour myself a cup of coffee, seeing only the side of his face that began the joke.


"Goodbye, Jim!" I call out. I probably do it at the same time every morning. It wasn't always so, but now my words have accumulated on the coat rack next to the door. Here is yet another niche of my life.


Time passes. It's almost easier without him here. I swore I would do this, and I do. All of those memories we had built up over the years, the formalities becoming pleasantries and the pleasantries becoming something like automatic reflex. It's a game to see who can hold out the longest. I'm alone, however, and this is the break between rounds. I know he has a picture of me, perhaps more than one picture, on his desk. Some of my old...refreshments have good missing, after all. He must know that I look at old photographs and let myself go, because nothing in the house is ever quite dusty enough to need cleaning. Therefore, we are happy.


I used to wish that I were still working, so that I wouldn't need to be home. Yet, I would come home wanting him and wishing that I didn't want him so much. It is a game that only children have to play, I am sure. Still, we are none the wiser for it. We live comfortably now that one of us is always waiting, waiting and not requiring anything but for time to simply pass.


I cook, I read, and I wait for a different past, a different present to come into being for me because I know that it will never happen. I'm not sure how many years it will take (or it has taken) for Jim to understand this. He is one of those few men who are simple at heart and yet not so much in the mind. It's a strange complication, but it probably won't ever bother me. Yes, Jim will be due home any moment now.


Comparable to how I only saw the side of his face that began the joke, I silently acknowledge the end of it as I reach for his coat and tell him softly that dinner is ready. He seems unnaturally stiff today. Perhaps he is always like this after a busy day, and it simply that I am tired as well and it is easier to notice that way. I did have many thoughts today, among that pesky little fear of having fallen in love.


These words, all of these words seem particularly heavy.


I wrap my arms around him, simply unable to unbutton the coat, the façade he wears even beyond his suit. He seems to be on the verge of an idea, while my daily ritual seems unnecessarily distorted.


Suddenly, he grabs my hands, pulling off the old coat that has never quite gone out of style for a man like him. He, of course, manages to get the fastenings off. I realize that he has never needed this ritual of mine. He has simply grown bulkier with age, as many men do, obviously not maintaining the thin, lean form that he had when we first met. What reason does he have to keep himself in shape, after all? I certainly had only distant eyes for it.


Perhaps he knows my empty disappointment, as he clasps my hands with his while I'm still wrapped around him. We stand there for a moment, until the far-off sound of a television calls us to dinner with its rapid tones and manufactured interest. My eyes open instantly, still not quite certain that they had really been closed. I remove myself from the scene. When Jim doesn’t move, I know something deeper is going on. Does he know as well as I?


I had used a new recipe for dinner that night. Jim obviously notices that.


"Darling, this is delicious."


I smile, quite sure of how I must look: a silly, middle-aged woman too mature to know what had happened, not to mention stuck in the past. Perhaps it is better that way.


"Thank you. So was work difficult today?"


Difficult. That was a strangely safe question to ask a man who had been sitting comfortably at the same desk for quite a number of years. Difficult would probably have to mean something horribly new.


"No, it was a beautiful day. And you've created a beautiful evening."


I wonder whether he is still talking about the food. I lean over the small table in the kitchen and press my hand against his cheek. All is certainly not well, or the way that it has always been. It causes me to draw back slowly and shiver. That sensation seems so unfamiliar, if not completely unique. I hope that it suffices. Where has our game gone? I only find it when we both stare at the old television, our knees crammed under the table and our elbows bumping the wall as we eat and swat at flies. The health report is on.


It is a summer evening, of course. These evenings, these nights that seem to occur over and over! Yet, no one ever gets tired of the time they provide. We had long given up on trying to keep the temperature low. Unexpected things always simmered, but they never quite came to be. On this night, I must say, they seem to come close. Or, we are just getting old and we may very well wish for that sort of thing, irrational as it is. As if it prevented us from going senile too fast!


Jimmy finishes his dinner. He still seems to be chewing on something, though, as many tired men chew on life when they find trouble swallowing its daily portion. Somehow, my husband had gnawed his way silently through a potential mid-life crisis this way.


I look up at him encouragingly, but I know better than to disrupt his contemplative silence. He nods at me slowly, and I giggle. I don't mind going through life this way, never quite falling into love. Not at all. Who could I possibly be cheating?


Jimmy keeps looking at me. He’s probably chewing on a few words he had once considered saying out loud. I smile at him, shaking my head at how very exhausted we both are, and yet how sweet it seems.


"You're not hoping for dessert, are you? You fill your coat quite nicely already."


He's a healthy man as far as I know, and I intend to keep it that way. A new dinner as well as dessert: silly! I'm sure that we are both sweating, for obvious reasons. He does not pop my bubbly frivolity, as we have nothing to replace it with. We understand each other quite well, I suppose. As my smile passes back into the boiling neutrality of the summer night, I wonder how our nights are really measured. I have had many of these nights, the thick air scented with the same winds and leaving just a hint of residue on the carpets to confuse us as fall starts creeping in. I've spent my nights with several variations of the same simple pleasures, which have become necessities, along with some wondering about his needs too, of course.


I try not to notice when his expression deflates from my statement. I wasn't trying to be motherly or confining. I would be patient with his wants, but it was disputable whether this was reasonable or not. Perhaps this is an unavoidable consequence of not falling in love, but the ceiling is always propped up not only by the beams, but also a generous measure of awkward silence and wide-eyed curiosity. It always dangles up there, keeping everything in the way that I wished it to be for so many years, ever since this period of my life began. It did take some getting used to, but I hardly doubt it's ever going to fall when this house was built upon love. Really, it was. How else would this game be played? Does this not occur in most marriages after some point in time? These are our wants, our needs, so I propose.


We sit there for what seems to be a very long time, until I begin doing the dishes and clearing the table. Jimmy turns off the television and goes off to begin his nightly routine. It is not always this quiet, I must say. Usually we will find something to talk or joke about, as we keep each other company. Perhaps I should not have ended his joke so early in the morning.


Or, tonight was just one of those contemplative nights, when the crowds of sleeping, chanting people seemed more suspicious of us than usual.


Even if I have some mad objective in mind that is separate from the fanciful notions of the rest of the world, I wish that some things just weren't so...possible. Spin the bottle the other way, however, and then they would be downright impossible. At least, with a positive approach, I could keep my word.


I certainly looked the way I did the last time I checked, meaning the last time I had taken a good look at myself in the mirror and proceeded with my nightly routine. Love certainly didn't leave me any better or worse for the wear, even if I wasn't in love.


I seem to know exactly where everything is placed, so I certainly am not bothered in the least. No. Dear Jimmy had simply cleaned up the bathroom. He'd left my slippers exactly where I needed them to be. All of my other things are exactly as I like them to be placed. He probably knew from all the years of watching me do it and fussing over it.


My taking a close look at myself every day seems like a way to admit to what existed of me, as well as to whatever the years had done. It was meticulously planned, to the point where I even looked at a separate, magnifying mirror in case my tired bathroom mirror had grown soft and complacent to the seemingly unchanging reality. This was one of the cases in which certainty took the place of uncertainty quite well. It rather upset me that I couldn't find this smaller, handheld mirror tonight, when I felt particularly old and tired from the game that seemed almost unnecessary at times like these. Was it wrong that a simple, outward appearance needed a perfectly accurate representation in order to understand what was really going on? It was as if my face held the will and the battle plan of each day in its inconsistency before my eyes.


I knew that I would have trouble laying out all of my thoughts tonight. So many crucial little things seemed to have been forgotten. Or, rather, I had brushed over too many details in what could have been a rewarding, somewhat fulfilling day. How had I passed all of these years, living this way? I throw cold water on my face, wishing that this would only be willingly temporary, and that I was alone.


Even the end of my day would have been simple enough. Nothing prevented me from lying down on the bed and thinking a while before feeling empty enough to sleep without dreams. Things could be quite simple if one wasn't in love one bit, after all.


Jimmy was probably as tired as I was, the poor man. He had forgotten that I liked being the one to turn off the light. Only the glow of the moon was illuminating the room, now, through the windows. It made everything outside seem very different and everything inside seem so familiar, as the mixed darkness failed to play tricks on me.


Perhaps the only unusual thing was that Jimmy was so quiet, sweetly sound, tonight. No snoring, not even a slightly bit vexed about the fact that he would have little beads of sweat on his forehead if he stayed in the same place for too long. It pleased me to see him sleep so well, as it meant that I had not been too cruel with our seasoned emotional sport. It was meant to benefit the both of us, after all.


Closing my eyes as I lay next to him, I felt triumphant for the both of us. We had mastered love. I settle myself in happily, knowing that the less-than-perfect day would be marked with this good note.


If only all of my worries had been laid to rest. Even if this one chapter managed to tie up all of its loose ends, I can’t help but wonder how this could be continued the next morning, even in this unpredictable season. The remains of our anxiety could be...changed.


The summer winds, shy and unsteady, seemed to shift. They had always been like this. It wasn't as if we were consistently on edge, though. Overall, it had not been a horrible day. I shift my position on the bed, feeling mildly frustrated as I rustle the sheets. Conveniently, Jimmy decides to do the same. He probably doesn't want to bother me later.


I edge myself into unconsciousness, just as indecisive and easily swayed as the summer wind, so easily ready to give up. To my surprise, Jimmy puts his arm around my waist and plays contentedly with the muted, unspectacular curves that I still had, drawing himself close to me. I was sure that this sort of behavior had once been expected of us, though I don't remember much of that. It certainly had been a seldom event, one that was enough to make my eyes open wide. Old sensations ran through me, rising quickly from the remains of what had bleakly started over dinner. I touch his hand, gasping when he clasps it and laces his fingers tenderly with mine.


My eyes adjust to the darkness, and I notice a small, velvet box on my night table as I lay there, still comically awake. It certainly hadn't been there before. I cannot help but wonder how it had escaped my notice. Jimmy was still, now. I reached out and opened the box with my free hand.


It was a pearl. A single, milky pearl that glowed in the moonlight, perhaps even leaving a bit of its sheen on the dull surface of our time. For the first time in exactly thirty years, I look at my Jimmy with that same sheen in my eyes. He smiles back and whispers the words that had been missing from my day.

“Happy thirtieth anniversary.”

I don’t need a mirror to see my blindness. We are in love after all.