There were markings of their marriage all over that house. The obvious things, like the framed pictures and the photo albums that filled the built-in bookcase by the basement stairs. There were anniversary presents with engravings to mark their accomplishments - ten years, twenty-five, thirty-five. Those things all lived in places of honour, making them easy to spot. But there were other things too, things that most people didn't see.
Three dress shirts with missing buttons were in a basket by the chair where she sat at night, raising her tired feet onto the old ottoman made by his father. She'd threaded a needle to do the job and it hung from the curtain beside her chair, the black thread bouncing off the baby blue like a beacon. There were six old shopping lists in the inside pocket of her old purse with items like Gillette and Speedstick inserted between milk and macaroni salad; and there were two mugs in their kitchen cabinet that almost matched - one red and one blue, both from that little craft shop off the highway where they stopped when they went on road trips to Alberta. There were two different cheeses in the fridge - not because they were connisseurs, but because he only ate old cheddar, and she only ate mild. And there was a key holder with two deep hooks that he'd widdled out of wood when he was a just a teen, hanging by their front door with one set of keys.
In fact, most everything in that house came in twos. Two pairs of slippers, two ski parkas for their winter hikes with two plaid scarves tucked into the sleeves, and two spoons with dried out tea bags sitting at the bottom of the sink. On that day, the two tea cups were not together though - one was near the chair with all the books, and the other was in the basement where he kept the old model train. She hated that train. She never went down there, even when he begged to show her something that she'd never seen before. She felt bad sometimes, but then she remembered how many things she'd given up in her life and she put her foot down. She wouldn't waste her time in a musty basement with a model train. Leave her with her books and her research on ancient Greece. He could have the trains all to himself.
There was one closet in the garage that they didn't share. It was empty except for one pair of shoes and an old coat that belonged only to him. He went for walks by himself sometimes, going through the garage door so he didn't have to walk by her on the computer and tell her where he was going. The truth was, he didn't really know. He just knew that the house was starting to swallow him up and if he didn't breathe other air he might suffocate. So he left in his slippers and changed into his outside shoes and coat and shuffled along the sidewalk until the feeling passed and then he came into the house the same way. Sometimes she heard him leave, but she never told him. The truth was, she left sometimes in the middle of the night while he snored. He was such a heavy sleeper that he never heard the garage door open or the car start so she could circle the block nine times. Sometimes she drove less, circling five or six times instead, but she never went around more than nine times. Somehow, if she got to ten, she knew she wouldn't go back.
In the back of the spare room, tucked way into a corner, was the only place where she kept evidence of that brief time when things had not been paired perfectly in his and hers. He knew about the box too, although he never opened it. He left that for her, and when she did, he knew he couldn't go on one of his walks or have a nap or bang around the kitchen looking for a snack. He knew to sit quietly with the tea kettle on, waiting for her to emerge from the past and then he'd kiss her forehead and she'd let him do it. They'd sit with the tea and then she'd talk about the book she was reading or her latest notes on the Hellenistic period and he'd listen because he knew that she couldn't talk about the other stuff.
He had his own way of remembering, so he didn't need to open that box of tiny clothes and the blanket his mother had sewn all those years ago. No, it was easier to let his fingers fiddle with the cars of the model train and have a conversation. He had many conversations, in fact, some when the boy was three and then eight and then thirteen. Once, he had a conversation with him at twenty-eight, the right age. The age he should have been.
Most of the time, they left the box closed and the train conversations quieted and then they could smile at each other. Most of the time, they gossiped about their friends' marriages and then he'd tease her about her boyfriend on the side or she'd threaten a divorce for forgetting soap in the dishwasher again and they'd laugh at the absurdity of it all. Most of the time, they were happy.
She was the one that suggested dinner outside the city that day. One of their favourite restaurants was in a town just twenty minutes down the highway. He agreed and they both dressed up a little, just for the fun of it. He showered for a second time and shaved and she wore the perfume that he'd given her ten years before. They stood in front of the mirror and he kissed the back of her head and they breathed each other in.
They took his keys when they left, leaving hers with the pink heart keychain hanging by the front door. They drove down the highway and she changed the music four times. The restaurant wasn't very busy and they got their favourite table by both the fireplace and the window where he could see the antique train. He talked about the history of it and she let him this time because the restaurant and the fancy clothes and the warmth of the fire made her heart kinder somehow. Then he said that he was sure Daniel would have loved trains and her stomach grew warm with some combination of pain and love, but she just nodded in agreement.
Sometimes they listened to the radio when they got ready to go out, or in the car - but that day they hadn't. That day, as he shaved and she spritzed perfume, they talked and joked and lived only through each other, blocking out the other parts of the world. Perhaps if they had turned on the news or checked their phones they would have heard about the storm that was blowing in later that night. Perhaps then they would have heard that the conditions were calling for black ice and that highway driving was discouraged. Perhaps, if they had eavesdropped on the tables around them, they would have realized that people were asking for take-out boxes, leaving before it really picked up. Perhaps if they had left just a little earlier, or a little later....
Perhaps if they hadn't looked only at each other that night, they would have known to stay home instead - inside a life that was messy and complicated and knotted, and still so very simple.
Perhaps.
© 2022 Shirley Hay