Peter turned on the radio in an attempt to drown out the sounds of progress that came from the construction crew and cursed himself for not taking the beltway. He didn’t know why he was in a hurry; he had no plans for the evening and no real desire to be at home. Nevertheless, the inconvenience irritated him, even after he got out of the backup caused by the construction and could once again speed along the interstate. He cracked his window enough so that he could hear the wind whipping into the car just by his ear. He turned the radio up another notch. By the time he pulled into his driveway he had, somewhere in his subconscious, determined to be in a bad mood. Neither his wife nor his children were home and not being able to take out his frustrations on them he resorted to the television and spent another evening in a futile attempt to drown out his foul temper, the cause of which he couldn’t even name.
* * *
Peter didn’t know how to respond when his wife came home, found him watching sports, and, quite unexpectedly, asked, “How did we come to this?” She sat down in the rocking chair and didn’t say anything else.
“What do you mean? Are you okay?” Peter tried to console his wife with a calm innocence in his tone. He got up from his seat on the couch and walked behind the rocking chair. He reached out his hands to rub her shoulders, but it had been too long since he’d comforted her like that, and the gesture now seemed absurd and out of place. Instead, he turned so that their backs faced each other, and waited for his wife’s reply.
She turned around and seeing only her husband’s back resigned herself to drop the point.
“Yes, I’m fine; it’s just been a long day.”
“So there’s nothing wrong?” Peter asked. He was certain that his wife would not pursue the conversation and so he felt free to feign concern, concealing the relief that came from having avoided the potentially problematic conversation.
“No. No.” She repeated the word in an attempt to convince herself that she was telling the truth, and then added, “There’s nothing wrong. I’m going to go back to the bedroom to watch the news.”
Peter didn’t respond as she got up and made her way to the bedroom, the glass of Merlot still sat on the coffee table, still half empty. She sat on the edge of the bed and methodically took off her shoes, then changed into her bathrobe before getting under the covers. She wrapped herself up in the linen sheets, pulling them under her chin. She reached for the remote and turned the television to channel five. The opening story was about the possibility of war with some other remote nation. The possibility of war was the last thing that she wanted to think about. It only reminded her of David. She searched for something to occupy her thoughts. But despite her efforts, those tears that had nearly escaped earlier that day, when Julia had skipped across the lawn, began to well up again.
She turned off the television and lay in bed for several minutes, determined not to think or feel anything. When the silence became too much for her, she took a sheet of paper from a notebook that she kept by the bed and wrote “Mrs. Peter Manchell.” The writing looked so elegant, but the words only plunged her further into depression. It seemed like a lifetime ago when she had written those words over and over in joyful expectancy. She drew a line through them and wrote beneath it, “Hannah Manchell,” but was still dissatisfied with the words that looked back at her. She crossed them out replacing them with “Hannah Freeman Manchell,” then scribbled over all of her work and wrote in shaky letters “Hannah Joy Freeman.” Her hand was shaking so violently that it was all she could do to make the name legible. She looked intently at the paper and crossed out “Freeman” leaving only “Hannah Joy.”
“That is who I used to be,” she thought. As Hannah looked at that name the memories of her mother, and how she had used those words to wake her up or call her to dinner were like the breaking of a dam, and she lay there letting them wash over her and the tears that she had been holding back since Julia had left that afternoon couldn’t be held back any longer.
“How did we come to this? How did it all come to this?” she said just under her breath.
* * *
Later that night Peter turned off the game and made his way to the bedroom to watch the rest of the evening news. When he saw his wife’s puffy face through the cracked door and noticed that the room wasn’t lit by the TV’s soft glow, he went to the living room and turned the game back on.
Hannah Joy Freeman Manchell noticed her husband hesitate at the half closed door, then heard an announcer’s overexcited voice coming from the living room. While she lay in bed, someone in some arena or stadium or field had just made “the most incredible play of the game.” She got up, plodded across the room, and gently shut the almost closed door, thinking about how her husband had almost come to bed. While thinking of what she had almost suggested less than an hour ago, she fell back on the bed and buried her face in her pillow. She didn’t scream or cry, even though she wanted so badly to do both. She kicked at the blankets until she had succeed in untucking them from the side of the bed and then lay face down for some time and almost went to sleep, but instead she turned the television back on. The anchor led into a story about a three car pileup caused when one car lost control and swerved across the median on the interstate. They were interviewing somebody who insisted that this was reason enough to replace the raised grass with concrete barriers that would separate the northbound and southbound lanes.
The story brought back the memory of her parents. The memory, though distant, was still painful and she normally pushed it away, but this time she welcomed the pain; it made her feel alive, something she hadn’t felt in so long.
The memory came to her in fragmented images rather than as a narrative: her new engagement ring, the drunk driver, her roommates tone, the way Peter had held her even though she had squirmed and tried to push him away, and the untouched glasses of wine. She could still see the ratty walls and the lime green linoleum floor. She remembered how he held her all evening as they sat on the shag carpet that covered the floor.
“So different. How did we come to this?” she asked again as she lay in the plush bed. She said it out loud, intentionally tormenting herself. She reached over for the remote to turn the TV off for the second time that night, collapsed back into her pillow, and cried into it until she was ashamed of herself. She kept crying until the shame turned to resentment. She hated Peter for being so distant; she hated the fact that she had fallen in love with him, or maybe the fact that she had fallen out of love with him. More than anything else she hated herself for having become so weak and emotional.
“Never again,” she thought as she wiped her face with a Kleenex. “I will never cry another tear, not for him or me or anyone else. I won’t get lost in self-pity. I’m stronger than this.” She turned the television on again, and in the same instant turned off a part of herself that she had mislabeled “frail femininity.” For so many years it had only caused her grief. Then, so subtly that she wasn’t even aware of what was happening, she also gave up on the hope of reconciling everything that had gone so horribly wrong. She renounced her past life, a life that had died so silently that she couldn’t even put a finger on an exact date, or even a year or decade.
Hannah Manchell watched the movie that came on after the news and eventually fell asleep with the television on. Peter turned it off when he climbed into bed, still exhausted from his long day at the office, which seemed longer when he thought about how he was going to deal with his boss in the morning. His frustrations were only compounded by a two game losing streak, and it was on these things that he meditated until sleep finally overtook him.
Chapter 2
“The Picture Family”
The red sun had descended
painting the sky orange and yellow
while his children played in the yard,
and his wife watched, full of vibrancy.
The computer monitor burned colors
onto the retina that transposed
scrawled images into his b
rain
as he sat in the office building
faced with the days that lingered longer
than the day itself. He looked at his family,
not formed with flesh and blood,
but with film and pigments.
His wife no longer vibrant but frozen,
with a hollow smile and her arm placed
gently on his second son’s shoulder
while his youngest suppresses the urge
to put bunny ears on his older sister.
And there he was in the back, always with them,
a comforting thought even though he knew
the photograph lied.
As his watch beeped and the clock chimed
four chimes too many, he reached out
in an attempt to touch his family,
but his fingers were blocked
by the thin layer of glass that kept
the picture frozen and perfect,
un-smudged by tired fingers working
too late to feel family.
The next day was a Wednesday, a day when everyone seemed to be especially lethargic and eager to go home. Peter worked late. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with traffic. As he toiled he found himself spending more time looking at the photograph of his family that sat on his desk than working. It was a glossy eight by ten print encased in a polished silver frame and protected by a pane of glass that produced a glare in the upper right hand corner as it reflected the florescent light that hung from the ceiling of his office. He loved looking at his family in that picture; they smiled at him for a change, and they were all there lined up perfectly, except for David who had been stationed overseas when the photograph was taken. He liked that family, all smiles, no problems, no difficulties, happy and perfect. Peter thought about how much weight he had put on since that picture was taken, and was considering jogging in the mornings when Stanly walked by his office.
“You sure are working late,” Stanly said.
Peter looked startled and then looked up to see his coworker leaning on the frame of his open office door. Seeing that Stanly wasn’t just passing by, Peter said, “I’m just trying to finish sorting these papers while Sam isn’t around to breath down my neck. You know, ‘Bringing the world together through better communications.’”
“And loads of red tape,” Stanly added.
Stanly let himself in and pulled up the chair that normally sat in the corner of the office. He was younger than Peter, probably in his early to mid-thirties. He’d been with the company for almost a year now, but Peter had never taken much notice of him beyond the standard superficially friendly office greetings. He was nondescript, neither fat nor thin, short nor tall. He had more hair than Peter but showed signs of losing it. His shirt and tie, which he wore even when working after hours, seemed to Peter to be as bland as his personality, especially in comparison with the tattered gray t-shirt and blue jeans into which Peter had changed. Stanly seemed to represent a compilation of everyone else that worked in the office, and that must have been why he had never made much of an impression on Peter one way or the other.
“So why are you really here?” Stanly asked having made himself comfortable.
At first Peter was offended and then shocked by his coworker’s forwardness but then realized that it might be nice to have someone to talk to for a change.
“There’s not much going on at home, and I haven’t been one to hit the bars since I got married, or at least for a while. I guess we’re both here for about the same reason.”
“So you had a fight with your wife too? What’s her name again?”
“Hannah,” Peter said. “But we didn’t have a fight. We don’t have much of anything these days.”
“Is that her? She’s a real catch.” Stanly pointed to the picture that sat on Peter’s desk. “I thought you had four kids.”
“I do. David, the oldest, went off and joined the military. It drives his mother crazy. He was stationed in Germany, when we took the photo.”
The two sat and made small talk until Stanly got up and said, “I’m about ready to get out of here but I don’t want to turn in just yet. Why don’t we go out and get a few beers. Just because we’re married doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time.”
Peter didn’t object, but as he put on his jacket and turned out the light in his office, he wondered when marriage had become an impediment to enjoying life. He hadn’t thought long before Stanly asked if he knew any good pubs. Peter said that he didn’t, and Stanly suggested a place downtown. They walked out of the building and down the sidewalk between the patches of perfectly trimmed green grass. When they got to the parking lot, they each got into their own car and agreed to meet up in the pub’s parking lot.
Later that night, much later, when Peter rolled into his driveway he stepped timidly out of the car and looked at his watch to confirm that it was in fact well past midnight and he wondered how he was going to get up for work. But when morning came the habits he had worked all his life to established were stronger than one late night on the town, and he managed to get out of bed and go to work just like he had done every other day for so many years.
* * *
Half of the guys who were in Thomas’s pledge class had liked the hoe down enough that the next day they all decided to go to some cowboy bar just outside of town and go two stepping. Thomas hadn’t wanted to go. Two nights in a row seemed like too much. But John Hunt managed to get him to change his mind. So at eleven o’clock on a Wednesday night Thomas found himself sitting at a table in a cloud of smoke at some crowded bar next to the dance floor.
The bar’s trendy western décor was obviously tailored to rich college kids who wanted to feel like cowboys. There might have been a few genuine rough necks floating around, but the crowd consisted mostly of people like Thomas. He liked being there despite the intentionally dingy atmosphere and the smoke, which irritated his eyes. He didn’t know why he liked it. Though they were sanded down enough so that there was no danger of splinters, there was something about the gnarled wooden tables and chairs that made him feel more grown up. Maybe that’s what he liked most about the place. He liked the fact that if he’d wanted to he could’ve gotten a beer from the bartender who didn’t check IDs; he also liked the fact that the girls were wearing tight jeans and short button down shirts that exposed their midriffs; he liked knowing that nobody would call to ask where he was or when he was going to be home.
He’d heard his dad mention going to this same bar when he was in college. It was hard for him to imagine his father sitting at the same table in a cloud of smoke, drinking a beer with a bunch of other guys, and he pushed the thought from his mind. He sat silently, listening to some of the guys, most of whom were on their third beer of the night. They were talking about how they could really imagine seeing a barroom brawl like what happens in old western movies. Thomas suddenly felt two arms wrap around his neck. He startled at first, but soon realized that they were slender arms that caressed his neck instead of choking him. He lifted his head up to see to whom they belonged and found himself looking into those big brown eyes. He immediately recognized them and remembered their life story and their major, but their name escaped him.
“Hey cowboy, didn’t expect to see you here. You must’ve liked two-stepping after all.”
Thomas searched his memory frantically for her name.
“Are you just gonna sit there staring or do you want to get out on the dance floor?”
Thomas walked her across the dimly lit room, her hand clinging to his. When they stepped onto the dance floor Thomas found himself back in those familiar arms, still at a loss for the name that went with them.
“So do you like it here?” she asked when the song was over and they were walking off the floor. She hadn’t let go of his hand.
“The smoke takes some getting used to,” Thomas confessed. “But everything else is pretty nice. I’m learning to like this type of music because my roommate’s a fan. He??
?s always playing it and I figure I can either learn to like it or be miserable all year.”
“So do you like it yet, or are you still learning to like it?”
“I’m a fast learner.”
“What about the place. You didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would jump at the opportunity to hang out here. No offense, you just seemed more straight arrow.”
“My mom would never approve, but I guess that’s what college is all about, experimenting and trying new things to find myself.”
“Looks like somebody’s gonna get lucky,” Mark remarked from the table where he and the other guys had been watching. The comment was just loud enough that Thomas could hear it, and he had to wonder whether the ears that belonged to those brown eyes had also. The face that was partially covered by her long brown hair seemed to be blushing, but it was hard to be certain in the dim light. Instead of sitting back at the table with Mark, John, and the other guys like he had planned on doing, Thomas turned his back, trying his best to ignore them.
“Now you’re too good for us. I see how it is,” Mark called out as Thomas and the brown eyed stranger walked by.
“Why don’t you buy her a drink,” another voice shouted out behind him.
“A drink’s not a bad idea,” she suggested.
“I don’t really drink. I mean, I’m not twenty one,” Thomas said. “And even if I was I wouldn’t drink. It’s nothing to do with being stuck up,” he quickly added. “It’s because when I was a little kid I remember seeing my . . .” He stopped in mid-sentence because the music and laughter and all the other noise that filled the room was too much, and she obviously couldn’t hear a word he was saying. When they found a place quiet enough to talk she had managed to turn the conversation to quirky roommates.
Thomas chattered on about his roommate, and the brown eyes seemed to be listening intently, but soon enough Thomas found himself sitting back at the table with the rest of the guys, not really knowing why he was with them instead of her, or really understanding how he’d gotten there. A few minutes later he saw those eyes skipping across the dance floor with someone else.