Choices
“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
Kahlil Gibran
Keith woke up to his wife nestling against him in her
sleep. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his
back. Without even trying, trying not to, in fact, he
stiffened up and pulled away.
She rolled away from him, sighing. He lay silent,
frozen, trying to determine if she had woken or not. It was a few
minutes before his own breath quieted enough for him to hear the
ragged breathing that told him she was awake. Awake and crying,
most likely. He could almost feel the tears that must be welling
slowly from her tightly closed eyes. His own tears mirrored hers.
Keith wanted to get up, leave the room, the house, the
Earth. Anything to escape the guilt that was settling down around
him, but he knew the guilt would only follow him, and if he ran from
it, its strength would be tenfold.
He turned to face Belle’s back, punching his pillows
into a more comfortable shape. He carefully studied the outline of
her curls in the darkness and the softly glowing skin of her creamy
white shoulder. The curve above her hip slowly rose as her lungs
filled with air and then fell again as she exhaled.
She was perfect, absolutely perfect. Any man in the
world would have done anything to be where Keith was, in bed with
her, close enough to touch her. Her body was trim and tight, her
skin taut and smooth, her fashion sense impeccable. And besides
that, she was ambitions and intelligent and loyal and kind. There
was nothing about her that was lacking, nothing at all. Which hurt
and confused him all the more. What the hell was wrong with him?
Why did he cringe at his wife’s touch?
When Keith’s alarm woke him, it seemed as if he had
hardly slept. He slapped at the snooze button and turned to look at
his wife. Belle was wrapped around the edge of the bed, as far from
him as she could get without getting out of bed. He rolled toward
her slowly. Did she remember last night, or had it melted away in
the haze of sleep? Gently, he placed his palm firmly on her lower
back. She jumped at his touch and turned to face him, pulling the
blanket tightly around her.
“Good morning,” Keith tried, his voice quiet and
guarded.
“Morning,” she answered, her voice husky with sleep.
She looked at him for a minute, then buried her face in her
pillows. “What’s wrong with you lately, baby? Or what’s wrong with
me?” she asked finally, her muffled voice barely reaching his ears.
Keith sighed and buried his own face in pillows for a
few seconds before he lifted his head and spoke.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it right
now. I just want to hold you for a little while.”
Belle twisted her head and stared at her husband in
silence for several seconds before she turned, at last, and pushed
her back against him. Although his wife’s flesh was warm against
his, he could feel coldness emanating from within her. But at least
she was in his arms for the moment and he could pretend everything
was okay again, at least until it was time to go to work.
When Keith got to work, there was a mountain of
paperwork on his desk waiting for him. He loved his job. It came
easily to him, and usually kept him fully engaged, but for the past
days or weeks, he wasn’t sure anymore how long it had been, he had
found himself unable to give it his full attention. It wasn’t that
he didn’t want to. It was just that as soon as he settled into a
task, his thoughts would suddenly be obscured by an intense,
detailed picture of Belle. He might see her doing something that
was part of her everyday routine, like carrying a bowl of mashed
potatoes to the dining room table, or folding laundry, or pulling
socks up over her ankles as she dressed for work. Or maybe she
would see her in bed with him, naked and soft-skinned and caressing
his body, or staring down at him, her hair brushing his face, as
they made love.
He couldn’t keep his wife’s face out of his mind. He
only wished her sudden, stubborn existence there was borne of real
desire and not of horrible, painful, heart-twisting guilt.
After lunch, Keith called Belle’s cell phone. She was
at work and didn’t answer, but he hadn’t expected her to. He left a
message. “Hey, baby. Sorry about last night. And about
everything. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately, but it’s me,
not you. I love you.”
After that, he managed to get some work done. He made
his way through about half of the stack on his desk before his
attention waned again. It wasn’t his wife’s face in his mind this
time. Instead, he was distracted by the woman in the reception area
just outside the glass door of his office. She had been there for a
few months, ever since their regular receptionist had broken her
hip, and for whatever reason, he found himself watching her more
than he figured he should. There was no reason for it. He wasn’t
really attracted to her or anything. There was just something about
the way she looked, moved, went about her work, that drew his
attention. He tried not to think about it very often, but when he
did, it added to his guilt.
Belle left work early. She pushed her catalogs and
client lists aside, shut off her computer, pulled her jacket over
her shoulders, and smiled at the receptionist on her way out the
door.
“Mrs. Kearns, where are you going?” the confused
receptionist asked her, glancing down at the calendar on her desk.
“Just out. It’s one of those days. I have my cell if
you need me.”
And she was out the door, turning off her cell phone as
she went. She drove immediately to gym and, once there, wasted no
time in changing. IPod in hand, she stepped onto the treadmill.
She started walking. And walking. Every so often a look of
sadness, of longing, would come over her face. When that happened,
she pushed the “up” arrow on the treadmill and walked even faster.
She didn’t stop walking until she was red-faced and breathless,
nearly falling over from exhaustion. And then, when she could walk
again, she quietly made her way into the locker room.
At five, Keith had a decision to make: stay late at work
to catch up on everything he had been neglecting, or go home to
Belle and try to make things right again. Staying late at work was
certainly what he should do; it was much easier, less stressful, and
probably more responsible. He wouldn’t have to pretend, at work,
and the receptionist had already left, so he wouldn’t have that
distraction to worry about. But then the guilt and the images of
his wife’s face would come flooding back and he might not accomplish
anything anyway. At least if he went home, he could pretend to be
the same Keith he always had been, the Keith he wanted to be, madly
in love with his wife and anxious to spend every spare moment with
her.
At what cost, though? It hardly seemed possible to him
that she wouldn’t be able to tell he was only going through the
motions. After her reaction to his almost unconscious
middle-of-the-night rebuff, her frustrated questions this morning,
it was obvious that she knew something was wrong, or at least that
things were not the same as they used to be. At home he would only
be playing a game, one that made him feel worse with every passing
day.
Sighing, he shut down his computer and resolved to come
in early the next day. He considered stopping for flowers on the
way home, but rejected the idea almost immediately. Giving Belle
flowers would only be admitting that he had done something wrong,
and he wasn’t entirely sure he had. Something was wrong, he
knew that, but he couldn’t yet get a clear enough picture of what it
was to know if it was his fault, or anyone’s fault at all.
When he walked through the kitchen door, he was greeted
with the smell of baking something—he couldn’t tell what—and a
flurry of activity. It made him ache inside as he wondered how he
could be anything but the happiest man in the world. It also made
him sure that the only thing he could do was pretend. He would
pretend that whatever had been wrong with him was gone now, that he
had been waiting all day to come home to her, that he was relaxed
and happy without a care in the world.
“Hey, Babe. Smells good in here.”
Keith smiled at Belle as he walked toward her, then
pulled her toward him, rested his chin on her head, held her. She
tensed at first, then finally relaxed into his arms. She stayed
there a minute or two before she spoke.
“Dinner’ll be ready in a half hour or so. Your mail’s
on the table by the door.”
He kissed her head before he let go, then took a beer
from the refrigerator and wandered into the living room. He had
been prepared to pretend everything was alright, but he hadn’t been
prepared for the feelings that were filling his being. Love,
attraction, joy, all the things he hadn’t felt in so long he almost
forgot what they were. He suspected he hadn’t expected the flood of
emotion because he also hadn’t been prepared for Belle to work so
hard at pleasing him. She really did know something was up. It
wasn’t that she didn’t cook dinner often or anything. But they
usually cooked together, or one of them would throw something
together before the other got home from work. And his mail was on
the table? Most days, if he didn’t stop and get it on the way in,
she sent him back out for it. Keith sighed and dropped onto the
couch.
He hoped that Belle knew, even if she could sense that
he was pulling away, how much he appreciated her. He couldn’t stand
to hurt her. None of it was her fault. She did everything right.
Somehow, it just wasn’t enough anymore. Or for right now, anyway.
Maybe it was just a phase he was going through. Keith just wanted
to feel like he knew himself again.
He turned on the TV, threw his legs onto the couch, and
tried to forget himself for a while.
Belle quickly arranged a chicken breast, some brown
rice, and a heap of mixed vegetables on a plate. She filled two
bowls with lettuce then topped them off with onions and cherry
tomatoes. She sprinkled cheese on one of them and then carried it
all into the dining room. She placed the plate and the salad
adorned with cheese in front of one chair, along with a glass of
milk and an assortment of salad dressing bottles. She placed the
other salad and a glass of water in front of another chair. This
was the chair that Belle sat in as she called her husband to dinner.
Keith stood up and stretched when he heard Belle’s voice
calling him, and carefully put a smile on his face before he went
into the dining room. He hoped against all hope that he would start
feeling like himself again soon; he was determined to fake it, if he
had to, until that happened. It was the least he could do for
Belle. And maybe if he faked it for long enough, the feelings would
be real. Or maybe they were already starting to be real again. He
hadn’t imagined the things he had felt when he first walked back
into the kitchen, he knew that much. It was a matter of how strong
they really were, what caused them, how long they would last. But
in her arms, for those few minutes, he had definitely felt love of
some sort. Love, and attraction, too, something he had to admit he
hadn’t felt in a while.
The thought crept into his mind that the attraction may
have been caused by some innate desire to protect her, some
caveman-esque instinct to care for the woman who loved him, rather
than by chemistry, but he pushed it away. Of course he was
attracted to her. He always had been. She was his wife.
Keith sat across from Belle at the table and took a long
drink of milk. As he did, he noticed that while there was a full
plate of hot food in front of him that looked as if it could have
come from the pages of a magazine, there was only a small salad in
front of Belle, and a glass of water.
“You feeling okay, Babe?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You don’t—you’re not having any chicken?”
“This is all I want tonight.”
“You—you, um, sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m fine, I said. Don’t start bugging me about
how much I eat!”
After that, they ate in silence. Keith was lost in
thought once again. It seemed like he spent a lot of time lost
these days. He could remember other times when she had stopped
eating real food. It was one of the things about her that had
surprised him when they were dating. Mostly, she was healthy and
well-balanced and rational and confident, but there had been times
before they were married when she would sink into a depression,
usually set off by some small argument they had had. Or some
argument she’d had with someone else, or, once in a while, just by
the fact that she had seen some woman she didn’t feel she measured
up to. At those times, she slid into a state of constant jealousy,
and started eating almost nothing and exercising like Richard
Simmons on speed. When she finally felt like she looked good enough
to be secure again, she would stop and become herself again.
Keith suspected that one of her depressions was coming
on again, for the first time since they had been married. And he
knew with great certainty that the cause was his own behavior.
He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, that she
had done nothing wrong, that she was perfect just the way she was,
but putting his thoughts into words would be making their problems
real, and he had promised himself that, as of tonight, everything
was going to be right again. And anyway, every time she’d been like
this before and he had tried to convince her that he loved her no
matter what she looked like, that he found her perfect exactly as
she was but that even if she gained ten pounds or twenty or even a
hundred, or if she shaved her head or wore a garbage bag for a dress
or did anything else to change her appearance, he would love her
just the same, but it never worked. Until she met some arbitrary
weight loss goal and went out and got her hair done and filled her
closet halfway up with new clothes, she never became herself again.
Although Keith could understand why she might be feeling
insecure, it still angered him just a little. It was frustrating to
him that she felt like she needed to change, assumed that something
was wrong with her. It frustrated him that women, in general,
always seem to think that any relationship problems they have must
be connected to their physical appearance. It was hard for him to
believe that Belle could think he was so shallow. What had he done
to make her think that her appearance was so important to him? It
was the way that she was that attracted him to her.
Hell, now he didn’t want to eat either. He didn’t know
if the way he had been feeling was his own fault anymore. Maybe it
was her fault. Or no one’s fault at all. That was still a
possibility. He looked up at Belle and found that she was very
carefully not looking at him. He got up and covered his plate with
plastic wrap, then put it in the refrigerator. He walked up behind
his wife and stood there awkwardly for a second, wondering what to
do. He didn’t want to walk away from her without saying anything,
but he didn’t know what to say. Finally, he just placed his hand on
her shoulder and rubbed his thumb across the back of her neck before
he left the room.
He picked up the mail from the table where she had left
it and carried it with him to their home office, where he turned on
the computer. Maybe he could get a little work done from home and
not have to go in early after all. He logged into his e-mail
account and rifled through the mail while he waited for it to load.
Nothing important, just some credit card offers and a wedding
invitation from one of the guys at work. He filled out the RSVP for
himself and Belle and got it ready to send back, then turned his
attention to his e-mail. He had received a few responses about some
legal matters he was researching, which game him something to work
on from home. There was also a memo from the head of his company’s
legal department with a list of upcoming staff meetings and project
due dates. It also contained a picture that had been taken at the
staff picnic over the summer. The entire legal department was
framed by the brilliant blue sky against a background of the
sparkling lake at the park they had held the picnic at. Everyone
was smiling broadly, but one face caught his attention immediately.
Desirae, the woman who was filling for the receptionist at work, was
in the very center of the picture and she was wearing the biggest
smile of all. Her eyes sparkled even more than the ripples on the
lake did, and one had the sense that she was having the best time of
her life. She had one arm raised with her fingertips against the
side of her head in a movie star pose and the other rested across
the shoulders of one of the legal interns.
Maybe that was what his attraction to her was. She
always seemed so bright, happy, optimistic. It gave him hope that
his life could be simple again. Not that hers was as simple as it
seemed, probably, but she made it seem that way, and who wouldn’t
want to be around someone who made life seem like so much fun? His
life wasn’t so terrible, or hadn’t been when Desirae first started
working in the office, but she had made it seem like it could have
been so much better. And she was great at her job, too. She did it
competently, handling every crisis as if it were a top priority but
nothing to get worried about at all and making everyone she came
into contact with feel happy just to be alive. With a start, Keith
realized that he had been staring at her for a good ten minutes. He
turned to make sure Belle wasn’t standing behind him, although
common sense told him that he would have heard her approach, and
closed the e-mail.
Delete it, he told himself, and began to, but
once he had looked at her face again, he couldn’t make himself do
it. He turned off his computer and sat, staring at the screen, for
a very long time.
She turned and looked across the bed at Keith for a
long moment. Then she slid out from under the covers and dressed in
shorts and a sweatshirt. She grabbed her iPod on the way out the
door and by the time she had reached the sidewalk, she was at a
solid run. A few blocks away from her house she passed a house
where a family was in the process of moving in. She watched the
woman, holding a newborn in her arms, stop and kiss her husband on
the cheek before going into the house. Her eyes teared up as she
ran. She took a left and ran the four miles to the river, where she
slowed to a walk which was still not all that slow. It was a cool
fall day and she was alone except for an occasional jogger or bum.
She sat down on a bench for a few seconds, but then as
if she were propelled by some invisible force, she stood and started
running again. A couple more miles along the river and then she
turned and headed back toward home. By the time she got there, she
was completely winded and hardly able to walk straight. She peeled
off her clothes in the bedroom, dropped into bed, and fell asleep
almost immediately.
When Keith woke up, Belle’s side of the bed was empty.
He found her in the kitchen. There was a box of donuts and a coffee
drink covered with whipped cream on the table.
“Morning, honey. I walked down to the coffee shop and
grabbed you some breakfast,” Belle said, as she loaded the
dishwasher. “I thought you might like something a little
different.” She closed the dishwasher and took a plate full of
carefully arranged fruit from the refrigerator. “Here’s something
to go with it.”
They sat at the table together. Belle was drinking
plain black coffee and she only nibbled on a few strawberries as
they talked about their plans for the day.
“I have to get some work done today. I am way behind.
I might be late tonight,” Keith heard himself saying. He almost
cringed when he said it. He hadn’t meant to, his plan was to spend
as much time as he could with Belle, trying to pump her up again so
she could go back to being her old self. Somehow, though, his
resolve had weakened. It was hard to see her like this, easier to
just not see her at all. And he really did have to get work done.
“Okay. I’ll probably just go to the gym after work,
then. I can pick something up for supper on the way home.”
“That’s okay, you don’t have to. I’m not sure what time
I’ll get done.” Damn it, he’d done it again. Instead of making it
easy for her to reach out to him, or trying to help her attain some
degree of happiness, he’d pushed her away. “I’ll just have
something delivered to the office.” Shit. He couldn’t seem to stop
his mouth. But he really found himself wanting less and less to
spend time at home. The good feelings of yesterday were gone and
they were replaced by an emptiness. It hurt him to watch her
starving herself, or beginning to. He wanted to take her by the
shoulders and shake her and yell, “Eat something, damnit! Enjoy
life! Smile! Have fun! Loosen up! Stop spending so much time
trying to change and just be who you are! That is what I
always loved about you!” He couldn’t, of course. But he really
wanted to. He wanted her to be the same old Belle so he could be
the same old Keith and not have this heaviness weighing him down
anymore.
By some miracle, and the influence of several dozen cups
of coffee or so, Keith managed to get almost caught up w
