What She Really Wanted

            He smiled to himself as he held the wooden spoon lifted against his lips. Outside of the window just above the kitchen sink he heard the slam of a car door and the crunch of gravel under footsteps alerting him to her presence. He placed the wooden spoon in the holder next to the stove and turned the dial down to a lower heat. He beamed proud of himself to have finished their dinner just as she had made it home from work. It seemed that he was improving everyday at the more domestic aspects of their relationship.

            However, as he watched the door open and the woman of his affections cross the threshold into their home he could see that one thing had not improved. He saw her come to a rigid halt just inside the boundary of the doorway. Her brown eyes swept quickly over the kitchen and he noted in their scan that they stopped on several specific things; the mess and splatter across the counters that he had not had time to clean up before she had arrived and the food that sat now prepared on top of the stove and its burners. Then she turned her eyes slowly on him. In them he could see a dullness that did not normally occupy them. It was clear to him at that moment that she was still in the dark, miserable, mood that she had been in the day before. It had been his hope to change her mood with this meal. His woman had always been one to enjoy a large, delectable, home cooked meal reminiscent to those that her father used to cook when she was younger. But as she stood unmoving in the doorway her face held a frighteningly unreadable expression and he was not sure that the attempt would work.

            "Come now, I know I'm not the best cook in the world. But it can't smell that bad." he said with a tentative smile and a shot at light humor. He knew immediately, when an awkward silence accompanied his joke, that his endeavor to make her feel better had been unsuccessful.

            But she did smile softly at the joke and crossed the room to place a kiss lightly against his lips before turning her back to him wordlessly and headed down the hall to their office and the stacks of papers that awaited her there. But he was not satisfied with her reaction to his attempt to cheer her withering spirits. On an ordinary day she would have been delighted to return to their home after a long day of punching holes through the sky to find that he had taken the time to create such a delicious dinner for her. She would have thrown her arms happily around his shoulders and kissed him in appreciation, marveling in the various fragrances floating towards her from the kitchen. They would have spent a great evening eating and chatting about everything and nothing in particular. And eventually they would have gone to bed happy and wrapped lovingly in each others arms. But not today, today all he received was a small smile and a kiss that held hardly any gratitude because she simply did not have the will to muster an appropriate amount of gratitude. There was not even a hint of sincerity in her smile or a flicker of the light that was commonly found in her deep brown eyes. Instead he thought he may have seen the beginning of tears welling up in them before she turned away from him so quickly.

            It had been two days since he had seen her truly happy with her customarily warm smile plastered across the features of her face; two very long days. Her smile had gone away that previous Monday night without warning and seemingly without cause. She had told him that she'd had a good day at work and she even had the opportunity to speak with an old friend that she hadn't heard much from since her earlier days of college. Their relationship had been going on strong with no fights or arguments to speak of. It seemed that nothing in particular had brought about her sudden state of sadness; at least nothing that he could see or that she could or would explain. But it had always been true that no matter the level of honesty in their relationship, there was a part of her mind, soul, and heart that he was never allowed to know. He didn't believe that she purposely wished to keep these parts of herself from him nor was he even sure that she was aware that there were parts of herself that she held onto mysteriously. Still a mystery to him, they remained. And it was from these parts of her, still after all this time enigmatic to his knowledge, where this sudden depression sprang from.

            Something had hit her and shook her fiercely to her core. Some memory of some past pain that she still hung onto but hardly herself understood had settled into the recesses of her heart and it had cast a gloomy pall on her otherwise sunny disposition. And whatever this thing was it was determined not to leave her or himself even to their happiness. Every so often, this pain or another like it, managed to find its way into their lives. They would be living quite happily with few worries or cares and then abruptly it would come, stealing into their cheerful existence and stealing away her joy. He never quite knew what would cause this to happen and he never quite knew what could possibly be done to repair the hurt she was feeling. He was always powerless to do anything but wait out her periods of desolation.

            It was in this helplessness that he watched her retreating figure as she marched sullen and dejected towards their office. There she would shut herself in among the presence of her computer and piles of work. She would busy herself completely enthralled into studying the endless arrays of charts, maps, diagrams, and figures that she had long ago committed without flaw to her memory. From where he stood in the hallway he could already hear the harsh sound of her flipping aggressively through her papers and he knew she was lost to them. She would turn herself off to the world around her, even to him, opting instead to function in a machine like existence; cold, logical, calculating, and most importantly, unfeeling.

            There was nothing that could rouse her from this horrid state of self preservation that she had adapted years before to deal with a pain that she could not quite face. She would not stop in her half-crazed attempt to block out these feelings, which didn't come from without in the first place, until she crashed exhausted against the desk and found herself lost in a sleep so deep that she did not dream of whatever it was that haunted her. Hunger would not even bring her out from her fortifications once she'd withdrawn herself. Her stomach would roll and growl in discontent and it would twist and contort inside of her painfully, but still she would not eat to appease it. She would instead claim that the idea of food held no appeal to her and would only serve to make her nauseous.

            He himself did not even dare to approach her when she found herself in this state. He had tried on many previous occasions to bring some solace and hilarity back into her life, but he'd learned after many such tries that his attempts were feeble and always unsuccessful. Such encounters would only frustrate her further and often brought about a flare of the temper that she usually kept controlled and easily contained. She would of course become immediately apologetic and berate herself; horrified for her treatment of him. And then her disgust with herself would only cause her to fall deeper into despondence. He lacked the ability to do anything for her in this state and that knowledge hurt him most.

            But there was, in truth, one thing that could influence her in a positive way once she fell into her periods of depression. And in moments he heard the sudden sound of a familiar song coming from the office that she had retreated to. Her phone rang, but only for a moment, the song was quickly silenced and instead the sound of her voice, low, muted, and so heavily morose reached his ears. A familiar ice cold feeling slid down the disks of his spine and settled into the pits of his stomach.

            It was a feeling that he never could quite describe, despite the many efforts he gave trying to give credence to it. It was a sensation that caused his stomach to roll and his chest to constrict almost painfully. He often found that his breathing became labored and his pulsed would pound heavily in his veins in reaction. A thick cottony taste and dryness would settle over his mouth and throat further agitating his attempts to breathe easily. His muscles would tense into such tight contractions that he would later have to deliberately will himself to relax them. He once professed to a friend that this feeling was something akin to the most intense anger, acute jealousy, and astounding dread that he'd ever experienced, combined and all at the same time vying for the same amount of control over him.

            And what was it that caused such a fervid reaction in him when he was typically such a calm and collected person? It was the voice on the other end of the phone call. He did not have to be able to hear pitch and tenor of the voice to know to whom it belonged nor did he even have to know what it was that voice was saying to the woman to which his heart was vested. He loathed that voice and the man to which it belonged. Because for all that he gave her, for all that he did for her, for all the time that they spent together, and even for all that he loved her, he would never be able to do for her what that man with only a simple phone call could.

            As he listened to muted tones of her voice resonating through the walls towards him he seethed in silence. He could not hear the conversation taking place between the two of them. He couldn't even make out the words of her side of the call. But there was no doubt as he listened, that the tone of her voice was climbing steadily from its previous melancholy timbre to a more blithe sound. He even imagined for a moment that he had heard a small spurt of laughter coming from the office. Though alarmingly emotional at the situation he could not help but be drawn closer to the room. It was beginning to bother him that he could not understand what it was that she and that man were conversing about. But just before he reached the half open door to the office he heard her saying her goodbyes to the man on the line and the audible click of the phone snapping shut.

            He peered into the office and there she sat smiling, truly and genuinely, down at the face of the phone that now lay silent and closed upon the desk. The color in her cheeks had returned, rosy red, just beneath the soft brown of her skin. Even the light had returned to her dark eyes. This was the improvement in her disposition that he had been longing so desperately for, and yet, he felt no contentment in it.

            How was it that the man she had been speaking with on the phone could be the only one to cheer her now? That was the man who had once left her so broken and fragile when he'd decided to take his love from her and present it to another woman. It was that man who had originally created the wound that had left such a hideously disfiguring scar across her otherwise beautiful and open heart. That man had been the cause of so much pain for her then and even the cause of the continuous pains she still felt from time to time. But still that man was the only one who could soothe the phantom pains that continued in her wounded heart even now.

            And at that moment he could not understand why he couldn't be the one to be the light of her life. Why did it not matter that it was he who had swept together the shattered pieces of her existence and allowed her to live again after that man had broken her? Why did it not matter that he was the one who had remained by her side through every storm and conflict after that other man had taken back his promise of forever? Why did it not matter that he had chosen to stay and love her when others could not deal with the heavy baggage she carried from the loss of that other man?

            He almost wanted to be angry with her for not being able to see the logic of the situation. It almost felt to him that she did not love him as she claimed to. But he knew that was a lie spurred on by his feelings of jealousy and contempt for that other man. He knew in truth that she did harbor immense feelings of love and devotion to him and their relationship together. She had committed herself to him. He could not be angry at her. He had known from the beginning how she felt about the other man, she had made it a point to put those feelings out in the open early in their relationship and let him take or leave her as he chose knowing that about her. And he had unquestionably agreed to have her, knowing full well that her heart would never wholly be his captive. He knew from the start that the other man, her love from a life she had long ago lost hope in, would always have a part of her that she could never give to him. That man would always and forever be what she really wanted.

Reviews

[Innessa]

A very powerful story-this is something I believe many women can relate to. I think the strongest part is dramatic development of the plot. At the beginning of the story, I had no clue what was the root of the conflict between husband and wife. Was she depressed? Was she terminally ill?

You show the story through the prism of husband’s eyes, and it was an interesting choice. As I woman writer, I thought it would have been easier to express wife’s feelings as she definitely was suffering too. But you did an excellent job of showing the emotions, pain and anxiety the husband is going through. At the end of the story we learn that choosing to marry that woman was his conscious decision-he knew that she was still on love with another man.

I think this part is excellent:

It was a feeling that he never could quite describe, despite the many efforts he gave trying to give credence to it. It was a sensation that caused his stomach to roll and his chest to constrict almost painfully. He often found that his breathing became labored and his pulsed would pound heavily in his veins in reaction. A thick cottony taste and dryness would settle over his mouth and throat further agitating his attempts to breathe easily. His muscles would tense into such tight contractions that he would later have to deliberately will himself to relax them. He once professed to a friend that this feeling was something akin to the most intense anger, acute jealousy, and astounding dread that he'd ever experienced, combined and all at the same time vying for the same amount of control over him.

Great dramatic story. As I mentioned before, it is very realistic and well written. Thank you for sharing!