It is so easy to forget to see each other, to forget the separate paths we walked before we came together. 

We like to think we get to watch the sunset together on Friday nights.  But more often than not, we don’t.  Tonight is our night alone together.  The girls sleep at Grammie and Pop Pop’s so that they don’t have to get out of bed early for the Saturday market.  In spite of tomorrow’s grueling schedule, we like to pretend it’s our date night.  Just as we like to pretend we watch the sunset together.  Instead, he climbs his way up to the shower.  I throw myself in the bathtub downstairs and try not to fall asleep in the warm water.

We meet on a pair of stools at the kitchen counter.  When it is just the two of us, we prefer to perch at the counter, rather than take our traditional seats at the kitchen table.  Again, it feels more like a date — Like we’re at a bar, and the dirty dishes on the counter beside the sink are someone else’s problem.

Bob pours me a half glass of wine.  I never drink wine with the girls home.  I’ve found that it makes me a lousy parent.  But we’re trying.  I lay out some sausages and cheese, some kale salad and a dish of olives.  Then I go behind the counter and bring out a few pieces of chocolate.   The warm bath has revived me.  I am feeling flirtatious.  I want him to see me.

“Did you miss me this week?”

“I didn’t have a chance to think about it.”  His eyes are focused straight ahead, on the chipmunk running over the stone wall that he can see through the window.  Mom and Dad were gone all week, so he slept at the farm while I held down the fort here.  This is his first night home.

He still doesn’t seem to see me.  So my next question is more tart.  “Don’t you ever worry that I’ll run off with someone else?”

He sips his wine, lifts a slice of dry-cured sausage to his nose and inhales, then takes his time savoring it before he answers.

“Nope.”  He’s playing with me.

I hide my smile and adopt a more imperious air.  “Do you ever worry that you’re not living up to my expectations?”

His soft brown eyes shift down to the counter.  I see his large calloused hand tighten around the stem of his wine glass.  “Always,” he answers softly.

I forget what it must be like for him.  My daily routine, the movements I make about the house and farm while the sun is high in the sky, are movements that I’ve known from the generations before me:  taking care of customers;  packing for the farmers’ market; canning for winter; putting food on the table; watching over the kids;  weaving together my days with the threads of family and friends and neighbors.

But Bob grew up in the suburbs.  His father was a corporate professional.  Sons in his world were raised to specialize, to be competent in a single white collar career track with social standing.  Bob’s childhood propensity to take things apart was a source of family friction.  His desire to make things with his hands was overlooked.  His knack for fixing things was handy for household needs, but never received formal encouragement.  His lack of interest in academics left him labeled as “slow,” and then his propensity to lose himself for hours in the woods was  moulded, stomped, stretched and cajoled until it could be construed as an affinity for biology; at which point he was shipped off to college as a pre-med major.

He jokes that freshman year was the best four years of his life.  I think he may have taken intro biology  and algebra four times each.  He tells of one year, going into his finals, fully aware that his only option was failure.  So he donned a tuxedo with tails and a pair of roller skates.  Once everyone was seated in the lecture hall for the exam, he burst through the door, skated down the length of the lecture hall, picked up his exam, stopped in front of the room and signed his name with a flourish at the top, skated to the other side of the room where exams were turned in, slapped his blank paper down, then skated back up the other aisle.

It might have been after that when his parents finally agreed to a semester off.

I like to think that he found his place with my farm family; where a nature-loving tinkerer is a welcome and useful addition.  But like so many men from his generation, his natural propensities were never given the encouragement and guidance they required.  He grew up feeling like he couldn’t meet his father’s expectations; but also as though he wasn’t quite sure how to fill his own unique shoes.

But a farming life, while it requires all of his skills, has no formal acknowledgment of a person’s worth.  There are no pay raises, no promotions, no employee-of-the-month parking places.  When the hog waterer is finally fixed, it is time to move the chickens.  When the chickens are moved, it is time gather the eggs.  When the eggs are gathered, it is time get ready for the market.  And when the market bags are packed, it is time to eat.  And then it is time to sleep, because the next day begins early. There is no start and stop, no moment of acknowledgment and congratulations for a job well-done.  Because, it seems, the taking of those moments only stands in the way of getting the next thing done. No matter how many words of thanks and praise I could offer, there is no time where Bob can stop and savor them.  Just as there seems to be no time for him to stop and look at his own wife sitting beside him at the kitchen counter, asking to be seen.

And here we are, in this moment.  Dusk has settled.  Crickets chorus around us.  The kitchen lights are dimmed enough to occlude the mess and shine only on ourselves.  For one night in the week, if only for a few minutes, we are in the spotlight.  Man and woman.  Business partners.  Mother and father.  Lovers.  Friends.   Him and me.

“You’ve never let me down,” I say softly.

But my eyelids are growing heavy.  He gently lifts the wineglass from my hand.  “Go to bed,” his voice is gravely.  “I’ll do the dishes.”  I don’t argue.  I am asleep before he comes upstairs.

Sometime in the night, I am awakened to the touch of his warm hand on my back.  I see you, it seems to say, in answer to my own need from earlier.  But his fingers are light, tentative.  Almost afraid.  Do I live up to your expectations?  Words have no place in this moment. Tomorrow is another long day.  But that is not important right now.  All that matters is that I tell him  one thing by sliding to rest my back against his chest: Yes.

 

Today’s photo was snapped about ten years ago when Bob was a relatively new dad to Saoirse…and a pair of guinea hens.  It came to mind after I wrote this piece, so I thought I’d share it.