STILL SPRING
It is really possible, May thought, to wake one morning and find your whole world completely changed in all essential ways. your house gone. or not yours anymore. your things, not your things. your own body suspect of being not-yours. some other body... May Anne woke to her morning like that. It was still Spring...
Nothing else was the same at all....
Joe had asked for a divorce the night before. right after supper. she had done all the cooking. that was her job. he was helping her clear up. not usual for him. he usually went off to his computer to unwind. to look at women, she suspected. but, since it had been years since she had felt like even giving him a hug, well...it was OK. they weren't alone in this matter. she had two friends who rarely had anything to do with their husband's bodies any more.
well, anyway. unusual for him to be hanging around the kitchen...
What do you want.
We need to talk, May...
Really. Right this minute?
Please.
She dried her hands. and found that she knew what he was going to say.
all that computer time. must have added up to something...
I met a woman on-line. we've been writing and chatting and stuff for a few months. then we met. now we're lovers. she lives in Rockham. I'm sorry, Mae.
Well, well...I don't know what to say....
The kids have been up and out of here for years. we're rattling around in this old house like two strangers. you gotta admit that.
We have our habits, Joe...but we don't have any problems I know of.
Sex. Affection!
You promised we wouldn't let that spit us up, Joe. that it was OK.
I lied. I didn't think any one else would love an old fart like me.
Joe. sit down. you pacing all around like a cat is getting me dizzy.
I don't want to sit down. Mae, I gotta go. I don't want to live here with you any more.
Well. Joe. this is a shock... you got to give me time to work this out with you. we've been married forty years this year. we were gonna have a huge picnic and so on. this is a shock, Joe. just a shock...
I'm moving my clothes over to her place tonight. she made room for me in the closet.
What? What?
May. I'm moving out as of tonight. more or less. I mean, I gotta come back and forth to get the rest of my stuff. to work out the divorce and stuff...
Joe. I'm just shocked. I can't even cry! do the kids know? Joe. you didn't tell them before me, did you?
Well, yep. I did. so's they'd be here for you when you'd need it. if you don't make it good, and all....
O hell, Joe. now I feel all ashamed along with being all shocked...I'm not a baby. I got a job and all. I know you won't...you won't....make things hard for me....Joe, does she know I all about...well...us and the physical stuff?....
yes. mainly that I don't get anything from you...
But I love you, Joe. I do what I can. I hate it that you told her.
Yeah, I know, May. It isn't enough to make a life for me though...you know that, May. you don't even kiss a man goodnight. for fear I'll attack you or somthin'. comes to that, at this stage of the game, I probably would. so, good you didn't try to even act nice to me....
I just don't...I don't feel anything good about sex, Joe.
I know, May. we been over this a hundred times... she's a nurse at at County'...nurses know all about this sort of stuff. she feels bad for you and bad for me...May....
She's a slut, Joe.
Damn, May, I just knew you was gonna get into this exactly this way....what she and I do ain't your beeswax, May...she's a good woman....
No she isn't, Joe. She's a home-breaker....
May. I just knew you were gonna get into calling names and what-not. It'll do you no good.
I'll be filing for being abandoned and you two living in sin and stuff...you waited until Jack was nineteen, Joe! So you wouldn't have to pay child support!
May, I'll keep paying for everything like usual..she has a good job. we're going to live simple.
Got it all worked out....I'm not letting you go simple, Joe. You gotta pay for hurting me...
May, I paid all these years that you never even gave me one kiss...
O, you're making such a big fat deal out of that!
Well, some judge will favor me over that at least a smidgen. 'cuz that's abuse....
Ah Joe. and running around on your wife isn't abuse?
There will be sympathy for me when they hear what I put up with all these years....
You'll not being fair to me, Joe...
Yes I am. I'm going to leave you the house and half of everything else. You'll have a decent income no matter what.
But I won't have a husband. I won't have my pride.
You'll have the pride, May. I'm sure you and the ladies will enjoy trashing me and her for months...maybe for years....
Joe, I...
May. I'm weary of this. there's no pleasin' you in this, and you know it. it only makes sense... but I'm going, May. I want me a life before it gets to me that I never have had much of one. now, she loves me poor and plain and simple, May. I'm going to get love...
Joe, you were going to put my flower border-strips in for me this week.
May, now I'll come over and do that. strange. I knew you were gonna say that. we sure do have habits, May. But we don't have love, and that's a fact.
Love is just a bunch of silly words and nonsense under the sheets, Joe!
No, May, you're wrong about that. Love is something you don't have to deserve, like that old poem says.. But you do gotta have it. I'm sure of that now....so do your worst, May. I got love. so it doesn't get to me like it used to... I can do without the money. I can do without the house. but I cannot do without love, May....
good bye, for today, May....I'll come over and get those borders in for you tomorrow if you want..but my nights are gonna be over at her place...I'm leaving you the address and phone number. I got a lawyer. he'll call you and get your lawyer's connecting stuff, once you got one. go ahead and do your worst, May. You couldn't touch me for ten years. you can't touch me over this one either.
Then Joe walked out.
She finished the dishes and dried them and put them away. got on her nightgown. fell into sleep right away. and now it was morning... and everything looked the same. but, was not the same. no, not at all....
Joe was gone. the house looked strange. her face in the mirror was strange. even the flowers in their little sets, waiting to be planted, looked real strange... too bright in color maybe... too garish....
like the cheeks of a slut. a whore. a woman who'd take another woman's man with sex! May didn't know any women like that at all....
it was Spring, though. It would be great to be outside in the garden. where you could forget about every little thing ever worrying you... the divorce. a lawyer. the kids. what every body was going to say...not even the garden was going to cover up for all that mess going on now....
and the flowers were looking so strange in the light of the early day. they were the flowers of Spring... the daffodils. the lilacs. the tulips starting to show. all way too colorful this Spring. The flowers were going to look strange all Spring. she just knew it. nothing was going to be natural. maybe nothing ever had been....
May went through the door that was all wrong into the sunny house that was going to have to be sold, maybe... into the garden's strange flowers....
surely you could expect a bit more from Spring! May spoke out loud...
then she turned her back on all that life...
and went back into her quiet home....
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