 |
| Jenna and I in happier times |
Jenna was still there as if admiring the precision of her butchery. Her face was in a sympathetic frown, yet her arms were crossed creating a feeling of great distance between us. She was feigning concern for my well-being and one would assume probably felt a bit of guilt over the damage she had inflicted. I looked up at her and she’d never seemed so beautiful nor so ugly. I opened my mouth to speak but I could no more make an utterance than do a standing back flip.
“Is there something you want to say, Dirk? You can say whatever you need to. I’m listening.”
I could say whatever I needed to. How kind, how gracious, how thoughtful of her to grant me permission, to recognize my free will.
“Maybe, you want to talk later? I understand this is difficult.”
Difficult? She really acknowledged that this was “difficult?” Well it was for me, for her it seemed a rather simple matter. I wondered why she didn’t just stomp on that chunk of my heart that she had eviscerated. Why was she now being so superficially thoughtful?
My knees were weak, my body felt drained of blood, my fingers trembled. I was more zombie than man. The living dead, stuck in the same room as the murderer.
“Look, Dirk, would you prefer it if I left? We can talk later if you like. I’ll have to come back tomorrow to get the rest of my things. Promise me you’ll be okay.”
Jenna wanted a promise from me? She, who had broken so many. And why would she care if I was “okay”? She was the one who had inflicted the damage.
I was growing weak at the knees so I sat down. I looked up at Jenna who was still looking beautiful/ugly, still frowning with fake sympathy and still keeping her arms folded.
“Please say something, Dirk.”
Oh, so she wanted me to say something. That was what SHE needed. I’d be doing her a big favor by talking. The guilt must have really wrapped itself around her. Its tentacles strangling what little conscience she had. I had half a mind to keep my big trap shut, that would really be doing a number on her. But at the same I wanted her gone and it seemed the only way to rid myself of her was by saying “something.” And so I did.
“Bye, Jenna.”
“Okay. That’s it? You don’t need to say anything else right now?”
I looked up Jenna and shook my head no.
“Fine,” she said flippantly, as if I was being a total asshole. “I’ll be going then.”
I sighed and looked down at the floor.
“I’ll probably come by fairly early tomorrow morning to get my things, if that’s okay.”
“Sure,” I muttered.
With a flash, obviously feeling released as a result of my finally speaking, Jenna was out the door.
It seemed an obvious time for me to break into huge sobbing fit. I cry fairly easily, especially for a man. But with a piece of my heart out I was totally beret of feeling other than a numbness, as if death was approaching and I was settling into it. So I sat there on a chair in the kitchen staring at the floor. It needed mopping, I noted. I also noted that I had never felt such hate for a person as I did now for Jenna. Nor, for that matter had I ever loved her as I did now. But surely the love would fade. So would the hate. In its place there would be a huge hole, right where she had ripped out that chunk of my heart.
For a minute or two I kidded myself that Jenna would be back, that it was all a mistake she’d made and any minute there she would be saying she was back for good and all. But in what was left of my heart I knew better.
I sat in the kitchen for what I guess was about an hour before I finally got up and I only did so because mother nature had called. I relieved myself, splashed my face and got ready for bed. A bed I would be entering and waking up in alone. Alone for the first time in four years. That’s how long Jenna and I had been together. We had been so happy — or so I thought. Quarrels were few and far between and never serious. Much more frequent was love making, drives in the country, visits with friends, dinner at gourmet restaurants, long quiet evenings together talking or just reading or listening to the radio. I never thought for a second it would end. Yet it did all of a sudden, in one night.
A long affair with a professor, the professor got a divorce, the professor proposed, she said yes, all this under my nose, my stupid nose. How matter-of-factly Jenna told me all of this as if recounting a day at work. Yes, she apologized, acknowledged that it was a shock, claimed she hadn’t been happy with me the past year and was surprised I hadn’t seen the signs. Well I hadn’t. Hadn’t seen a thing. No signs. Not to me. She’d seemed happy enough and yes she’d been out of the house more but she was working on her Phd, I thought she was doing research, not having an affair with a married man.
Live and learn.
The next day was bad. The day after a little better. And so on. Better by degrees each day but the hole in my heart remained and though the pain lessened it was still a consistent presence
Two weeks after Jenna left me the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The day after that I enlisted in the army. Here I was teaching three classes in English Literature, on the tenure track, probably not too many years from being a full professor and I was going off to war. I’d never have done it if Jenna hadn’t sliced open my heart. But I was damaged goods and there was little that could happen to me in war that would feel as bad as what that woman had done to me. The war would be my escape. My house was full of memories and so was virtually every restaurant in town and every friend I saw. Jenna permeated everything. The army, especially with a war going on, was the only antidote I could envision. An escape. To others I was being patriotic, noble, serving my country. But I realized that I was running away
Basic training is over as I write this and I’m headed to the Pacific. I’m a grunt, an infantryman and I’m ready for action. Maybe I’ll win a medal, maybe I’ll get killed by a sniper, maybe a leg will be blown off and maybe I’ll be taken prisoner and maybe I won’t see much action at all. Right now I don’t care. I’m going to accept my fate. If I come out of the war alive and in one piece I’ll…well, I don’t know really. That’s a ways off. Right now I’m a solider and I don’t know what’s next but whatever it is, I’m ready.
No comments:
Post a Comment