Another Side of Paradise

I settle back in my seat on the Early Bird Special. Streaming images of houses, fields, side roads flow past the window in sync with the clickety-clack of the rails. A sleepy stupor has settled over the travelers as we shuttle to our destinations, but I enjoy the forty-minute commute. It lulls me into reflection and, like always, my thoughts drift back to Marcy.

Ten years ago Aunt Olly came to me with a blind date prospect. The girl was a member of her bridge club. “Wonderful housekeeper, great cook!” she exulted. That was Olly’s standard, back then. “And everyone loves her!”

“How old is she?” I ventured cautiously.

“…about your age.” She glanced at me over her reading glasses.

“Well, what does she look like?”

“Oh, she’s pleasant enough. Come to the potluck tomorrow night so you can meet her.” Olly had taken it upon herself to introduce me to some nice girls, probably worried about my reclusive social habits. She had been my caregiver since sixth grade when my parents died in a car accident. After college graduation, when I was still unemployed, I had moved back into her house. My career eventually took off but my personal life was grounded. I was awkwardly shy and cringed at the idea of social encounters. Aunt Olly cooked and cleaned and took good care of me. I’m a homebody, my habits are regular. I liked it there and decided to stay on indefinitely.

Anyway, Olly convinced me to come to the bridge meet and she introduced me to the girl. Right from the start, Marcy and I hit it off. Her smile was disarming, her way sincere and self-assured. Little by little I learned to trust her and share myself with her and my shyness dissipated. We were soul mates and I couldn’t imagine my life without her. We decided to marry and my lonely existence transformed into a paradise. By this time I was earning an excellent salary and she quit her job to become a full-time homemaker. She was house-proud and her flair for organization and economy astounded me. Thanks to her excellent money management, we bought a dream house a few months ago that Olly describes as “ a grand home”.

The train window blackens. We emerge from the tunnel and just before my stop, my cell phone lights up.

“Good morning, Jon. Can you come see me when you get in?”

“O.K., Mr. Keene.”…another salary upgrade. Marcy will be more than pleased. The office complex where I work is close to the station and in ten minutes flat, I’m rapping on the corner office door.

“Come in!”

I paste a smile on my lips and do as I am told. Keene rises from his chair behind the massive desk and holds out his hand. He is middle-aged and wears a tailored suit, expensive for a man in his position. “How are you, Jon? Sorry to bring you in like this.”

“That’s alright, Mr. Keene.”

“Well. It’s like this, Jon… something you should know. You’ve been with us for quite a while and, as you know, employee assessment was completed at month-end. I’m sorry, but you’ve been terminated…”

I feel the floor fall away beneath my feet. I can’t believe what I am hearing but Keene goes on.

 “…for cause, because of the Reese botch up.”

 It’s true. I got negative feedback from a top client because he felt I projected “a sloppy image”. How did it happen? I was driving into the city then. The day of my critical meeting with Reese, a multi-vehicle pile-up had waylaid traffic on the expressway. My late arrival and flustered demeanor had put him off and the meeting had not gone well. Reese complained about me to my superiors and threatened to pull his account. But “terminated for cause”? That means immediate pay severance and no job loss benefits.

“…the mortgage!” I don’t realize I have spoken out loud. Mr. Keene touches my shoulder, sympathy in his eyes.

“I’m truly sorry.”

Even if I could find the words, there is nothing more to say. I rise from my chair and Keene extends his hand again. His handshake is warm and vigorous. “This came from upstairs. Nothing personal, I promise.”

I believe him. My colleges and I worked well together. I was good at my job but the past six months had been a round of realtor appointments and house viewings. Was I so distracted? What am I going to do? What do I tell her?

I retraced my steps of the early morning and retrieved my car from the station parking lot. As I drove along my street to the rambling rose fence in the cul-de-sac, I mentally rehearsed the conversation I was about to have. When I turned into the drive, the front door opened. “What are you doing here?” Marcy greeted me on the stoop and we went into the house together,as always, everything meticulous, the air reeking of chemical lemons.

 “Yeah, anything to drink?”

“It isn’t even noon. That bad, eh?”

Let’s get it over with. “I’ve been fired, terminated for cause.”

Marcy’s expression is stunned as she slowly sits down at the kitchen table. “Oh,” is all she can muster. “How on earth did that happen? What are we going to do?”

“I’ll start looking for another job.”

“Until then. what? How will we get by?”

I’ll get by… if only you—are mine!  It’s absurd. A song from Olly’s nostalgia- buff collection starts running through my head. Then panic sets in. Money-wise, we are at a low ebb. We put as much as we could on the down payment. What if we lose our dream haven? I bury my face in my hands. I feel Marcy at my shoulder, then the sound of her footsteps receding and returning on the polished hardwood hall. There is a loud, crinkly whoosh as she gently pushes a manila envelope against the side of my head.

“Don’t feel bad, look what I’ve got!” The envelope slides over my shoulder and lands in my lap, heavy and thick with its contents. I’m in for the second shock of the day. It is stuffed with money of all denominations and a bank passbook. My first addled thought is that she must have robbed a convenience store.

“What’s this? How much is here?” I croak out the words.

“About five months of your salary. I’ve been saving up since we got married. A few of our wedding presents and birthday gifts are there and I’ve been putting money aside every month,—you know! That’ll buy us some time until something comes up. Aren’t you happy?” Her smile is radiant as I reach out to pull her close.

“Happy? I’m ecstatic!”  The weight of the mortgage on the “Colonial-style Manor”, complete with Smart appliances and Italian tile, has slipped off my shoulders, even if it is a temporary reprieve. But…peculiar me, in the wake of the wave of relief, something is gnawing at me…

“What’d ya do that for, anyway?” I ask.

“What?”

“Your secret stash. Why didn’t you tell me about it? We never hide anything from each other.”

“In my system of economy, I always have something set aside for a rainy day. If you had known about it, it probably would have got spent.” Marcy is talking about my self-indulgent habits with money.

She has just been taking care of me. Her heroic act has maybe averted a disaster and she is expecting me to applaud her. She doesn’t know it has changed my way of seeing her, forever.

Over the next few days, my interview with Keene ran incessantly through my mind. I began to suspect that there was something not quite right about the incident, so I hired an attorney to investigate. In building a case for me, she discovered my dismissal violated my employee contract. She contacted my previous employer, communicating my willingness to sue. Three weeks later “Termination for Cause” had been wiped from my record and I found myself back in the office. The work was the same, but everything felt different. I had a new cubicle, but there was more to it; the environment, the people, it all became part of a mundane routine. With my rehire, my life began to piece itself back together again, but not with Marcy! We separated and I have moved back in with my aunt while we try to work things out. Downstairs I can hear Olly singing to herself as she prepares tea sandwiches for her afternoon bridge group. That song again!

 …and I’ll get by,

’Cause you are a rainbow in the gray of my sky!

The volume increases on her tuneful contralto as I descend the stairs to the kitchen.

 “Good morning! Have some coffee! Will you be joining us this afternoon?” Olly is doing her best to get Marcy and me together. As I pour myself a cup, I opt for silence as the best answer. I know she’s winding up for a tirade of criticism. “You know, you could dedicate that song to her!” She is trying to hook me into a conversation. “I’ll never understand you. How many men hope for a wife like Marcy!” Her knife scrapes staccato on the cutting board.

“It isn’t the money, it’s the non- transparency. Now I wonder if she is as authentic as I thought. She kept a secret from me for years. Wasn’t that deceptive?”

“You have a glitch in your brain,” said Olly. “If you had been more social when you were younger, you’d know more about relationships. How many married couples have little secrets from each other? Look what she’s done for you and how you’ve come out of yourself!” Our marriage counselor puts another spin on it. According to her, I have “an issue with trust the sudden loss of my parents at a tender age. But if you ask me, the only issue I have is with Marcy. She meant well, but for me her secret stash was a deal-breaker, a kind of infidelity. Our perfect bubble of trust and sharing has burst and that’s what I’m mourning. If and when we get back together, we’ll behave differently. I’ll be a new me, relating to a new Marcy. Our marriage could even evolve to a new level of communication and appreciation of each other. But that, if it ever happens, is going to take some time.