Thin Ice

                               Thin Ice

As I rummage through the bottom drawer of Kevin’s desk, looking for a deck of cards, I see the envelope. Kevin’s name is written in a beautiful cursive script. It was sent to his office. The return address includes a woman’s name I am unfamiliar with.

I stand frozen for a moment. What do I do now?

“Did you find them?” I hear Kevin calling from the dining room.

“Yes. Be right there.”

A moment earlier, I thought about what a gift it was to have our relationship back to its most sanguine state, where we could just stay home and enjoy the simple pleasure of a game of gin rummy. It had been a long time since we both felt comfortable enough to do this, and desirous of being in each other’s company.

It’s not as if I think our marriage is in real trouble. I’ve been feeling Kevin pulling away, and my own inability to confront the issue, as usual, has me pulling back as well. I wonder how we can get back to the place in our relationship where we really looked forward to being together. Kevin’s suggestion that we have a card game, which we used to enjoy but hadn’t in some time, feels like an overture to close the unstated gap I’ve been feeling.

But as I deal the cards and watch them slide across the mahogany table, my mind goes to the letter.

Who sent it?

What did it say?

I try not to play the tapes of my past relationship as I use all my willpower to divert it to the furthest part of my mind. I look across the table to see the smiling face of my husband for the past ten years. He looks relaxed. I mentally slap my wrist for imagining the worst. We start playing, but my mind is still focused on the letter.

“Are you all right?” Kevin asks.

“Yes, why?”

“You played a ten, and I just picked one up.”

“Shit. Brain cramp.”

“Well, it’s been a while since we played.”

I double down on my concentration as we continued to play. What am I doing? I trust Kevin. He’s never given me any reason to doubt him.

                                                                    ***

It’s been two days. Neither of us has mentioned the letter. I find myself looking at Kevin more closely.

Has he always worn that cologne? (yes)

Is he coming home from work later than usual (no) more often? (also no).

We are making love more often. Not dramatically more, but more than we have in a while.

Have I gotten sexier (no).

So what’s going on? (Stop this!)

But I can’t.

It’s three A.M. and Kevin is not in bed next to me. I lay in the dark for a few minutes, until I’m sure he didn’t just get up to go the bathroom. I get up and go to the kitchen where the light from his laptop barely illuminates his face which is the picture of concentration. My stomach has contracted into a knot. I’m not sure I want to know what he’s looking at so intently. I do not know what else to do but announce my presence and wait for him to slam down the cover of the laptop.

“Hi.”

“Oh, hi.” The laptop stays open. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“What’s cookin?”

“Playing D&D with some frat boys from Santa Clara.”

I steal a glance at his screen as something blows up scattering the remnants of some creature into the ether.

 I put on my TV mom voice. “Okay. Have fun. But you’d better come to bed, or you’ll be cranky tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

                                                           ***

I am now spending half of my time berating myself, and the other half obsessing over the letter. Why hasn’t he mentioned it to me? (It’s not significant) Then why did he keep it? (maybe it is). Isn’t he entitled to have secrets? (Of course…no…I don’t know). I could resolve this if I just retrieved the letter and read it. Is it possible that I don’t want to know what’s in it? (Maybe). Why is this making me so crazy? (That’s a longer story)

By the time I met Kevin I was sure I would be alone forever. Though I was married once before I was convinced that I was unlovable. All my significant relationships blew up when my partner decided he liked someone better and started another relationship while he was with me. The last was the worst when I lived out the tired dramatic trope of finding my husband in bed with my friend. Bottom line, I’m either a terrible romantic partner, or I have crappy taste in men. (I suppose two things can be true at the same time) So, yeah, I have trust issues. But somehow my instincts improved, or I became a better partner (both?) and I was able to let Kevin love me. But one thing I knew from the beginning of our relationship. Kevin hated jealousy.

                                                           ***

It's been a week, and the proportion of berating to obsession is now seventy-five percent the latter. I am questioning everything Kevin does and says.Our latest interactions went something like this:

Kevin: So I’m going to grab dinner with the guys. We were just going to get drink but…

Me: …You’re not coming home?

Kevin: Not for dinner, no.

Me:…Why?

Kevin: You’re going out with Cheryl and Cynthia, right? (I totally forgot)

Me:…yeah

Kevin: So what’s the problem?

Me:… No problem

Or

On finding a new unwrapped shirt on the bed

Me: What’s this?

Kevin: I bought a shirt.

Me: I can see that, but I’m surprised. You haven’t bought a piece of clothing for yourself in ten years.

Kevin: That’s because you buy all my clothes.

Me: Do you not like what I’ve been buying for you? If you don’t you should say so.

Kevin: I like everything you’ve picked out for me. I was with Phil when he was shopping on our lunch hour. I saw this shirt and really liked it, so I bought it. I didn’t think I needed to get it approved. You don’t like it?

Me: No. It’s fine.

Like that.

                                                           ***

“Okay, you need to tell me what’s going on.” Kevin is reacting to my passive-aggressive reaction to a long phone call (he took it in the den with the door closed) with a work colleague who is fifteen years younger than me with the body of a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.

“Nothing” as I close the pantry door much harder than I need to.

“You want to try that again?” I can no longer back away from this. If I keep this up, I’m just going to precipitate the very thing I’m afraid of.

“I saw the letter.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw the latter in your bottom desk drawer last week when I was looking for the cards.”

“You said you saw the letter. You mean you didn’t read it?”

“I didn’t. I saw it came from a woman. It was clearly not on business stationery. It came to your office. You didn’t say anything about it…”

“So you assumed…”

“I wondered.” (Okay, I was suspicious)

“Why didn’t you read it?”

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.”

“It’s really disappointing that your first thought is that I’m cheating on you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Okay. Stay right here.” Kevin goes off into the other room. I assume he’s going for the letter. I assume I’ll be chastened. But I still have a question. He returns, holding out the letter to me.

“I want you to read it. But before you do I have to explain something.”Here it comes. An explanation introduced with a qualifier is never good news.

“Okay.”

“Do you remember when we were first dating, we agreed not to give each other chapter and verse of our dating history?”

“Yes, but with one exception. You wanted to know if I ended the last relationship, or the person I was with did it.”

“Right. This is from my ex. I was the first guy Amy dated after her husband left her with two kids. I became the repository of all her hurt, anger, and mistrust. I stupidly thought I could relieve all that for her. After a honeymoon phase, there were two years of accusations, complaints, and harangues if I so much as said hello to any woman I wasn’t related to. I was perpetually walking on eggshells. Eventually, it just got to be too much, and I ended it.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah, but you see I could understand where the mistrust came from, and I witnessed how hard it is for a single parent. I would just be another guy who dumped her.”

“So what else would you do? Stay with her and be miserable?”

“I know. I just…even though in my head I knew I had to get out I couldn’t help feeling badly about it. It took a while before I felt entitled to be happy in a relationship but every once in a while, the breakup would gnaw at me. Then I got this letter.”

Kevin hands me the letter. This is what’s in it:

Kevin

If you’re reading this letter, you’ve either stopped being angry or you’re morbidly curious. It’s taken me a long time to get up the courage to write to you and even longer to get to the place I could put my feelings into words. When you ended our relationship, I felt abandoned and was angry at you for a good long time. It took me a few other relationships (and some therapy) to identify my issues, where my anger belonged, and what to do about it. This is all to tell you that I apologize for being crappy to you. You didn’t deserve it and were right to get out when you did. (Truthfully you probably should have gotten out sooner). I’ve been able to wrestle with my issues enough to connect with someone I care for, and I’m working on not screwing it up.

Anyway, I hope this finds you in a healthy relationship and that you’re happy. You deserve it.

Amy

“Well, that should make you feel better.”

“It does…”

“So, why didn’t you mention it?”

“Because then I’d have to rehash the whole thing…

“…You mean like we’re doing now.”

“Exactly.  I didn’t see how there was any reason to go back in time and review that relationship. But if you were upset about it you could have just asked me about and I would’ve been okay talking about it…”

“Yeah, I just didn’t want to be the cliché of the jealous wife.”

“So, your choice was to be pissed at me for nothing.”

“Clearly my reasoning was flawed.”

“Let’s see what we’ve got. I didn’t want to revisit an old relationship, especially after making a big deal about not dwelling on our past; and you didn’t want to come across as the jealous shrew, especially with my aversion to jealousy.”

“Sounds about right.” (Clearly, neither of us knows what to do next)

“What do we do now?”

“Pretend we’re in an updated version of O.Henry?”

“Yeah. We just add a chapter having both people in the couple come to grips with their own insecurities.”

“That’ll work.”

“Gin?”

“You deal.”