Sleep On Maria

Danny shuffles through the kitchen.  It’s been a long day and even longer couple of weeks.  He feels like he’s in a fog and he actually is.  A medical professional might call it shock.  

In the last two weeks his dad died of a massive heart attack, followed by his best friend since middle school. With all the crazy shit they survived in high school, college and their 20s, to be run down crossing the street to get to a meeting.  Stupid bitch texting.  Joey didn’t deserve that.  No one did.

It seems so unreal.  Feels like a really bad dream that he knows isn’t a dream, which makes it awful.  No one should live in a nightmare.  Yet here he was walking and talking his way through it.  Without the support of his dad. Or his best friend.  Nightmare.

He finishes his mayonnaise and cheese sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes and puts his plate in the sink.  It’s well past his 10:30 bedtime but he’s not going to work so it doesn’t matter too much.  Work gave him a couple weeks off like that would help.  Two weeks and he’ll be back to normal.  Not likely.  A really decent thing to do though.  Danny can at least acknowledge that. 

As he moves through the bedroom the light in the master bathroom gives him just enough light to let him pass through without tripping on anything his wife left on the floor.  She tends to strip down next to the bed and leaves everything scattered where it falls.  Twenty five years in, he is still amazed by how easy and how fast she can fall asleep.  Strips down, grabs her t-shirt from under the pillow and a minute later she is out like a tree trunk.  

He brushes his teeth and pees a second time, so he doesn’t have to get up in the middle of the night, and slides into bed.  She butt scooches her way back into him and he wraps his arm around her as they do every night.   The most humbling and comforting thing in his life.  He knows he doesn’t deserve her but nobody gets what they deserve.  If they did, we’d all be sad.  So Danny accepts this gift and breathes her in.  

He doesn’t know what he’d do without Maria.  She’s a typical Hispanic woman with great kindness and temper.  She’s a handful and a gift at the same time.  Danny would have fallen apart these past few weeks if it hadn’t been for her.  

“Honey, I honestly don’t know what I’d of done if I didn’t have you with me these last past weeks.”  He whispers to her.

She simply grunts and shoves her butt back into his gut.  

Danny smiles at this and continues his late night confession.

“I don’t know if I ever told you how sad and lonely I was before I met you.  There were nights I cried myself to sleep cursing at and praying to God to let me find someone who could love me and that I could love.  Honest to God the loneliness felt like a massive creature sitting on my back.  Made it hard to breathe.” 

“I never loved anyone before.  I used to think I never loved anyone more than I loved myself, but that wasn’t true.  I never loved myself.  I thought I wasn’t worthy of love because I did so many stupid things and got in so much trouble.”

Danny paused and continued, “And can’t forget the priest who told me I was going to Hell.”  Danny shook his head at the thought.  How could a priest say that to a little kid? Twice?  It’s shameful to think about now. 

He watched her sleep.  His arm was falling asleep and tingling but he wasn't.  While he had this captive audience he figured he’d tell her everything.

“I’m sorry for not making you feel like you were fully loved when we first got married.  Sorry I wasn’t any good at being a good husband Honey.”

The tears were welling up as he continued.  “I was just so selfish.  I didn’t know.  Just didn’t know.  So sorry.”  

“Thank you for your grace.  I wish you could forgive me Maria.”  He stroked her long black hair thinking about the last 10 years or so.  She told him around then that she loved him but wasn’t in love with him anymore.  He didn’t know what that meant and she wasn’t about to tell him, no matter how many times he asked her.  He resigned himself to stop asking because it only seemed to bring it back up.  

He could admit that in the early years of their marriage, he still flirted with women because that’s the only way he knew to interact with them.  He realizes how much it hurt her and wishes he was a better husband but there is no changing the past.  When she dropped the bombshell on him he vowed to be the best husband he could be from that day forward.  And he has been.  

The problem is that Maria still judges him with the same yardstick from the beginning of their marriage.  He feels sad for her.

“Oh Honey, I wish you could see the man I’ve become.  I’m finally the man you wished I was all those years ago.  And you’re missing him.  Please put down the hurt.  Forgive me my sins Maria.  I’m right here.”

He starts crying because he’s sad for her.  He’s sad for himself.  He’s sad for them.  And he begs her, “Have a little Faith in me.”

When they got married everyone envied them and their affection for each other.  Now he sees his friends and family as they’re becoming closer as couples.  And they are not.

“Honey when you wake up please know that I’ve always chosen you.  I’ll always choose you.  I’ll always love you.  Love You Longer Honeypot.”

He couldn’t take it any longer so he had to turn to relieve the tingling in his dead arm.  The tingling now felt like shards of broken glass.  

When he started drifting off he thought to appeal to a higher power.  “God please help Maria move closer to you.  And then let her move closer to me.” 

Can’t hurt.