None so Blind

I am trying to see things from my husband’s point of view. It is not easy because my eyes are filled with tears. I am grateful for the tears as they have washed away the red film of rage. This evening, after dinner, when we were sitting under the giant Live Oak in our Low Country backyard, Stan, my husband, started in again.

”It was a mistake to move here. I should never have forced you to make such a giant change in your lifestyle. You have never adjusted.”

I sipped my Gin and Tonic, the favored cocktail with our new Southern neighbors. No Manhattans. They are too New York as the name implies.

“I think I’ve adjusted quite well, thank you very much. It’s you who seem out of sorts.”

He slammed his glass on the tile table causing a crack that allowed his drink to seep out. I shuddered. The glass was a favorite, the last from a set my grandmother left me. He wasn’t supposed to use it.

“God Damm it, Judy! You have not adjusted one bit. You still sound like New York, dress like New York, wear your hair like New York.”

I took another sip from my drink. I did not mention the glass, but I allowed sarcasm to seep into my voice. 

 “And you have become the ultimate “Southern Gentleman?”

I knew his anger came from more than me having adjustment problems. Stan had become distant, argumentative, angry. I did try to see things through his eyes. The switch from being a New York lawyer to a small town Southern attorney had not been easy for him.

I, reasonably, could lob all the criticism he had thrown at me right back at him. The local gentry had not taken well to his Hugo Boss suits, his BMW, his own harsh New York accent. Not that the other lawyers in his new firm were poor by any mens. Still, they asserted a quiet kind of wealth, not the splashy over-the top show Stan liked to portray. 

The firm had hired Stan to deal with the influx of wealthy East Coast residents. Their money was welcome-their lifestyle- not so much.

They had all moved into a new development on a former plantation. Unlike other interlopers, they had not knocked themselves out to retain the original feel of the property. They dragged in bulldozers and pushed the rich Carolina soil into mounds that resembled the hills they now missed. They turned the aged wooden clubhouse, a ramshackle single story structure, into a slick imitation of a plantation manor house, complete with pillars out front, a welcoming arms staircase and a black jockey hitching post. No wonder they were not accepted.

How cruel for Stan to blame me for our lack of fitting in. Thanks to Sue Ellen, my neighbor with her knowledge of all things Southern, as my guide, I had become more accepted than anyone might have thought possible.

True-I still had my New York accent but Sue Ellen had shown me how to make that seem endearing.

Periodically, one of the Southern Belles Bridge Club ladies would wink at her companions and ask, her voice so full of Southern sugar that you would have believed that all of them that would have died of a diabetic attack, would intone, “Say water for me.”

Sue Ellen would beam at me and nod. Making no effort to soften my accent, I would intone, “Wawter.”

They would giggle. Sue Ellen would nod encouragement at me and the game would go on.

Now Sam blamed me for not fitting in. It was too much.

I, once again, made the effort to see the world as he saw it. His position back in Nw York was no longer available to him. He did not know that I knew, but he had burned those bridges before he left. That was the main reason I had agreed to the move.

My friend, Barbara, had invited me to meet her at the club shortly after Stan had announced his intention to move South. After the waiter in his crisp white uniform had taken our order, she folded her napkin, smoothing it as if it were wrinkled, which it was not.

“You have to stop fighting this move.”

I felt heat rise in my face. “Why?”

I pictured the ideal life I led: golf, the pool, elaborate trips with our friends, parties-a neat package of perfection. Why would I voluntarily give that up without a fight.

Barbara spent a long time smoothing the napkin.

“Stan is in trouble.” 

The words seemed to hang in the air-a dark dust storm I hadn’t seen coming.

I breathed in, but no air passed into my lungs. My voice squeaked.

”What are you talking about?”

He’s been raiding the client accounts. You know he has those elderly widows. They all love him…I guess he loves them too or at least their money. The firm wants to avoid a scandal. They are making good on all the issues. No one need ever know…If he leaves now.”

When Stan got home from work, I told him I had change of heart. Somehow I was able to convince him that I could think of nothing I would rather do than bury myself in a backwater South Carolina town with people I didn’t know or understand. A place with no opera, no Central Park, no New York Public Library,

no Metropolitan Museum of Art, no Hamptons.

Of course, I never said those words. Instead, I spoke of the adventure, the new surroundings, my love of the ocean, the proximity to Charleston. I told him I wanted to start a garden, learn to sail, write a book. I lied through my teeth. He believed me because he wanted to believe me.

When I arrived in the sleepy little town, I threw myself into my role. After a while, I actually began to appreciate the quiet, the gentle pace, the lack of big city noise and big city busyness, the big city crowds.

I did not totally fit -not yet-maybe not ever, but I had learned to love the gentle rhythm of the tides, the still air heavy with the scent of Magnolias, the ribbon of the moonlight on the water as the glowing orb rose into the silken night. 

And now he wanted to blame me. I once again tried to see it through his eyes. He had risked his future, my future, our families future in his quest to keep climbing the social ladder. I turned my head, not wanting to imagine how he had been able to progress so quickly. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

If I could, indeed see the world the world as he saw it, I might know the pressures he had faced. How he had succeeded as the first in his family to go to college, let alone become a lawyer in a well known firm. How he had struggled to fit in with the big boys, the men who had gone to boarding school and Harvard or Yale, who had trust funds to see them through. 

The red film returned. If I could do that what would that make me? A kind, understanding loyal wife or a foolish simpleton willing to stand by her man.  

The back door swings open. Stan appears with the broken glass in his hand. 

“Sorry about this.”

He lifts it as in a toast.

I say nothing.

“And sorry about all the rest of it."

He is diminished. The heat and humidity have wilted him. His damp hair sticks to his head. His shirt collar is soggy. 

“I’ve been sitting out there trying to imagine how all this must seem to you. We never talked about what happened in New York, but I think you know more than you let on.”

His eyes are black orbs. “I’m not sure I can explain how it happened.”

He tilts his head down. His voice is muffled.

“You know that old story about how to boil a frog? Put it in cold water and gradually turn up the heat. Before the frog realizes what’s happening, he’s cooked. That’s what happened to me.”

He places the broken glass on the kitchen table and raises his head.

“I’ve been trying to see things from your perspective.” He twists his mouth. “A new experience for me. I can see the sacrifices you have made for me, for us, for our family.”

He sighs. “Don’t give up on me.”

I spin the cracked glass. I do not rush into his arms like this is some romantic comedy. I do nod my head, rise and throw the glass in the recycle bin. I brush my hand on my skirt. 

“Don’t worry about the glass. We can get another.”