Double Doors

Ruth Williams

"Well maybe nothing lasts forever, even if you stay together…"
-Sheryl Crow, My Favorite Mistake

August 2007
It was our last vacation together as a family – a weekend road trip to Boston from our home in central New Jersey. On the drive home, I chatted with my husband about his upcoming week off from work.

“So where should we go to eat on Wednesday? Maybe Italian?”
“Wednesday?” he asked. “What’s happening Wednesday?”
“You know, lunch. You and me. We talked about it the other day.”

His face took on the expression of someone seeing the Exorcist for the first time. Utter horror. I suppose in this equation, I was Linda Blair, head spinning in a 360. “I’ll… try to… make it on Wednesday… but I am on vacation…” Try to make it? I thought. On vacation? I chose my words carefully. No need to start World War 3 at the end of a family trip.

“Is it… work for you to have lunch with me?”
“No, but there are so many other things I want to do.”

There was no point in my saying anything further. Many other things he wanted to do. None of which involved having lunch with his wife. Pondering this exchange, I realized how far apart we had grown. Polar opposites, we had met twenty years ago and had nothing in common but that we enjoyed each other’s company. Now, we no longer enjoyed each other’s company. Now it seemed we lived on opposite poles of the world.

Quiet as it’s kept, there is no bad guy when marriages fail. I firmly believe no one and nothing can break up a happy marriage. Friends have danced around the subject, thinking I might not want to talk about my “failed marriage.” I don’t see it that way at all. I like to think it worked until it didn’t. Now what we have is a successful separation. We wish each other well and get along fine.

I think every door that closes leads to an open one. Walking through wasn’t easy, but I’m on a path to better days, and thanks to all that shores me up – my son, my faith, my friends – it’s all good now.

Segues

Impossible, he called me.
In fact, I said,
I am quite possible.
Just not very likely.
I told him,
you disagree
with everything I say.
No I don't, he said.
My husband and I never argued.
That would have been
too much like communication.

I found out the road to hell
is paved with things
too small to mention.
Thank you for this separation.
It has brought us together,
in different worlds.

We'll raise our son
to know he is loved,
and that love isn't
hurting each other.
I'm grateful that we
are on the same page,
even as we write our lives
separately.

-Ruth Williams

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