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“Dottie, hi!” Walking from the door to the counter, a sense of possessiveness overtaking her, having an all but uncontrollable urge to link her arm through his, “I’d like you to meet Mitchell,” adding, pridefully, “my husband.”
“Really!” Hearing snatches of conversation when Marsha had called her mother, knowing she was estranged from her husband, the older woman hadn’t asked many questions. Now, genuinely pleased at seeing these two together, coming from behind the counter, offering her hand, “Mitchell, I’m so glad to meet you! I’m Dotty.”
“Hi, Dottie.” Taking her hand, “I’m glad to meet you, too.”
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Lakeside, Michigan
July 4, 1958
“Dottie, I just wanted you to meet Mitchie…”
Mitchie, Mitchell thought, she called me Mitchie.
...and thought we’d say hello before we went to the beach.”
“I’m glad you did… Hi, Mikey!” Reaching to the penny candy counter, taking a Tootsie Roll, unwrapping it, she gave it Michael, who stuck it into his mouth and immediately—Mitchell’s eyes rolling upward—began to slobber chocolate drool onto the head of his father.
“You’ve a lovely family, Mitchell.”
Looking at Dorothy, “Thank, you.” Smiling, rubbing his hand over his head, looking at the chocolate drool, “I know I do.”
“Oh, sorry.” Dorothy handed Mitchell a paper napkin.
****
On the beach access, “Thought we needed sunscreen for Mikey.”
“Yeah, well, guess I forgot.”
“Yeah! Sure you did!” Looking at her, smiling, “You just wanted to show me off, didn’t you, Marcie?”
“No, don’t flatter yourself! Why would I want to do that?”
Off the path, beginning across the sand, once again Marsha had the urge to link her arm through Mitchell’s so that—Hey! See! I’ve a husband, too!—the women on the beach would see them together. But seeing as he hadn’t made a physical move, because, after all, she had her pride, she didn’t either.
Feeling a possessive pride also in this tall, beautiful, young woman that walked at his side, aching to put his arm around her waist, across her shoulder, or to take Marsha’s hand into his… Mitchell desperately wanted the feel of her flesh on his flesh. But, So she called me Mitchie; maybe it was a slip of the tongue. Afraid of rejection, along with a bit of pride also, Mitchell did not put his arm around her waist, or across her shoulder, or take her hand into his.
Women on the beach, those who had ignored or all but ignored Marsha, watched as she and the handsome young man she was with that carried her—their?—son on his shoulders trudged across the warm sand to Marsha’s self assigned spot.
After a quick dive, washing the sticky glop from his scalp, “Hey, Mikey!” Holding him against his chest, bending at the knees, Mitchell dunked his son to the neck in the tepid water.
****
Sitting in the sand at water’s edge, with his son between his spread thighs, the father and son waited for the lapping waves that ran between their legs and splashed onto their cheeks.
****
“Hey, Mikey!” Pretending to chase him, “I’m gonna get’ch’ya!” The father followed at arms’ reach behind his son, who, with arms akimbo, toddled quickly on wobbly legs on the hard packed, dark brown sand.
****
Walking, splashing in the warm, shallow water with the hot sun on his back. Walking between mommy and daddy with both hands held above his head, “Ollieollieooops!” Mommy and daddy would swing him into the air every few steps and with each swing he would giggle and laugh.
****
Exhausted by sun, water and exercise, covered with a light blanket to keep the sun off, asleep, Michael lay at the head of the blanket.
Her head just below her son, well aware of the closeness of her husband, her hands crossed behind her head, Marsha lay on her back with her eyes closed.
Scant inches from his wife, about as close as he could be without actually touching, lying on his side with his head propped in his hand, looking at Marsha, having a sense of déjà vu, the remembrance of another time such as this, long before their son was even a thought, long before marriage, then, as now, looking at her chest, he saw the outline of Marsha’s ribs beneath the taut, tanned skin, and the gentle rise of flesh from where the mounds of her creamy white breasts began and, Oh, God, now as then he longed to look at Marsha’s breasts, to feel the softness of Marsha’s breasts, to taste her flesh. Closing his eyes, Mitchell could almost taste Marsha: the softness, the sweetness, the salt tang of her perspiration. Now as then, he fought the urge to kiss the breast of Marsha.
She, too, remembered that time. Only that time their bodies had been touching, and when he leaned over and kissed her and told her, “Marcie, I love you,” he kissed her deeply. And when she drew on his tongue, urging it even deeper, imagining it was not just his tongue in her mouth but his penis in her vagina and when she felt the press of his erection on the outside of her thigh Marsha remembered the flow of her vaginal fluid then. Now, too, she sensed the flow of fluid that readied her for him, but…
Unlike then, now Mitchell did not touch her, kiss her, press against her or most certainly did not say, “Marcie, I love you.”
And she desperately wanted him to because she, as much as he, wanted the feel of his lips on hers, of his body next to hers, of him within her and the ultimate release that their loving would bring. But also, knowing Mitchell, Marsha knew that once they touched, once he so much as touched her they would make love and the past would become the past and their lives, good or bad, For Better or Worse, would go forward.
Softly spoken, “Marsha.”
Though not touching, Marsha felt his breath on her face. Opening her eyes, looking into his, she waited for him to say it, to tell her, “I love you” so she also could say, “I love you, too, Mitchie.”
“Why?”
Why?
Through these near eleven weeks of loneliness and self recrimination she’d asked herself why hundreds of times and had yet to come up with a substantial answer… even to herself. Why? She knew he would ask. He would have to ask! Only she’d hoped he would ask later, after they’d made love, when their communion would have forged a new commitment between Mitchell and herself, after she’d assured him that she did, that she really did love him… Why? She thought, Christ, I wish I knew why!
“At the time… Oh, God!” Marsha said emotively, “At that time I wanted to be away from you! I wanted you out of my life! I hated you!”
Said softly, so those on neighboring blankets would not hear. “You hate me? Why? Because I got drunk one night?”
“No! Of course not! And I didn’t say I hate you! I said I hated you… then.”
“Okay, so you hated me… 'then'. Why?” Still smarting over, Because you think I’m a coward, he questioned, “That’s why you walked out?”
Thinking, That was part of it. But, “No!” she said.
“Because I didn’t make enough money? You packed up and left because you didn’t think I work hard enough?”
Yes, that, too. But, “No!”
“Why, then? Because of my parents? Because you don’t think I stand up to them enough?” Feeling a deep sense of guilt because, in his heart, he knew that for all these reasons Marsha had left him.
Individually, Marsha knew these were not enough reasons to break up a family, but taken together, in her frame of mind at the time. “Yes,” she said. “Not for any of those things by themselves, but putting them all together, yes. And I thought that…”
“You hated me!” Forcing himself to keep his voice down, “So you just walked out! Just like that!” snapping his fingers. “You just took my son and everything we have and left,” snapping his fingers again, “just like that.” Remembering that sad day, recalling that other sad day, when she’d thrown him out. Feeling a sudden, terrible depression, afraid of crying, he stopped speaking and, needing time to bring himself under control, sitting up, facing Marsha, he crossed his legs. “Do you have any idea how I felt when I got home that day and you and Mikey and all our stuff was gone? Do you have any idea how I felt when your mother, your brother, nobody would talk to me? When nobody would tell me where my wife and son were!” Choking up, he stopped.
“Mitchie, I…”
“Then, to top it off, about an hour after I got back from your mother’s, Paul came upstairs and gave me one day to get out of the apartment! One day to get out of my home!”
“No!” Having had no idea, “Really? Paul did that?”
“Yeah,” swiping his hand across his eyes, “he really did that!”
“Mitch, I, uh, I had no idea.”
“Of course not!” Thinking, A “sorry” would be nice. “Even if you did know, you really didn’t give a shit how I felt, did you, Marsha?”
“Mitchie,”—it slipped out—“things were different then. I…”
“Then? What’s different now? Because I’m not working at the studio anymore? Why, Marsha? Even if you thought I was a coward! Even if I didn’t make enough money! Even if you were unhappy about my parents! These are reasons enough to take my son and disappear?” he asked irately. “To tell everyone not to tell me where you and my son were? What in the hell did I ever do to you to make you hate me that much?”
Feeling the need to defend her indefensible position, “Maybe it was never having enough money. Or your nagging about your parents. Everything started to pile up on me.” Sitting up, crossing her legs, she sat facing her husband. “Everyone else seemed to have so much more than us! Everyone else seemed to be so much happier than we were! No one seemed to have the kinds of problems we had!” She looked towards the water. “I don’t know! It seemed like the right thing to do at the time and now…” she said angrily, “I just don’t know!”
Surprised… or, knowing his wife, maybe not so surprised at the far from apologetic tone of her voice. “This was the second time you’ve walked out on me!”
“Well, I didn’t exactly walk out on you before, Mitchell.”
“Yeah, that’s true , Marsha,” forcing a weak smile. “Last time you threw me out. And you know what? I didn’t know why it happened then any more than I know why it happened now. And what I want to know is, what about us now? Where are we now?”
Returning his intense gaze, not saying what she really thought, what she knew she should say. Quiet… After a number of prolonged seconds, “I don’t know, Mitchell.” Stubborn pride overtaking common sense. “Where do you want to be?”
Their eyes locked, the two stared at each other for another, one… two… three seconds, then, standing, Mitchell walked to the water’s edge, waded out till it reached crotch height and diving, swam underwater until he had to breathe. Surfacing, he swam outward till his arms began to tire. Turning about, he swam back, waded ashore, returned to the blanket, sat and…
“Where do I want to be, Marsha?” picking up as though she’d asked the question a scant second ago. “Since the twenty-third of April… You do,” he said angrily, “remember what happened on the twenty-third of April, don’t you?” He waited for Marsha to show something, to say something… When she didn’t, “Marsha,” his tone softening, “the only place I ever wanted to be, I think even, maybe, subconsciously since I first met you right here, in Michigan…” Thinking a moment, “When was it? Nine years ago?” Pointing to, but not touching her chest, “The only place I think I ever wanted to be was right here. I think that ever since that very first night the only place I ever wanted to be…” now, the tip of his finger lightly, momentarily touching the area above her heart, “was here.” Hesitating, “But right now, to tell the truth, I’m not too sure.” Again, he waited for her to respond in some way, but Marsha being Marsha…
The light, momentary touch of his finger going through her, positive that anything she might say would sound like an apology, or as though she were pleading for him to take her back, Marsha being Marsha, apologizing or pleading was something she would not do.
“And the problem is,” going on, “what has me scared is what happens if in six months or a year, or two years you should happen to decide, ‘Gee, I don’t think I love Mitchell anymore. As a matter of fact I think I hate him and I think I should either pick one from column A or one from column B: throw him out, or just politely take the kid’—or by then, kids—‘and run away.’” Sighing, “I don’t know either, Marsha.”
He waited for her to say or do something… When she didn’t, not knowing what else to say, laying down, turning onto his side facing away from her, he hoped she’d say something to give him a glimmer of hope, to say anything to encourage him. And more than anything he wanted Marsha to touch him, to physically touch him.
But Marsha didn’t. So after a few minutes he sat up, looked at the water, then at Marsha’s back as she, too, had turned onto her side, facing away from him. “Marsha…”
Rubbing her fingers across her eyes before turning around and, maybe, were it not so bright, or maybe, were he just a bit more observant, Mitchell would have noticed that her eyes were red and glassy.
“…I spend so much time working in the sun that lying out like this, sometimes gets boring real fast. Besides, I’m getting kind’a hungry. So unless you really want to stay here, what if we go back to the cottage, change our clothes and the three of us take a walk into Union Pier and go for lunch someplace.”
“Yeah. Mikey’s going to start screaming for lunch pretty soon anyway.”
****
Their conversation strained, taking his bag from the bedroom, Mitchell changed into shorts and his yellow shirt in the bathroom as, this time closing the door behind her, Marsha went into the bedroom to put on shorts and a blouse.
****
Watching as Michael gobbled two slices of Oscar Mayer bologna and a slice of Kraft American cheese, Mitchell attempted to help feed his son dessert but, insisting on holding the “’poon” himself, he ended up dumping half the contents of a bottle of Gerber’s tapioca over his bib.
****
They walked the shoulder of the Old Road in silence.
Pushing the buggy before her, Marsha prayed the nostalgia of walking this road, of walking their Old Road with his child would trigger Mitchell’s sensibilities as it had hers two and a half months ago.
Walking on the outside, to the left of the buggy, Mitchell was quiet because, yes, the memories of the past were at play and he did feel that being on this road, the road he’d walked as a child…
Walking the Old Road of some of Mitchell’s yesterdays with his...with his child called forth a nostalgic emotion that bordered on a soft, subliminal pain.
Facing forward, sitting with his back resting against the rear of the buggy with his head tilted upward, void of infantile gibberish, Michael was silent because, looking up, he was mesmerized by the alternating radiant blue sky and the lacy shadows of overhanging trees.
