A FBOW excerpt in sequence: “Talking Now”

“Mitchell, I’m so glad to meet you! I’m Dotty.”

“Hi, Dottie.” Taking her hand, “I’m glad to meet you, too.”

“Dottie, I just wanted you to meet Mitchie…”

‘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’ and 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.” 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.”

Glancing at the approximate place she’d first seen Gordon Nathanson, a ripple of goose-bumps playing over the flesh of her bare arms.

“Yeah. Well, guess I forgot.”

“Yeah! ‘Sure’ you did!” Looking at her. “You just wanted to show me off, didn’t you, Marcie?”

‘Marcie’!

“No, don’t flatter yourself! Why would I want to do that?”

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 so she would no longer be the invisible woman.

But seeing as Mitchell hadn’t made a physical move—because, after all, Marsha did have her pride— so neither would she.

Feeling a possessive pride in this tall, beautiful, young woman that walked at his side. Aching to put his arm about her waist, across her shoulder or merely to take Marsha’s hand into his…

If nothing more than holding her hand, Mitchell desperately wanted the feel of her flesh on his flesh.

So she called me ‘Mitchie’ a couple of times. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue. Afraid of rejection along with lingering anger and more than a bit of pride, Mitchell did not put his arm about Marsha’s waist, or across her shoulder or take her hand into his.

Women on the beach; those whom had ignored or all but ignored Marsha, watched as she and the handsome young man at her side that carried her—their?—son on his shoulders trudged across the warm sand to Marsha’s self assigned spot.

After a quick dunk, washing the sticky ‘Tootsie Roll’ 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… And again, and again.

Sitting in the sand at water’s edge with his son held 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.

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, “Ollie-ollie-ooops!” Mommy and daddy swinging him into the air every few steps and with each swing Michael would giggle and laugh.

Exhausted by sun, water and exercise. Covered with a light blanket to keep the sun off, asleep, Michael lay lengthwise 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. 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 gaze at Marsha’s breasts. He longed to feel the softness of Marsha’s breasts. He longed to sense the taste of Marsha’s flesh.

Closing his eyes Mitchell could almost taste Marsha: the softness, the sweetness, the slight salt tang of sun dried perspiration.

Now as then, he fought the urge to kiss the breast of Marsha. To kiss the breast of his wife.

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.

However…

Unlike then Mitchell did not touch her, kiss her, press against her or ‘most certainly’ did not say, ‘Marcie, I love you’.

And she ‘desperately’ wanted to hear the words because she, as much as he wanted the feel of his lips on her lips. She, as much as he ‘desperately’ wanted the feel of his body next to hers and of his penis within her and the ultimate release their loving would bring.

But also, maybe even more so, 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 — which she knew hardened when angry, and though her husband’s eyes were hard now — she waited for him to say it, to tell her, ‘I love you’ so she also could say, ‘I love you, too’.

“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 ‘does’, that she really ‘does’ 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, or their baby would awaken.

“ ‘You ‘hate’ me? ‘Why’? Because I got drunk ‘one’ night?”

“ ‘No’! Of ‘course’ not!” Wanting a clear understanding. “I didn’t say I ‘hate’ you’! I said I hated you… ‘then’.”

“Okay, so you ‘hated’ me! Why? Because you think I’m a coward?” Mitchell questioned, “You hated me ‘then’! So that’s why you walked out?”

Thinking, That was part of it. But, “No!” Marsha 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 of these reasons, and quite possibly more, Marsha had left him.

Individually, Marsha knew these were not reason enough to break up a family of three. 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, at that time, ‘yes’. And I thought that…”

Yo ‘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 own 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. Needing time to formulate his words. Needing a moment to formulate the words that needed to be said to get the meaning of those words off his chest.

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? The fact that you were no longer there told me that you didn't want to be married to me any longer. Then when I saw how you’d purposely scattered those damned rubbers all over the floor told me that you did that for spite!”

Halting a moment to catch his breath.

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…”

“ ‘Stop’! You’ve told me how you feel. Now ‘damn it’! You stop talking because it’s my turn to tell you how I feel?”

...“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 no idea. “ ‘Really’? Paul did that?”

“Yeah,” swiping his hand across his eyes, “he ‘really’ did that!”

“Mitch, I, uh, I had no idea.”

“O ‘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 also ‘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.

“Well, Marsha, you don’t have to worry about my parents now. Not working for them, I’m no longer so obligated to them.

“Everyone else seemed to have so much more than us! Everyone else, Rosalie and Maxine 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’!”

“You ‘don’t know huh’! Let me tell you something, Marsha. That night, when I got drunk, it didn’t start out that way. I was feeling pretty shitty myself… A wife that, even then I thought hated me because nothing I ever did or said seemed to be right.” Stopping... “Now don’t misunderstand what I’m going to say because a man’s ‘got’ to work, but I’d work all day getting constant rejections and then, when I came home it was the same shit. You were were ‘always’ angry for some fucking reason and I’d feel even more rejected...

“Oh, yeah, I know that maybe, more often than not that you had a reason to be angry over some thing I said or did...

“And to me, that night it seemed like I never did ‘anything’ right or good enough for you...” Stopping, thinking, but saying it anyway. “...even that you have to ‘pretend’ when I make… or ‘try’ to make love to you.”

Knowing that was a ‘big’ mistake, and not really meaning it when she had said it, “Mitchie, I...”

“ ‘Come on, Marsha’, we’re being honest now and saying what we want to say, so don’t hand me any more bull shit! This is the second time that you walked out on me, and...”

Surprised… or knowing his wife, maybe not so surprised at the far-from-apologetic tone of her voice. “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 the three of us now?”

Returning his intense gaze.

Not expecting this tirade of her husband’s innermost emotions.

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 intently stared into each others eyes for one… two… three long seconds…

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…

Rejecting the towel Marsha attempted to hand him…

“Marsha, when Uncle Shel hired me, he told me that he would be doing me no favors and asked if I would like to start work the next day, and as it was Friday I would only be paid for one days work that week and I said, ‘sure’.

“He then told me to get a good pair of work gloves… Maybe he did it thinking that I couldn’t handle the hard work and quit. But I ‘did’ the hard work. I pushed a wheelbarrow containing three hundred pounds of sloshing concrete a quarter block thinking that my wrists would pop out of joint with every step I took, and pushed that wheelbarrow back for another load of concrete and another all day, and the next Monday also…

“If I could do that. If I could force myself to do that kind of work and stick it out, then I can do and accept ‘anything’.

“ ‘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 I met you, 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 as sensual lightening. 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 could ‘not’, 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 where I ‘want to be’, or even ‘if’ I want to be’ Marsha.”

‘If’ I want to be’ Registering on Marsha’s mind.

He waited for her to say or do something…

When she didn’t, not knowing what else to say, laying down and 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.

As for Marsha, she wanted more than anything to touch him, to physically touch him…

Sadly, she did not.

Next FBOW excerpt in Sequence: “Reflection”