Love Lies Beneath
A touching story of love in marriage by Simon Jones
God damn it, the front porch needs fixin’ again. That crappy timber I got on a deal has rotten through. Serves me right for buying cheap imported stuff instead of American made.
What am I saying? Serves her right. I said it wouldn’t last, and she said we didn’t need to be spending too much, not when we’re gonna move anyways. But if a job’s worth doing, you know? A man’s pride is worth something.
Holy Mary, that sun is laying a beating on God’s earth today. The air is so thick I might as well be wearing a blanket and sticking a hand out to push away that cool, tempting breeze.
“Honey? You gettin’ ready?” Just the two of us home. Kids have long since left.
Don’t matter, none. I’d recognise that voice in the middle of a storm, hunkered in the basement with a hundred other screaming folk. A voice I’ve known closer to the length of my life than not. It echoes around the house, easily getting through open doors and windows, and suits the heat of the day. She wants us to meet up with the Schofield couple at Markus’ Steakhouse. I want to go, but not for the Schofields. They’re nice and all, but I’m not interested in meeting new people these days. Markus cooks a mean rib-eye and potatoes, fried in enough butter to put the fear of Jesus into a man’s heart.
But, no, the porch needs doing.
Am I getting ready? She’s asking it as if I didn’t have anything else to do but follow her social agenda. What? She thinks this stuff fixes itself? I let her hear my opinion on that, “I gotta fix this porch!”
“Why’re you doin’ that now?”
“‘Cos it needs doin’.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“Wait for what?” I’m being a pain. I know it. She had this thing planned since Tuesday.
But it’s Saturday, the only time I get to fix this stuff. We got church tomorrow and the line dancing thing (which she wanted us to do, together), taking up half the day. By afternoon I’m pretty much done. I try, but I’m not as strong as I used to be. Funny how the years take that stuff away. That’s why we’re moving to a smaller place. Less land. ‘Downsizing’, is what she calls it. More like giving up.
“We’re meeting the Schofields, remember? That cute couple who helped us with the cattle? Such nice people.”
That they are. “If I don’t get this wood fixed-up you’ll pop your foot through and snap your leg.” Yeah, dramatic. The worst she’d get is a scrape up the shin, the kind of thing city slickers belly-ache over, but the point had to be made. “You won’t be seein’ no Schofields then, let me tell you.”
I heard it: a raspberry. She does that when I make my point and she has a better one. I was sure before — I still am — but I know she’ll have a comeback that’ll leave me dusty-faced and spinning.
“It ain’t gonna break today, honey.’
True, but that don’t matter. Break today, tomorrow, ten years from now, it’ll be her leg that loses skin. When that happens, who will get his hide tanned from here to next week for not fixing it? That’s right. “Don’t matter. If I don’t get it done, it won’t ever get done.” That got something else from her. A sigh. Her sunny-side up disposition is getting a might crusty around the edges. The question I have to ask myself is: do I want burned eggs tomorrow morning or a good start to the day? “I got to get it fixed. If I don’t, something else will come up next Saturday. Then something after that.”
She’s looking around for her other shoe now. I can tell by the sounds her movements make. Why she don’t put ‘em in the same place each time, I will never know. One foot in a shoe, one not: thump-thud, thump-thud. “Come on, honey. We gotta get going.”
Honey. My eggs are in with a chance. “I don’t need to be there. I can get this done and you’ll have a nice, safe, porch to sit on tonight.”
“I want you to be there.” She doesn’t have to linger on the word, I can hear emphasis all over it the same way a cow lows over apples (I gotta fix that damned fence, too). It sounds the same to someone that don’t know ‘em, but I can hear it. Her voice is like that. She has a way of saying things my ears have picked up over the years. You know when kids put them tiny phones against your ear and play a sound that ain’t a sound? One that can’t be heard by ‘old people’, only those with young, specially tuned, ears? That’s what her voice is to me, with its hidden tones meant for an audience of one.
“But I gotta get started now. If I don’t, it won’t get done.” I’m less sure of myself now. I know it, and if I do, she will too. The woman has a third-eye. Damn if she can’t see into my soul some days.
Thud-thud. She has her other shoe. Thud-thud-thudthud. Sounds like she’s at the mirror, to judge whether she is ‘presentable’, as bright and wholesome as the sunflower fields at Tom and Eileen’s place. She will be turning left, then right, straining a bit more these days to look behind her. Both hands will glide down the front and sides of her dress, as if her palms were two hot irons, flattening out the last creases. The last check is a closer look at her face, leaning forward and pressing a finger against the corner of her mouth, to clear a non-existent smudge on her lipstick. Once that’s done, she’ll pick up her purse and come on out.
There she is. The woman I swore my life to and for whom I would do anything. God himself could not be so radiant. “Lookin’ good, honey.” I’ve said it a thousand times. Ten thousand. There ain’t nothing more beautiful in the world than her, and my words just ain’t good enough to wrap around that. I make do with my eyes and a peck on the cheek (don’t wanna smudge her lips, she don’t like that).
She pats my ass and winks. “Thank you for wantin’ to fix the porch, honey.”
I guess I’m going.
God damn it.
