What Has Gotten Into You?

Saturday, August 1st, 1953

“What has gotten into you, Dean?” June finally asked two weeks later.

It was a Saturday afternoon and Dean had been typing away for hours now. The typewriter had been delivered on a Monday, along with a box filled with reams of creamy white paper, and Dean had set up his office in the mother-in-law quarters above the garage. He had come here straight after breakfast and had been steadily filling page after page, stopping only to eat, and to wrestle with Danny and the puppy in the back yard.

Cassie’s training was going well and she had quickly learned to go outside in one corner of the yard. She also could sit on command and Dean was impressed with how well Danny had handled the responsibilities of dog ownership.

Dean had shown Danny some tricks to training the dog, distant memories from his childhood days when an uncle had brought him a Labrador Retriever when he was eight, just a year older than Danny was now.

Dean stopped typing and looked up. June looked nervous, even scared.

“The driving lessons, the animals, and this typewriter. It’s...” Her voice died away.

“I thought you liked to drive,” he said, frowning slightly. “I mean, except for that one curb, you’ve done so well. You are a natural.”

“It’s not the driving.”

“I wanted to get Danny out of in front of that television. Teach him some responsibility. The puppy will keep him occupied and get him out and about more.”

“It’s not just that, Dean.” June sat down in a side chair and stared at him. “The fishing trips, the shopping, even helping with meals. You are different.”

Dean leaned back in his chair. His leg was aching today, more than usual. He shifted it to a more comfortable position.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No. Just...different.” She seemed to be struggling for the right words. “Like it used to be, maybe, when we first met.”

Dean stood up, walked around the desk and sat down in the small chair near hers, and took her hand. “And would that be so bad?” He asked it gently.

June looked down at her hands and said nothing for a moment. When she looked up, he could see tears in her eyes.

“No. It wouldn’t. It’s just that, you and I, we had grown so distant and now, with the accident.” Her voice broke and she looked away again.

He gave her a moment to compose herself, waited to see what she would say next.

“I sat there in the hospital, Dean, all those weeks. I was so scared. I wanted you to wake up, and, sometimes, sometimes I also didn’t.”

“I see.”

She pulled her hand away, brushing at her eyes.

Dean handed her a handkerchief.

“God, just saying it out loud, it sounds awful. What kind of a horrible person am I to feel like that? But it hadn’t been good. Not for years. You know it’s true.” Her tone was defensive.

“Yes, it’s true.”

“Sometimes I felt as if you would be happy if we weren’t around. Me, the kids, even the company. You hated it. You sometimes talked to me with such,” she dissolved into sobs then, “such disdain.”

Dean tried to take her into his arms, “Oh June, I am so sorry.”

June sobbed for a moment, then pulled away. “I’m not done.”

“All right.” He leaned back, fear growing in his gut.

“I was just as bad. I know I was, Dean. I wanted a good life, an easy one. So I pushed you, all the way back in college. I pushed you into this. You hated it, you told me that going to work for your father’s company would kill you. And I pushed you into it all the same.”

He tried to comfort her, but she shook her head, pushed away his hand. “I didn’t want that uncertainty that I had grown up with. I didn’t want to be poor like my parents had been. Always struggling, never able to catch up. So I pushed you to do the responsible thing and join your father’s business. Like he wanted. I knew I would never have to worry about money again. And we haven’t, Dean, but at what cost?”

Dean said nothing for a moment. June sobbed, her thin shoulders shaking, her eyes red with tears.

“I actually hoped you wouldn’t wake up. That I could start over, just the children and I. And then you were so confused, so sure you were dead, that the children were dead. That I was dead. I actually inquired about having you committed to Fulton State Hospital!”

She shuddered, her voice hitching, “But you got better, and you came home, and it’s been so wonderful. And yet...”

Dean felt the hard knot of dread forming in his chest, “And yet, you don’t love me anymore?”

“What?” June looked up, astonished. “No! That’s not it at all!”

She burst into more tears then, “I don’t deserve you to be kind, to be this amazing man that has come home to me. Not after I’ve pushed you and manipulated you, and...”

“What? Because it’s okay for me to take out my frustrations on you, but you aren’t allowed to do it to me?” Dean laughed. “So we have both been wrong and hurtful, but why can’t that change? Isn’t it changing now? We have both changed, are changing, right this very minute.”

He seized her hands in his, “Why can’t we start over? Why can’t I be the husband that you deserve and still be happy? I’ve been thinking and I’ve been working on something, a plan of sorts, would you like to see it?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer. He jumped up and opened up a desk drawer, retrieving a legal tablet from within.

“Take a look at this. I’ve called around and my parents’ house is just sitting there, vacant. We could sell it. I had a realtor stop by it and look it over, he sent me this report and suggested an asking price.” He pointed to a figure on the page.

“That much?” June asked, wiping her tears away with his handkerchief, “Are you sure?”

“The housing market is booming right now and prices for the bigger places like that old mausoleum are skyrocketing. The realtor may have underestimated the amount.”

“This second number, what is this?”

Dean took a deep breath. “That would be a fair market value for the company.”

June stared at the number, and then stared at Dean, “That much?”

Dean nodded and smiled. “I might have hated working there, but the worth of the company has doubled over the past six years. And we have had several lucrative contracts come in the last two months thanks to Jimmy Tannenbaum.”

“Who?”

“That young fool who lost a couple of fingers working the line the day of the crash? He recovered and Howard put him to work in a sales position. Turns out he’s a crack salesman. Damn, if I had known that, I would have had him bringing in the big bucks from the get go. He landed us a contract with Boeing in his first week."

June’s attention was back on the notepad, still taking in the figures. “Dean, this amount of money, it’s, it’s...”

“Enough to last us for decades. Yes.”

She said nothing. Seconds stretched into minutes. Dean could feel his concern mounting. June didn’t have to agree. He could do this, without her approval. It was 1953, for crying out loud, and none of it was in her name. Still, the more he had thought about it over the past few weeks, the more he had wanted her approval. He imagined her standing beside him on this new adventure and being willing, eager even. For once, he wanted their marriage to be a true partnership.

She finally broke her silence, “What would you do?”

He smiled, “I thought you would never ask.” He stood up, walked around to the front of his desk, opened a door, and retrieved a stack of loose-leaf papers. He cradled them against his chest for a moment and then gently placed them in her lap.

June stared at the top page. “Schicksal Turnpike? That was the road that we were on, when...”

He held up a finger. “Just read the first few pages. I’ll get us some iced tea.”

He walked down the stairs, into the kitchen, and pulled open the icebox door. It took him a few minutes to locate and fill two tall glasses with June’s sweet tea, then balance a small plate with cheese and meat on top of one of them.

When he returned, still favoring his right leg a few minutes later, the tall glasses beading sweat in his hands, June did not look up. She read each page, her lips moving as her eyes scanned each of them. He set the glass of tea down next to her, watching her as she continued to read. The finished pages were set neatly on the corner of his desk, facing down. She continued to read past the few pages he had asked of her, never pausing or looking up, until she had come to the final page.

Her eyes met his. “You wrote this? That’s what you have been in here typing for the past two weeks?”

He nodded.

“But what happens next? How does it end?” Her eyes were intense, captivated. His mind flashed back to sun-drenched Saturday mornings, the two of them lying side by side, reading books, exchanging them when the other had finished. He remembered how her hair had smelled of lilacs and the way it splayed out around her head in a halo on the narrow bed. Or the other moments, in winter, their bodies spooned, sharing a book as other couples would share a dessert.

He smiled. “You like it?”

“Like it? No. I don’t like it. I love it. It’s, it’s haunting. It is so beautiful. So...” She stood abruptly. “You need to finish it, Dean. Now.”

There were tears in her eyes again. “Dean, I never, I mean, I had no idea you could write like this. It’s, my God, it’s beautiful.” She looked back at the stack of papers, “You need to finish it.”

Her words washed over him, a sea of warmth and his smile stretched his face until his cheeks hurt. He pulled her close, tight against him and breathed in her delicate smell. So familiar. “We can start again, June.”

Her arms crept up around him, encircling him, nestling her head on his shoulder. “Yes. We can.”