WE WERE WASHING dishes and we saw the overflowing trash can, or a child came in asking for milk, and we were reminded of something significant: we could never be separated from our children or our husbands, entirely. At times we heard the rise of our husbands’ voices lovingly in our heads, when they were away at the Tech Area for what felt like weeks, coming home only to eat dinner, and we felt as if we were widows. We would be alone hanging curtains and look back at our well-sewn, well-hung yellow drapes and hear them say, You’re an ace, Mary, and recall fondly, or sadly, their voices.
THERE WERE OTHER problems. Some of our husbands would not let us sleep until we made love, and we were tired but it was easier to turn toward them than to feign sleeping, so we turned toward them. Sometimes in those moments we left our bodies for a few minutes, making love as if we were in another room, and we watched ourselves, distantly, and then they snored, and then, finally, we got some sleep.
OR OUR HUSBANDS still came up behind us in the kitchen and delighted us with their bodies and we turned around. Our children were in bed, were outside playing, were staying the night at a friend’s house. We pushed into our husbands, we pulled them in, we moved their hands up our skirts.
OR WE BECAME more like roommates or friends than lovers. We cuddled, and that was all. Or we did all of the above, at different intervals, in different arrangements, for years.
ON WEEKENDS WE would take hikes with them. They talked and talked about the war and Germany but their voices were sometimes lost in the rush of the river. We enjoyed nature’s sounds taking over theirs, and we let them talk, and saved our own breath for the ascent back up the canyon. Sometimes between the canyon walls, we made echoes of our own raised voices. You always. I never. I can’t believe. You. You. You. Perhaps we were frustrated by the heat, were dehydrated, or were tired; we blamed our fight on the wind or the water, on a bad night’s sleep, on our frustration with the children. But it was this: We could not leave. Or it was this: We feared the enemy was getting closer.