Lovey

Why Men Stray

Momma always said that you have to find the right balance in life between depending on your husband and maintaining your independence. But, truth be told, because I relied on Dan for my money and so much else, I never felt all that self-sufficient.

I learned quickly after moving into that assisted living facility that I had been quite independent, after all, despite how I felt. And now, all that was gone. Maybe it was the fact that someone checked on me every hour or that, for the first time in my life, it wasn’t my responsibility to coordinate the housekeeper and the yardman, the laundry and the ironing, the meals and the caretakers. I should have felt a sense of reckless abandon, a crushing weight dissipating into thin air.

Instead, I felt an overarching sense of uselessness. For sixty years I had been a wife, which translated to cook, cleaner, laundress, ironer, errand runner, mother, caretaker, feeling soother and sometimes gardener. And now, here I was, totally free. And I felt like I was losing my mind. Mercifully, when I got up from the sofa where I was reading probably the fifteenth book that month, I turned on the bathroom light, and, in that particular mix of spark and noise, the bulb over the sink blew.

I had bridge that afternoon, and I couldn’t very well do my makeup when one of the bulbs was out. Whistling all the way, I walked purposefully to the tiny utility room, slid the lightweight stepladder over my arm like a purse and grabbed a light bulb. Sure, I could have called maintenance, but it was a light bulb for heaven’s sake. Dan was the invalid; he was the one that needed the care. Not me.

I climbed up the three small steps carefully, twisted out the old light bulb, screwed in the new one and headed back down. One, two . . . I never got to three. The third step had escaped me, and, instead of landing steadily on it, one of my feet slipped. Struggling to regain my balance, my foot twisted underneath me and, before I knew what was happening, I was on the ground amidst the sound of shattering. I looked over, expecting to see that light bulb in a million pieces on the tile floor. I gasped. Seeing the bulb perfectly intact, I realized, as I tried to hoist myself from the floor, my leg determined not to allow it, that the shattering sound hadn’t been the bulb. It was me.

My mind raced with fear, remembering that Dan was alone in the den. I tried to call for help, but no sound would come. It was like that nightmare where the gunman is chasing you and you’re trying and trying to scream, to no avail. I don’t know if it was the fear or the swift rise in blood pressure that severe pain can trigger, but that’s the last I remember of that afternoon.

On the bright side, while I was catching up on my beauty rest, I had the loveliest dream . . .

It was May 1952, and I was perfectly coifed and made up, wearing an overworn yet expensive A-line dress. I could barely climb the four stairs that led from the driveway to our tiny front porch. I was sore, throbbing, exhausted. But, most of all, I was inexplicably ecstatic. I looked down at her again.

“She’s just so perfect,” I said to Dan, wistfully. “Those little lips and those tiny eyelashes.”

As we reached the top step, Dan set my valise down beside us, put his arm around me and leaned to kiss the cheek of the first addition to our family.

“She’s so small,” he said, for probably the millionth time.

I wanted to say, She didn’t feel so small when I was birthing her, but I refrained.

Those were the waiting room days, where the woman toughed it out alone as the man paced around outside, puffing the cigars that he was supposed to be handing out.

It’s better now, I think, when men get to be in the room, when they get to experience that earthshaking moment when their child takes his or her first breath. And, even more important, when they can actually see what their wife goes through when creating this little miracle.

But, back then, we still liked the ruse. I had given birth only ten days earlier, but there I was, makeup on, hair fixed, tiny pumps on my feet, hat jauntily pinned to the side. It was most definitely a different time, one where women preferred to be adored for their perfection as female specimens to being adored for their hard work in childbirth.

“Do you see what I was saying now?” I asked Dan.

He looked around and laughed. “Yeah, I can’t believe I was so worried about us having a big house. We could tuck her in the back of the closet and never know she was here.”

Sally opened that tiny mouth and let out a wail, as if to say that she wouldn’t be forgotten. “Are you hungry, little girl?” I padded gingerly off to the nursery, still determined that I would only nurse in private. My husband didn’t need to see what he thought of as one of my most sexual organs being used for something else entirely. Of course, by about the second month, and especially the second child, that romantic notion of keeping everything the way it was so as not to disturb my husband’s world was pretty much out the window.

My mother was horrified by the entire thing. Girls bottle-feed nowadays, Lynn, she said. Don’t ruin yourself with breastfeeding. That’s why men stray.

But it felt like the right thing to me.

“How long?” Dan asked.

I shrugged. “Probably thirty minutes or so.”

“Really?” He lit up. “That’s all?”

I cocked my head to the side, examined his face, and realized through Sally’s stilted cries that we were definitely not talking about the same thing. Though I felt totally nauseous at the thought of sex, I smiled devilishly and said, “Oh, honey, I wish it didn’t have to be, but it will be months before we can do that again.”

Thank God, I thought, closing the door behind me. In case you hadn’t noticed, I just pushed a human out of my body.

I think I might have been starting to wake up about that time, the searing pain nearly knocking me out again, but I fell back into that dream just long enough to think: Ah, yes. Those were the days. Just the three of us in a small, simple home where the only lies we had told were the tiny white ones.