buy new books, or music, or clothes, or whatever. Last Tuesday we lay on the couch, the same couch, just on opposite ends, and listened to a Damien Jurado CD. Itâs fantastic. âAnd NowThat Iâm in Your Shadowâ kills me! And the songs he does with Rosie Thomas are way too beautiful. Heâs Owenâs favourite musician. If Alex has a favourite musician, I wouldnât know who it was.
Owen and I do things couples do together. The things Alex and I used to do before time slipped in between us and replaced closeness with this invisible distance. Alex and I do nothing together anymore. Not even sex. Not even meals. If he is even home for supper, and not at that goddamn hospital, he eats in front of the TV, not out back with the kids and Owen and me. I mean, what did he buy a house with a yard like ours for anyway? Definitely not for me, I know it was for show. Everything Alex does is for show, to prove himself to a bunch of people who really donât give a damn. People are either jealous or indifferent to the material success of others, so why bother showing yourself off?
I feel like a ghost in my own home. Sometimes I feel like I could fling a plate of food across the breakfast table and Alex wouldnât even look up. Itâs only since Owen came to stay here that I noticed that and admitted it to myself. Owen is an Omen: my marriage is dead. Yet I know in his own way that Alex does care deeply for me. And I tell myself thatâs enough. So then why am I writing this?Why did I give Owen that eyeful today?Was it for him or me? Is there a difference?
WAYS OUT
OWEN ROSE FROM HIS BED slowly, hesitated, and climbed the rest of the way out. Bare feet on fresh new carpet, a cheap but noticed comfort. He walked over to the window to check the weather, because changes in the weather were now the only thing that made one day feel any different than the last. There were three yellowed blades of grass poking up through a blanket of white snow. The wind was beating them off the brown fence. A metaphoric mirror.
It was noon when Owen woke up; it was later and later each day now, and Lillian had stopped setting aside half her breakfast for him. She never commented on his life but she didnât have to. The notion spoke for itself. He felt a fool in her house, pathetic. He wanted to be alone, he wanted to be free from the eyes of others so he could fall apart and come back together without a witness seeing how he chose to do so. It would feel like rejuvenation then, not degeneration.
He wanted to be back in Newfoundland. Owen was lost in Nova Scotia, his brother and auntâs adopted place of residence. He was stranded there, financially. Halifax felt like a shaking bed, an itchy blanket. He needed only to secure a job and a place to sleep and he would return to St. Johnâs, maybe Rocky Harbour, but definitely somewhere back in Newfoundland.
Three months before the accident, Owen had taken Hannah to see St. Johnâs. She had always wanted to see where Alex grew up, but Alex never made it happen. She wanted to honeymoon there; she felt it would be appropriate, but Alex bought two tickets to Cuba instead, and acted like she should be pleasantly surprised. She sat bored on a beach for five days while he read medical journals about breakthroughs in cardiology and oncology. The day before they left, she combed the beach for a handful of blue spiraled shells. She put them on the mantle back at home in a pottery bowl she had. Later, she told Owen that she couldnât stand the idea of a souvenir from that trip. It was like trying to take a joke seriously.
To rid her of curiosity about St. Johnâs, after months of overhearing her and Owen talking about the place,Alex bought her and Owen tickets. She was ecstatic about the weekend trip, and Owen was ecstatic to have her to himself for two full days. Alex couldnât go, he was on call Saturday night, but Lillian could watch the kids.
Sheâd
Owen and I do things couples do together. The things Alex and I used to do before time slipped in between us and replaced closeness with this invisible distance. Alex and I do nothing together anymore. Not even sex. Not even meals. If he is even home for supper, and not at that goddamn hospital, he eats in front of the TV, not out back with the kids and Owen and me. I mean, what did he buy a house with a yard like ours for anyway? Definitely not for me, I know it was for show. Everything Alex does is for show, to prove himself to a bunch of people who really donât give a damn. People are either jealous or indifferent to the material success of others, so why bother showing yourself off?
I feel like a ghost in my own home. Sometimes I feel like I could fling a plate of food across the breakfast table and Alex wouldnât even look up. Itâs only since Owen came to stay here that I noticed that and admitted it to myself. Owen is an Omen: my marriage is dead. Yet I know in his own way that Alex does care deeply for me. And I tell myself thatâs enough. So then why am I writing this?Why did I give Owen that eyeful today?Was it for him or me? Is there a difference?
WAYS OUT
OWEN ROSE FROM HIS BED slowly, hesitated, and climbed the rest of the way out. Bare feet on fresh new carpet, a cheap but noticed comfort. He walked over to the window to check the weather, because changes in the weather were now the only thing that made one day feel any different than the last. There were three yellowed blades of grass poking up through a blanket of white snow. The wind was beating them off the brown fence. A metaphoric mirror.
It was noon when Owen woke up; it was later and later each day now, and Lillian had stopped setting aside half her breakfast for him. She never commented on his life but she didnât have to. The notion spoke for itself. He felt a fool in her house, pathetic. He wanted to be alone, he wanted to be free from the eyes of others so he could fall apart and come back together without a witness seeing how he chose to do so. It would feel like rejuvenation then, not degeneration.
He wanted to be back in Newfoundland. Owen was lost in Nova Scotia, his brother and auntâs adopted place of residence. He was stranded there, financially. Halifax felt like a shaking bed, an itchy blanket. He needed only to secure a job and a place to sleep and he would return to St. Johnâs, maybe Rocky Harbour, but definitely somewhere back in Newfoundland.
Three months before the accident, Owen had taken Hannah to see St. Johnâs. She had always wanted to see where Alex grew up, but Alex never made it happen. She wanted to honeymoon there; she felt it would be appropriate, but Alex bought two tickets to Cuba instead, and acted like she should be pleasantly surprised. She sat bored on a beach for five days while he read medical journals about breakthroughs in cardiology and oncology. The day before they left, she combed the beach for a handful of blue spiraled shells. She put them on the mantle back at home in a pottery bowl she had. Later, she told Owen that she couldnât stand the idea of a souvenir from that trip. It was like trying to take a joke seriously.
To rid her of curiosity about St. Johnâs, after months of overhearing her and Owen talking about the place,Alex bought her and Owen tickets. She was ecstatic about the weekend trip, and Owen was ecstatic to have her to himself for two full days. Alex couldnât go, he was on call Saturday night, but Lillian could watch the kids.
Sheâd
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