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Authors: Carey Heywood
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were and don’t know if I want to start it again. Since it’s still very cold in the morning, I drive Jon to the bus stop near our building. As he’s getting out of my car one morning, Jon pauses as if he is going to tell me something but then just shakes his head and closes the door. I wonder what he was about to say.
The heavy lifting and little time for rest at Jon's new job make him a walking zombie for the first couple of months that he works there. He walks home from the bus stop and showers before crashing, too tired for dinner most nights. One night, Jon is so exhausted that he falls asleep on the bus and has to take another bus back to our house. I enjoy the feeling of coming home to an empty house, and Jon is so tired when he is home he sleeps most of the time he’s there. With the exception of some money for the bus and lunches, Jon gives his entire first paycheck to me. With the next he pays to have a friend fix the dent on my car.
I watch as his attitude and body change with his new job. He smiles more, loses weight, and builds muscle. Seeing him look as he had in the past is harder for me than I expect it to be. It hurts to see him that way and know I don’t love him anymore. I’m not sure how Jon feels and wonder if he will leave now that he has a job and a means to support himself. I almost expect it and then don’t understand why he hasn’t. During the year of his unemployment, Jon seemed to outright dislike me. Now he just seems pensive, never making a move to talk to me or is so neutral when he does that it is impossible for me to gauge what he might be thinking.
This new routine goes on for months. Jon becomes accustomed to the demands of his new job and is able to remain conscious past dinner time. He does not make as much as I do, but he is able to pay half of our rent which makes me feel like I can save again. We never had joint accounts. That’s one thing my mother had been adamant about when we moved in together. She thought that was something we should wait to do until after we were married. While Jon was unemployed, it had not mattered much to me, but now that I am saving, I’m happy that Jon is not privy to the amount I’m able to put away.
We share cooking duties, flipping every other night and whoever doesn’t cook, cleans. I may use more pans than I need from time to time. I’m still angry. Even after all of this time and even though things are so much better, Jon has never really apologized to me. I hold on to the pain and the shame he made me feel almost as a method of protecting myself from caring for him again. I don’t think I will ever be able to put into words exactly how permanently he has hurt me. When he speaks to me, if he speaks to me, all I can hear is the roar of him not saying he is sorry.
To me, it’s a sign of weakness that he cannot admit what he did was wrong. As though not drawing any attention to it will make it like it had never happened. That he thinks I will somehow forget. That’s where he is wrong. I will never forget.
~*~
I am in the kitchen making dinner when Jon walks in one day from work. Jon checks our mail on the way home each day since he passes the bank of mailboxes on the other side of our building on his way back from the bus stop. I tense as he approaches me but then realize he is just handing me an envelope. Taking it from him, I see it is from the funeral home I had used for my parents. I am accustomed to receiving something from them, maybe quarterly, normally advertising specials on burial plots. Never too early to plan for the inevitable , I suppose. This envelope is different from all of the others, though. It is shaped liked a Hallmark card instead of the longer, thinner envelopes I received in the past.
A bsentmindedly, I open the envelope and see that inside is another envelope addressed to me on behalf of the funeral home from a Kate Smith in Tampa, Florida. Smith was my mother's maiden name, but it is also such a common name
The heavy lifting and little time for rest at Jon's new job make him a walking zombie for the first couple of months that he works there. He walks home from the bus stop and showers before crashing, too tired for dinner most nights. One night, Jon is so exhausted that he falls asleep on the bus and has to take another bus back to our house. I enjoy the feeling of coming home to an empty house, and Jon is so tired when he is home he sleeps most of the time he’s there. With the exception of some money for the bus and lunches, Jon gives his entire first paycheck to me. With the next he pays to have a friend fix the dent on my car.
I watch as his attitude and body change with his new job. He smiles more, loses weight, and builds muscle. Seeing him look as he had in the past is harder for me than I expect it to be. It hurts to see him that way and know I don’t love him anymore. I’m not sure how Jon feels and wonder if he will leave now that he has a job and a means to support himself. I almost expect it and then don’t understand why he hasn’t. During the year of his unemployment, Jon seemed to outright dislike me. Now he just seems pensive, never making a move to talk to me or is so neutral when he does that it is impossible for me to gauge what he might be thinking.
This new routine goes on for months. Jon becomes accustomed to the demands of his new job and is able to remain conscious past dinner time. He does not make as much as I do, but he is able to pay half of our rent which makes me feel like I can save again. We never had joint accounts. That’s one thing my mother had been adamant about when we moved in together. She thought that was something we should wait to do until after we were married. While Jon was unemployed, it had not mattered much to me, but now that I am saving, I’m happy that Jon is not privy to the amount I’m able to put away.
We share cooking duties, flipping every other night and whoever doesn’t cook, cleans. I may use more pans than I need from time to time. I’m still angry. Even after all of this time and even though things are so much better, Jon has never really apologized to me. I hold on to the pain and the shame he made me feel almost as a method of protecting myself from caring for him again. I don’t think I will ever be able to put into words exactly how permanently he has hurt me. When he speaks to me, if he speaks to me, all I can hear is the roar of him not saying he is sorry.
To me, it’s a sign of weakness that he cannot admit what he did was wrong. As though not drawing any attention to it will make it like it had never happened. That he thinks I will somehow forget. That’s where he is wrong. I will never forget.
~*~
I am in the kitchen making dinner when Jon walks in one day from work. Jon checks our mail on the way home each day since he passes the bank of mailboxes on the other side of our building on his way back from the bus stop. I tense as he approaches me but then realize he is just handing me an envelope. Taking it from him, I see it is from the funeral home I had used for my parents. I am accustomed to receiving something from them, maybe quarterly, normally advertising specials on burial plots. Never too early to plan for the inevitable , I suppose. This envelope is different from all of the others, though. It is shaped liked a Hallmark card instead of the longer, thinner envelopes I received in the past.
A bsentmindedly, I open the envelope and see that inside is another envelope addressed to me on behalf of the funeral home from a Kate Smith in Tampa, Florida. Smith was my mother's maiden name, but it is also such a common name
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