Sexes: The Marriage Dialogues

Nothing Else to Add

71 Nothing Else to Add “What did you say to Brian?” “What could I say—,” he answered, “I’m not good around grief.” They were driving back slowly from the funeral. “I think our being there for him said everything,” she added. “I hope so.” They had the look of a couple who had heard bad news once too often. “How old was Janet?” she asked. “Forty something—maybe fifty.” He steered into their driveway and parked but left the motor running. They sat in silence. “It makes me wonder which one of us will die first,” he mumbled. “Don’t talk like that.” He shut the motor off and faced her, “What would you do if you were left alone?” He waited long enough to know that he’d asked the right question at the wrong time. “Some people say that women deal with loneliness better than men,” he added. 72 “We’re no different than men that way except we hide it better.” “Would you ever marry again?” “Are you being funny?” “Just wondering . . .” She took a deep breath and let it out audibly, “I think that people marry once— not only for the sex side of it but for everything that goes with it— feelings, decisions, promises, all of that.” “Does that mean no second marriage if the wife or husband dies?” She drew another audible breath, “No matter which mate dies, the one that’s left is like a two-wheeled car, unbalanced and going nowhere.” “Wouldn’t another marriage reset the balance?” “It might, but there’d always be a rearguard action with emotions, echoes . . . ,” He knew her logic always trumped his on such subjects, but he went on, “Does that apply if the first marriage was a bad marriage from the start?” “In cases like that, it wasn’t a marriage at all, was it?” He opened the door a fraction and said, “There’s one culture where 73 they have to kill the wife when the husband dies and kill the husband when the wife dies.” “Are you being funny again?” “Just mentioning how some people handle what we’re talking about,” he added as he shut the door and sat like a stranger in his own skin and almost whispered, “I was just trying to lighten the mood.” “That’s one subject that doesn’t lighten, Jim.” “What’s the answer?” She opened her door and stood at her full height and said, “I guess the only answer is to live long enough to learn what you never hoped to know.” He stared straight ahead while she reached in and touched his arm, “We’re not there yet, dear, so let’s leave well enough alone and have some fresh coffee and finish cleaning out the attic.” ...