NO FIFTH TO TAKE

They crept. They crawled. They flew. There were 48 of them singly, but they bunched together into one pile that teases me, pleases me, tortures me. Hardly a day of the following 20 years has passed that guilt doesn’t waggle its way into my mind.

I go back to 1943, walking slowly, theatrically, down the steps from my second floor bedroom to the first floor living room. All of the furniture had been removed, replaced by folding wooden chairs, aunts, uncles, friends. Even my three bosses and their wives looked up at me as I carried my small flowered white prayer book to the pre-planned spot for my wedding. Standing beside my groom, my mind wandered many times, hoping my teen boyfriend would crash through the door and stop the ceremony. Of course, he didn’t but that was what I thought I wanted.

As I dig and dig daily, I cannot hear, cannot recall, ever saying ‘I love you,’ to my new husband. I ease my guilt by telling myself he didn’t say those words to me, and have come to believe myself. But it can’t be true. I am guilty and at fault. My shoulders droop from the pain.

How we argued. We agreed on nothing, not even the color of my eyes. Did he ever tell me I looked pretty in any of the many evening gowns I had later in life? Did he ever tell me I looked beautiful in anything or in nothing? If he did, I am sure I’d remember it. Did I ever tell him he looked handsome? No, because he didn’t. He was a decent looking guy, about 2 inches taller than I, almost bald by 30 but dressed impeccably. I should have told him he looked great in his new tux with patent leather shoes, but didn’t. This was not a tit for tat game. We were so non-demonstrative that life and love slipped away too fast. I could have slowed down the process and take the blame.

For a special occasion I wanted to look great and bought a new emerald green silk cocktail dress. I kept it a secret as, for once, I wanted to please him, hear him tell me how pretty I looked. And I was at my best. He was reading the latest Life magazine, having a martini when I came out of the bedroom. My ‘darling’ husband looked up and in a mean, gravelly voice, yelled at me. ‘Where did you get that horrible dress? I hate that color. Take it off!’ Stay with me while I re-live that moment. I took it off at once and ripped it to shreds, ran into the bathroom and cried over the torn emerald rag. Neither of us apologized and didn’t speak for three days. In retrospect I have accepted the blame, should have shown him the dress, should not have had a fit and destroyed it. Instead, I should have killed him. Drip, drip goes my guilt.

Aside from the bad, I was a good wife, not a loving one, not a sex pot, but a good mother of our three children. We opened a small café and I cooked, cleaned the oven, scrubbed pots, replaced the absent cashier. Without me we would not have one of the most thriving, busy restaurants in all of Oakmont. He thanked me in his own way.

My husband was a giver. If I glanced in a jewelry store window, he’d take me inside and buy whatever I liked. Although I never in 48 years asked for anything tangible, he showered me with presents, furs, trips, a new custom built home. It was for naught. He never held my hand when we walked thru the park, but I never instigated that simple move either.

Only after he became ill, seriously ill, did I realize I loved him without realizing how much. It was macabre but I did love him. Why didn’t I tell him that every day of our lives together? Or a least now and then. I have not yet been able to admit that our less than happy years was anyone’s fault, except mine.

As I sat beside his morphined body, day after day, night after night, I knew too well that his last breath was coming soon and that he wasn’t going to hear me, yet could not utter, ‘I love you, Darling.’ For that and much more, there is nothing more to tell you, except I take the blame.

I was the guilty one from the start. Guilt is hell!