Chapter 9

I waited till the next day to talk to Frank. I was just finishing up supper when he came in – liver and onions, something I seldom made because neither of us liked it more than moderately. But we do like it occasionally, and I'd had it in mind for several days.

I'd had to decide whether to make our talk an "occasion," and dress for it, or to make it one more part of our ongoing effort to put things back together. In the end my indecision made the choice for me – I was in my usual clothes when Frank came home. That day it was a white skirt with a light blue denim shirt, and no shoes, for I'd been out walking in the grass earlier in the day. It was April and the feel of the grass on my bare feet had been heavenly. I'd felt almost like a girl again, running and playing without a care, never thinking of the heartache that's there for adults. When you're young, it's very easy to think that getting a C on a spelling test is the worst thing that can possibly happen to you.

But I was an adult, 33 years old, dealing with things much worse than a test I'd failed to study for. I had broken promises and hurt the man I loved, and I'd hurt my friends, and my husband and friends had hurt me, and a simple spelling test and a grade poorer than I ought to have received would have been welcome problems.

I had received one reply to my letters, and after just two weeks I thought that was good. I wasn't going to demand people I'd hurt jump up immediately and embrace me as though nothing had happened. That one letter had come earlier in the day, a short communication, saying that she accepted my apology. There was nothing more, and I didn't know if the friendship could restart, but it was something.

While Frank washed up in the bathroom I put a slice of liver, smothered in the browned onions, on each of our plates, and slipped the other two slices onto a platter. The plates went in our places, and the platter in the center. The onions I put into a separate bowl, and set that beside the platter. After his day Frank would want something cold to drink, I knew, so I got a can of Coke out for him, and poured myself a cup of coffee. I was just putting the drinks on the table when he came back to the dining room.

We ate in silence, but it wasn't the frozen silence of a month before. We were still sometimes awkward around each other, which I didn't find surprising. Frank was still learning how to actually deal with what I'd done, after a year of simply denying that I was more than an object. I understood that now, and I understood something of why he'd treated me as he had. And, I thought, he was probably beginning to better understand me, and why I'd done what I'd done, and what I needed out of our marriage now that things were as they were. It did make things awkward, but we were at least relating to each other as people, rather than as enemies. And that was good, for Frank wasn't my enemy. No, I thought as I looked across the table, he wasn't my enemy – he was the man I loved, and the thought that I'd hurt him ached inside.

When we were done, I leaned my elbows on the table and clasped my hands. "Frank," I said, "Tyrone and I discussed something yesterday that I'd like to talk to you about."

He finished his can of Coke, and set it on his plate. "What's that, Gen?"

"Tyrone thinks it's time for us to begin meeting with him together."

I could both hear and see Frank taking in a sharp breath. "So soon?"

"Yes." I reached across the table and took both of his hands in my own. "I'm scared too, Frank. But I'm not scared that it's not time. I'm just scared."

"Scared, Genesis? Why should I be scared?"

I just looked at him, knowing better than I had before why he would deny his fear. And he'd learned too, for he shook his head and then admitted to it. "You're right, Gen. I'm having to learn to express how I feel, and sometimes the old automatic denials still engage. Yes, I'm frightened. And like you, it's not a fear that we're moving too fast, but simply a fear of something I've never done before."

"Do you think it might be too soon?"

"I don't know, Gen. Perhaps it is, but I don't know. I've never done this before."

I smiled at the weak joke. Neither of us was joking exceptionally well these days, but we were joking, which was something we hadn't done in a long time. "But Tyrone has. Maybe we just ought to depend on him."

"I don't like depending on anyone, Genesis."

"You've depended on me."

"Have I?"

I opened my mouth to respond, and then shut it. Had Frank really ever depended on me? Oh, he'd depended on me to do his laundry and cook his meals and clean his house, and remain faithful to him. I'd succeeded at most of those things. But had he ever really depended on me? Had he ever truly needed me? Suddenly I wasn't sure.

I looked at him across the table, and knew that his honesty deserved honesty in return. "Frank," I said, "I don't know. I almost said that of course you've depended on me, but I'm not sure. I know I've depended on you. I can't imagine living without you as my husband. I think it would be easier for me to be a complete cripple than to try to live without you. But I'm not sure you've ever opened up to me that much."

"You've become perceptive, Genesis." There was, perhaps, a faint tinge of sarcasm there, a remnant of our terrible year, but only a tinge. "The woman I married could never have seen inside me that well."

"Tyrone has taught me some things, Frank."

"And I've been learning too. I couldn't have recognized, before, just how clearly you articulated the truth about me."

I took a breath and returned the conversation to the point. "So perhaps we're ready for the next step?"

Frank was silent for a moment, but I could feel his hands going tense. Finally he said, with a faint smile, "Ready or not, here we come."

"Ready or not," I replied, and felt shaky inside. "Frank, whether you've ever needed me, I need you, right now."

"I'm not sure, Genesis, that I'm capable of being what you need."

"You are, Frank. At least this time." And I got out of my chair and walked around the table, and sank down to my knees, and clung to my husband. And he did supply what I needed – he wrapped his arms around me, and while I held on as though my life depended on it, he held me and stroked my hair and didn't say a word.

Frank went to his solo session as usual that Saturday, with our decision – if Tyrone was willing, we'd both come on the following Saturday, since that would cause the least difficulty. Frank was already going on that day, having weekends off, and since I didn't work anymore any day was fine with me. I sent him off with some trepidation, knowing that now the decision was irreversible.

But it was springtime not just outside, but in my heart as well. For the first time I felt like spring. Here it was the latter part of April and only now did I really believe, emotionally, that spring had arrived.

My winter, I realized, wasn't just the glacier of Frank's contempt that I'd lived with for so long. My own pain and my own anger and my depression had frozen me as thoroughly as Frank's coldness had. I'd locked myself in winter, and only now was I experiencing the sun's warmth again.

I set down the Pledge and the rag I was using on the dining room table, and stepped into the back yard. I stood on the back stoop and slipped my shoes off, and walked out into the grass. I'd done the same thing just a few days before, but now it was deliberate rather than automatic. It was spring, and I was going to enjoy it.

The fact that I could enjoy anything was a great joy. I spread my hands by my sides and turned my face up to the sky, feeling the sun on my skin. There were just a few small wispy clouds, high up, accenting the blue. With a rush of shameful joy I almost wished that I were unclothed, so that I could let the small breeze and the warming sun touch all my skin. I knew I would never do such a thing, certainly not with just a head high fence between me and the neighbors, but the thought was so much of spring that I indulged it for a moment. I've never been any sort of exhibitionist, but sheer joy of life surged through me and I thought of Eve in the Garden, before she'd listened to the serpent.

Did Eve enjoy the sun and the breeze on her body? I'd read that bit of history many times in my life, never doubting its reality, but I'd never thought of Eve as a person, I now realized. Did she enjoy posing for her husband? Did she swim in the rivers that watered the garden, feeling the water smooth upon her skin? Did she giggle as the juice of some fruit ran down her chin and dripped upon her body? Did she glory in the perfection of form which God had given her?

I suddenly envied Eve, as she was in those innocent days. Even if there had been 5,000 men vying for her attention, she would never have been an adulteress, for she had not yet become sinful. She was devoted to her husband, and he to her, and they had a marriage literally made in heaven, made personally by the Lord God Himself.

My back yard wasn't the Garden of Eden, and I wasn't Eve, and Frank wasn't Adam. Our lives had been less pure than the first days of humanity, and the past year had been as dark as the pit. But I could think of how Eve must have lived, how at first it must have been perpetual spring, and I could close my eyes and wiggle my toes in my back lawn, and know that in some degree, for a little time, I too could be joyous.

Eventually I turned and went back to my Pledge, but I left my shoes off. Somewhere in the years behind me I'd quit going barefoot, but I decided that I would reverse that. I had loved walking barefoot as a girl, and I loved it now that I was a grown woman, and I wasn't going to ever again confine my feet when I didn't need to. I certainly kept our floors clean enough for barefoot walking – carpets and tile and linoleum alike. I enjoyed housework, though these days that's almost a shameful thing to say, and I loved having clean floors. I wouldn't eat off of them, but the truth is that right after I cleaned a floor, it was clean enough to do so if I were such a fool.

I straightened from my work and looked around. Even in my worst depression I'd made shift to keep house in some fashion. I saw now that I must indeed be emerging from my depression, for the house, old and well-used as it was, nearly gleamed. The windows were spotless, the floors shiny, the carpets impeccable, the furniture polished and dusted, the walls perfect. Even the corners of the ceiling, which I had to reach by standing on a chair, were free of dust, and cobwebs never dared appear there. I hadn't really thought of what I did, of the work I put in, of the tangible and visible results of my labor, but now I did, and I felt a surge of pride. Adam – and I was back to that again – had learned to eat bread by the sweat of his face, but Eve certainly had perspired too, after the fall. Men have their work, and women have theirs – and, I realized, standing there in my dining room, the work I did was just as valuable and just as much work as that which Frank did for pay.