Chapter 24

I fixed some ham sandwiches about 5:30, and woke Max up and fed her. She ate greedily, though she was still half asleep. She wanted Pepsi to drink, and the caffeine finally woke her up a little. She'd put away five or six sandwiches when she leaned back in her chair, looked at me across the table, and said, "You're not eating."

"I've eaten already," I said, and it was true – while she'd been sleeping I'd had my own sandwiches.

"It's good to be able to look at you," she told me.

"It is ... in reverse. Pictures aren't the same." I didn't think Max heard it, but there was a note of desperate longing in my voice that I wasn't able to completely conceal.

"No, they're not." She drained the last of her soda. "Derek, if you don't mind, I'm going to go to bed. I've had a marvelous nap, but I'm not ready to stay up all night."

"Nor am I," I said. "I haven't slept really well the whole time you've been gone." I stood, and picked up her plate and empty Pepsi bottle. I put the one in the sink and the other in the trash. "Go ahead," I told her, "and I'll be in shortly."

While Max went to bed, I checked all the windows, and the door. It wasn't the best neighborhood in town, though not as bad as some – not that anywhere in Albuquerque was completely free of gangsters or those who wanted you to think they were gangsters. It never hurt to be sure that the apartment was secure. Satisfied that it was, I turned out the lights and went into the bedroom. I undressed in the dark, and got into bed.

When I reached for Max, I found she was wearing a flannel nightgown that I'd never known her to wear to bed. She wore it – when she did wear it – as a sort of light robe over a lighter nightgown. But perhaps her fatigue had made her cold; I knew that could be an effect of being too tired. What I couldn't figure out was the way she tensed when she felt my hand on her shoulder, moving down her arm to her hand.

She didn't say anything, and we reaffirmed our marriage – but something was wrong. I went to sleep wondering why Max had seemed just slightly distant, just slightly apart from me, and why she had rolled over away from me when we were done, instead of cuddling close as our custom had been.

I slept late the next morning, but Max slept later. I checked on her periodically, and when she began moving around, waking and dozing off again, I began fixing breakfast, though it was approaching noon. As I'd told her, my only true cooking expertise was a New England boiled dinner, but I could make pancakes by following the instructions on the box of mix, and I did that. I made them big, each one large enough to fill the skillet, and put the finished ones in the oven to keep warm – I had set the knob to the lowest setting. When I had a stack of four, I put the plate on the counter, put a dollop of margarine on top, and poured blueberry syrup over the stack, that being Max's favorite. I set the plate on the table, and went in to wake her, only to find that the bed was empty. I came back out and glanced at the bathroom door – it was closed.

"Max," I called through the door, "breakfast is hot and ready."

"Okay," she replied. "I'll be there in a minute."

And it was just about a minute later when she came out into the kitchen, still wearing her flannel nightgown. I looked at her, but couldn't read anything in her face – she seemed as calm as a pilot who's just heard his threat warning go off in his ears during a hassling session. Pilots cultivate a calm demeanor, as Tom Wolfe points out in The Right Stuff – they're professionally calm, and some pilots actually manage to keep their voices level and calm during combat. Max's face struck me that way.

But she tore into her pancakes with gusto, and I started on another stack for her. She finished the first stack before I had the second quite ready, and when I put the second plate on the table I also put the margarine and syrup there, for her to dose the pancakes as she saw fit. "Do you want more than that?" I asked, as she lifted a forkful to her mouth.

She shook her head. When she could speak without spraying food all over the table, she said, "No, Derek, this is fine. But thank you. You're treating me very well."

"Of course I am," I said. "I love you."

Max looked well-rested, and with the rest seemed to have come something else, I couldn't say what. Her eyes appeared to grow wet as she said, with a formality in her voice that I couldn't understand, "I love you too, Derek." The words themselves were ordinary, but there was something just a tiny bit different in how she said them, or so it seemed to me.

"Are you all right, Max?" I asked her.

"I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"I thought maybe you didn't feel right or something."

"No, I'm fine. I actually don't feel tired right now, and this is a delicious breakfast."

Something occurred to me as I stood there, leaning against the sink. "Don't I get a kiss?"

"Sure – come over here."

I did, and got a kiss, but it too seemed different – as distant as her whole body had been the night before, not distant enough to really notice but enough that something just didn't feel right. "You know," I said as I straightened up, "you used to come to me for a kiss."

"I'm sorry, Derek. I've been gone for a long time and I'm still getting used to being home."

That sounded plausible, and I decided I'd put the bit of uneasiness down to the stresses and strains she'd been under. I expected that it was very different for her now. I didn't know in detail what her living conditions had been in Iraq, but I knew that the apartment, as small and cheap as it was, provided better. And I knew that here in the States she wasn't flying combat missions, which had to have been a strain, even though the Iraqi air force had never been a match for ours and was on our side now anyway.

"I guess I can understand that," I said. "But it's odd having you here, and having to walk across the room to get my first kiss of the day."

"I'm sorry, Derek. I'll get myself straight before too long."

I picked up her empty plate and put it, along with the silverware, in the sink. "Do you want some coffee?" I asked.

"No, not right now," she said. "I think I'll go get dressed. I want to vegetate today, but not in this." She made a gesture of mild distaste toward the flannel nightgown, and that caused me to wonder why she'd had it on in the first place. But she was out of her chair and walking, and I didn't ask.

Marriage entails certain things. Some are perfectly appropriate – in Roddy's phrase – right out in front of God and ever'body. I'd gotten to know that phrase, since he and Amy were, in fact, becoming closer, even though they lived in different states. And there are aspects of marriage which are perfectly honorable in the context of marriage, but which belong in thorough privacy.

It was in privacy that Max was the most different. If we were out in public – walking in the park, for instance, or having a beer at "our" bar – she was the same old affectionate Max. She'd hold my hand, hug me, kiss me, treat me just as she had done for months.

But at night, in our bedroom, there was tension. She never refused me, but each time I reached for her she seemed to respond more reluctantly. It wasn't a physical aversion, for she enjoyed our physical relationship – once she yielded to me – as much as she ever had. It seemed to be something else, a mental reservation, or an emotional one, which had arisen as a barrier between us, right in the most intimate part of our marriage.

It was a Sunday when I decided to push. We'd gotten home from church, and eaten lunch, and we were sitting on the sofa when I pulled Max to me and began caressing her. She tensed up, and though she didn't push herself away from me, I got the feeling that she wanted to. And in that moment I had enough. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said, but the answer was too quick, and her smile was too bright.

"Max, we've never lied to each other."

Her smile vanished, and in its place there was a sad expression. "I know."

"So when I ask you what's wrong, you should tell me."

She didn't say anything, but I could see tears come into her eyes.

I shook her gently, my arm around her shoulders, my fingers on the skin of her upper arm. "Max, I'm inviting you to let me help you."

"It's nothing you can help, Derek."

"I don't know that until I know what it is."

"I know that. You can't change what is."

"No, but perhaps I can help you deal with what is."

She shook her head, and a tear spilled out onto her cheek. I reached to wipe it away, and she caught my hand. "Derek, if I asked you to leave it alone, would you?"

"I can't, babe. Whatever it is, it's been eating at you since you came home, and it's just getting worse. Every time I want to be with you, you're more ... afraid, I guess. Or nervous, or something. It's not going away, and it's not getting better, so we'd better deal with it."

"I can't."