No one knows a couple like the couple knows the couple. It just isn’t possible for anyone on the outside to fully understand the nuances of a significant other relationship that is not their own. Even if one half of the couple is spilling all the details, those details need to be considered with a grain of salt. They are given out of context. There is always another half to the story.

Adult children may believe they know and understand their parent’s marriage–how it worked, or didn’t work, but there are limits to that understanding. When I consider my own parents, I think I know where they succeeded and where they misfired; if it were possible to ask them, I’m sure they would give very different answers.

I wrote the story below as a contest entry for the magazine, Elegant Literature. The prompt was ‘Wicked Wonderland’, and the word ‘button’ had to be included somewhere in the 2000 word limit. The magazine favours genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, which are not to my taste, but I enjoy the monthly challenge.

This was my third attempt at a short story. It’s based on a true incident. My parents actually did get stuck in a snow storm and had to walk about a quarter mile home in their evening clothes. My mother always said she couldn’t see a thing and didn’t know how my father kept them on the road. Her boots were those 1960’s style rubber booties you pulled on overtop of dress shoes. The rest of the story, the party, the argument, and the marital observations are all from my imagination. There’s no way my father actually talked like this. It’s definitely fiction.

Keep your joy.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger, unless it’s a holiday weekend. Or summertime. Facebook or email.

Eye of the Storm

“We were having a fight in the car to rival the blizzard outside.”

That was the opening line of a story my Grandfather told me many years ago. It was a rare evening, just the two of us without all the hoopla of a family gathering. I had made the drive down to tell him I was engaged to my girlfriend. I don’t recall intending to ask him for advice but the story he told me became a reference point again and again throughout the peaks and valleys of my twenty-five years of marriage. I’ve always wondered if he chose this story because he guessed I had cold feet or because it had been another snowy night.

A lake effect storm had blown up and I wisely chose not to drive home. He shuffled about, built a fire, opened a bottle of his preferred single malt scotch, pulled on his ancient cardigan with the missing button and we settled in.

It was the mid-1960’s. Jim and Bernice, my grandparents, would have been in their late forties. They’d been at a rousing, drinking, pre-Christmas cocktail party. I can easily picture the scene. Drinks flowing like a river, everybody toasting, laughing, having a good time. Except… there was a woman there who had created some friction; a flashy divorcee from Toronto named Marguerite.

Almost twenty-five years later, I’m in my own home, a fire going, a glass full of the same brand of single malt and I’m contemplating his story in a new light. A few years prior to the night my Grandpa and I had had our chat, my Grandmother had died. Before she went, she gave me a box of her diaries and told me I could read them or burn them, my choice. They have sat unopened until now. Maybe because it’s a snowy night out tonight, or maybe because my silver wedding anniversary is coming up, but I finally cracked open that box. I find the entries that match my Grandfather’s story.

Bernice described Marguerite;

“Mutton dressed as lamb in my opinion. She dyes her hair the most atrocious shade of copper and her dress was so tight I’m sure she slithers against a fencepost to get out of it. I spotted the two of them talking across the room. Their heads were far too close together for my liking. Then! She had the nerve to smile at me, if you can call that a smile. She drops her jaw low enough to bite an apple and pulls the corners of her mouth back to show all her sharp little teeth. It frosts me over every time I see it.”

My Grandfather’s impression of Marguerite, as I recall, was a little different;

“She was a fine looking woman. Her dress left just enough to the imagination but showed just enough to let you know it’d be worth your while.”

By the time the party wound down the snow had really started to blow. Inside the car, the quarrel blew up between them just as fiercely. The drive home would take them on the highway toward the lake, right into the worst of it.

My Grandfather mimicked the argument;

“I was never so humiliated in all my life! How dare she? How dare you?”

“I don’t see what you’re all worked up about. We were just talking.”

“‘Just talking’ my eye. I know what I saw.”

“It’s all in your head.”

And so I imagined they continued, the windshield wipers doing their best to keep up; Bernice hissing accusations, Jim huffing defence.

Eventually, he said, the visibility was so poor they had no choice but to shut up and concentrate on the drive. He explained that in those days, off-ramps for four lane highways were only built in the busier areas. That night, turning left off the highway meant crossing the oncoming lanes and hoping no other cars were stupid enough to be out in that weather.

“I found the turn more or less by instinct. It’s gone now, but at the corner there was an old farmhouse that always kept a flood light on in their yard. I caught a glimpse of that and just sort of followed my nose.”

They made the turn safely enough. The silence in the car grew as thick as the drifts on the road. They ploughed to a halt. There was no choice but to get out and walk.

I read Bernice’s summary;

“I could have killed him. If we’d left the party earlier, when I said, this would never have happened. Thank goodness I was wearing my Mother’s seal skin coat. The snow was too high for the pull-on over boots and my feet and ankles nearly froze. Jim, as usual, wasn’t even wearing gloves.”

My Grandfather paused at this point. He topped up both glasses before continuing;

“I stepped out of the car and the wind took my hat. I pulled Bernice across the front seat and she shrieked when the snow hit her legs but there was nothing for it. She grabbed onto my elbow and we set off. That first drift was up to here.” He gestured to mid-thigh.

“It’s all built up out there now, but back then it was just fields on all sides of us, nothing to break the wind. Once we got to where the road runs along the creek, there were trees and houses. You know where I mean, right? But that first stretch… honestly I don’t know how I kept us on the road.”

He looked at me then and asked if I was sure about getting married. Of course I insisted I was.

“Humph.” He shook his head.

“It’s a long commitment, you understand? Everybody says marriage is hard work, but when you’re twenty-four you don’t have a clue what it means to work on a marriage until you’re well into the thick of it.

“You think you know each other now, but wait until you’ve been together longer than you’ve been on the planet. I could take one glance at Bernice and know exactly what mood she was in. She could probably do the same with me.

“That night, Bernice was mad as all heck. I knew she’d blame me for getting us stuck, for leaving the party too late and any other crimes that came into her mind.

“Anyway, it was one foot in front of the other. I told you I lost my hat? Well, the wind took my glasses too. Clean off my face. I was mostly worried about wandering off the road. That would have sunk us.” He paused, took a healthy sip of the scotch.

“Marguerite was not the first offer I’d had, you know. But she caught my attention. All the women in our circle were all proper and nice, you know, like your grandmother was. Marguerite was different. She seemed like it would be… uncomplicated if you get my drift. I was tempted. Believe me, I was tempted.

“I can say this now, but back then, I used to look at the younger, unmarried men in the office and I’d think they had the best life. No mortgage, no tuitions, no day camps to pay for. I felt my own interests were lost in the shuffle. I felt the confines, you understand?”

I recall how uncomfortable I became hearing this. If he wasn’t the man I thought he was I didn’t want to know.

He looked up and read my expression.

“Nah, nah, I said I was tempted. Marguerite was, well, sexy in a way that was, well, you know. It was the uncomplicated part that tempted me. Bernice saw us have a conversation—she wouldn’t have to find out about anything else. Or at least that’s how I was rationalising it. Yeah. I was weighing my options.

“Back to one foot in front of the other. We hit another drift, this one was right up to my nethers. I was trying to push through it, sliding my feet, to make the biggest possible path for Bernice. Well, my one foot caught the hem of the other pant leg and I fell forward. Bernice gave a little scream when she let go of my arm.”

Another pause for another sip. He shook his head a few times, remembering.

“It was the oddest thing. Sometimes, I think, in a marriage, fights can flare up out of nothing, but then they can melt away too. I remember a fight when we were first married. I can’t tell you what it was about, but we were really going at it. Bernice got so frustrated she threw a wet dishcloth and hit me smack in the face.”

He chuckled.

“She could never throw worth a damn, but that time, she hit me square on. I didn’t even have time to duck. Well, after we got over the shock of it, it struck us both so funny we laughed til we could barely stand. Next thing you know, we were in bed together.

“Aw, don’t look at me like that. Why do young people always think they’re the first ones to invent being young?

“Anyway, I pull myself up out of the snow, I turn around to make sure she’s okay. She’s pulled her face so far into that big collar I have to bring my face close just to see her.”

He paused here, not so much to take a sip, but to have a minute to control the waiver in his voice.

“We looked at each other. That’s the only way to describe it. We looked at each other. Her eyes were as blue as ever but I could see the fear in them. She was scared.”

Another pause. Another sip. He rubbed his fingers across his mouth.

“Eye contact is an apt phrase, you know? We stayed like that—I’m sure it wasn’t a full minute but when I think back on it, it seemed like an age, the blizzard whirling around and there we were, eye to eye in the middle of it. I couldn’t see anything except her eyes but what I did see was a flash of a future without her. Dinners alone, visiting the kids… did I really believe an affair would bring me more freedom? No. I admit, the grind could rub me the wrong way but in life and marriage there are no shortcuts. I was being a bloody fool.

“I kept my hands on her shoulders until I saw the fear ebb out of her eyes. Instead, a question appeared there—as clear as if she’d said it aloud. I understood what she wanted to know.

“I squeezed her arms. It was that simple. She nodded. I held out my elbow and we started anew.”

Listening to his story, I thought I had understood my Grandfather’s words about the hard work of marriage. Not hardly. The first few years for my wife and I were the worst. We had no money, our first child was a handful and as a couple, we stalled more than once. I’d think back on what he said about navigating through that storm;

“One foot in front of the other, I kept us on the road.”

Bernice didn’t write another word about Marguerite. I guess she figured she didn’t have to.

“I don’t know how he did it, but we made it. Once inside, he helped me out my things. The relief of getting home after an experience like that! I burst out crying. We stood there dripping onto the kitchen floor, holding each other. There are times when I could murder him in his sleep but he always pulls through for me.”

I look up and smile as my wife walks in the room. She takes a sip from my glass and makes me scooch over in my chair. She looks at the mess of journals around me,

“What’s all this?”
“Settle in. I’ve got a story for you.”