A Cup of Comfort for Couples (3 page)

First Love

“
T
ime for our walk,” he says. “Tide clock shows we've two hours before the beach disappears.” The morning sun crawls across our faces as we follow our black Lab through a gate of Inukchuks and across the meadow to a vine-covered shelter. My husband calls this hideaway our “Counting Room,” a place to count our blessings. Blue herons, looking up from their breakfast of bass, stretch their necks in curiosity, then ignore two old folks.

Submerged in tranquility, we sit a while before wending our way through the woods and down to the shore. Whitecaps, as if in a hurry, thunder against the rocks and sand below the bluff, reminding me how quickly time has moved the years of our lives.

I look upon the face of the handsome man beside me and remember those years. Still riding around town on my bike and helping out at Ben's, my dad's lunchroom, I was just fifteen when I first met Bud. It was at a teen dance in town. He was older — eighteen — and had his girlfriend with him. But we walked home together that night, holding hands like two souls fulfilling a destiny.

Today, on his tired face I see all his eyes have seen. And much more. The wrinkles tell their stories: Stories of a crew-cut teenager who once considered becoming a priest but instead joined the Navy. Stories of a cocky, conceited young Navy pilot who always wore a Miraculous Medal while flying off Canada's last aircraft carrier.

“Glory days,” he tells anyone who will listen. “Taking off and landing on Bonnie's seven-hundred-foot runway was pure heaven. After the adrenaline rush, the calmness was incredible.”

We two became letter lovers. For years we shared stories of my studies and his days on the high seas. At first we wrote every Sunday afternoon. Then letters arrived daily. Sometimes his came in blue, tissue air letters posted at sea, other times stuffed into colorful envelopes with foreign postage. Jottings became journals. We helped one another through days of hard work — and nights of loneliness. Love evolved from deep friendship into true caring.

I see, too, on his face the story of a twenty-some-thing lad proposing to a nineteen-year-old student nurse in a tiny chapel of St. Patrick's church. And the story of a honeymoon in an old 1954 Buick. I see a husband who cradled me in his arms and cried with me when our first-born baby died. And the enraptured awe upon that same face when he held each of our three healthy babies.

Upon his weathered face I see story lines of a lonely husband and father, who, after observing other nationalities with families in tow, wrote home asking his young family to pack up and join him on his “unaccompanied tour of duty” in a faraway land.

In Palestine, we lived a life that some would consider dangerous (a military coup and a plane hijacking), but the United Nations protected us. And as long as it remained reasonably safe, we vowed to keep our family together — moving from a house on a hill in Tiberias, Israel, overlooking the Sea of Galilee to a high-rise apartment in Damascus, Syria, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.

At the end of those two years in the Middle East, I see a father driving along the coast of Turkey, telling his children stories of kings and queens and Roman soldiers as we all snuggled in our VW camper. I see us cooking octopus beside the Aegean Sea, swimming off the beaches of Dubrovnik, and camping outside the cities of Athens and Venice. I see him safely maneuvering his family of five through the mountains of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and to ports in France and England before sailing home on the SS
France
.

Under his furrowed brow, I see a protector who scoffed at the parenting trend of the seventies and eighties that recommended tough love for teenagers navigating the emotional minefields of changing hormones. Plunging into parenting with compassion, we tried desperately to figure out how much lee-way to give while not overwhelming with rules and regulations. Many mistakes were made. “The fragile years,” we called them, and “the twisted storms of life.” Passion, even our love for one another, was tested, relegated to the back burners.

“But no regrets,” he says, carrying the past with dignity. “We've lived and loved. Traveled. Dined with the best — even royalty. Time to nest a while,” he laughs.

Like a rural road map, tiny webs of sorrow criss-cross his ruddy cheeks, showing signs of life's sad sagas: the deaths of his younger brothers, the casualties of carrier flying, and the early demise of close friends who shared his love of aviation. Even the loss of our time together while he was away in Canada's capital is forever imprinted on his weathered face, a face etched with grief lines from many lonely nights.

But I also see the laugh lines beneath my husband's heavy brows. Stories of a self-deprecating grandfather enjoying time with grandchildren: kaya-king on the bay, reciting poetry, spinning the same old yarns (over and over again), and spoiling them with pancake breakfasts topped with ice cream and chocolate chips and anything else needed to sweeten their young lives.

As I follow his footsteps down through the woods, I notice his shoulders a bit stooped, his pace a tad slower, his stride a little shorter. Too much time spent felling dead trees and lugging firewood. In Bud's mind, he's still twenty. But I can understand the strength that brought him to today, the stubbornness that kept him going. Never faltering, he trusted in small, everyday acts of loving kindness that continue to glue our lives together.

This headstrong, often cantankerous curmudgeon, this one-time member of Parliament, is my confidante. My soul mate. The sensuous person whose simplest touch still tingles my marrow. The man who encouraged me to pursue my university dreams, proudly applauding as I marched to the podium at age fifty. This gray-bearded gentle man is the lover whose arms guide me safely through the gates of life. The same gates through which tears and laughter flow freely.

Somewhere along the way, romantic love evolved into a more mature love and, although different, in many ways a much deeper love. Nowadays, we communicate without talking, disagree without hurting, hug for no reason at all, and dance if we want to.

I lengthen my stride in the sand to step carefully into his large footprints. He takes my hand, and we embrace. Closer now, I see much more than an old man's face. I see a man who has allowed his heart to get in the way of living. A man who has a story of life, of our life, on his face.

I see my husband of fifty years. I see my first love. My last love. My forever love.

—
Phyllis Jardine

This story was first published in
Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart
magazine, fall 2010.

Matchmaker

“
S
he needs a mother.” The volunteer inclined her head toward the squirming ball of fur cradled in my arms. “She's the last of a litter, you know. All the rest have been taken.”

“You've lost your family,” I whispered, gazing into the almond-shaped eyes of the white kitten. “You're all alone. I know how that feels.”

As a familiar pain lanced my heart, I pulled the cat closer and marched to the front desk. “I want to adopt her. Now. I want to give her a home.”

Nestled in her cardboard pet carrier, Snowball serenaded me with plaintive meows as I drove through what passed for rush hour traffic in Camden, Maine. For my part, I kept up a steady stream of chatter, gentling my voice until she grew quiet. “There's a nice screened porch. You'll like that. Oh, and we get all sorts of birds, at least in the summer months. I don't know about the winters. I'm from New York, you see. I only just moved here.” I hesitated, unwilling to admit, even to a cat, that coming to Maine had been a spur-of-the moment decision made in desperation. And in grief.

When I turned onto Bay View Road, the calming blue expanse of the harbor came into view and I began to relax. “We're home,” I said, pulling to a stop beside the hydrangea bushes that flanked the entrance of my shingled cottage.

Once inside, I opened the carrier. Although Snowball poked her head out the opening, she didn't venture further.

“Better the devil you know, right?” I asked with a nod. “Trouble is, you can't see you're in a cage until you leave it behind.”

I scooped the kitten into my arms and held her trembling body close. “Come on, I want to show you something.” I made my way slowly across the room toward a wall dominated by floor to ceiling windows. “See?” I asked, holding her up to the glass. “That's the ocean, honey. It's where fish come from. Tuna and salmon and cod. You'll try them all, don't worry. And you'll see seagulls, too.”

She looked around, her eyes scanning the sky as her tail flicked against my arm. Then she jumped down to sit before the window, tail curled around her body and pink nose pressed to the glass.

“It didn't take you long to feel at home, did it?” My eyes skimmed the living room's rich wood tones and creamy white furniture. “I don't yet.” But then, I had more than a new home to get used to.

I'd been in Maine six months, and it had taken me two weeks before that to clean out the house in New York. One-hundred-ninety-five days in all. Marking the time since I'd lost my daughter had become a sort of ritual, as though by counting the hours I hadn't shared with her, I was keeping faith with the past.

Purring loudly, Snowball rubbed her head on my leg. “Thank you, honey,” I said through tears.

We made our way to the kitchen, where I opened a can of tuna. The cat attacked her dinner with gusto. A little later, she made use of the litter box I'd devised out of a disposable lasagna pan and some shredded newspaper. Then she hopped back into her carrier and curled up for the night.

The next morning as dawn pearled the sky I came to a decision. When I phoned the shelter hours later, the woman who answered was brusque.

“That information is confidential.”

“I can't see why it would be,” I shot back. “Look, I just want to find out who adopted the other cats in the litter.”

“But why?” Her voice was spiced with annoyance.

“To make sure they're happy in their new homes. If not, I'm willing to take them.”

“Why?” she pressed.

I drew a steadying breath. “To keep the litter together, to reunite the family.”

I heard the sound of shuffling papers. “Well, one of the cats went to someone who's moved out of state. The other was adopted by Michael Quinn, the veterinarian who's restoring that white Federal across from the library. Michael serves on our board. I don't think he'd mind speaking with you.”

“Come on, honey,” I said, scooting Snowball into her carrier. “Let's go find your family.”

The town of Camden hugs the mid-coast of Maine, much as it has for two centuries. The protected harbor that birthed a shipbuilding industry is now dotted with schooners, yachts, and kayaks. It's a civilized place where the tourists are well-mannered and the shops quaint. Picturesque houses line quiet streets that separate the sea from the mountains beyond.

I pulled into Michael Quinn's circular drive with some trepidation, regretting my impulse to bring Snowball.

Making my way toward a columned side porch, I saw a middle-aged man sitting at a wrought iron table. His thick black hair was flecked with gray and he wore wire-rimmed glasses, a white T-shirt, and worn jeans. “Good morning,” I called out. After introducing myself, I explained why I'd come.

Fixing me with striking blue eyes, Michael cocked his head and asked, “You want my cat?”

“Well, no. Er, yes. I mean, I want to make sure you're happy with him.”

“Are you from the shelter?”

“No,” I said. “I adopted the last of the litter and — ” I stopped, feeling like an idiot.

“And you want to reunite the family, if possible. If not, you just want to make sure the other cats are being cared for — right?”

“Yes, exactly,” I said, relieved to be so easily understood.

A cool breeze ruffled the blond curls I'd never succeeded in taming, and as I pushed at them impatiently, I caught a flicker of interest on his face. When he stood up, the muscles beneath his shirt rippled and a voice in my mind reminded me that I was still a young woman.

“Well, come inside,” he offered, gesturing toward the door. “But I warn you: I'm not giving up Louie.”

“Louie?” I repeated, taking an awkward step forward. “You named him Louie?”

“For Louis Armstrong,” he explained. “The cat loves jazz.”

We stood together in the dimly lit foyer for a moment before a tuxedo black-and-white cat bounded down the stairs and came to rest at his owner's feet.

Bending down to scratch Louie's belly, Michael suggested, “Why don't you get yours?”

“Mine?”

He cocked his head. “I assume you brought him with you?”

“Her, actually,” I corrected. “Snowball.”

While the cats chased each other through the house, paws skidding on the polished wood floors and fur flying as they batted each other playfully, Michael and I shared a pot of coffee, then a bottle of wine, and finally a casual dinner. He told me of his divorce, and I found the words to describe the night I'd lost Lucy.