This story is inspired by the song lyrics of David Duchovny's song by the same name, but the story and the characters are of my imagination and are not intended to be a factual or imagined interaction between any real individuals.
John stands at an open door leading into his home. He is out of the rain but still dripping water off his jacket. A suitcase is by the door inside. He looks beyond the living room to the open bedroom door and an open suitcase on the bed. Melody is not packing as frenetically as she was when he first came home and found her. Now she packs slowly. She stops to look carefully at items. It pains him to see her making the decisions about which things to leave behind and which to take.
He thinks of a song to which she listens in the morning, He teases her about it because the performer is an actor they used to watch together in the 90's- an aging would be rock and roll heart throb today, but, one morning she caught him singing along. John was forced to admit he liked the song as well.
If you knew me you would stay
The rain has been coming down for days and everyone in the city has cabin fever, but John and Melody always loved the rain. Melody's favorite childhood story is that of Josephine March and her suitor professor getting caught in the rainstorm with only one umbrella. When they were first in love, she always insisted that they only carry one umbrella when they were together.
When had they started to carry two? The rain cleans the city of smog. The rain purges the city of sin. The rain allows not only new growth but the perennials to bloom again.
If you knew me you would walk away
Are there stages of grief for a marriage ending? Are they different than the ones for death? The difference is that it is not quite so clear when a marriage is dead. Did it die with his first indiscretion so many years ago or with hers more recently? Or was the infidelity just the sickness that killed the marriage like the long, slow journey some people have to take to death? With the death of a person, though, one knows - the heart stops beating and there is no pulse.
Except when those things continue artificially, he reminds himself. Sometimes when there is no brain activity the plug has to be pulled. This is what she is doing. She said as much.
"The marriage has been over for a while. Now there is just the pain. I can't live like this. I have to move on."
Move on! The same words people say about the dead passing to heaven or hell or whatever. What was she moving onto exactly?
We don't get black or white
They married too young as people like to say. They hadn't really planned their future. They were young, impulsive, in love, and they got married. They were happy. He got accepted into graduate school. She was offered a great job in another state. It was out of the question for him to move with her or for her to stay with him. So, she left him.
Of course, this wasn't her perspective. It was a joint decision and was temporary until he graduated, but for him it was torture. She left him alone.
He hadn't meant to fall in love with another woman, but he had- temporarily - while she was away. Then, he graduated and she came home and he hadn't told her. They had their first and second child and were a family and he hadn't told her.
One night, at a damn fundraiser cocktail party, a business colleague who was upset over a deal gone wrong, got drunk and told her all about it.
At first she was cold and distant. She didn't express anger. She simply withdrew. Then she was stoic and brave, the martyr standing by her man for the kids.
Ours is only shadow light.
Even in the bad times, there were always moments of laughter and joy.
She is looking now at a candle holder he bought her the Valentines after she had found out about the affair.
She hesitates as if deciding if this gift was something she would leave behind or take with her. He turns away to face the rain. He guess he will find out when he goes inside after she has gone. It feels too intimate to watch her make these decisions in real time.
This is how it goes
John has flashes like they say you do before death. Your life flashes before your eyes. Their life flashes before his eyes now. 25 years of marriage as it dies with her words, “The kids are in college. I don't have to stay any longer."
One year's golden and the next one blows
The years after she found out were not bad ones. They were mostly busy as John remembers. Melody went back to work. They had two children involved in school activities. There were car pools and vacations and moving into this house. It was never quite as before, but that’s true of everything as one ages. He thinks now of intimate moments. They were real. Has she forgotten? Has forgotten the days and nights after his father die? He would never have survived without her. She survived cancer in those years. He thinks of her treatments, her loss of weight and hair, frail, when he assured her she was still beautiful and showed her in every way he could how he loved her. Damn, they were a couple in love! That was real.
It could be / am wrong, Mistaking Breaking Dust for Dawn
John has an appointment next week with their financial planner. He wants to scale back now that the kids are in college. He doesn't expect to retire exactly, but Melody has always wanted to travel. He is planning on surprising her for their anniversary in a couple of months- that trip to Europe he has always promised. Despite everything in the past year, he imagined them growing old together. She no longer shares those dreams.
"This is my chance, John. I can do anything | want to now. I can live life for myself. I can find a man again in time and have a better relationship."
So l've heard of this before, My Glass Ceiling could be your ground floor
Perhaps he has been completely wrong. If he was to imagine a life better than the one he was currently living, it would only be that the problems of the past year were behind and they were happier together. He cannot imagine having another relationship with another woman now. He will never be in a "better" relationship. No such thing is possible.
Still, he never deserved her. He knew when he proposed and she said yes that she outclassed him in every way. Has she been settling at what was the bottom for her until the kids were gone? Had this been the truth of their relationship all along?
If I knew better I would stay
Should he go in and fight for their marriage?
If I knew better I would walk away
Would it be nobler to let her go and see if she would be happier without him?
Like the earth that splits and moans
The last year since the kids left! It is as if she had been holding her breath; keeping all the angry words inside. Now it is just them and Melody lets the words fly. Line up, think of which words are the sharpest and hurl them at him, expertly hitting their mark. He never knew, all these years, that she never trusted him again not to cheat. She was always watching and eavesdropping and expecting, but never found anything, because he never had. He didn't need to as long as she was with him.
A woman by her false is known
She started dressing up more. Spending more time out with "the girls". Then he found the note she had barely hidden from the other man about where they were going to meet. Was it just to cause him pain? Was it because of that thing women go through? He tried to understand. He tried to love her through it.
I don't see cracks and sins
"How can you say you still love me after what I did?" He remembers one night of tears and remorse. It made him crazy to think of another man touching her, but it made him break a little to see her angry at herself. Did it really matter all that much if they had spent time with another person once or twice over a 25 year period when they had 25 years of loving each other?
I only see how the light gets in
When he wakes up tomorrow and she is gone, what will he do? He is in the habit of getting up first to make the coffee, but really it's to watch her while she sleeps. Melody is a remarkable, beautiful woman. His every morning routine of watching her sleep for a few minutes! Will he ever be able to live a morning without missing that?
The grey sky it threatens rain above
The rain cleans the city of smog. The rain purges the city of sin. The rain allows not only new growth but the perennials to bloom again.
As our love it threatens pain, my love.
It's the same with their marriage. After all their appropriateness and politeness over the years, he values the last year because if she is yelling at him at least it fucking meant she cares a little. If she cheated to "get even" or to show him how it felt, he can stand that. He just think they have to get through this time in order to get to the place where their love can truly bloom again. What they are going through now is unpleasant and painful, but healthy if it means they can get past it to the other side. It never dawned on him they wouldn't "move on" together to a better place until he came home and she was packing.
You can't hurt the one you already left behind
If she wants to hurt him, then stay with him. Hurt him. Put him through it. Force him to show that he cares enough to stay, but leave and what? 25 years and it just ends with packing up a suitcase and moving on.
Walk it back, baby, takes another breath, rewind
He turns back to look into their house, through the living room, into the bedroom through the open door. Melody sits on the bed, crying, holding the candle holder still.
And let it rain, let it rain
He moves inside. He is unsure if he is about to comfort her or confront her.
There is nothing you can do
"I don't like who I have become, John. I don't like the things I have done in order to hurt you."
There is nothing you can say
"I want to tell you how much I hurt. I want to share with you how hard it's been not trusting you all these years. I want to hate you, but I can't. Then I end up saying things I don't even mean just to see your face when they hurt you. Just to know I have that power."
I've imagined worse anyway
"Melody, I should have been the one to tell you about my affair. I lived in fear for years that you would leave me once you found out. When you did find out, it was a relief to me you stayed with me, but I didn't realize what it did to you to stay with me despite what I had done. If you need to leave me now, I will understand. I don't want you to leave, but I will understand.”
The waves break on the shore
"If you stay, I think we can be honest with each other. I think we can become stronger together. I think we can weather this storm, if you stay. "
The shore it only waits for more
"But only if it is what is best for you. You do need to do what is right for you."
Melody stands and puts the candle holder down on the dresser where it has had a home for many years. John thinks to himself that she must have decided to leave it behind. She comes to him now and they stand facing each other.
"So I can do what is best for me."
John nods. He looks into her hazel eyes.
"If I stay, does that applies to other decisions? We will make decisions together and if a decision is right for me, then you will respect it and not blame me. Because the kids are gone now and I can’t just do what is best for you. Who I am and what I need matters as well.”
John has a flash of clarity, then, about the thing he done so many years ago which led to this moment. The infidelity was easy to forgive. The rationalizing it that it was because she took a job in another state was not. She spent the rest of her life making decisions that were right for him and the kids, but not for her, in fear he would blame her again. As if she was responsible for his lack of strength! As if she existed as a subject to his needs or wants!
He takes a deep breath. After all these years, it was a lot to process. ALL he wants at this moment is for them to walk in step, under one umbrella, side by side weathering any storm together.
"Yes, if you stay, we will have a better relationship because your needs and wants are as important as mine.”
Like the earth that splits and moans
A woman by her false is known.
I don't see cracks and sins
I only see how the light gets in.
The grey sky it threatens rain above
As our love it threatens pain, my love
You can't hurt the one you already left behind
Walk it back, baby, take another breath, rewind And let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.