Some couples say, “We’ve never had a cross word during our marriage.” Those saintly people must live in an ivory tower far above us lesser mortals. Either that, or they don’t have long memories! Appearances may be to the contrary, but Bill and I haven’t always been sweet tempered during over fifty years together.
One of our worst times was when Bill decided to move a big cedar wardrobe down from the attic where our predecessors had left it and make a backyard playhouse for Vicki. “We’ll never get this thing down these narrow stairs.” “Oh yes we can!” “It’s too heavy.” “Don’t let it slip!” “I can’t hold it much longer.” “Don’t you dare let go!” “You’re killing my hand!” (He always scrapes my hands against things.)
After pushing and pulling for fifteen minutes, we managed to wrestle it to the bottom of the stairs where it became wedged like a cork in a bottle. I said from my position up the stairway, “Now what are you going to do?” He said peevishly, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I snarled. “I don’t have time to be stuck in this attic all day.” Later: “You have to do something soon because I need to use the bathroom.” (This has been the norm during our most difficult times.)
Eventually he had to saw it in two in order to get it through the attic doorway. He was so angry with me that he wouldn’t even let me help him carry it out to the yard. He said coldly, “Obviously, you do not wish to help me.” When he learned that I was writing about our experiences, he said, “You are going to include the wardrobe story, aren’t you?” He isn’t angry anymore, but I’m not so sure about me!
After eighteen years, it was time to sell the dear old place. Bill was tired of constant work and $400 gas bills caused by the huge antique boiler. (When I became a Realtor I was amazed by the modern boilers that are no larger than a card table.) Even so, it had been a happy house.
We worked like dogs to prepare it for sale, freshening the décor, cleaning, polishing, scrubbing, vacuuming, laundering and ironing the curtains and straightening cupboards and closets. I even painted the basement stairs red and nailed black treads on them. At last, all was ready: gleaming silver, glowing paste-waxed furniture, shining windows and woodwork, crisp curtains and immaculate cleanliness, a freshly manicured lawn. All was perfection — well, almost perfection . . .
Three days before the house was to be shown for the first time, I saw Bill looking at the hardwood floor between the oriental rug in the dining room and the entrance to the kitchen. He said, “You know, this traffic area really should be sanded and refinished.” I said, as I’ve said often during our marriage, “It’s good enough.”
After attending a meeting downtown the next day, I got off the bus and was walking home on Ritter Ave. Bill pulled up beside me and yelled out the window, “Don’t go in the dining room.” Heart pounding as I stomped home, I knew — oh, yes, I knew — exactly what had happened.
Mr. Perfectionist had sneaked out and rented a sander while I was gone. The minute he turned it on, sawdust was blown onto all the gleaming silver, shining windows and mirrors, glowing furniture and woodwork, draperies, floors, carpets, and bathroom fixtures and even seeped into the china closet. He figured that once he started, he might as well finish.
I contemplated divorce or murder, but love and Bill’s apology prevailed. Marcel Proust wrote about the power of long-past memories. Swept up in a Proustian moment, I find myself vividly reliving it all. I must stop writing this. Surely it is not good for me. wclarke@comcast.net