Mary and John

Mary and John were happily married for 22 years. At least John was happy. Mary was not as sure. Oh, the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month living was not miserable. He didn’t beat her or run around or drink too much.

Mary’s friends said she was lucky. John made a decent living as an accountant, and he was a good father to their children, Amapola and John, Jr. She had a hard time convincing John to name their daughter Amapola. She loved the way the word rolled off her tongue. She had spent her gap year in Spain and embraced all things Spanish. When she saw her daughter for the first time, her little face like a flower in the nest of her arms, the word for Poppy came to her. She knew it was the perfect name. John was not convinced.

“Amapola?” he said in disbelief. “I rather thought Agnes after my mother would be nice.”

Mary shuddered at the thought of this delicate creature saddled for life with a name that sounded  like ‘agony’.

“No, John. Her name is Amapola. I insist!”

And because Mary had never insisted on anything before and because she had just given birth to their first child, he let her have her way. Then two years later, John, Jr. had come along, and John was satisfied with his name.

She looked across the dinner table at him. They were alone, as usual, with both of the children away at college. John was quite good looking. His dark hair was still thick with a little grey mixed in, his skin, taut except for a few laugh lines around his eyes.

What was it about men? Why did they get better looking as they got older and women just looked haggard, Mary mused.  When did she start to feel so detached, not part of the unit they once were?

She absently reached out her hand and adjusted one of the flowers she had arranged for the table. Even though it was just the two of them, she liked to have beautiful things around them in their home, such as the carefully ironed linen tablecloth and the bright needlepoint cushion covers she worked on when she had time in the evenings. She thought it showed she cared about her role as homemaker.

Mary thought of the way she used to feel about John, how the smile spread across her face at the sight of him, how she was breathless after they kissed. When had they kissed last? She couldn’t remember. Where had the feeling of sweet anticipation gone?  She looked at John again. He was deep into his reading as he mechanically shoveled the food she had so carefully prepared into his mouth, as if it were something just to be done with. When had he started reading at the table? She probed her feelings about him. She found there was nothing left. There was only a vague feeling of something lost. What was it? When did it happen? Why this emptiness? When did the feeling that she was just an interchangeable cog in the clockwork of his life begin? She felt that anyone could assume her place with him. As long as his life went on smoothly, dinners were cooked, clothes appeared in the drawers, and his sexual appetites were satisfied, it really didn’t matter if it were Mary providing them. Anyone would do. He didn’t need or want the essence of “her.”

An overwhelming feeling of sadness threatened to engulf her. Tears stung her eyelids. Resolutely, she pushed the feeling down and into one of the many drawers in her mind and shut it. She shook herself out of her reverie and picked up her fork.

“How was your day, John?” she asked.