Chapter 11
You know, Ruthie, there are times in a woman’s life when she looks at her frying pan sideways with her arms crossed.
Sometimes when that feeling came over me Terrence and I would go out, maybe he would even just take us over to McDonald’s, and it always felt like a treat.
I never was one for: It has to be white tablecloths and a straight-backed waiter reciting the specials like highfalutin poetry.
No, I got right nervous in such places all my life and not because I came up poor.
It was something else, like people all pretending something and I did not want to pretend along with them.
For shame, Flo, Terrence used to say. These people are just coming out to eat and the restaurant is trying to make it special.
There’s nothing wrong with that. I would tell him he was right because he was.
But a person just can’t help having those chafey feelings sometimes.
I have been doing so well lately I wonder if I will live a lot longer than that doctor thought.
But I am leaving this letter which I now call War and Peace on the kitchen table just in case.
I reckon I could have just called you and told you I’m leaving you my house and all my things.
But I’m aiming for a surprise. I don’t know why.
Well, maybe I do. Who doesn’t like surprises when it means you’re getting something interesting from someone who loves you.
I want to tell you about the rubber band I mentioned a while back, what it means to me and why I kept it.
It’s in the top left kitchen drawer in a little white box with a red ribbon tied around it, you’ll find it.
Now, I have advertised this like it was the Second Coming and I hope you won’t be disappointed with the story.
I hope you won’t stand with one hand on your hip saying well for Pete’s sake.
Here goes.
One time Terrence and I were in a contemplative mood, sitting at the kitchen table.
I was right where I am now and Terrence was sitting where there is an empty chair, always an empty chair now, though I am not shy to say I do see him there sometimes, his shirt open at the collar and his sleeves rolled up and his beautiful big hands clasped together.
Sitting there smiling at me. Sometimes he is see-through and sometimes he is not.
Sometimes he’s just so real. And at those times I can near about smell his aftershave, I believe he’s calling me to him.
But the rubber band. Terrence and I were newly married, he had just come back from the war, and I had caught a case of the insecures.
I kept thinking terrible thoughts like what if his love dies, what if we get in such a terrible fight there is no repairing it and we go down in bitterness.
I loved him then in a kind of desperate way.
I felt like I needed to walk behind him with my hand on his belt lest he get away.
He was my most precious thing, and I was scared to death he’d leave again and I’d lose him.
I couldn’t talk to Terrence about this; I didn’t know where these feelings were coming from, although later, I saw that somehow I must have known something.
One Sunday afternoon we’d just come back from church, and we were having a cup of coffee at this kitchen table and I busted out crying.
Why sweetheart, what is wrong? he asked.
I didn’t answer and he came around to my side of the table and got on his knees like he was proposing (like he was supposed to do the first time around).
I commenced to blubbering harder. And bless his heart he just stayed quiet and kneeling even though I’d plum forgot to sweep the kitchen floor the night before.
Finally, I managed to tell him a bit of what was in my heart, that we might come apart somehow.
Hm, he said, and he got up and he went into the drawer where we kept our rubber bands.
He pulled one out and brought it to the table and laid it before me and my splotchy face.
See this? he asked, pointing to it. Yes, I said.
Watch, he said, and he pulled that rubber band out so far his hands were trembling and I feared it would bust. See that?
he said, and I said yes. Then he lowered that stretched-out rubber band to the floor and let it go.
And of course it snapped right back into place.
Terrence picked it up and held it in his hand before me.
What do you see now? he asked. I said I saw a rubber band.
But what has happened to it? he asked like he was Mr. Wizard.
I said, Well, it has gone back to its shape.
Right, he said, and that is what we will always do.
You can never do anything that will undo my love for you.
We will have fights, and I suspect we might call each other names and maybe sometimes we will have private regrets.
But always we will come back to our original shape, which is that I love you.
Period. Always we will come back to that.
I know it and I think you know it too. Let us accept that there will be problems but never mind, human minds and hearts and souls are resilient.
He looked at his watch and he said, And now I suggest we stop talking about all this doom and gloom and get on over to Miss Lee’s Café before they run out of meatloaf.
I’ll be ready in just a minute, I said. I spect he figured I had to piddle or was putting on my lipstick, in those days you didn’t hardly take out the trash without wearing lipstick.
And I did put on some lipstick in a lovely red shade but then I did what I really wanted which was to put that rubber band Terrence had used for his demonstration into a little white box.
I put it in there like its own little house and then I tied a red ribbon on it.
And when times of trouble came between us all I had to do was look at that box and trust would come again to my heart.
You’ll see the box there, Ruthie. I can’t hardly think it will be worth keeping.
But the story might tie itself up in red ribbon and live on in you.
That Terrence. I’ll tell you, his love was light as a feather and heavy as an anvil both at the same time, love can be like that, and my dear dear Ruthie I hope it was like that for you and Jonathan and if it was I truly believe you can find it again.
Things change shape, and then they can go back. They can.