James and Louise | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: James and Louise | Previous Challenge Entry
By Yvonne Leigh
11/30/10
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“Oh, come on! Stop turning your back to me!” Look at me talking to his back again. There’s more than one way to have the last word, and he knows how to say it. Having an argument with him is useless and I don’t know why I insist on doing it. There’s no way I can win. I’m going to learn a way to make my hands look calmer or I’m going to use them to choke him one day.

He’s unhappy with my housekeeping. Again! The housekeeping occupies his mind and my paycheck he takes for granted. Why don’t men realize that time is like money; it can only be spent once. A person would think they consider women to be some divine entity that can bring home the bacon at the same time they are cooking it. That’s what I’d like to tell him if he would keep his face to me. What I need is a frustrated screech.

I tried to tell him that I had plans for today, but he insists that I do deep cleaning. It’s my day off and his only care is that I have time for housework. Nothing I say is hitting home, and he’s pretending he doesn’t understand. That’s a crock! He knows very well what I said. Well, if he wants to clean, he can clean. He’s in there all red-faced; using too much elbow grease. I’m going to that painting class. He probably won’t miss me for an hour or two. He’ll be so busy not paying attention to me that he won’t even know I’m gone. Maybe the house will be cleaned before I get back. I probably should leave a note on the door.

This painting class is important to me. There’s something soothing about being able to express your deepest feelings in a creative way. It makes you feel like your soul has had a back rub; and my, how my soul needs one of those today. However, I don’t know if I can get this feeling of guilt rubbed out. I’m here on a matter of principle this time.

Husbands have a certain knack for touching just the right nerve. They can flip the guilt button that tells you he’s too good for you. The intention in this housecleaning frenzy is to punish me for working and I’m not going to fall for it. Tomorrow he’ll have forgotten it and I’ll still be under that heavy, ugly cloud of not-good-enough. One thing, though, while his muscles ache from making a simple job hard, I’ll have the painting class to remember .

Fifteen years ago my parents were dismayed when he asked me to marry him. Just like most other girls who are in love, I refused to listen to their advice and married him anyway. Apart from the fact that they couldn’t communicate with him, they didn’t have a problem with Jimmy as a worthwhile person . Their concern was his ability to support me as a husband. That was a subject way over our heads at that particular time. Long-term planning to most prospective newly weds doesn’t even reach into next month, and, while we were ignorantly normal concerning our future, we knew we would be OK.

At the school for the deaf and blind, where we met, I was a college student learning to be a speech therapist and he was a deaf student learning a trade. To us it was a perfect match. Our intuitions were apparently on target because, for the most part, we’ve had a good marriage. His ears are not the tools of his trade, but he does have a trade, and together we make a good living. As angry as I get at times, I know I made the right choice in marrying him; even if he does turn his back when he doesn’t like what I’m signing.

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