Where we left off, it was early morning the day after the event. I had just woken up to the sounds of my husband returning to our bedroom, not rising from our bed as I expected (remember I thought he had come upstairs sometime during the night and wrapped himself around me). He got ready for work, left without saying goodbye. The previous day’s thick tension swelled up again.
I moved through my chores around the farm, grumpy and indignant, refusing to be the one to break the silence. But as the hours passed it became increasingly difficult to ignore the eerie vision I’d had at the dining room window. I couldn’t shake the steeliness of that eye contact. I needed to talk to my guy about this but waited until the afternoon to even text him.
When I finally did break down and text him I’m sure it was about something trite and petty, any dumb excuse to connect. Thankfully he answered and was in a similar state of needing to talk. As it turns out, his evening was no less bizarre than mine. We broached the topic casually, cautiously, not with the kind of gleeful delight you might have when telling a second-hand ghost story. The mood from both of us was very much I can’t believe I’m saying this but what happened last night?
To hear my husband tell his side of the story, this is what happened inside the house while I was simmering angrily outside:
After the fight, the fight about nothing, he set up camp in the greenroom downstairs and purposefully watched shows we both love, at full volume. He saw and heard me walk through the house toward the hot tub but remained stoic. This, folks, is how we hurt each other. This is about as bad as it ever gets.
To fully paint the next part of this picture, you have to understand that he is a creature of such unerring habit that the following details are key: He laid on exactly the same pillows as always. He arranged his three (why are there so many?) remotes in exactly the same order as always. And because he was downstairs there was no timer set on the television. There was no provision for it to click off at a certain time.
A little while after starting his shows and hearing me walk outside (in a huff, by his account), Handsome heard me come back inside and close the door kind of hard. I made coffee for the morning and marched upstairs. He loves to know he’s gotten under my skin, so surely this helped him relax. He fell asleep watching whatever.
Then.
At some point during the night he claims to have woken up to me pulling a blanket up over his shoulder. Our couch in this room is an L-shaped sectional, allowing for sort of perpendicular cuddling, and he says that I laid down on the opposite expanse from his, our heads near each other, and cuddled him. He reached over, thinking I had returned in love and that we were reconciled, and he stroked my hair.
Or so he thought.
to be continued
