by Larisa Dawn
The ride was agonizingly silent. She leafed through a magazine that she had already read three times. It would soon be her turn to drive, and she would not even have the comfort of reading. She liked to listen to the radio, but inevitably, she would start singing of which he did not approve. He wouldn’t complain, of course. That would take too much effort. He would just sit there and sigh and make those awful moans of disapproval.
He, in this case, referred to Sharon’s husband, David.
She would not have to call him that for much longer. She had her second appointment with her attorney Monday morning. She had to survive this weekend with him, and then she could go free.
Her mother had set up this fishing trip. She had talked to each of them separately, because talking with David and Sharon simultaneously was futile. After much prodding and even a little threatening, they had both reluctantly agreed to go to a cabin, alone, together. Her parents kept the kids, paid for the cabin, and made all of the arrangements. The only stipulation was that David and Sharon had to go, and that they at least had to fish together. So, she was in the car with her husband headed to a cabin on Sage Lake.
David soon pulled the car into a gas station. He quietly filled the tank while Sharon visited the facilities. Once those tasks were completed, they met inside. She placed a beverage on the counter for each of them. He paid for the purchases. Then they were again on their way - with Sharon now in the driver’s seat.
She turned on the radio, but was careful not to make a noise. “We used to sing love songs to each other,” she recalled longingly. Sharon had grown weary of trying to figure out what had happened to their marriage. She could not remember when she had given up on it completely. There was not a certain date that she could recall anyway. It was just a slow process that led them to the silent, torturous bond that now legally held them together. “After ten years and two children, we must not have anything left to say,” she would tell herself during those times when she longed to talk to him. But, in the back of her heart, she knew that two people could find conversation after years of marriage. She saw people do it all the time: her parents, his parents, people at work. She couldn’t help but feel like a failure for her inability to maintain communication. Then her emotional pendulum would swing to the other extreme and she would be overcome with anger at David’s lack of caring. She was caught in a viscous cycle that she desperately wanted out of by the swiftest method of exit.
It was late Thursday night when they arrived at their destination. David unloaded the car while Sharon placed perishables from the cooler into the empty refrigerator and their small supply of groceries into the cupboards. They each carried their own baggage to a separate bedroom, just like at home.
They ate toast with strawberry jam and sipped coffee sitting across the wide table from each other on Friday morning. Sharon read a chapter from a book on math skills for middle-graders. David seemed to be buried in his own literature.
“Do you know how to fish?”
His voice startled her. She still loved that low, raspy sound. She looked up from her book.
“We promised your mother we would fish. Do you know how to fish?” he asked, looking directly at her this time.
“Yes. We used to go when I was a kid.”
“I saw the stuff in the car that she sent along. I was hoping you would know how to use it.” He returned to his reading.
“You have never been fishing?”
“No. Why?” he asked looking up again.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t know that.”
. . .
The boat motor started on the second pull for which Sharon was thankful. She acted like she knew what she was doing as she maneuvered them into a small cove at the corner of the lake. The poles were set, and there was even a container of fresh night crawlers in the small tackle box.
“Mother is certainly thorough,” Sharon thought, not sure whether she should feel grateful or resentful. She baited both hooks and estimated the depth for the bobbers. She handed a pole to him and gave brief instructions. “If a fish bites, yank up on the pole and then reel it in.”
He silently accepted the pole and directions. Sharon had to admit, the lake was beautiful. The silence seemed more tolerable when the subtle sounds of nature accompanied. There were times that Sharon longed for an argument. They had ceased fighting roughly six months ago. If she had to choose a time, that was probably the point when she had given up. When they had stopped even trying to work out their differences, deciding instead to coexist, independently in the same dwelling with not even a bit of symbiosis.
“Pull up,” she yelled to him. “Now!”
David yanked the pole and fumbled with the reel. The end of the pole wobbled with the weight of the fish. “What do I do now?” he asked.
“Just keep turning that crank,” she said pointing to the reel in his hand.
“Yahoo!” he said with a genuine smile on his face as he lifted the six-inch perch into the boat.
Sharon couldn’t help but smile back.
“Is that what you call a fish?” he asked with a tone of self-pride.
“Actually, we could probably call that a minnow,” Sharon remarked sarcastically followed by a snicker.
“Give me a break. It’s my first fish,” David jokingly protested. “At least let me think I’m a great fisherman for a minute or two.”
“Be my guest.”
“Now what?” he asked, staring at the flopping fish.
“I never was very good at this part. We have to get him off of the hook and into this bucket,” she said as she reached over the side to fill it with water. “One of us has to grab hold of it.”
They both took a deep breath and stared at the now still creature.
“Here goes,” Sharon finally muttered. She smoothed the dorsal fins down with her index finger and wrapped her thumb around the belly. The fish began to flop with newfound strength. She quickly retracted her hand.
“I’ve got an idea.” David pulled his flannel shirttail out of his blue jeans. He laid the fish on the shirt and then wrapped his hand around it.
“We did it,” he said as the fish darted around the bucket.
“We did it,” she thought as she cast her line back out into the still water.
She and David actually laughed together when, in the bottom of the tackle box, they found written directions on how to clean and fry fish. They fumbled with the scaler and the filet knife, and they estimated that they probably picked more bones out of their teeth than they buried with the guts. But, their supper had been wonderful. Sharon couldn’t help but wonder if it was the food that tasted so good, or the fact that they had prepared it together.
The math book was dry, as instructional guides for teachers generally were. At a particularly dull point in her study, she looked over at David lying on the sofa.
“How do you like that book?”
“It’s alright,” he said without averting his eyes.
“I read it about a month ago.” She too returned her gaze to her book.
“You mean, we have this book at home?” David asked, now looking toward his wife.
“Yes.”
“I just bought it on the way here.”
“Where? At the gas station?” she asked as a question, but answering it herself.
“We don’t pay attention to each other, do we?” David asked flatly. It was not a revelation to him, just the stating of an obvious fact.
“No we don’t,” she said as she once again returned to her reading.
The second day’s catch was not significant, and Sharon’s growling stomach beckoned her to make alternate dinner plans. She suggested a restaurant she’d seen as they’d driven to the cabin.
Sharon couldn’t help but feel as though she was getting ready for a date as she ran a brush through her hair. She was actually having a good time this weekend. She could sense that David was, too. The beautiful water was like a glistening beacon amidst the grunge of their dismal alliance, and they both seemed to appreciate the sense of tranquility that it provided.
“I really don’t think it was far,” David said as he closed the cabin door behind them. “Let’s walk.”
“This reminds me of that place we found on our trip to Chicago.”
“That breakfast deli?”
“Yes. We just started walking….”
“…and we stopped when we smelled food.” David finished the sentence for her. He then did something that he hadn’t done in years; he held her hand.
Time and years of yard work had added calluses that she did not recall from their younger days, but it was pleasant just the same. The gentle sway of their walking allowed her to feel his palm. They talked about the Chicago trip. They talked about old times. They talked about the kids. The restaurant was at least two miles away, but the conversation made it seem right next door. After months of agonizing silence, they had relearned how to speak with one another.
When they returned to the cottage that night, she invited him into her room. He accepted. They rediscovered old passions and playfully uncovered new ones. They held each other close as they drifted off to sleep listening to the gentle tap of raindrops from a summer shower strumming on the roof.
They again fished in silence the next day on Sage Lake.
It was even more awkward than before.
Questions circled about her mind.
Did we become intimate again too quickly?
Is he glad that the weekend is over so he can be rid of me?
All taunted her with negativity. Sharon longed to talk, like they had last night. “Why shouldn’t I?” she thought. “He is my husband.”
Finally, she spoke. “I have an appointment with my attorney tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think I want to go.”
He looked at her with reddened eyes. He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a business card. “Butch, the other social studies teacher at the high school, gave me this.” He handed it to her. “He and Mary went to this counselor a few years ago. He said it really helped them.” Sharon leaned forward and produced a similar card from her rear pocket. “You remember Connie, the secretary, don’t you?” She smiled through her own tears as she handed him her card. “Maybe there is some hope left for us,” she said out loud.
They held each other as they sobbed with such intensity the lake rippled outward from the small boat. They felt the pain that had been bottled up inside them for so long begin to release and disperse calmly out over the water.
They sat in the small watercraft for hours discussing details of life that they had ignored for years. They held each other close. They talked of books they had read and emotions they had felt. They did not place blame but accepted the reality of what they had allowed their marriage to become, and they outlined a game plan for improvement. They even occasionally kissed, simply to feel the warmth of one another’s lips.
. . .
“Stay as long as you want, honey. The cabin is rented for the whole week, and your father and I have your children enrolled in Bible school at church,” her mother said when Sharon called her from the pay phone at the local grocery store.
“How did you know it would work?”
“A mother just knows,” she said in her best omnipotent voice. “Now you have a good time.”
###
Copyright © 2001-2008 Larisa Dawn Sutton
All Rights Reserved
Author bio:
“Larisa Dawn is an Ohio writer and is the married mother of three children. She has her BSN from Bowling Green State University and works as a nurse at St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima, Ohio. Lara writes fiction and humor. Her work has also appeared in previous editions of The Blue Rose Bouquet, The Journal of Nursing Jocularity, and in local newspapers. She was also the tech editor for a diabetes cookbook. You can reach her at lara [at] blueroses [dot] com. “
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Pammy, the main character in the 
Many of those 
Editor of The Blue Rose Bouquet since 1998 and a professional writer since 1984,