The Two Of Us

We rarely mention our wives, less so our children.

I, personally, can’t bring myself to touch upon the prickly subject of everyday life, the mundane rituals that occupy my time. You see, it’s the little things that conjure up a feeling of utter tedium and that distinct heaviness to the idle sigh can never be faked convincingly.

Glancing at the sports section before smiling down at a plate of pancakes; a chaotic but practiced routine of preparing sleepy children for dreaded classrooms; the loathsome commute in seemingly endless traffic; semi-familiar faces rushing throughout the office; that kiss, that smile, that lingering kiss from a wife that claims to love me more each day; the light-hearted foolishness around the dinner table; the inevitable display of marital passion that just has to happen sometime.

I find no comfort in discussing any of this with David and simple stresses and even simple joys are hardly ever the topic of our conversations. I don’t need to tell him about my miserable days, for I know his are spent with a similar sort of melancholy in his heart.

Instead we sit together, politely sipping at cups of tea as the dimly lit cafe does its best to sooth our troubled thoughts. David will bring along something to amuse us, he’ll say: “Here, Aaron, lets crack open the chess set” or “How about a quick game of scrabble, Aaron?” and our few hours together will be spent on opposite sides of the board.

Any game is better than no game, after all.

Well, that’s the way we’ve spent almost every Sunday evening (6pm until 9pm, as a rule) for the last 7 or so years. The years before that were far more miserable, far more lonely. Almost 16 years spent apart, with our own families, settling down and making a show of it for the world to see.

Usually David will bring up some old memory. The corners of his lips will twitch before allowing themselves to smile.

Beautifully. Proudly.

I’ll know that it’s not because of any childish cheating on his side of the board or anything petty like that but because of the life we once shared, the life that had once meant everything to us. The exact nature of those memories is not important, but know this, those were happy times.

Happier.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with our current lives and anyone looking into either of our homes would only walk away with a saccharine sweet image of two loving families, seemingly content and cheerful. But these are far from the lives either of us ever wanted, wished for or earnestly sought after.

Don’t be mistaken, I love the woman I’m married to and can only think of my children with a tender affection. I’ve never had any serious health or legal issues and the future honestly holds warm promises of delight.

We’re both grateful for the lives we’ve had so far; the world’s been good to us in a lot of ways. And yet I yearn for a far simpler life. One that involves only the two of us.

Me and David, the two of us together.

When we were much, much younger we allowed ourselves to fantasise, come up with future plans for ourselves. It wasn’t the style of the house or the size of the paycheques that mattered, it was the fact that we would be together.

We would be living, really living.

Back then, some 23 or 24 years ago, I mused the life we would one day have- waking up in David’s slim but firm arms; sipping satisfying coffee and exchanging warm looks over the kitchen table; a leisurely drive to work, taking turns to be the driver and the driven; lunch in a peaceful park, in a nearby cafe when the weather changed; the relaxing walk we would take before cooking dinner together; said dinner in front of the television, volume low to allow us to talk and joke and laugh; the pulling of curtains, pushing of light switches and the sweet, sweet feeling of his lips, gently delivering me into a dream world which we would share and surrender to.

But the hopes we have in adolescence rarely survive the world or even ourselves.

We’ve given up on our dreams and in a lot of ways, we’ve given up on ourselves. Living is something I do now for those who depend on me and of course, for David. Our brief secret meetings in this unknowing cafe mean so much and yet it’s really nothing compared to what we dreamt old age would bring us.

We never will surrender into that dream world.

----

I first wrote this in the third person and felt it could do with a more personal, direct voice. Not sure if it flows as well like this though.