A KIND OF HUSH
By LU BELLE
It was a blow to hear he was being drafted just a month after our wedding. We married so young- both for all the wrong reasons. Now, his vows to me were being transferred to a uniform. His first overseas port was Germany. I'd be going soon to join him. I felt excitement, fear, eagerness inside and a feeling that the world I knew was coming apart, and a new one was just beginning.
He had only been gone a few months when a call came from his Mom. She instructed me to search his private box of papers for car titles and registrations. He had tried to call me to let me know that she wanted the junk cars out of the driveway. Finding the box was the easy part. Looking through it was both invasive and lonely.
I held the box up near my breast, caressing it. Were there any secrets inside-- Things I wanted to or didn't want to know? Were there any romantic notes to me, to other women he had known- Pictures? Should I just stick to the task requested and ignore my curiosity?
Though it was just a cardboard box filled with papers, metal junk, Marlboros- I felt like I was holding my husband’s hand. I brushed the cardboard with my hands, feeling his touch, his fingerprints, inhaling Marlboro butts, grease, oil, and male cologne.
A gold lipstick container rolled around in the corner, not mine. I pulled out a picture of my best friend Linda, with a love note written on the back. That was okay, she had dated him first. A few more pictures peeked out among this man's world, one of his high school graduation and another of a girl about my age, with pretty hair and a smile that spelled trouble. I felt lovingly empty inside with thoughts rushing up from my belly, through me, rounding up in my throat, remembering our last hug before he got on the bus.
Then as my thoughts kept circling around inside of me, a registration fell out of his tattered wallet. I carefully read it. It was for the pretty Chevy Nova. The blue bomb that helped us fall in love. My heart pounded recalling the fun, when on all those dates------I felt it might happen and it didn't and then the final kisses-- when he and I found it impossible to resist a hunger inside. Doubt vanished. Determination took over. We’d be together forever. Though we hadn’t shared "I love you’s-- we talked love, marriage, romance rings. Every song became our song.
“THERE'S A KIND OF HUSH ALL OVER THE WORLD--- TONIGHT"--
It was so hard to believe in love for both of us with parents that weren't in love anymore. We shared long talks--and that sadness between us.
Tears spilled onto the papers as I thought about all those times we shared, hurt and joy--common links to the past and our hopes for a different sort of future. It was so good to feel all this--life, its possibilities.
The Chevy Nova was sitting in an alley now, the gasket blown on one of our long rides to nowhere, "Indian Lake" I believe he called it. It was a dark wooded hunting ground of his. As I remembered-- how his arms around me felt, luring me deep into the woods, telling me how he had seen the bears on the very trails we stepped over, --my loneliness of the moment filled the room. I laughed to myself- as I remembered his touch on my back making me scream. He had laughed ridiculously at me..,
"Well that'll scare the bears into the deep,." he said and rambled on about how his friend had also yelled out --spooked by a branch last time they had hunted in this place.
I remembered crying and him holding me. I was so tense with love, a good fear and the newness of everything. As I continued to rummage through the old box, my memories flowed back to the romantic walk to the car on the nearly invisible path—seeing the blue paint on the Nova shining in the light of the stars.
All this came back at this strange moment-- thinking, I am his wife now. Bringing myself back to the task, I continued sorting for the other registrations. As I opened papers and envelopes, some barely readable, the receipt for my wedding rings fell out. "GEORGES PAWN SHOP"
My first frightful thought was, ----well that explains a lot! They didn't fit quite right but he put off going for a resizing.
They had black nicks in them.
Tiffany’s-- they were from Tiffany’s.
He didn’t want me to go with him.
He wanted to surprise me.
Not really--- from Tiffany’s
-and not really the reason he could not spend any money to take me out-
- Or go to the movies with our friends.
The excuses---
He’d tell me—
Leave me waiting home all the time.
We had even broken up a couple of times.
He would cry that he was sorry; that he was just trying to save for the payment on the rings.
He had talked about the hardship of paying for diamonds.
The lies surfaced, one by one with a few more hurtful thoughts I’d forgiven in between.
The hurt inside stung like my first bee sting- so sudden, unexpected and horrifying. It was a bleeding wound of being hurt when so innocent. A shock, a cold sweat, like I was going to pass out, came over me, combined with anger. I dropped the box. I went out driving.
[I looked down at my hand, turned the tiny set of rings back and forth, thought about my 18th birthday, a bittersweet engagement, prayed silently for strength. In my heart still- lied a desperate desire for the kind of love that a diamond elusively promises.]
The End
About the author----Call me Susan, Sue or Suzy. My Mom called me Lu-belle. My brother called me anything that would make me cry. On the tail end of the baby boomer generation, my life has pretty much always been trying to catch up with the kite, though, never quite tall enough to do so. I'm hitting my fifties, feel more like 13. I'm an upstate New York girl with fair skin, that boasts Irish red highlights (the skin that is),blonde hair, and wish my brown eyes were blue/or cat green. They are not even dark! I have two wonderful grown daughters that still seem to think they are princesses. Oh, was this suppose to be a writers resume?
To write has been a life time dream. This is the first time I'm sending my work out. I do attend an online writers school. I love to study people, experiences, and life. I think about writing all the time. I hope to share a world of fiction with TID bits of reality sprinkled all over it. —It’s grand just being part of the journey. Should you like to hear more… my credentials or personal background, I will be happy to add to this. Please stay tuned. Contact Susan.
