A Day in the Life of a Marriage: A
novella

By Mark Goulston (c) 2008

The Gathering Storm

Midnight: Jane
stared into the darkness, her back facing that of her husband John's, as
usual. Two hours earlier she feigned sleep as he tried one of his many
routines to turn her on sexually, routines, which in reality usually turned her
off. Puzzling to her his idea that pushing his flabby stomach up against
her back. Squish squash, if six packs existed, their presence remained
unaccountable. Moving about, increasingly amorous though terribly
predictable, she next felt a blast of hot moist air enveloping her neck with
cigarette laced alcohol marinated breath.

Cringing she muttered as if in her sleep. Further
maneuvering, in an attempt to do two things a once, she quietly shuttered at
the sliding his hand over the side of her thigh, cresting her hip while pushing
aside flannel to reach inside cotton underwear to simply plunge
his fingers into her crotch. To her, how could he believe such
crass insistence produced anything more tangible than a wish she were
dead? Comprehending such lay far beyond her. Sexy, this was not.

Quietly feigning sleep augmented with sleepy
mutterings now regularly played into her nighttime ritual. Within a few minutes
John took the hint, frustratingly opting to desist. On this occasion as
on many, after his clumsy attempts at foreplay received the patent eighty-six,
he arose from bed to find solace at his computer, lost for an hour within a
world he could control and affect, albeit simply bits and bytes.

Back in bed, Jane fell asleep briefly, awakening upon
his return an hour later, though he did not know her status. Within ten
minutes, John fell into deep slumber, alternating between raucous snores and
periods of breathless silence for what felt like an eternity. Silently,
attempting not to move with her hands buried beneath her body in a mummy like
stance, Jane willed a sleep, which would not come.

Ironically, now that the treat of his imposing sex on
her was over, instead of relief, she felt sick. Though commencing as a
dull pain, quickly the dread built to full-fledged nausea. Reviewing the
evening's meals and snacks, nothing she had eaten could cause such discomfort.
Since her thirty-fifth birthday three years prior, Jane fastidiously monitored
what she ate. Spice foods after 8:30PM were out unless she wanted to be up all night burping up remnants and
partially regurgitating garlic up the back of her throat. However, this
evening, roasted chicken would hardly cause the nausea she felt.

At thirty-eight, she was too young for
menopause. Her cycle assured her this moment of discomfort originated
elsewhere than PMS and stress within her life maintained itself at the same
steady level, neither over-extended nor placid, simply normal stress. As
she thought about the possible causes for her discomfort, she realized the sick
feeling began when John had left the bed earlier; now it intensified with his
return and quick decent into sleep. Astonished, she realized what the
pain was truly about. She was lonely.

At 12:30AM, the ache of loneliness overtook her resentment.
Tentatively, she reached out across the two-foot strip of no-man's land running
the length of their California King. Beside her John's breathing changed
to a quiet snore, signaling he was now asleep.

Clinging to the air, the
stale pungency of alcohol invaded her senses. Pausing for a moment, she
half-heartedly withdrew her hand and rolled over on her side, propping her arm
under chest with hands in prayer beneath her head. Moving slowly as not to
awaken him, she drew her knees toward her chest, balancing carefully on the
edge of the bed. Wistfully she sighed, her mind drifting back to their
youth.

Seventeen years, her mother
was right; time became a footnote with each year that past. Back then, before
the kids, the responsibilities, the pressure, before the fun went away--back
then marriage and living in California felt blissful, easy and free. Sex ruled their
free time. Any reason to engage, places and positions all begged for
experimentation, each circumstance provided an opportunity for lascivious
intent. Sex with John, how their love life shined! At least once a day,
more often if possible, together intoxicated by feelings, romping and
cavorting, making love in ways the authors of the Kama Sutra may hesitate in
disclosing.

Softly, a smile edge her
mouth as she recalled their early days, the carnal sex, hitchhiking through Europe in 1980 as college juniors. She remembered the dirt-cheap, flea
infested bed and breakfast in Paris with a view of the Eiffel Tower,
if they stood on a hutch in the nook of their room on tip toes and looked out
the tiny window. Flea bites, the stench of the sewage from the alley
below, it made little difference. Even the itch of each manifesting bite paled
once lost within their consummate passion. This was Paris and they were in love. Nothing could change
that or dampen their enthusiasm.

Back then, they seemed
incapable of getting enough of each other; the pain of those years insignificant,
for it was not that of loneliness, but of longing. During breaks with the
obligatory treks to their respective family homes, she to San Francisco and he to Boston, they couldn't wait to see each other again.
Absence did not make their hearts grow fonder. It made them
desperate to see each other. Reflecting, it seemed she remembered a life
other than her own. What happened?

Now Jane looked forward to
John's working late, even though she complained it was bad for the
children. Secretly she found relief in the fact his return often occurred
once all were asleep, granting her solace between the rock of her children and
the hard place increasingly representing John. Should his schedule grant
dinner with the family, more often than not dread circumvented anticipation as
the hour of his arrival approached. In consolation she rationalized,
dinner for the children's sake, no matter how interminable for her, served
their best interests, though the house seemed more peaceful without him.

This bliss and longing for
each other, the spiritually lifting power of love, carefree in lust with a
needing to be near, how did it all slip away? Stolen surreptitiously over
time, it simply vanished and Jane, though craving it, could think of no way to
reclaim it. Lamenting, she attempted to recall, relive the experiences of
happiness and feelings of endearment once overwhelming yet now absent.
The events transforming her feelings toward him required time to reach
fruition. The beginning of the end, the best she could pinpoint, surfaced
gradually from innocent play. Throughout the years, he often used her as the
source of entertainment between family and friends, baiting, teasing and
passively chastising her. As those in attendance, whether colleagues,
friends or relatives laughed, her silent rage grew.

Though frustrated with
John, anger rarely resided in comfort. It was an emotion to which she never
grew accustom; so foreign to her nature, though like a friend she both longed
for and feared, it dwelled in quite chaos, ever present beneath the
surface. Strange how at times the only thing she hated more than John was
the fact that she hated him.

From weeks to months,
months to years over the course of the marriage a pattern emerged. Each
time he minimized her feelings, degrading her in jest by making her
tribulations the entertainment of many, memories clinging to the good times
ebbed further from her conscience. In the beginning, those of love
returned quickly. Of late, with each regaling, positive emotions returned
with less haste. Soon ambivalence replaced passion, then ambivalence with
disgust. That disgust now felt like hate.

Though days shared
similarity in their ending, they did not begin with a conscious effort to
discover reasons to despise him. Throughout the normal course, new
reasons simply emerged, though she did try, truly try to discover any trace
that would allow her to love him again. Generally she searched in vain. Warm
feelings evaporated quickly each time she confronted yet another of his once quirky
habits; cute and character in the beginning, now each served to annoy her. This internal struggle, between feelings of loathing and
aspirations of love, left her marriage seeming more as an arrangement than the
marriage idealized in Hallmark