“The first year Sharon and I were married, she baked a turkey,” Jerry said. “She’d never done one completely on her own, and we couldn’t afford for her to call her mother long distance and ask questions.”
“It wasn’t a turkey,” Sharon corrected him, laughing softly, “just a large chicken, but I stuffed it and fretted over it with all the nervousness of a young bride wanting to impress her husband.”
“How’d it turn out?” Emily asked.
“Wonderful,” Jerry answered without looking at his wife. “One of the best Christmas dinners Sharon ever cooked.”
“Jerry, it was a disaster.” Sharon couldn’t believe his memory was so short. “The bird was as tough as shoe leather, and the dressing was soggy and bland. I kept telling you how sorry I was that I’d ruined everything, and you insisted on eating it anyway.” She’d loved him for it, loved him until her heart ached with the memory of it.
“The dinner was bad?” He looked genuinely surprised. “That’s not the way I remember it.”
“It wasn’t much of a Christmas as Christmases go,” Sharon murmured. “We had so little.”
“Ah, the good ol’ days. They bring back memories, don’t they?”
“True,” Jerry added, sitting on the chair next to his wife. “As I recall, we couldn’t afford a Christmas tree, so Sharon made one by sticking toothpicks into those foam balls till she had a stack of porcupines and then sprayed them all with that snow that comes out of a can. Then she decorated that with tiny glass balls, all blue.”
“It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford the tree,” Sharon explained. “Those were the days before the sheared trees were the fashion. We could have probably picked one up for a buck or two, but there wasn’t room in our tiny apartment for anything more than the two of us.”
“Three months later we made room. Our first Christmas, Sharon was six months pregnant with Clay and we needed every penny we could to save for the baby.”
Her husband’s gaze held hers and softened. Those had been frugal times, but some of the happiest of her life. She wouldn’t trade one of those years for all the diamonds in the world.
Her mind wandered back to those early days and the one-bedroom apartment. They’d lived in an old, dilapidated building in San Francisco, away from family and friends for the first time in their lives. Her pregnancy had come as an unexpected surprise. It didn’t help matters that her employer wouldn’t allow her to work past six months, not even part-time, so their limited budget had been stretched even further. Somehow they’d made it, with love and laughter. Their finances might have been tight, but they’d held on to each other.
“It was one of our best Christmases,” Jerry mused aloud.
“Yes,” Sharon agreed. A hard knot filled her throat and she feared if she spoke again, Jerry or Emily would hear the tears in her voice, so she stood, mumbled an excuse, and hurried back to the bedroom.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed when Jerry came into the room. He didn’t say anything as he sat down next to her.
The silence between them was long and profound.
“What went wrong with us?” she asked in a whisper.
Jerry leaned forward and braced his elbows against his knees. “I wish I knew.”
Silence again as they mulled over the question neither of them could answer.
“I never suspected we’d end up like this,” Jerry murmured at last.
“Me either,” she said sadly, then stood and dressed. Jerry didn’t want this divorce any more than she did, but neither wanted to go on living the way they had been. Their lives had become a constant tug-of-war, a battle of wills, in which they’d both become the losers.
Their marriage was a lose-lose proposition. The answers were more complicated than the questions.
What she needed, Sharon suspected, was a bit of fresh air and some time alone. With that goal in mind, she promptly finished getting ready for the day. “I’m going for a walk,” she announced, and reached for her jacket.
Jerry looked at her as if seeking an invitation to join her. She didn’t offer him one. She needed to mull over her future, what she intended to do with the rest of her life without a husband.
When she stepped outside she found the wind was strong and cold, cutting through her. Aimlessly she strolled along the sidewalk. She buried her hands in her pockets and bent her head against the force of the weather. Having had no real destination in mind, she was pleased when she happened upon a small park about a mile from Seth’s house.