When I finally find out the truth, I’m led to believe I knew it all along. Of such lies are rapprochement made. If I knew, I allowed it, at least tacitly. If I knew, it was partly my fault. And holding part of guilt makes one entirely guilty. By taking hold of complicity I ended up carrying all the heavy blame.
Is it any wonder, then, that my knees buckle, my control leaves me, when I come home the very next night — the very night after I had shouldered the blame and made up with her, for the kids¹ sakes — to find her at it again?
I drop my keys and fall to my knees and then I’m yelling. On my feet again, I lunge. Grasp her throat.
It hurts me as I punish her. A tightness creeping from hands to forearms clamps my chest and eventually cuts off my air as hers is denied her. Throat tight as I gasp her name, I cry, my tears blurring her final defiance, her tongue thrust rudely, her eyes red and bulging.
Was she happy at that moment? Were her choices worth it? As I see her die and smell her last release of her foulness, I know only my love, only the passion once so necessary between us. It is a torrent in me, channeled into narrow ways, a thrust with nothing to penetrate, a stab without piercing, and I whimper and let her fall to the floor as this huge feeling dwindles.
And it withers within, that final burst of passion.
Ashes remain, only ashes.
Why did she have to let me catch her reading again? Why so soon after our discussion and rapprochement? After my generosity in shouldering blame?
Women cannot learn.
Nor be permitted even to try.
And she knows this, or knew it.
I call the elders then, and they understand, and among those sent to help clear away the waste that was her life is another of her sex, a woman about my age but well trained, well behaved, obedient to the tenets and pleasing to all precepts.
She stays and I sleep well, never again to worry.
God is merciful.
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