The Lunch He Chose Over Me

Splitting a life in two

We had the house on Sycamore free and clear, and a little land his daddy had left him out past the Ferris place, and my pharmacy pension, and the plot at Rest Haven we bought at forty. Dividing it was its own kind of grief, quieter than the marriage ending, all paper and phone calls with lawyers.

I kept the house. He did not fight me on it, which was the closest thing to decency he showed in the whole business. Charlene, it turned out, cooled on him considerably once he was a divorcing man with half a house instead of a married man with a whole one and the thrill of a secret. Funny how a crisis that needed him every Thursday for fourteen months resolved itself the minute he was actually available. She moved again within the year. I heard she landed two towns over. I found I did not care where.

I sold the plot at Rest Haven. Both of them, his and mine, the his-and-hers forever we bought at forty. I sold them back to the cemetery and I bought a single plot on the other side, under an oak, by myself, and I have never made a purchase I felt better about. I am not going to lie down next to that man for eternity. I would rather have the oak.

The Thursday I took back

Here is a small thing that turned out to be a large thing.

For fourteen months, Thursday had belonged to Charlene. Thursday was the day my husband had three free hours he could never find for me. Thursday was the porch calls and the collared shirt and the window table by the fire.

So I took Thursdays back.

I started small. The first Thursday after I could drive again, I went to the Hearthside. By myself. On purpose. I walked in and Donna’s face did about six things and I said, “Donna, I’d like the window table, if it’s open,” and she about tripped over herself getting me to it. I sat at Dale and Charlene’s table, the good one by the fire, and I ordered the walleye and a glass of white wine and the relish tray, and I ate the whole thing slow, and I looked out the window at the rain, and I did not smile through one single second of it. I enjoyed it clean.

Half the room knew who I was and what that table had been. Nobody said a word, but a couple of the older women nodded at me on their way out in a way that said more than words would have. It was the nod you give a woman who has walked through a fire and come out the far side smelling of woodsmoke and nothing worse.

After that, Thursday was mine. Sometimes the Hearthside. More often my kitchen with Marge and Loretta and a couple of the pharmacy girls, cards and a casserole and the loud, easy laughing of women who are not managing anybody’s mood. Do you know I had not laughed loud in my own kitchen in years. I had trained myself down to a quiet chuckle, because a big laugh might carry to wherever Dale was and he might come see what was funny and something in his face would make it stop being funny. I got my big laugh back. I found it right where I left it, under about fourteen months of Thursdays.