Oh, New York, New York!

The first five days my husband is out of town are usually a bit of a gift.  I can do whatever I want without any judgment, I think smugly.  Of course, my wildness these days seems to consist of steaming cauliflower for dinner, staying up till the wee hours of the morning watching Sundance's version of the always conflicted love story, and belligerently TiVo-ing past the sports segment of the 11:00 o'clock news that he would never miss.

Oh, and I can write whenever and however long I want, if the siren call of some unfinished book hasn't already held me captive. 

Normally I am completely civilized, attentive and an extremely good wife, but when he's away?  I immediately revert to my old musician self.  I forget to buy milk, sing karaoke when I'm bored, eat iceberg lettuce instead of romaine and have a hard time disciplining myself at work.  Then again, I'm too busy sculpting, writing and sleeping past... well I won't embarrass myself by admitting how long I can sleep.   When I'm alone and nobody is making noise around 8:00 a.m. or as I call it, the crack of dawn, the dog and I have a deal.  If I take her out at two in the morning and let her run almost all the way down to the woods where the coyotes roam, before I even try to call her back?  She is more than happy to snuggle with me until I want to get up.

Today, however, is the sixth day my husband has been gone.  I have a bit of a problem with  anxiety, so I spent some part of these last few days worrying.  After all, it is New York City and he and my son think they can take care of themselves anywhere.  Don't they realize, that's not the point? 

There are cranes, 9/11 could happen again, subways, anthrax, mass transit, robbers, fiends, Bush and Cheney and then there's nature.  Who could forget the things that happen when the mercury rises and city people sit outside getting crazier by the minute.  Besides, I watch CSI: New York.  I know what's really going on, no matter what the tourist bureau claims.

The truth is that today I finally tired of my vegetarian meals, still closed the bathroom door out of modesty and pondered how they would find me if I had a stroke.  You know, would the dog have knawed on my chubby cheeks or just the cats?  Had my normal routine not been pre-empted, I imagine that sometime tomorrow I would have started to get lonely.  By this weekend I would have been desperate for my husband's companionship and positively suffocatingly affectionate when I picked him up at the airport. 

Separations are interesting.  For women it really is true that absence makes the heart grow fonder.  After two days I had forgotten how grumpy he behaved on the way to the airport.  After three days I had gotten over resenting that he was in New York having fun with our son.  I even graciously told myself he had desperately needed a break from the gloomy weather we have here. 

Of course, I was quite cognizant that I was stuck working, but by the fifth day I was relishing being independent.  I had thoughts like, Heck, I don't need to use the wheelbarrow to put out the recycling, and Remembering to get the mail each day is really no big deal. 

And the bonus?  In exchange for his freedom,  I also had mine. 

Anyway, this time he kept in touch much more frequently than usual.  He had been texting, emailing these pretty pictures of New York 2008 I am posting here, talking to me on the phone and even chatting with me if he noticed I was online.  I felt like we were really connecting, quite unlike his business trips in the past.  So this message rather blindsided me:

       "I sent you an email.  I wasn't sure if I should send it, but you are my wife and my partner. 
         Love always, S."

First I should probably tell you that my husband believes people can split up and remain friendly.  (Is he insane?)  He is also a very logical guy who weighs and balances things, the pros and cons, etc., but not really keeping books.  He was an economist early in his career, so he stays calm and uses psychology on me.  (You know the type.)

I thought, What the heck did he need to tell me in an email that he couldn't put in a telephone or chat message at 5:30 in the morning?  He knows its only 2:30 here and I would probably be almost awake.  Is he dumping me from 3000 miles away and trying to tell me in some non-combative, non-confrontational manner thinking, perhaps, I won't get upset?

Okay, so I am a bit dramatic and I do have a wild imagination.  Then again, why I had this thought confounds me.  I confess to having an inner confidence about my worth as a human being.  (Was it the large American breasts or the good scholastic record.... hmmmm?)  Anyway, with the lifelong exception of my mother, the people I have loved generally love me right back, which has been a rather healthy validation.   On the other hand, I'm a used wife.  You know, not really used up, but not really new either.

Hey, I am not being paranoid.  I have seen many husbands toss aside their perfectly adequate wives during a mid-life crisis apparently not remedied by a red sportscar or a humbling triathalon.  In fairness, I have also seen women dump their husbands, but at least the ladies seem to regret it later.  Okay, so I am the kind of friend you can dump on ad nauseam, so I generally learn about 'his' sterling qualities only post-divorce.  Of course, I cannot count the times I have thought, Maybe you did jump the gun there. Cause I noticed your new boyfriend is a total jerk and your husband was only a bit of one. 

Anyway, their men?  I don't usually find out how they are doing except indirectly.  I see their younger wives, new kids, retirement put on hold, laser treatments for 'sun damage', a thirty pound weight loss, re-emerging abs, then I imagine new medications in the medicine cabinet (hey, I'm just guessing) and the guilt from shirking college costs for that first litter.  At some point my jilted girlfriend usually tells me about his attempts to modify their divorce agreement after she gave up all the investments and retirement for the assurance of lifelong support,  the house and the kids.  How can those guys ever be at peace with themselves? 

But then they always have the hot new, younger wife passionately draping herself across them, and sport that mysterious, sh*t-eating grin for some reason.  Kind of makes me wonder, but what do I know?

So as I was pondering the demise of my marriage while in the process of opening my personal email , my husband was suddenly back on-line.  As fast as I could I typed, "What's in the email?"  He chatted back, "Just read it and then we'll talk."

God, I thought.  What the heck could it be?  Did he mean 'partner' in a good way or was he just talking business?  My fright allowed me to delay no longer.  I opened the email.  WHAT? I thought.  It isn't even addressed to ME.  It's a g.d. forward!

I couldn't believe it.  An email he had sent to our son, telling him how lucky he was in spite of the annoying delay returning to San Francisco.  It seemed my son had complained while grounded at the interim hub in Salt Lake for five hours.  The email was obviously sent to him while he was back in the air.

 So what was in this mysterious communication?

First my husband described his morning.  How he couldn't sleep, walked around, mentioned the air conditioning unit in the hotel room they shared had quit.  (I imagined he was leading up to telling me he got mugged.)  Then as he continued he created some suspense by indicating the two guys at the front desk didn't question or even notice his movements... even though it was the middle of the night.  (My weirdo antenna went up and I thought, Did some terrorists also slip by unnoticed?)

I should mention that right now there's a July-style, heavy humidity laden, heat wave in New York expected to peak today at around 100 degrees Farenheit.   So adding to the set up, I will also point out that this past weekend was probably the first time air conditioners had been turned on in six or seven months.   That little tidbit aside, the front desk clerks didn't seem too concerned about handling my husband's request to get the air conditioner fixed or give him a new room. 

You know how under-paid, over-worked, under-staffed service people can give you that Botox look?  It seems like you may have detected some movement there, but you're not completely sure.  (As an aside, I was thinking this might be a great way for professional poker players to eliminate any 'tells'.)

Anyway, my husband went on to describe how he had woken up right after our son left for the airport. He thought the room was suffocating and hot because the air conditioner failed.  Fortunately he's a little crazy, so he left the room too.  When he later returned, he snagged a cleaning lady to see if she knew the air conditioner's tricks.  She didn't, but they both heard and saw a flash that sent blue sparks everywhere before the unit began emitting a terribly acrid smell.  Recognizing the symptoms of a short and concerned about fire, my husband headed back down to the front desk.   This time he easily got their attention. 

He ran up the stairs back to the room to make sure his stuff wasn't on fire.   The hotel engineer was already in the process of removing the casing around the heater/air conditioning unit.  My husband is pretty mechanical, so nobody needed to explain what the two of them saw inside.  The electrical cord from the unit to the wall had completely burned back to the singed outlet.  It had been repaired with electrical tape in what one could only describe as a Mickey Mouse maneuver.  

The engineer looked at my husband with wide eyes as he blew air through his mouth in the international expression that translated is,  "Holy Sh*t!".  Then shaking his head and in his heavy Eastern European accent he said, "You are very, very.... lucky.  Yes, very lucky." 

The scary part wasn't what could have happened, however.  The original malfunction of the unit had contributed to the short, but the wire had previously caught fire, burned all the way to the carpet, and continued burning the carpet's top layer before (by some miracle) going out on its own.  Had my husband and son remained sleeping, had he not been an alert type, had he neglected to call the engineering people, had my granddaughter not had an early soccer camp event or slept in that day, had my son still been there... you can imagine various horrifying ends to this tale.  Those kinds of toxic fumes, even without a big fire, could have been enough to kill all three of them.

I don't think I will  take those I love for granted anytime soon.  And I don't think I'll let the petty stuff get in the way of my relationships for a while either.

Oh, did I mention my husband's not dumping me?  At least not yet.  Claimed he'd be home on Saturday as planned, before he made a point of saying he loved me.  All I could think to say back was the equivalent of "Holy Sh*t".  Hope he could feel the love anyway. 
© 2008 Elizabeth Madrigal