Shmily (short story)

Toxic. That’s what my husband, Chris, thought about our marriage. The May sun felt too cheery for the mood I was in. The sting of this morning’s verbal conflict with my husband seemed impervious to the sun’s warmth or the gentle breeze that played with my hair. For one strange moment, I was on a secluded beach in Kauai during my honeymoon thirteen years ago holding hands with Chris as we celebrated our love.

I met my friend, Shelly, for coffee at a small cafe in Morristown, New Jersey where business people young and old liked to gather to share their thoughts about the economy, the best restaurants in the area and where they would be taking their next vacations.

“Where are we?” Shelly asked while stirring cream in her coffee.

I gazed into the cinnamon colored eyes of my friend. “Somewhere that used to be peaceful and happy,” I replied with a sudden and terrible ache of loss.

She frowned for a moment her freckles bunching up around her nose. “Chris?”

I nodded. Shelly and I had been friends for only a few years; but, long enough for her to guess that my marriage happened to be in terrible trouble. I couldn’t pinpoint an exact place or time that we had started drifting apart yet those days of holding hands, the excitement of being in each other’s presence and the intimate conversations had dissolved into clenched fists, verbal assaults and enough space that we might as well be on opposite coasts.

“We had a our usual twenty minutes of arguing this morning except this time it seemed almost rehearsed. It was like lines in a play that we practiced again and again without heart or life in the words.”

Shelly sipped from her cup, put it down on the saucer and looked up into the clear blue sky.

“Beth, I thought about telling you this story sometime; but, I think I should tell you it now.” She caught me making a face and said quickly, “It’s about my grandparents. You know we buried my grandfather two weeks ago.”

I felt quite guilty. Here I was absorbed in my own problems and I hadn’t even asked my friend how she was doing after losing a very important influence in her life.

“I’m sorry, Shelly. It’s been very rough these past few months. How are you?”

Shelly smiled that kind of smile that didn’t quite hide the pain. “I miss him terribly; but, I’m glad he isn’t suffering anymore. He was such a strong man full of living until the last couple of months when the cancer took all of that away.” Her eyes misted.

I nodded. I had no words to comfort my friend because I felt rather tired, empty from all the drama and fighting. She seemed to take my silence as commiseration.

“So, tell me that story,” I said. Maybe it would be something funny to cheer us both.

Shelly dabbed her eyes and chuckled. “Benjamin Dawes met tiny and full of spunk, Marilyn Webb, when he was eighteen and she, seventeen. He worked for his father on the farm and Marilyn worked in town at the feed store where Ben and his father bought their supplies. Needless to say, they fell in love at first sight. Grandmother told me that Grandfather thought she was an angel with her blue eyes and corn silk hair.”

I heard Chris’ voice in my head telling me that my long dark hair shined like satin and he couldn’t keep his hands out of it.

“Ben asked Marilyn to marry him six months later on Christmas Eve. She became pregnant with my uncle a few months later. Her pregnancy had no major difficulties other than throwing up for the first four months and gaining a little too much weight. They expected a normal healthy baby and Uncle Jim was except for his left hand that had no fingers. It was a couple of years before Aunt Margie came along. Then the twins, my dad and Uncle Tom. Aunt Margie developed diabetes when she was twelve and Uncle Tom passed away from leukemia at twenty-seven. That was the same year Grandfather lost his father and Grandmother lost her sister. They almost lost the farm twice because Grandfather made some bad business decisions and Grandmother took the children and went to stay with her mother for a couple of months.”

This story was far from being comforting much less funny.

“You’re thinking what’s the point of all of this,” Shelly said. “Well, after the funeral, I started to wonder what kept my grandparents together for all sixty-two years still holding hands and acting like kids up until the day he died. I mean, I know they loved each other; but, how do two people keep the fire burning through the times when one just wants to call it quits?”

“That’s the million dollar question,” I said flatly.

Shelly gave me a sympathetic smile. “When everyone had gone, it was just Grandmother and I. We sat at the kitchen table and she asked me if I wanted to join her for a cup of tea. She went to the cabinet that contains all her different boxes of tea. She probably has more varieties than the local grocery store. Grandmother pulled out a box and I saw her pause. When she didn’t move for a few moments, I thought something was wrong. I asked her if she was alright. She turned around. Beth, she had the most beautiful smile and tears ran down her cheeks. In her hand, she had a round piece of bright orange paper. Grandmother gave it to me and I recognized Grandfather’s handwriting. It read,

“You will aways be my girl and I’ll be waiting for you.”

Obviously, it was a nice act of kindness on her grandfather’s part; but, I didn’t see anything more than that. Shelly set a lime green gift bag on the table and pushed it toward me.

“Look inside, Beth.”

I glanced into the bag and strangely enough, I saw hundreds of little orange papers. I pulled one out and it read, “A kiss for you,” another one read, “When I feel the warm sunshine, I think of your love.” Even stranger, on the back of these pieces of paper was written the letters s h m i l y.

“Your grandfather wrote all of these?”

Shelly nodded unable to speak, her eyes misting again. “That’s not even a quarter of them. Grandmother wrote some, too, but she put hers on yellow papers.”

“What does shmily mean?”

“That’s the best part. They have given each other these messages since the day they were married. Each hiding his or her love note where the other would find it.”

“Every day? There has to be hundreds or thousands or more,” I exclaimed. Now, I was becoming a bit skeptical. “I’m sure they didn’t write a note every day; not if one of them was angry at the other.”

Shelly raised her hands. “That’s what I thought; but Grandmother told me that they wrote notes especially when they were angry because they hated being that way toward each other. I believe her.”

I rubbed one of the papers between my fingers half expecting some of her grandfather’s words would somehow bring comfort to my situation.

“Why don’t you leave notes for Chris?” Shelly suggested.

I blurted a laugh. “The only note my dear husband needs is a set of divorce papers. Besides, who would fall for that stuff anyway? Your grandparents are from a different generation. No, I think it’s too late for Chris and me.”

“Do you still love him?”

It was my turn to have tears in my eyes. “Yes,” I managed through tight lips.

“Maybe Chris feels the same way; but, he doesn’t remember how to show it. What have you got to lose?”

We spent the remainder of our short time talking about our jobs. I hugged Shelly as if I would never see her again. As she walked away, I realized she hadn’t taken her lime green gift bag filled with her grandfather’s tiny messages and she still didn’t tell me what those letters meant. It gave me an excuse to drop by her house later in the week. I was all about excuses trying to spend less time at home these days.

When I arrived home after a stop off to my favorite restaurant, I noticed that Chris had already been at the house, changed his clothing and left again. I decided to take a shower and call my mother, who had moved to the Midwest several years ago after her and my father’s divorce. I planned on telling Mom that her daughter was about to follow in her footsteps. After the shower, I rang up Mom; but, her answering machine greeted me. Sitting on the bed and feeling depressed, I started going through the gift bag and reading the notes. For one aching moment, I wished I had been Shelly’s grandmother when Marilyn was my age. Time raced by and before I knew it, the clock in the hall chimed midnight. I wondered how long Chris would be out. He had to get up early for a meeting of the minds. He and two other guys were partners for a computer firm. I put the bag in my closet and kept out one note that read, “Loving you makes my toes tingle.” I turned out the light and cried myself to sleep.

Terrible sleep and a missing husband didn’t make for a good morning. Everything went wrong from spilling coffee down the front of my blouse and having to change while already late for work and breaking the heel off my left pump as I tripped up the stairs to my office. A magazine editor has to be focused, creative and detail oriented. I was none of the above today.

I called Chris’ cell number periodically throughout the day getting nothing but his insufferable and cheerful recording “Hey, leave a message.” By the end of the day, I felt tired, even more irritable and surprisingly worried, then I saw his car in the driveway. Fists clenched, nostrils flaring, eyes burning, I charged through the front door like the proverbial bull in the china shop.

“So has it come to this now? Whose bed were you sleeping in last night because it certainly wasn’t your own.” The last part of my sentence sounded like the squeaky hinge on the screen door as I came face to face with my husband, one of his partners, Ted Milton, and a quite attractive woman. They all stared mutely.

Chris’ jaw twitched beneath less than an authentic smile. “Hello, Beth. You know Tom. This is our new administrative assistant, Miss Cheryl Damiani.”

Tom, somewhat shorter and a few years older than Chris exclaimed, “Cheryl is going to make our lives better and much easier.”

I had no doubts about that. Long legs, silky waist length hair and a dazzling smile that would amaze even a blind man, Miss Damiani could have easily been a super model as much as my husband’s secretary. If she was a model of car, I would compare her to a Ferrari.

“Hello,” I croaked stretching out my hand and taking her soft smaller one.

“I came in late last night and slept on the couch. I had to be in by five. Ted, Cheryl and I will be flying out tonight to Charleston to meet a client. I wanted to stop by the house to let you know and grab my pillow. I’ll be back tomorrow night.” Chris said with an air of smugness.

I felt absolutely foolish and Chris wasn’t about to save me. I nodded manufacturing my own smile. When they had left, I went straight to the freezer to eat some ice cream. That night, I took another shmily note to Marilyn that compared her skin to the season’s first warm peaches. I ate the entire half gallon of rocky road.

After Chris returned from his trip, the next two weeks seemed to be one never ending rainy day. Chris came home all hours of the night and would be gone by the following morning. We barely spoke. My boss wasn’t happy with my work and the only encouragement I received came from those mushy sweet notes. I don’t know what happened to the others I had taken from the bag; but I was sure Shelly’s grandmother wouldn’t have missed a few of them. I meant to return the bag; but somehow I never got around to stopping by Shelly’s house and she didn’t call to ask about them. Each night I took one to bed giving me that one special moment that I knew I would never have with Chris.

The large brown envelope arrived on my desk around ten that morning. I was stunned. I knew we were heading for a divorce; but I didn’t expect it to be delivered in such a business like manner. The paper work came from my husband’s lawyer for his firm. So, this was it, thirteen years of marriage tossed aside like yesterday’s newspaper.

My assistant informed me just before I was about to leave for the day that I had a call from a lawyer’s office. I told her to tell the caller I had already left for the day.

“Are you alright?” she asked me.

“Couldn’t be better,” I lied while heading for the door.

I walked through the town center pretending to window shop the boutiques or read menus posted outside cafes and restaurants. After an hour or so, I stopped at one of the cafes and ordered something to eat, although food seemed to be the last thing on my mind. Truthfully, I did not want to go home to face Chris. As I sipped my iced coffee and stared at a plate of field greens topped with mandarin orange slices, pieces of grilled chicken and sprinkled with walnuts, I fully expected that Chris would keep the house wanting me to move out as soon as possible.

Two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have had a problem with any of this; but, Shelly brought those silly love notes and I had hoped. Chastising myself I said, “Hope for what? Do you really believe if you had sent those same notes to Chris, he would have…?” I didn’t finish the thought because it walked by in the form of a couple holding hands and whispering in each other’s ears.

I pulled into the gravel driveway sometime around nine. There were no lights peeking through window blinds or the frosted glass in the front door. Tossing my keys on the hall table, I walked to my bedroom without turning on any lights. An accent light in my closet blinked on as I kicked off my shoes. My suitcase stared at me from the top shelf. I couldn’t help myself, I retrieved one of Benjamin Dawe’s notes from the bag one last time, I held it toward the light and read, “Sometimes I feel too tired to try; but, then I only have to hear you call my name.” I slid under the covers wondering if Shelly could let me stay a few days before I found an apartment.

Fresh coffee and sizzling bacon. I sat up trying to wipe the sleep from my eyes. Where was that fantastic smell coming from? I heard someone whistling a tune slightly off key. A stranger suddenly appeared in my room with a face somewhat akin to a child, who had just been caught pilfering from the cookie jar. The stranger looked like my soon to be ex-husband without the mustache and goatee Chris normally sported.

“Are you hungry?” the clone of Chris asked.

My stomach answered rather loudly. I recalled not eating my dinner. I nodded as suspicion began to fill my waking brain. What else could he want besides the house? Clone Chris disappeared for a few moments and then returned with a tray. He had made bacon, eggs, toast, fresh coffee, orange juice and added another coffee mug posing as a vase for a yellow rose.

“What’s the occasion?” My voice sounded tinny. “I have to be to work in a half hour.”

He disappeared again only to return with his own mug of coffee. “Not today,” he said, sitting in the easy chair across from the bed. “I called in sick for you.”

I raised an eyebrow as I lifted the steaming mug to my lips and anger started to build. Chris rubbed his chin.

“Do you like it better without all the hair?”

“Huh? Well, you do look younger,” I replied; not at all what I wanted to say.

He grinned and said, “Soft as a peach.”

I nibbled at a piece of bacon. “What do you want, Chris?”

His grin disappeared and instant regret. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw him smile like that. He seemed uneasy, fidgety.

“I got the papers yesterday; but, you already know that.”

He blew air through his lips. “So that’s why you didn’t answer your phone.” Chris stood up running his fingers through his thick brown hair. “I admit I was fed up, disgusted with our lives. I didn’t believe our marriage had a chance in hell. But, those stupid, irritating, sweet notes you left under my pillow…” His green eyes filled with amusement. “Beth, you obviously cared more about us to try some crazy scheme to make this work.”

He talked about how angry he was that night he flew to Charleston and how totally annoyed he had become with that first note; but then he looked forward to them. I tried to decipher his babbling. And then, it finally made sense to me. All those notes I had taken to bed with me had somehow ended up under Chris’s pillow.

“I had the papers drawn up a month ago. They weren’t supposed to be sent out. Cheryl grabbed the wrong envelope off my desk,” Chris said interrupting my thoughts.

“Cheryl,” I echoed. “You mean your assistant who goes on trips with you.”

“There’s nothing going on, Beth. We’ve gone to dinner a few times. That’s all.”

I set the tray aside and went to the closet. Handing Chris the bag, I told him about Shelly’s grandparents writing notes to each other.

Chris read a few. “So, you weren’t sticking notes under my pillow?” Disappointment clouded his face and tone.

“No,” I admitted.

“Oh. Those notes reminded me how happy we were once.”

“They made me feel good, too. I pretended you were giving them to me.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Chris reached into the bag and pulled out another orange note and held it out to me.

“Could you put one under my pillow just one more time…please?”

My chest tightened and my eyes stung. I took the note from him and slid it under his pillow. He fished in the bag again and put one under my pillow.

“What do we do now, Chris?”

He climbed into bed with me. He lay down and slid his hand under his pillow. “It says kissing you feels like eating cherry pie.” Chris put the note down, leaned close and kissed my lips. “Nope,” he said, “more like bacon.”

These notes started something we had not done in years, communicating. Chris and I attempted to write our own notes. We had a long way to go; but, he told me I do make his toes tingle. I don’t consider myself the most quick witted; but I did finally figure out that Shelly purposefully left her grandfather’s notes in my possession. I called her and thanked her for that lime green bag of orange notes. “By the way,” I asked, “what does s h m i l y mean? “

She laughed softly and said, “Why it means see how much I love you.”

Leann DeHart copywrited October 2009