Marriage Thrillers? Maybe Later

A hospital stay – OK, except for childbirth — is not anything we wish for. Anxiety can run thick and clumpy, unlike all those streamlined IVs. The food, once you can eat, carries an odd smell. (Not the orange Jell-O, which is divine.) And yet, when it comes to clarifying what is most important about life, and love, a few days in post-surgical 6-N has a sharpening effect.

Before hauling you in there with me, I want to give some context.

In that I’m writing a book, and the book is mostly about marriage, I’ve been poking around to see what else is out there — fiction and non-fiction both – on the subject. Turns out a crop of writers have managed to create page-turners with husbands and wives in perilous situations, nobody knowing who’s safe and who’s not. Watch your back! Do I go to bat for you or against you? Push you off a cliff even? I wanted you then, but do I still want you now? You’re either my very best friend or my worst enemy, sometimes on the same day even. Should we team up, like Macbeth and his Lady, and do this dastardly deed together?

The possibilities are endlessly tantalizing and spine-chilling.

Maybe just by coincidence, I came across two recent novels that borrow phrases from the classic marriage vows themselves: As Long as We Both Shall Live  by JoAnn Chaney (Flatiron Books, 2018) is a murder mystery with this cheerful statement on the inside book flap: “You can’t be married to someone without sometimes wanting to klll them…” And then For Better And Worse by Margot Hunt (Mira Books, 2018) is about two wedded lawyers who find themselves into a real jam and, I think, head down a slippery slope together. Kind of like Adam and Eve, perhaps.

But I’m not going to linger in this suspenseful territory, because, exciting as these books no doubt are, I’m more interested right now in highlighting those quiet moments of marriage that have to do with one spouse just being there for the other spouse. “Romance” isn’t quite what this is, but maybe “Romance Down the Road of Life” is close. Or maybe “Calmer” as the flip side of “Thriller.” Nah, wouldn’t sell in the marketplace, would it? But in the heart — that’s a different story.

Without getting all gloppy here, I’ll share that when my husband, very accustomed to visiting people in the hospital, came in to be with me, he was open to providing just about any kind of comfort I needed, and I lapped it up. Sometimes, that was sitting on the couch together so I could lean on his shoulder or hold his hand. Another time, it was saying, “Yes” to the chirpy lady who wheeled her Art Cart in; we each did a painting, using art books for inspiration, and the process was calming and harmonious. It was also definitely strange, so different from what we usually do together; but we were already in alien territory just by being there as a couple.

When he heard that the previous day a woman had come in with her accordion, he said he was just as glad he hadn’t been there for that. So, good timing was our ally, just as it had been when we first met. Neither one of us had any appetite for disagreements of any kind; we knew our mutual task was to cultivate calmness together.

Don’t mistake my message: I was completely glad to make my hospital exit (who exactly do you say goodbye to, after a five day stay, and so many RNs and LPNs doing shifts?) and even more glad to have gotten good news from the doctor. My job now is slow healing, requiring me to put aside those former measures of daily productivity just for a little while, to accept myself as I am. Walking my dog on a trail has never felt quite this glorious.

I’ll gladly leave the spouse-against-spouse or partners-in-crime intrigue on the page to other capable writers. Having an actual shoulder to lean on is way more appealing to me now.