“Do you need a hand?” I ask. I roll to my side so I can get up.
“I got it,” he says.
“Are you just loading up the stuff that’s left?”
“No, I just came back for the projector. We can get the chairs in the morning, when we can see,” he says. He pats the seat next to him. “Have a seat.”
I pick up my blanket and fold it up in my arms. “I should probably get back,” I say and jerk my thumb toward my cabin.
He pats the seat again. “It wasn’t a request,” he says calmly. He pulls a toothpick from his shirt pocket and pops it into his mouth. When I was a little girl I used to think that shirt pocket was magical, that there was a never-ending supply of toothpicks in there.
I gingerly sit down next to him, and the only sounds I hear are the crickets and the bullfrogs and his heavy breathing. I cross my arms over my wadded-up blanket, unsure of what to do now.
“I’ve always loved this time of night,” he says. “It’s not dead quiet, and it’s not busy either.” He leans over so he can look beyond the roof of the cart. “I can see the stars. And the moon is bright enough that you don’t really need a flashlight, once your eyes adjust.” He sits quietly, and then he asks, “Did you enjoy the movie?”
“Very much,” I reply. “I’ve seen it at least a hundred times, but for some reason it still feels new every time I watch it.”
“Funny how your appreciation for things changes as you get older.”
I sit and wait, because I have a feeling there’s a reason for this little chat. I just don’t know what it is. I want to flee, because the quiet night combined with the quiet man, who is usually larger than life, are disconcerting in the extreme. Feeling awkward, I hesitantly say, “I should probably get back to Eli.”
He chuckles. “You don’t want to get back to Eli,” he says. “You’ve spent the whole week coming up with ways to get away from Eli.” He shakes his finger at me. “Don’t pretend like I’m wrong.”
I pick at a string on my blanket. “Things are a little strained between us right now.”
“Marriage is hard,” he says, talking around that ever-present toothpick.
I laugh without humor. “Yes, it is.” I turn to look at him. “Why doesn’t anyone tell you how hard it’s going to be? They paint a picture of tranquility and happiness, but it doesn’t always turn out like that.”
“It doesn’t ever just turn out like that,” he says. “You have to make it like that.”
“My parents were very happily married.”
“I remember.”
“And when Eli and I first got married, I wanted that. In my head, I wanted what my parents had. But when we got married, marriage wasn’t like that at all. It was hard, and it’s still hard. So, either I’m doing it wrong…” I let out a hushed chuckle. “…or somebody lied to me about what it’s supposed to be like.”
“You say you wanted a marriage like your parents had?” He stares into the darkness and doesn’t even glance in my direction. “And you were around twenty when you got married, right?”
“Right. But–” He hushes me with a finger. I bite my lips closed.
“You wanted the marriage your parents showed you when you were twenty.” He waits for me to answer.
“Right. And I never got that.”
He laughs. “So, you thought you were supposed to get that right away.” He snaps his fingers. “Like, okay, I’m married now, so I get that.” He gestures at nothing, as though the idea of my parents’ marriage is some object in front of us. His head falls back as he laughs again and my neck bristles more than a little. “What you didn’t see was that they had twenty years of work put into what you wanted. You didn’t see they’d already been through the same struggles you are going through. They’d done the fighting and the making up. They’d done the child-raising and the changing jobs. They’d probably changed houses and bought cars. They’d been broke and they’d had money. They’d struggled in their own ways. They had their own problems. They just worked through them and kept going.” He reaches over and flicks the end of my nose with his finger. I press my fingertips against it and sit back a little. “You can’t get what they had the minute you say ‘I do.’ You have to work for that. For them, it took twenty years to achieve that marriage you so desperately wanted to emulate on day one.”
I’ve never thought of it like that. I just remember being viciously disappointed when my marriage wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I’m still disappointed that my marriage isn’t what I want it to be. “Well, I’m twenty years into it now and it’s still shit.” I cross my arms and stare into the darkness.
“It is what you put into it.”
His words hit me like a fist. “I have tried—” But my voice breaks. I take a deep breath. “I tried so hard for so long.”
“Mm-hmm,” he hums.
“I did. I worked at it. It just didn’t work out.”
“Mm-hmm,” he hums again.
“And now I think I’m ready to be done with it.”
“Done with the marriage?”
“Yes. Done with the marriage.”
“You spend a lot of energy hating Eli.”
Yes. Yes I do. “And it’s fucking exhausting,” I admit. “Pardon my French,” I add at the last minute, because my mama raised me to be a lady.
“You’re feeding the wrong wolf,” he says cryptically.
“What?”
He says it again, this time more slowly. “You’re feeding the wrong wolf.”
I scoff. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know.” He sits quietly for a moment. “Do you remember when you were a little girl and we used to have those traveling missionaries come in on Sundays to do crafts and Bible studies with you kids? They would show up and you all would get so excited. They would sing with you and you’d make stupid shit to hang on the refrigerator. You remember that?”
“Yes.” Some of my fondest memories were of those Sunday mornings.
“Well, we had one about thirty years ago that I can still remember. She had Native American ancestry but she had become a Christian when she was a child. Anyway, I was in a shit mood that day. Hell, maybe even all that year. I can be a rat bastard when I want to.”
I snort out a laugh and I don’t contradict him.
“Ain’t funny,” he says. But he chuckles too. “Anyway, that lady changed my life.” He gives the steering wheel a couple of taps and falls silent.
I wait for a long beat. Nothing. “How did she change your life?” I feel obligated to ask.
He lays his hands on his chest and pretends to be surprised. “Well, I’m so glad you ask.” He sobers. “She said something that resonated with me. Her culture had taught her that there are two wolves that live in each of us. There’s one for love and one for hate.”
“Two wolves?”
“Yes. One for love, one for hate. Pay attention.”
I’m so confused. “I’m guessing we need both of them?”