Janelle Cordero | nonfiction | Marriage Counseling

    
   
Marriage Counseling





I.
We stay silent a while, you picking up tools and putting them down in the garage, me researching marriage counseling on my laptop. Come to the park with me, I say. Sure, you say, and change your jeans for shorts, leather work boots for sneakers. I bring the basketball, dribble it through my legs down the street as we walk to the court. You tell me about playing in junior high with your two best friends in the church parking lot, how you all wore wrist and sweat bands like Lebron, how you couldn’t shoot worth a damn but you could defend, you could box out, you could rebound. I know all this, of course, but I still like to picture you young and happy, dust from the blacktop on your palms and Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter II blasting from a portable CD player on the sidelines as the three of you practiced free throws and lay-ups, played pick-up games, talked shit. We reach the court and warm up, taking turns shooting and rebounding. We play one-on-one and pretend to block each other’s shots but not really, driving to the basket before pulling up and away, shooting long. It starts to rain and I say I like the smell of wet asphalt. You say there’s a name for that smell, which I immediately forget but I like that you know the word and can remember it. The rain stops a few minutes later and we’re left wet and sweating, still shooting. A double rainbow, you say, and point to the glimmering arc above our neighborhood like some fairytale banner. Just two nights ago you said the magic in our marriage was gone. What about now, I want to say, but instead I just pass you the ball, tell you to shoot, tell you it’s all or nothing this time. 

II.
I cut my bangs this morning and you noticed. Thank you for looking at me, I want to say, but instead I talk of my bangs, how they’re too short. You shrug, drink from your coffee cup and start talking about the missing submarine in the Atlantic ocean. They’re probably all dead, you say, and I nod, running my fingers through my hair. 

III.
What if the trouble is all in my head, I say. No, the therapist says, you’re doing that thing again. She means I’m trying to take responsibility for the emotions of other people. But what if I made him act this way because of how I was acting, I say. Do you see, she says, what’s wrong with that? You acted sad and angry because you were sad and angry. You don’t need to deny how you feel because of how someone else will respond. Okay, I say, but I’m not convinced. And this is why my task this week is to feel. Stupid, I think as I take the porch steps of the old Victorian two at a time, meaning me. 

IV.
Do you believe me when I say you’re more beautiful now than you’ve ever been? And I mean right now, both of us crying in the kitchen, your faded black sweatshirt still dirty with needles and pitch from the pine tree you cut down in the backyard, and my t-shirt (your t-shirt) sweaty from the gym, rumpled and hanging down to my thighs. Your cheekbones, I want to say, your chin—the triangles that are your face except for your round eyes, dark and wet and shining. Your beauty, I want to say, is yours and not mine, and in this moment I realize I can’t love you out of desperation but awe, only awe will do. The rest of the night is sad but we spend it side-by-side, just like we’ve done for seven years, and give in to the heavy, dreamless sleep of gnats floating on a pond’s surface, not quite dead but almost, wings folded and tight, hands clasped in grief and reverence of the dark and unknowable.

V.
My mom and I are in her entryway, my hand on the doorknob, about to leave. How is your life, she says. It’s fine, I say, and she smiles sadly, knows what I mean. I tell her about marriage counseling—I tell her some things and leave out other things. She starts to cry, and I’m amazed by the clarity of her tears. She wears no makeup, hasn’t for years, and her skin is the color of sandstone, glowing from the sun. I don’t want you to be unhappy, she says. I don’t want you to get hurt. I try not to cry but still my voice strains, rises. Mom, I say, I’m sorry. I’ve made so many mistakes. We hug and I’m taller than her, somehow, though I’ve never been taller before. And then we walk outside into the bright hot day, into the light.

VI.
We’re the only ones sitting on the patio because it’s 96 degrees outside. You order a huckleberry and jalapeño margarita and I have chilled rosé. I ask if you need a partner, and you say sometimes you do and other times you don’t. But when you do, I say, that partner is me. Of course, you say, of course. You’re unhappy here in the same way I would be unhappy elsewhere. I look at you and know I’ll love you forever. This makes me start to cry, so you hand me a napkin as the waitress comes out to pick up our empties. Finished, she asks, and we both nod.
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