Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 23: After the Wedding

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 23: After the Wedding · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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You showed me yours, she said. I've been trying
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to work out how to show you mine. Yours. I have
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a year too, she said. You wrote yours down. My
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Playful Wife. Episode 23. After the Wedding.
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Written by Mia. After the wedding there was a
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particular quiet. Not sadness. Nothing remotely
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like sadness. More the specific texture of the
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aftermath of large things, the return to ordinary
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scale, the city re -emerging around you as you
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come down off the peak, the flat resuming its
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modest two -person proportions after days of
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being one cell in an enormous organism of family.
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A wedding gathers a hundred lives into a single
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roaring point and holds them there for three
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days and then it lets them go and they scatter
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back to their hundred ordinary orbits and the
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scattering leaves a hush. We came home into that
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hush. Saloni slept on the flight back. She slept
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the way she sleeps after she has spent everything.
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Completely. Instantly. Her head finding my shoulder
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before the plane had finished climbing. gone
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before the seatbelt sign went off. I did not
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sleep. I watched the clouds, the white floor
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of them under the wing, and I thought, the way
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you think on planes at that altitude where your
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ordinary life looks small enough to see whole.
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I thought about the fire and my brother's face,
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and the turban my hands had tied, and the gold
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silk, and Mira on the dark lawn telling me I
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was the other thing, not the thing I'd feared.
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I thought about the year as a shape now nearly
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complete, an arc I could almost see the whole
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of from up here, the way you can only ever see
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a mountain's shape once you are off it and some
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distance away. At home, unpacking, she took the
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gold silk out of the case and held it up, worn
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once, folded now, the creases of the folding
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already in it, and looked at it with the particular
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expression she reserves for fabric that has been
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through something. What do you do, she said,
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not quite to me, with a thing that's been part
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of an occasion? You keep it, I said. You don't
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wear it again because it already did what it
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needed to do. It used itself up being exactly
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right for one day. Wearing it again would be
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asking it to be ordinary, and it isn't ordinary
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anymore. So you keep it. Folded, and you take
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it out sometimes and look at it and remember
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the day and that's its whole job now. To be looked
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at and to make you remember. She turned and looked
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at me over the gold silk. When did you become
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someone who understood this, she said. There
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was wonder in it and something tender under the
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wonder. You, the man who three years ago would
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have asked why I own more than four shirts. When
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did you become a person who knows what you do
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with a thing that's been part of an occasion?
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Recently, I said. She folded the silk the rest
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of the way, the practice fold, and set it on
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the high shelf with the other cut things, and
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she smiled to herself and went on unpacking.
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But she had heard the whole answer inside the
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one word. Recently. This year. This is who the
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year made. A man who knows what to keep and how
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and why and what keeping is for. In January,
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a new year. I had been writing in the notebook
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for nine months by then, and it was almost full.
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The pages thinning toward the back cover, the
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way a thing announces its own ending before you
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are ready for it. I looked at it one morning
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at the kitchen table and thought about everything
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it contained. The whole arc from the October
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kitchen to the December fire. Every room I had
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walked into that year and the different man I
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had been in each of them. The balcony with the
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watering can. The bathroom drum in the dark.
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The plastic stool. The framework I had built
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when no one would give me the instructions. The
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gym and Samir's silences. The slow relearning
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of my own wife. All of it in nine months of handwriting.
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The record of a man becoming someone. And I thought
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about two things people had said to me. I thought
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about Mira in our kitchen in October, more than
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a year before, telling me about paying attention.
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Don't stop paying attention. That's the whole
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of what I know. No, that was Kaveri. Kaveri had
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said that, over a coffee on a Sunday. Mira had
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said the other thing, the thing about the parts
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that are only yours to carry. They had both,
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in their different ways, been telling me the
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same thing, that a marriage is what you choose
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to do with what you see, and what you choose
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to hold, and what you choose to let be held.
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And I thought about Celonie, months before, in
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the monsoon, asking if she could read the notebook
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someday, and me saying someday, not yet. The
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last closed room, the one even our remarkable
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honesty had left shut. I had told her there was
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a room I hadn't let her into, the plastic stool
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nights, the worst of what I had thought in the
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pit of the year, the things a person thinks down
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there that he is ashamed of after. I had said
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I would let her in eventually, because a marriage
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should have no permanently locked rooms, in the
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end. Just not yet. I sat at the kitchen table
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with the nearly full notebook in my hands and
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understood that it was no longer not yet. That
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the wedding had closed something, that the new
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year had opened something, that the someday she
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had asked for and I had promised had quietly
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arrived while I wasn't watching for it, the way
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the important arrivals always do. She was at
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the other end of the table, working her own sketchbook
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open. I got up. I carried the notebook around
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the table to her. I put it down in front of her,
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on top of her work, which I would never ordinarily
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do, and the wrongness of putting it on top of
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her work was how she understood that this was
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not a small thing. She looked at the notebook,
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then at me. Now, she said. Now, I said. She picked
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it up carefully, the way she picks up good fabric,
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with both hands. knowing there is something inside
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that requires handling correctly. She did not
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open it immediately. She held it and looked at
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me for a moment longer, checking, making sure,
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and I nodded, and she opened it to the first
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page and began to read. She read it slowly, over
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almost two hours, and I did not watch her face.
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This was the hardest thing, not the giving but
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the not watching. Every instinct said to watch,
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to read her reading, to track each page across
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her features and brace for the bad ones, the
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plastic stool pages, the pages where I had written
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the things I was ashamed of. But watching would
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have been a way of standing over her while she
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read, of making my own anxiety into a pressure
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on her, and she had given me, all year, the gift
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of the unwatched moment, and I owed her the same
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now, more than ever now. So, I made chai. I cleaned
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the kitchen, slowly, thoroughly, every surface,
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a man finding things to do with his hands. I
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went out to the balcony for a while and looked
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at the January city, cold and clear. I came back
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in. She was still reading. I could hear, sometimes,
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the turn of a page, and once a long stillness
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on what I knew, from the place in the notebook,
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was one of the worst stretches, and I made myself
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stay at the sink with my back to her, and let
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her be alone with the worst of me, which she
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had asked to see, and which I had finally let
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her. When she was done, she sat with the notebook
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closed in her hands. I came and sat across from
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her. I waited. The kitchen was very quiet. You
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wrote all of this, she said, finally. Yes. About
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all of it. From the beginning. The kitchen, the
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everything. She looked down at the closed book.
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The parts where you hated me. You wrote those
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too. You didn't take them out. You didn't protect
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yourself, or me, or... You just wrote it. All
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of it. The true thing. Even when the true thing
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was ugly. No, I said. I didn't protect anything.
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That was the whole point of it. It's the one
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place I told the entire truth. If I'd protected
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myself, it would have been worthless. It would
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have been just another careful thing, and I'd
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had enough of careful things. She was quiet for
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a long time. I sat across from her. and let her
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be quiet. I had learned this year the enormous
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difference between a silence you fill and a silence
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you keep, and this was a silence to keep, the
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most important one I would ever keep. This is
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the bravest thing you've ever done, she said
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at last. The notebook, I said, or the year. She
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looked up at me. Her eyes were full, brimming.
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Though she did not cry, she does not cry easily,
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my wife. The feeling has nowhere to exit through
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that particular channel. Yes, she said. Just
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that. Yes. The answer to a question I had offered
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as either -or, and she had refused the either
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-or and taken both, the way she had taken both
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at the show when I asked if the name meant her
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or me. The notebook and the year. The writing
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of it and the living of it. Both were the bravest
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thing. Both were the same thing. I reached across
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the table and covered her hands with mine, the
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notebook between them. Under both our hands,
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the whole year, written down, held now by four
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hands instead of two. There are no more locked
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rooms, I said. That was the last one. You've
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been in all of them now. There's nothing left
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I haven't shown you. I know, she said. She turned
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her hands over under mine, so we were palm to
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palm with the book beneath. I felt it, reading
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it. I kept waiting for the place where you held
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something back, the way I would have, the way
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everyone does, and it never came. You just kept
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opening doors, room after room, right to the
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back of the house. She pressed my hands. Nobody's
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ever shown me the back of the house before. People
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show you the front rooms, the good furniture.
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You showed me the whole house, including the
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parts you were ashamed of, especially those.
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Her voice was very steady and very full. Do you
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understand what that is? To be shown the whole
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house? It's the thing everyone wants and almost
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no one ever gets. And you just handed it to me.
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On a Tuesday in January, on top of my sketchbook.
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We sat there a long time, palm to palm, the notebook
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between us, the January light moving slowly across
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the kitchen table, the back of the house finally
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open, every room of it, the light on in all of
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them. For a few days after she read it, something
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was different between us. and I could not at
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first tell whether the difference was good. She
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was quieter. She watched me more. I would look
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up and find her looking, with an expression I
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couldn't read, the look of a person revising
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a thing they thought they'd finished. I began
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to worry, in the old way, the way I'd thought
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I had retired, that I had made a mistake. That
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showing her the back of the house had shown her
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something she could not unsee, that the worst
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pages, the plastic stool pages, the pages where
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I had hated her with a completeness that frightened
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me even to record, had done a damage the rest
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of the notebook could not undo. On the fourth
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evening, she told me what the quiet was. We were
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on the balcony. She had been turning her cup
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in her hands for a while, the way she does before
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a hard thing. And then she set it down. You showed
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me yours, she said. I've been trying to work
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out how to show you mine. Yours? I have a year
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too, she said. You wrote yours down. I never
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wrote mine. I made it into cloth instead, into
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the collections, but cloth doesn't say the words.
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It only holds the colors. There are words I never
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said. From my side, you think you were the only
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one in a pit that year. You weren't. I had my
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own. You just never saw it because I'm better
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at hiding mine than you ever were at hiding yours,
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and because you were so deep in your own you
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didn't have the attention to spare. I don't blame
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you for that, but you should know it existed.
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It's only fair. You opened your whole house.
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I've been standing in front of mine with the
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key. And then she told me. She told me the inside
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of the year from where she had stood, which was
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not where I had imagined her standing. I had
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built, in my mind, a version of her from that
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time, composed, contained, the one who held large
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feelings without spilling, moving through the
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wreckage with her terrible grace. That version
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was real, but it was the front of her house.
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Behind it, She told me now, had been something
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I had never suspected, a guilt so total it had
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nearly unmade her. Nights she had lain awake
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certain, she had destroyed the one genuinely
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good man she had ever been given, a self -hatred
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she had hidden precisely, because she felt she
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had forfeited the right to be comforted for it.
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How could I come to you for comfort, she said,
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when I was the thing you needed comforting from?
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There was no one I was allowed to fall apart
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to. You were grieving, and it was my doing. I
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couldn't add my grief to yours. You have had
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to carry both. So I carried mine alone in the
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workroom, at night, into the cloth. You think
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you suffered in secret on a plastic stool. I
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suffered in secret six feet away, making blouses,
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hating myself. performing being fine so that
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you'd have one person in the house who seemed
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solid. We were both in pits that year, back to
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back, neither of us knowing the other was down
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there too. I sat with that. It rearranged the
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year, not its facts, but its weather, the distribution
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of its suffering. I had spent 18 months half
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believing I had been the one who bore it, the
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wronged party doing the heroic work of staying.
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And here she was, telling me that six feet away,
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the whole time, another person had borne a thing
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just as heavy and far more lonely, because at
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least my pain had been the kind the world calls
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legitimate, and hers had not. She had carried
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guilt with no right to be consoled for it, which
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is the loneliest cargo there is. Why tell me
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now, I said. Not a challenge. I wanted to understand
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the timing. Because you showed me yours, she
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said. A thing like that can't be one -sided.
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You can't open your whole house to someone and
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keep a room locked yourself. It turns the opening
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into a debt, and I won't have you in debt for
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the bravest thing you ever did. So, she spread
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her hands a small gesture. Here it is. Now we're
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even. Now we've both shown each other the back
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of the house. Now there's nothing either of us
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is carrying alone that the other doesn't know
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about. I reached over and took her hand. I wish
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you'd told me then, I said. We could have been
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in the pit together, instead of back to back.
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We weren't ready then, she said. We didn't have
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the language yet. We built it over the year.
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You can't say the deepest thing until you've
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built the words for it and we hadn't then. We
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have now. Maybe that's what the year was for.
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Building the words. So that eventually on a balcony,
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we could say the things that needed words we
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didn't used to have. Any more locked rooms? I
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asked. On your side? She thought about it honestly.
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No, she said. That was the last one. The guilt
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was the thing I couldn't say. It felt like the
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one thing I didn't deserve to set down. Now I've
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set it down. No more locked rooms. On either
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side. She looked at me. Do you know how rare
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that is? Most marriages run 50 years on a dozen
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locked rooms each, whole wings sealed off, and
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they call it peace, and it's really just never
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having dug the tunnel. We dug the tunnel. It
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nearly killed us, but we dug it. I thought of
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Kaveri, whose marriage had died not of any dramatic
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thing but of inattention, of two people who stopped
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digging toward each other and let the rooms seal
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one by one until nothing was connected anymore,
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just two people in adjacent sealed wings calling
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the silence comfort. We had done the opposite.
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We had been forced, by the worst thing, to dig,
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and the digging had connected every room. I'm
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glad we dug it. I said, even though it nearly
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killed us, especially because it nearly killed
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us, the things that don't cost anything don't
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connect anything. You only get the tunnel by
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paying for the tunnel. She leaned into me and
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we stayed out on the balcony until it was late.
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Two people with no locked rooms left between
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them, which is either the most frightening thing
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in a marriage or the safest, and which had become,
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for us, after everything, the same thing. To
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be continued in episode 24, What Comes After.
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Playful Wife. If this story is staying with you,
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Thank you for listening.