Prompt: And yet she felt that, however she might revile and mock his image, her anger was also a form of homage. She had left the classroom in disdain that was not wholly sincere, feeling that perhaps the secret lay behind those dark eyes upon which his long lashes flung a quick shadow. This anger against him was nameless and offended her baffled pride.
George Baker got down on his knees in the midst of a
roaring crowd, that he himself organised, to propose to the lovely, Christine
Scott. Back then he said, “Christine, I will love you and honor you all the
days of my life, will you be my beautiful wife?” And while Christine saw the
love of her life promise himself to her, the crowd stood witness to a union of
two beautiful lives.
Michael was 3 years old now and had learnt to walk just enough to get him from
one room to the other and innocent that he was, he seemed he knew what was
happening between his parents. Michael could guess when something wasn't right
and when tension grew and he cried at the feel of it. He cried when his mother
cried and he cried when his dad yelled.
George and Christine found themselves in a beautiful
apartment in Manhattan. Their home was exactly the way Christine dreamed it to
be: a place where they both had reason to be a part of each other’s busy lives.
For what can a man and woman do to survive this increasingly tough economy and
still give time to each other? They can
come home to each other. And that’s what they did.
Every evening Christine came home from another day at
the office and awaited George’s homecoming.
Her colleagues at Harwick industries, a growing name in the textile
producing sector, had all been there when Christine threw her bouquet. They
were all there and they were happy for her, just as she was.
And when George came home from his real estate job,
there was nothing more welcoming than his wife’s sweet embrace.
The neighbors swore by their intimacy saying it was
the only sound close to noise that they ever heard from the Baker’s room. They were one of the newest couples on the
block and had people’s attention wherever they went. The Bakers were recognized
by the nearby coffee shops, the launders, the diners and the cinema. There was just one more thing left to
complete them and that came in the form of a surprise.
The Bakers now had a little one to hold who shared not
only their surname but also their looks. Little baby, Michael had his father’s
eye lashes and his mother’s pink nose. He had his father’s jaw but his mother’s
lips. ‘Rosy’ is what they called his cheeks,
but George preferred the word ‘handsome’.
Having a child may put a woman’s life on hold for nine
months and definitely bring a number of changes into daily living but these
things are a given. A child brings along
with him a number of responsibilities on the part of his parents and also an
amount of liability. These things are a small price to pay for what you get in
return: Love.
George and Christine loved Michael deeply.
When Christine broke the news to George, he picked her
up and spun her around and then got down on his knees once more and kissed her
womb, the womb that carried his promise of love to her. They loved Michael much
before he was given into their hands
Michael may have been their pride and joy, but no one
can blame this darling for what was to become of them 5 years from then. Poor
Michael, he was too young to know.
Life became difficult, as it does with most newly born
parents. Diapers were just one of the problems.
Savings, work hours, baby sitters,
finances, groceries, medical check-ups, toys, the clutter, the mess, the
unorganized sleep schedules, the crying, the feeding, the weight, the diets, the time, it was all a part of
life, but not the kind that they were prepared for.
Christine was at the peak of her career and was soon
to receive a promotion while George’s job suffered. Every hour that he worked payed for the child’s
needs. Every penny he made was now either in savings or in spending on a wife
and child while real estate wasn't doing too well or maybe it was just him.
Stress and uncertainty in a work life can take a big
toll on personal living and Christine saw the worst of it. It was difficult now
to keep the romance alive between the two. Why alive? She couldn't even find
the time to think of it, for no fault of hers that is. Between a demanding job
and a mother's trials, the last thing she had time for was a candle lit dinner.
Sometimes, George came home to no wife at all but a baby sitter and his handsome
little boy.
Christine was expected to work late most evenings and
she hated every bit of it, but knowing that her husband’s job was not the best
one at the time, she was responsible now for the family just as much as he was.
The dream they had of having more two or three kids was far fetched now.
Reality caught up with them.
The neighbors now heard noise. They heard doubts in
yelling voices, they heard cries of not just an infant, they heard anger and
stress levels rise, they even heard blood pressure rise. It was never a private affair, these two,
because they were after all a recognizable part of the neighborhood.
While they did their best to sort it out and keep
their lives within their homes, the word naturally gets around. The word gets
around whether you like it or not. And
while the people spoke, nothing was made better.
Michael cried when his dad barged out the door and
swore he was never coming back.
It has been three years since the separation, since
George got down on his knees in court and kissed his little boy goodbye. Not
forever, he would meet him on the weekends but not throughout the week. It’s
been three years since Christine wept herself to sleep after George walked out
on her and after having put Michael to sleep, lying to him, telling that
precious little boy that everything would be okay.
The struggle was long, the nights were sleepless,
Christine now had a child to raise, and a life to move on with. The first year
was bad. Bad would be an understatement.
Her life seemed to have been falling apart.
Soon after the separation, Michael fell ill with a flu
so bad that she had to take leave from work to look after him. She couldn't
work late now, now that she had no husband to count on.
Every night his words came back to her, “I will love
you and honor you all the days of my life”.
Sometimes she laughed and then broke down into tears.
Sometimes she cried endlessly. Many a times, she sat herself down on the
bathroom floor and wept till that was all the energy she could give to weeping.
She had to save some of her energy for when Michael got up from his nap.
She knew that she had made mistakes, she and George,
both. She also knew that it was wrong of him to leave and she wondered where
the man she loved had gone and when had he left and she wasn't thinking about
the divorce. He had left long before that night.
Christine had to keep living and living well, she
couldn't let her health deteriorate and she couldn't let this failure in their
marriage ruin Michael’s life. They both knew well that separation shouldn't be
something that Michael gets the worst of.
And so Michael was sent to school, to a good school
and was given all that he needed to develop holistically. From 1st
grade art school to music lessons and basketball coaching. Michael was a good
student until a fight broke out in one of his classes. That was just the first
of many. Over a period of time, Michael’s ordeals with his classmates grew more
frequent and sometimes out of control what could a six year old boy do to harm
another six year old boy?
Apparently, a lot, when you have a basketball in hand.
It wasn't long before Christine received a call from Mrs
Jones asking to meet both, her and Mr Bakers at the school. Mrs Jones was aware of Michael’s parents’ separation,
but she needed to speak to them about their son’s behavior in class. He was
acing every subject but his behavior was to be looked into.
Christine did what she had to. She gave George a call
and didn't waste time on the small talk. Three years of separation saw enough
of awkward small talk and she knew it wasn't helping anyone anymore.
Although she and George met every weekend to drop
Michael off at each other’s places, they never really spoke. He didn't look
like he wanted to. She looked like she needed to. But no words could help her
unspoken emotions.
The school bells rang loud and clear while the kids
shuffled out of their classrooms and into the lunch room. Michael spotted his mom sitting on a bench
outside his classroom and his dad sitting at the other end of the same bench.
He ran to his mom and his dad and took turns at receiving a kiss from them
both. He then went to the lunch room himself and caught up with some of his
friends while his parents walked into the classroom.
This was the longest they were near each other since a
very long time and what hurt her most at this point was how composed George was
throughout. It didn't look like it affected him even a bit to have been
separated, to have loved and then lost or to have known someone, lived with
that someone, made love to that someone and then, here, sit by this someone and
be as ignorant to all of it as a man without a memory, let alone a man without
a heart.
As these thoughts ran through her head, she made her
way into the classroom along with him, without carrying out any conversation.
If there was one thing she would have loved to believe
it was that he had the pride of a man who never stooped to show his emotions.
Isn't that want men boast about? Isn't that what they consider ‘manly’? She could
see traits of this quality in her son too. The poor little boy knew not how to
channelize his emotions growing up with just a mother around most of the time.
A little boy needs his father in equal measure.
She may not have wanted to admit it, but there was a
voice within her that hoped the teacher would side with her on that point…
But the teacher said none of it. It was the teacher’s
responsibility to bring to their notice the behavior that Michael was
displaying among his classmates. She used the terms ‘aggressive’, ‘impulsive’
and she even said ‘hyperactive’. And
these words were like spears through Christine’s heart. Her young boy being
judged like this or rather, evaluated like this for no fault of his, the
emotional turmoil of having parents that have separated is not fair to any
child. And her anger grew and grew until she couldn't take it anymore.
She rose and thanked the teacher for her concern even
before the teacher could finish. She didn't feel the need to hear it all. She
knew.
When they were out, she turned to him and said “I do
not know if you are to blame for this or I am to blame for this. But that
doesn't matter anymore, I’m done thinking this is about us, you and I are out
of the picture now, Michael needs a better life, he needs a stable life.
I don’t know if you care enough, but there’s no going
back to what you and I were. Fix this George, fix his life up, you may have got
an out from our failing marriage but you don’t get an out here, especially when
you bring a child into this world” , thoughts of every single moment they
shared together flashed back in a flood of tears, something she wished would
never happen to her in front of him.
He held her shoulders and she could feel a tremble in
his arm, a shiver she recognized from before.
Back when an argument found its way to their dinner
table when times were hard and she cried and he went down on his knees and held
her hands, he had trembled then too. That night he admitted that he was as
scared as she was about the troubled times they were going through and that was
when she felt the human likeness in him. She knew then he had emotions that
never really show.
This was something she had forgotten for a while
now. Now she remembered.
There were two sides to this story. Only hers was
known to her.
He assured her that he would do what it takes to allow
Michael to change his behavior and then he bid her goodbye and left.
He left once more. This
time, she did not hurt as bad. George held a secret. A secret only he knew; the
reason he had left in the first place.
If he could live with that
shiver, then most definitely, he felt something. And if he hurt deep inside and
could live with it, he knew what he was doing. And yet she felt that, however she might revile and mock his image, her
anger was also a form of homage. She had left the classroom in disdain that was
not wholly sincere, feeling that perhaps the secret lay behind those dark eyes
upon which his long lashes flung a quick shadow. This anger against him was
nameless and offended her baffled pride.
But that was it. Pride.
Pride was the cause and result of it all.
