Sometimes You Just Don’t Know, You Know?
Todd Mercer

I DIDN’T FOLLOW her meaning when Jane said, “I think we should take a break.”

We were in the midst of several home improvement projects. I figured if Jane wanted me to lay off that stuff for a while, fine. But then she made herself clearer and left for an apartment across town that she’d already leased. Jane was tired of me, or us, or both. I’ve spent my entire adult life catching up with the facts.

After that I had plenty of time for reflection. Never been a fan of it. She wanted me to guess what the problem was. As a dude, I’m poorly suited to the solving of relationship mysteries, but this wasn’t optional.

The first week I realized I’m a terrible cook. Heating up soup is in my wheelhouse though. Nearly every other meal went too wrong to eat. It’s easy to lose interest in soup. I became a regular at sandwich shops. Taco stands.

Even so, at age forty-five I’d shrunk to my lowest adult weight. When I finally saw Jane after a couple months of bachelor life, my appearance alarmed her. Meanwhile Jane had an undeniable healthy glow. She looked lovely in a new dress.

We met to talk about our individual progress on the problem which I hadn’t been informed of or identified independently yet. Some people will change your life without even saying why.

What if our main problem was that I’m clueless at guessing our problem? How does a guy break out of a loop like that?

She asked if I’d been dating anyone interesting during our time apart, as if she were just my guy-buddy or something. That made me laugh, because I was barely taking showers and spent all my hours either at work or watching TV. I postponed telling friends that Jane moved out, hoping it would be temporary enough to never mention. Dating!? Please. Then it hit me that Jane asked that because she was seeing someone, probably someone interesting.

My brain showed me movies that made me sad.

I handled it like my father would have and drank too much for a few days. It was nice except the headaches. Nobody told me to put the bottles into the recycling. That’s freedom, I suppose.

Almost three months after going her own way, Jane called and asked what I’d learned self-reflecting. By then I was wearing dirty clothes most days, had quit shaving, and just let the city keep my car after it was towed. Completely stumped.

I suggested we play a word game to name the issue we had. As in, what does it rhyme with? She didn’t feel like doing that. Jane reiterated that I should’ve realized where we’d gone wrong without hints. Yeah… well… I wasn’t buying that. Men don’t know what they haven’t been told. Fact.

Would she set the question up as multiple choice? You know, have an A, a B, and a C option to choose between, with two options being incorrect responses?

She laughed at me, but I could understand.

A week later I came home from work and found Jane mopping the kitchen. There was a fresh pie cooling on the counter. A casserole bubbled away aromatically in the oven. “Surprised” doesn’t begin to cover my feeling. She looked healthier than ever. Fulfilled. Striking, really.

She said, “I started to want you to be someone that you’re not.”

Someone like that interesting guy you were seeing? I thought, but thank God, I didn’t ask aloud. Instead I said, “Okay. I’ll work on that.”

I was willing to agree to whatever by then.

But Jane didn’t want me to be someone else anymore. She’d apparently processed matters that I still hadn’t recognized. She was happy enough being here to be here.

I decided not to push for explanations. The whole weird period would remain an uncomfortable haze in the middle of an otherwise long and (as far as I know) steady relationship. We went back to normal with Jane picking houses for us to move into and me fixing stuff. Without making an announcement I resolved to be more affectionate and vocal about how much she meant to me.

That probably wasn’t related to what went wrong in the first place, but it didn’t hurt.

We never separated again, until the day the canyon fire did it for us. We were tighter than ever from then on. We were close.

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Todd Mercer’s short collection, Ingenue, was a winner of the Celery City contest. His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance is available free at Right Hand Pointing. Recent work appears in Literary Yard, MacQueen’s Quinterly and The South Shore Review.

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