Forgiveness

A good marriage - an enduring marriage - requires forgiveness. From your wife. You will do stupid things, say stupid things, forget non-stupid things because you are a man and your picture is next to the word stupid in the dictionary.

 

 

When James was a younger man, a father for the first time, he took a trip to visit his wife Linda's family down south, and to show off his young son. It was a sweaty hot summer bereft of air conditioning but James assumed it was always so in northern Alabama. One night, all of the middle generation of the family was outside, sitting around a campfire, drinking beer and swapping increasingly embarrassing stories as the cooler emptied, while the grandparents and the grandchildren slept in the house.

 

Brother-in-law Gerry, had misspent his youth with an enthusiasm only practicing Catholics with a rock solid belief in the redemption of the confessional seemed capable of - as far as James' boringly straight-A’s Lutheran adolescence had observed. Put another way, Gerry had been the kind of kid that shoved kids like James in lockers on the bleak battleground of high school hallways between classes. After high school, Gerry found work in construction which allowed him to indulge what seemed to James to be classic American vices; beer for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and muscle cars. In fact, all the brothers and brothers-in-law worked in construction, except for James, who worked in an office and was a bit of a curiosity to Linda's family.

 

As the night turned toward morning, Gerry told a story that featured the sky blue '67 Shelby Mustang he still owned, to the envy of all the other males in the family. One fateful night, he had gone out with like-minded coworkers after a long day on the job. Gerry and his friends implemented a therapeutic replenishing of electrolytes by Budweiser. They apparently over-medicated as Gerry (to his great credit) realized he was in no shape to drive his pickup home or even find his keys despite the fact they were right there in his right front pocket. So he called his wife, Linda's sister Valerie, his high school sweetheart, and asked, then implored, then begged Valerie to come pick him up with the Mustang and drive his drunk ass home.

 

“She doesn’t say a thing. We’re on the road and it’s late and we’re going so fast I feel like I’m in a rocket with the night stars racing past us like we're making the jump to hyperspace. I ask her if she’s mad-“

 

At which point Valerie joined the narrative.

 

"I'm way past mad," Valerie said.

 

James had ridden with Valerie just once and had vowed it would never happen again. Keeping your eyes on the road was neither a rule nor a guideline for Valerie. She drove as if she knew the road would still be there the next time she chose to look in its direction. James nodded in recognition of the terror in Gerry's voice as he continued his story.

 

"I figured I must've forgotten something; birthday, anniversary… dinner. I mean, I should've-"

 

"Your dinner was still sitting on the plate, four hours old. Yum yum," Valerie said.

 

"Anyway, I'm looking out at the oncoming traffic and the headlights look like they're coming straight at us," Gerry said.

 

Or Valerie was driving straight at them, James thought.

 

"So, I reached over…"

 

Oh no, James thought.

 

"...and I grabbed the steering wheel and I, I, uh-"

 

"I think 'jerk' is the word you're struggling to find," Valerie said.

 

"I was going to say pulled," Gerry offered.

 

"Jerk," Valerie repeated. "You almost put us in a ditch."

 

"I would've just died." The words left James' mouth unchecked by reason or caution.

There was a beat of silence filled only with the crackle and pop of the campfire.

"So, that's what you think of me?" Linda asked.

James wasn't even sure he knew what he meant but he was sure from Linda's reaction that he'd better figure it out and fast. He also knew that telling her she had misunderstood or mistaken his meaning would only make things worse. He hoped what he was about to say would draw a laugh from the fire lit faces that looked at him in grim, grinning anticipation. James swallowed and spoke.

"Yes."

Linda's brothers - Eric and Michael - laughed, but her sisters - Valerie, Layla, and Lauren - and brothers-in-law - Gerry, Steve, and Marty - did not.

I'm a dead man, after all, James thought. At least it didn't happen in a fiery ball of twisted metal.

"I think the important thing here," James added, desperately reaching for his own legal defense strategy for the upcoming trial for his crimes against Linda, "is that - obviously - Gerry and Valerie got home safely that night and they're still married to this very day so Valerie was able to forgive Gerry-"

"Not yet," Valerie said.

"Not ever," Linda added.

Gerry looked James straight in the eye and said, "I might be a ghost. Bound by my sins to this world until my soul can be released by that which will never come." 

Aren't we all, James thought.