STORIES: A Seasonal Life (Continuation, Part V)

All through dinner I guess their moods by gestures and expressions. I’ve learned it is more telling than how they say they spent their day and have become the human thermometer of our lives. Sarah, fidgety, downcast, not meeting anyone in the eye, is either in one of her blue moods or something has happened that she chooses not to share. William and Christopher are deep in a discussion on technology; and Joshua, well, as with so much that youth allows us, he is impervious to stress. But I keep flicking back to Sarah with my attention, deciding there’s more than “Nothing” bothering her tonight. And there is something else abrew—with William, at least tonight. He usually never speaks of the pressure of his job, and with almost governmental restriction maintains the separation of church and state. Tonight he says, “Oh, I’m just starting to get a little fed up with Stevens,” but my, “What’s he starting up now?” is met with just a crooked grin and head shake that tells me it is reaching a more serious level in his mind. I make a mental note to scratch his back tonight; it always seems to give him confidence and calm. Sarah meanwhile appears to recover and brightly mentions she’d like to go to the mall with friends after supper. We readily agree because in truth, the shadow of a frowning Sarah can tend to put a damper on us all.
We lie in bed and I gently rake my nails along the length of William’s back. It makes him helpless as a kitten, and his soft murmurs are like a purr of satisfaction. I will take away the tension with this simple act of caring; genuine, and genuinely well received. I do, of course, still love him though in a different way I suppose than those troubled early days when we were young. Tonight we went upstairs to bed together, and that’s a change in our routine since our bodies seem to live in different time zones across the coasts. But he is mentally weary, and I am making a concerted effort to avoid the living room couch and break the seasonal cycle that lulls me to sleep while watching anything on TV. Soon I hear his breathing slow and I know he is asleep. I spoon against him and it feels so warm and nice. But practical becomes acceptable in any long relationship, and with his height I find it hard to breathe against his back, worried too that I will wake him with my breathing on his skin. I turn as carefully as I can to lie on my other side, and William, still asleep, turns with me and lays his arm across my hip to hold me close. Ah, this is so much better, and I am content for only a few minutes before I also drift away.