My stomach is churning. I watch my hands shake as I reach for the ticket in my purse. I hand it to the conductor. The train’s rhythmical motion swaying me side to side giving me some comfort. The conductor punches a hole in my ticket. He doesn’t look up and barely notices my trembling hands. It’s a fast train. Three hours until I deliver my letter.
A familiar rocking and if I wasn’t so anxious I would drift off to sleep. This is a particularly fierce German winter. The snow is thick with below zero temperatures. Cold, I zip up my feather down jacket but remove my beanie and woollen scarf and stow it in my small daypack. I stare at the passing villages with their stone houses as the train rockets past them. My eyes let the landscape pass me by. It’s a series of moving images, flickering quickly in and out of the frame of my glass window. I’m alone in my row. I’m glad for that, no need to be polite and risk some sort of conversation. I’m distracted. I’m consumed in thoughts. I’m engulfed by my emotions. I feel my feet snug in my leather walking boots. I hold my daypack tightly on my lap. I run my fingers over the envelope inside the front pocket. I’m not sure I’m ready for this. What if I don’t find him. What if he is unwell. What if he doesn’t want to see me? I turn my wedding ring around and around my finger as I stare pensively at the outside world, a disconnection, a kind of disembodied experience living this scene as if it were a film.
I wonder about all the missed Saturday nights when he would say he would be home. I would expectantly listen out for the front gate, his recognisable footsteps, his shoe shuffling on the door mat and the jangling of keys as he opens the front door. The meal prepared, the table set, the wine poured, the candle ready to be lit. I was waiting and wanting. I would eventually go to my empty bed hoping and praying this would not be repeated again in another week. Curled up in a ball, the tears would stream and turn into a heart-wrenching sob saturating the crisp white linen pillow case. The heartache, the worry, the fear for his safety. But I knew I’d get a call eventually with some reason for his absence. The more absences, the more the pattern emerged. I cried less. The meals were more practical and I would go to bed frustrated by what seemed his indifference to me, his wife of 15 years. This time he missed coming home four weekends in a row. I feel he won’t ever return.
I run through what all the possible reasons for his absences could be. I study the bank statements for clues. I watch his mail and I analyse our text messages. His explanations seem reasonable, his pattern of spending is not unusual, his mail is only routine bills. He is talking to me less and less on the phone and his exchange is more transactional than loving. He seems different from how he was before he lost his job. Perhaps that is what changed him. He was a manager and now he is a factory worker. It’s work and it pays the bills but he struggles to adjust to this change. I noticed how he was starting to act like one of the blokes, his language is more gruff, he is swearing when he never used to. He seems disinterested in life and seemly depressed though I’m no psychologist and he would never see one.
I’m almost at my destination. I feel the knots in my stomach and my breathing become faster. I feel for the letter in my pack and am sure this is the right thing to do. The train pulls up and I disembark having donned my beanie, scarf and gloves. I throw my pack over my shoulders and walk out of the station gate to an awaiting taxi. He takes me to my husband’s factory. I’m there 15 minutes early before the shift finishes. Standing outside the entrance under a bus shelter I meet a woman who sees the letter in my hand. She asks me who it is for. She offers to give it to him, she knows him. I look at her again, her blonde hair, my age and plump. She has a very friendly smile. I explain I’m his wife. Then suddenly her face becomes ashen. She doesn’t speak and I can tell something is not right. I ask if she is ok and she shakes her head as if to say no but gestures to let me know she will be. The siren sounds and the factory workers file out of the building and disperse to their cars, or to awaiting friends and family. My husband appears and sees the two of us together. I know now. He has a double life. I give her the letter and I hurriedly leave.
This is a story shared with me by the caretaker of a place where come to write. It’s based on a real experience though these are my words and I have fictionalised it somewhat. This isn’t first time that I have heard of a husband’s double life and the way in which a lie can be for him his own truth. I wondered how a person can live like this, knowing that they are betraying their partner but somehow living a life that provides them with a sense of freedom. It struck me that perhaps is it a personality trait that could be triggered by a life event. The perspective changes and the social structures change for them. It was put to me that being bluntly honest is far harder to do so the fabrication of parts of truths are a solution to the big, brave decisions we can courageously make. To this day the wife in this story doesn’t know what happened and why. And she also wonders if her husband is self aware enough to figure it out. In the end there is no perfect life and even with a commitment to one another, there is still no assurance of if being life long. The story was told to me on the day my own divorce papers were sent to me.
So here’s to all the romantics out there, may we live a loving life with the intention of manifesting joy.