A Touch of Home

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Through the phone wires his voiced stung as Aviel proudly proclaimed, “that’s how I met my wife.”   Why was he talking to her about “his wife”?  Why couldn’t it have been her?  She wondered what was wrong with her.  Why couldn’t she be loved?  Why couldn’t she be treated well?  If not Aviel, why couldn’t she find someone to treat her like a queen when all she wanted to do was to love and be loved?  Why didn’t any man think she was pretty enough?  Why didn’t any man think she was smart enough?  Why didn’t any man think she was worthy enough to be an adored wife?   She muttered, “I hope you are being the best husband you can be.”  She did really mean it but it was the right thing to say.  Besides she was not the type of woman to infiltrate another sister's space.  She never envisioned that after their last encounter eleven years ago that he’d be married.  This was not a reality she was welcomed.  There was an ache in the pit of her stomach, the place where emotion lounge. 

Like most young girls she wanted to be a loving wife.   She remembered when she was a wife.  She tried to be loving.  There were times when she would ache from not being touched by a loving ad kind man.  There were times when her heart would be so heavy from being talked at, talked down, or crushed with the lash of her husband’s tongue.  She remembers feeling abandoned and rejected.   This wasn’t a feeling with which she could never grow to be accustomed.  A wife is supposed be comforted and protected by her husband. 

As she hung up the phone she realized that no matter the age, a woman perpetually loves when she loves deeply.  She felt imprisoned by her current lack of companionship.  The irony is that she never wanted to be alone.  Her desire was to be a loving and respectful wife.  She wanted to reap the love that she fancied sowing.  There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t daydream about being a wife to a loving husband.  There wasn’t a week that went by that she didn’t think about how to respond to the kindness of a man.  There wasn’t a month that went by that  a tear did not fall from the wells of her eyes as her thoughts tried to bloom.  It was like a passion,  like one of Langston Hughes' dreams  deferred, a fantasy that would not be fulfilled.   

 She remembered the first time she laid eyes on Aviel .  It was 37 years ago.  After the assembly before winter break in the Chicago Vocational High School auditorium.  He just stood there.  She caught his eye smiling at her from not far away.  She returned the smile as a welcome message.  She could feel his smile permeate her, it reached in and touched her soul.   His smile was a warm, comfortable, and tender touch that marked her heart for life   It would never leave her because she didn’t want it to ever leave.    She felt like she was home.  Her feet would not move.  They felt heavy and light at the same time.   She did not want her legs to carry her away.  She was not afraid to return his glare.  His eyes set her heart ablaze. They reached her soul.  She stood there helpless with no defense. 
  She was not afraid to feel him feeling her.  She always felt vulnerable because at the age of 16 Maayan needed her father to show her the love she sought from others.  She needed the comfort of a strong man in her life.  She needed the comfort of a loving father to guide her and make her feel pretty.  It was the only thing that could have protected her from the smile Aviel radiated her way that unforgettable day. 

Though Maayan did have a father, he wasn’t willing to be colored a real dad.  He was not engaged in her life so she was open and vulnerable.  She needed love and it seemed she was falling in love right there, in the auditorium, to this fine young man with the warm smile.  Aviel's smile was not seductive.  It  invited her, made her trust him.  She was locked in the moment so it was only natural for her to respond with an unquestionable and an enthusiastic “yes!” when Aviel asked, “do you think we have a chance?”
She doesn’t remember what happened to that comfort she interpreted at their first encounter.   She couldn't remember where it went wrong, when it went sour.   In real life,  love at first sight is most often a recipe for disaster.  Aviel and Maayan’s story was no different.  Maayan thought it would be one of those happily ever after stories like Cinderella.   She didn’t think about the fact that no one knows what happened after Cinderella's prince found her foot to fit into the shoe which possessed him. Thinking back, she should have been more cautious.  Even after so many years, his eyes, his voice, and his touch burned deeply and defenselessly as if in a crossfire.

She remembered how disillusioned she was twice before as she tried to reconnect with his comforting smile and that initial spirit of trust that overtook her in the high school auditorium.  That is was what she longed for all these years.  This  is what she could never forget.  This is what she could not stop feeling.   This  is what haunted her in her flawed marriage.  This  is what haunts her now as she approaches the winter years of her life.    As she stood there in the auditorium frozen and unable to move or speak,  she never thought she’d be his star-crossed lover, destined to be apart of him, as he loved someone else over and over again.  She remembered making love to him that laudable first time and then that wretched  last time.  She basked in the glory of "she was in the arms of her lover" when he stopped in mid stroke to ask her, “who have you been sleeping with?”   At that moment she forgot to enjoy his touch, to enjoy his smell, to enjoy being in his arms again.  She knew it would be the last time.  She began to grieve before the act was complete and he walked her home.  “I’ll never stop trying,” she said as she climbed those five stairs and he backed away from her reach.  What caused this uneasy stink?  Those words, “I’ll never stop trying,” imbued her brain, they sketched a permanent scar across her heart.  It was a mark that would haunt her defected marriage.
Part of her scarred heart would always belong to Aviel.    It would always long for him.  It would always yearn for that introductory sensation that flowed through her and spread like the wings of a butterfly.  She felt all this upon their first glance in the high school auditorium.  Those feelings of comfort, of trust, of protection,  of love would never leave her.   She could have been content there.  She would never forget the way her earth stood in a serene still for moments at his first stare.  The next day, she met the man with whom she would embark on a twenty – one year marriage where she lived in loneliness and fear.  She never understood why she was married and felt so alone.  She was not at home.   In the years she existed in the marriage that began to deteriorate before it started, she could not find home.  Aviel gave her courage to walk away almost eleven years ago.  Today as her thoughts caused her to feel somber, her face fell into her arms and started crying quietly. "Who will love me! What's wrong with me? Who will love me!"

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As she lay on the couch content with  the sound of Aviel’s smiling voice soliciting her help on his business project, she remembered the last time she heard it.  Again she felt a touch of home.  She found it amazing that it had been eleven years since she saw him last, the time.  She was married then, with 3 children.  But she was not happy.   She lived with her husband as a rejected wife he  didn’t touch her until he wanted her on her back.  He spoke few kind words and was more fond of the tools he used to fix his car.  One day when she asked why, he said boldly,  "I only need a woman for two things  and in two places, in the kitchen and the bedroom."   This plagarized man of God and loving husband must have had one hundred ways to make Maayan feel like complete crap. 
She listened to the Dells song , The Love We Had Stays on My Mind over and over again as she lay there thinking of Aviel and how she would never get a chance to be loved by him, to be touched by him,  to have him repossess her youth now gone and forgotten.  Her burning thoughts seemed to never have an ending.  Her memories would not go away.  Instead they intensify and will him in and out of her life.  They  haunt her with what it could have been, what she wished it were. What she feared it will never be.

Eleven years ago when  they reconnected, the passion for a touch of home burned so passionately that she packed up her bags and uprooted her dysfunctional life to feel a touch of home from his smile.   She thought he wanted it too.   She felt him then, it was strong.  She couldn't envision how she'd been wrong.  He must have become afraid of the responsibility.  She must not have pretty enough anymore.  He must not have been attracted to her because her hour glass was long gone or her thighs were too thick.  She must not have been smart enough or had enough drive.  She must have brought with her  too much baggage.  Maybe the children were the baggage.  She was still not sure why she spent the last eleven years waiting for a touch of home.  She never understood why he let her go, again.    And he sits here, on his phone, in her ears, telling her how he met his wife.  She wondered how many times one man could break the same heart.
In each moment she listened,  she felt more hopeless to this “dream deferred”.   She felt a surge of anger rise from the place where she stored her longing.  She was not his help meet.  He didn't choose her.  She was not the one he chose to encourage him.  It was not her responsibility to support his dreams.  He never chose her to be his help meet.  She was not his companion.  It was not her responsibility to be his inspiration.  She had no obligation  to help make him feel good about himself.  She was not his mate.

How could he not know?  How could he not feel her?  Maayan stopped the thoughts before they grew from anger to the ugliness which  lies inside of bitterness.  She needed to unearth the touch of home within her own self.  She was suddenly relieved at her fresh thought and felt renewed because in the stillness of her mind she quickly and silently called upon her Creator for help.  How could she learn to stop being in love with a dream?    She tried to muster up least a soft smile.  She wanted him to hear her smile so that he wouldn’t know how sad she really was.  It was one of the saddest and loneliest smiles she’d ever felt before she declared, "I have an important call coming in that I need to answer."  Then she hung up the phone gently to be left alone again.