November 24 2007 3:37 am – November 25, 2007 10:15 am
He has become a man-of-the-world, thinking that he can do whatever he wants. He can even relegate “love” and “wife” to the side, his sides---peripheral--- and think “I love ‘you’ but this time is about ‘me’.”
I love you: She didn’t know what this means anymore. Saying it? Anyone can say it, even a parrot. Believing it? Anyone can do that, too--- the way we all believe “red” is red and that a “rose” is a rose, that’s why we can all say it is what it is. Knowing it? Ah, now, that is a trick. How do we know it is what we say it is? A tricky trick.
A husband doesn’t come home at 3:29 in the morning to a wife sleeping, waking her up.
Hours before, she had a fever, she had said.
He had said nothing, did nothing but what he was doing, has been doing.
Hours before, she had said, “I would like to see you, talk to you for a while and tell you about my day.”
He had said, “Can’t we do this tomorrow?”
She went home then, alone.
She slept then, alone.
“You are not my husband,” she finally says, “You must be a suitor.”
And she would like to be courted: does he know how?
And she would like to be touched: does he know how?
And she would like to be loved: does he know how?
“What is wrong with you?” she had asked.
“I am selfish, you said,” he said, “I want to love myself first.”
He is not a husband.
He is not a lover.
He is not a suitor.
He is what he says he is: a man-of-the-world.
She had told him that he is not who he says he is, that he is a man-of-the-world.
He didn’t reply.
She had said, “I’m unbelievably tired from living and loving you. I feel like I haven’t slept or rested in a long time. I just want to sleep tonight but I can’t since you hurt me; I can’t breathe; I’m going out.”
Still he didn’t reply.
He fell asleep.
Like always; like when she needs him.
She had told him hours before, “I am not you and you are not me. You and I are not the same. Stop thinking that I would do things your way. When you do that, this, it turns me off.”
He had said “Sorry”; he had thought that she was joking because he was kidding her. It had taken him 20 minutes to reply. She had thought that he was probably thinking of another excuse. He made her feel like she was a stupid ball.
And tomorrow when he wakes up, he might ask, “Where did you go?”
She will reply, “Dressed like a whore, went to a bar, got drunk, allowed myself to be fucked by three men, one after the other until all had enough, until I had wiped you off me. You?”
Or if he asks, she will look at his reply---look at it for a long time--- perhaps an hour, see if it would soothe her; see what else he would say. If he becomes angry, she will simply turn off the phone the way he has turned her off.
That is---
if he asks.
He probably won’t.
He didn’t ask.
How do you love a husband then?
She was told by Granny Lin, “To love someone is to want to please him, even when one is not able to.”
She had said, “Of course I please him and he is pleased because I don’t complain. I don’t want to love him anymore.”
How can you stop loving a husband then?
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