Psychology

Beneath the dim halo of a lamp, the only light in the room, a couple was sprawled across a loveseat, entwined, eyes vacant with sorrow. Neither had spoken in some time.
"I don't know what to do," said Linda softly, staring into space. "I eat right, I exercise, I don't smoke, I don't drink."
"We'll keep suffering the slings and arrows 'til we get it right," said Joe lifelessly.
"And let it tear you up the way it does?"
"It hurts you just as much. Besides, what's the alternative?"
She lifted her head to gaze at him. He continued to stare straight ahead.
"You looked like you were gonna die each time."
"I don't care if it does kill me."
"Well, I do," she choked. "I can't imagine life without you."
"I can't imagine not having kids. I want them even though I know they're gonna be embarassed by their old man, like I was by mine, and even though I know it's gonna impoverish us. I love you even more for not caring if it does."
Again she rested her head at his broad chest, caressed his firm abdomen. "You told me you were sure you weren't gonna have any."
"I didn't think you or any woman'd ever be silly enough to come to me. When you got engaged I thought: That's it - I'm never gonna have kids; I'm always gonna be alone."
"The best thing I ever did was to come to you."
"You still think so? How do we know my diminished middle-aged seed isn't responsible for this?"
"The doctor says it isn't. It's me."
His pupils contracted in frustration. "We've had no trouble conceiving - why isn't it holding?"
"It's me."
"If that moron'd had any sense you'd have kids by now."
"He had his chance," she said bitterly.
He repressed the pain engendered by the thought that, had she a choice, she would have chosen the younger man, which would only have been wise. He was certain he would lose her should her former fiance invite her back into his life. The fact that she would consider it even for a moment was enough to have him despair. "I still can't believe he let you get away."
"I'd've never turned to him if only you'd said something."
He was unable to prevent himself from curling with anger. This was old, painful ground he wanted to forget. It'd ceased to matter the moment she'd come to him.
"Your age never mattered to me. How many times do I hafta tell you?"
"After the fact. You just won't admit to yourself that it did. It's okay, though. I know it wasn't easy for you. We're together now only because there are so many men of your generation who won't commit to anything but pleasure."
"I'm here because I love you."
He drank in the words, eyes glazing. Four years had passed and he'd yet to take her love for granted, although he believed he was third on the list of the men she loved. "This is a miracle for which I'll always be grateful. But the main reason we're together is because we both want kids. You were willing to take the risk that my age would never be a problem."
"And there's no risk for you?"
He scoffed, weakly. "What fifty-year-old man wouldn't want a beautiful thirty-two-year -old wife? The risk is dwarfed by the rewards."
She looked away. "I'll never leave you. You're the sweetest, most down-to-earth guy I've ever known. Everything I felt the first time I saw you turned out to be true. And to think I almost blew it. I should've never listened to anybody else."
"They were only talking sense. It was only sensible to be afraid of me. The percentage of single guys my age who are weirdos is probably pretty high."
"And I'm not beautiful. Stop saying it."
"Yeah, you are. Everybody can see what's in your soul."
"I feel so ugly right now."
"When I look into your face I feel warmth in my gut - not fire, warmth. It feels so right."
Tears streamed from her eyes. She pressed a cheek firmly to his breasts. He kissed the top of her head and caressed her back until she became calm.
"I don't know if I can go through it again," she said with dread.
"We can always adopt," he returned, although he could not imagine not having a child of his flesh. "There're so many kids out there who need a home, who need a mother like you." He would not tell her the agency would likely deny them, given his age. They would have to go out of the country.
"You're not just saying that?"
"No. I know how much you want kids. I could always see that in you. It probably has to do with you never having really known your mom."
"Then why doesn't Jeanie feel it?"
"Maybe she has comforting subconscious memories that you don't. She is three years older than you. She's a heavy smoker, you're a fitness nut - you're different."
"It's not fair."
"But it's the way it is, so it doesn't matter if it's fair or not."
They fell silent. Linda shuddered as her gaze fixed on a clock.
"We have plenty of time," said Joe reassuringly, giving her a squeeze.
"I can't believe how well you've always known me, how you had me figured out from a distance."
20 years ago the only other woman he'd loved had put it similarly. He was now glad she'd rejected him. He could not imagine not having ever been with Linda. "Maybe it was just dumb luck."
"You should've been a psychiatrist."
"Instead of wasting all those years trying to make it as an actor?"
Stung, she tugged at his shirt. "That's not what I meant."
"It's okay to say so. Truth is, I should've given it up the first time you made an overture. Our kids would've been in school by now. It's not easy living with that now. Most of our mistakes mean little in the long run. I'll regret that one 'til I shuffle off this mortal coil."
He closed his eyes, pained by childlessness and by what Linda had suffered, was suffering, because he hadn't acted twelve years ago. In his own way he'd been as selfish as those who'd spurned her. In fact, given that they were her contemporaries in age, their selfishness was more understandable than his. He'd deemed it incumbent upon her to speak, to prove his age made no difference to her. He hadn't even allowed himself the simplest of icebreakers. He'd given her a videotape of his finest work in acting class - and she never said a word to him about it, which told him that, deep down, his age was a problem for her, one she was unable to overcome in countless approaches with work-related problems. It broke his heart.
"Don't you cry now," she said, running a hand through his thick hair, examining it. "You're almost all gray now. You had just a little bit at the temples when we got married."
"We can't hold off time forever."
"You're coming pretty darn close."
Eyes pleading, he looked into the face he loved. "I only tried to do what was right."
She caressed his unshaven cheek. "I understand that now. I didn't then. I told myself you didn't want me or that you were a born bachelor or a closet gay. Maybe I was even scared off by your age, as you say. I don't know."
"When you walked over to ask to talk and I said 'yes,' you were so surprised. I had the feeling you'd wanted me to say 'no.'"
"I was sure you'd found somebody. You looked so happy."
"That's what I wanted you to think. Our common acquaintances kept asking me if I was okay. I could sense what my depression was doing to you, so I put on a front. I knew you and your intended were having problems. I wanted to believe you'd broken up, but what we want to believe and what actually is is often entirely different, so I had to be careful not to deceive myself. I even had the feeling you wanted to be rejected, to be punished for the breakup. I didn't think your heart was close to letting him go. I almost asked if you wanted to back out. It would've been the biggest mistake I ever made."
"Rejection was what I deserved after the way I treated you. I was so afraid you were gonna hurt yourself. You were going around like a zombie."
That pain, absent so long, was suddenly fresh again. Once, upon realizing he had his arms folded to his chest in imitation of her, he muttered angrily as he was passing a bar. The bouncer, standing in the doorway, looked at him as if he were crazed. Fear negated any embrassment he felt, however. He wondered if he were in the initial stages of madness. Some of his thoughts became even more troubling.
"I couldn't believe you still wanted me."
"I knew you never meant me any malice. You were genuinely unsure of what to do. I was proud that it was so tough for you. Who wouldn't want an angel like you, though?"
"Would an angel....?" She looked away, throat clenching.
He was glad she hadn't completed the sentence. He didn't want to go there. The situation was bleak enough. "Only an angel would come to a poor middle-aged man after she'd had a taste of what it was like to be with a young man of means."
"He's the one with the body of a middle-aged man, not you."
"How much longer before I start to sag?"
"And I never cared about money."
"That's a mindset I carried into my mid-thirties that I now deeply regret. You deserve so much better than I can give you."
"What - things that don't matter in the end?"
"It matters in that I can't give them to you, or to our kids. In fact, in coming to a poor guy I was afraid you were only looking for a perverse way of punishing yourself for losing your intended."
"I've always loved you, even when I was with him. He'd get so mad when I worried about you."
The words touched the deepest part of his being. He'd always sensed she loved him - and assured himself he was mad. "I hope you never wake up to the fact that I'm not worthy of you."
"It's the other way around. No one is truer or more honorable than you."
"Call me Brutus."
He sensed there'd be no way to avoid the issue he feared. He scoured his mind for ways around it. "I'll die easy knowing you'll be there to tell our grandkids about me. I can't imagine anybody else doing that."
She was crying again. That hadn't been his intent.
"Everything's gonna be all right," he whispered, kissing her temple. "Have faith."
She coiled violently. He'd chosen the wrong phrase. He should have said: "Believe." There was no preventing it now. Hadn't it been hopeless to think there was?
"Maybe God hates me."
He made a face, feigning ignorance. "What're you talking about?"
"Maybe I was meant to have only two kids, the ones...."
She turned her head away abruptly. He forced her to look at him.
"First of all, you're assuming there's a God. Second, you're assuming He arranges these things. That makes us puppets without free will, unable to help ourselves, which means you couldn't help yourself.""
"Even if it only is biology, it's still my fault. Some women have eight kids, some have seven...."
"Nonsense," he said, conscious he was lying. He wasn't sure he'd ever lied to her before this day. First he'd told her he wouldn't mind adopting, now this. He hated such head games, dancing around the truth, feeling like a liar. He'd done it with his mother when she became senile and needed to be placated. He'd done it when he was starving, telling her he was eating steak. This was so much tougher, however. So much more was at stake.
"...some have three, some have two...."
"Stop it. Stop beating yourself up. Blame the cowards who abandoned you. They backed you into a corner. If they were men, they would've married you."
Again he'd lied. He wished she'd never told them about the abortions, despite her obvious need to confess. He believed she should have carried the pregnancies to term, alone. He would not tell her that, however. He feared any negativism would make it that much more difficult for her to deliver the child they so desperately wanted. He pitied her. She'd had the second abortion to save the relationship, which ended anyway, rendering the bitter sacrifice vain.
"Blame the politicians. They gave you an out and plenty of rationales."
Now he was blaming government and feminists, violating his own code of responsiblity for one's actions. He was appalled as much by his lying as by what it revealed. He feared that what she'd said was true - that she'd used up the opportunities, whether decreed by God or biology, she'd been meant to have. The thought that she might never give him a son, that his family treee woul die, terrified him. For twelve years he'd wondered if they woud be happy together. To his great joy, they seemed made for each other, as he'd sensed the moment he'd first spotted her. It almost convinced him of the devine. Now his love for her was threatened by something he hadn't anticipated. He'd expected, in time, to lose her to a younger man, but not before she'd borne him children. Of course, he was certain he'd be as devastated by her departure as he'd been by her engagement, but he believed the needs of his children would help him survive that terrible sorrow.
"How do you know your first two pregnancies wouldn't have ended in miscarriages too?"
She shrugged. "I know, that's all."
"You want to punish yourself - is that it? 'Linda is evil, therefore she must suffer miscarriages.' Sophia Loren went through a slew of them before she had her sons. It's just biology."
Now he was lying in that he was demonstrating certainty. He didn't know whether life was the creation of God or simply an accident. He knew only that it was constantly mysterious, often mockingly so. If she hadn't had the abortions, she might never have come to him. Certainly she would have married either of those men and been an excellent wife and mother. He was sickened by the thought. Was he suppoosed to be glad she'd had the abortions? That was contrary to what he'd always believed. Was that why he so dreaded the subject? The only solace he found was in the belief that he would have married her even if she'd been an unwed mother. How he wished she'd tested him in this regard, as he'd tested her in revealing his age and acting aspiration. He believed he would have loved that child as if it were his own, even if it looked like its real father.
He feared his love would die should she suffer a fourth miscarriage. Was he so fickle? Or would it die upon a fifth or a sixth? Had he already, quietly, reached that point? Was that why he felt so lifeless? He wanted to love Linda until his dying breath. She'd saved him from a loneliness and frustration that was draining him. His eyes were forced shut as he recalled the longing he'd experienced when, on a crowded train, the breast of a neighbor's 15-year-old daughter grazed his elbow. It was a longing that was only marginally sexual, one that jolted him with the realization of what was missing in his life - not the love of a beautiful teenager but of someone like Linda. He hoped the girl was oblivious of the act and not guilty of terrible judgement. When a moment later it occurred again he still wasn't sure it was intentional. He was overcome by sadness at the thought that she was already sexually active. Why? he wondered - wasn't that just life? It was a rare instance when he would have liked to have forgotten his fascination with the psychology of the human being. The study of his own was often burdensome enough. He'd feared he would lose his mind for a single moment, succumb to a dark impulse. He took to waiting at the bottom of the stairs, rather than on the platform, until the train was in the station, so that, should he snap, an unfortunate innocent wouldn't suffer his wrath. Although action seemed a million miles away, he wasn't sure that was so great a leap for a mind. It was a knowledge he was glad would remain a mystery. Had Linda not come to him, he did not know if he would have recovered. He was ashamed his mind would even touch upon the thought of leaving her.
She gazed into his eyes. He recognized the look and kissed her, although the last thing in the world he felt like doing at present was making love. He had to, however. It was what she wanted, what she needed. Although he wasn't sure there were Anyone to hear his thoughts, he asked God to forgive her, to allow her to bring a child into the world, for his own salvation as well as hers.