“Mr. Skeeter.” I turn to flash a smile at my student tutor, Ross. He’s in a teaching master’s program here at RDU, and he spends some time in the study center to help students like me. I think it’s actually part of his program.
I wave at Leana. “I hope you find someone to go with. See you later.”
“Bye,” she says, sighing.
As soon as Ross leads me into our little room, I set my bag down and grab my tablet with the paper I rewrote after he marked up the last one. These are just group threads that we’re supposed to be discussing with our peers after reading a short poem and reflecting on it. I’ve been having trouble interpreting what I read because these are poems and passages from the Middle Ages!
“Let’s see how you did,” Ross says as he sits beside me. We keep the paper between us, and I can’t help but read along.
I readThe Wife’s Lamentbefore reading the introduction to it just to see if my understanding of it was comparable to how it is interpreted by the editors of the anthology. I seemed to have a similar understanding. It appears the wife and husband have been separated, seemingly not by choice, since their situation is continually described as in “exile” throughout the poem. The wife is very upset with what life has dealt her. She says that they were at one point happy and close but now they are separated by an ocean (“my lord departed from his people over tossing waves” 6-7). It appeared that only the wife was in exile, but later it sounds as if her husband may have been sent away as well since she has learned that he was just as miserable as she.
What is interesting is that there is further indication that his family conspired to separate them; that perhaps she was sent away and he had turned against her because of his kin. There is nowhyanswered within the poem. Given the time period, it is possible that the wife is a peace-weaver, a woman married to an enemy tribesman as a means of creating a bond and peace between the two tribes. To me, this could bethe reason for the familial hostility. Many blood and/or tribal feuds were never bridged by a marriage. It is argued that a blood feud is always going to be a stronger, deeper desire than any arranged marriage can repair. I tend to hold this belief as my own.
What I wonder is whether the husband was in fact sent away in exile. There are conflicting lines that leave the interpretation obscure. At first, she says that they were close, happy, and promised that only death would part them (wedding vows?) and also that he had learned he was just as miserable as she: “Then I learned my lord was like myself—down on his luck, dreary-spirited, secretly minding murder in his heart” (18-20). However, she then goes on to state that she must now “bear the malice of the man I loved” (25-26) which leads me to believe that, perhaps, he had left willingly and purposefully. My question is, which is it?
“How does this sound to you?” Ross asks once we’re finished.
I navigate to the prompt and mentally tick off all the boxes to make sure I answered the question. “Good,” I say.
“Now, ignore the prompt. How does this soundto you?”
I chew the inside of my lip. “I think it’s okay. I struggle to understand poetry, especially when it’s really old and not the kind of English we talk and write in today, so given that, I think it’s not my worst.”
Ross smiles. “I agree. This is boatloads better than your first draft.”
“Do I need to adjust it more?”
“No. I think this is good for the assignment. What’s next?”
I pull up the to-do list on my tablet, crossing off the discussion thread before seeing what the next priority is. “Okay, it’s a prompt to explain the reason I wrote the short storyGraveyard Stories. I’ve got a start, but I think you know thatmy organizational skills when it comes to papers are confused at best.”
Ross chuckles. “Let’s have a look.”
Sitting back in my chair, I pull up the paper I’d begun. It didn’t need to be long. It’s not even the short story itself but a reflection on the story after peer-review and edits. I chew my lip as I watch Ross read the start of my essay.
CHAPTER 2
KENDRICK KELLER
“You can’t just have the house. I spent all the time here raising our kids while you paraded off up north with yourjob,” Natalia repeated for maybe the ninety-seventh time.
“You can have the house, Natalia. I already said that. It’s in the divorce papers,” I remind her.
“You’re suddenly in such a hurry. Do you have a second family up there? Is that why you suddenly want a divorce after all this time?”
I sigh. “No. There’s no one else. I’ve never had an affair.”
She continues to rant for what feels like the millionth time. I listen. That’s the least I can do. However, I suppose ‘listen’ might be a little strong of a word. I don’t truly need to listen to Natalia rant. She’s not saying anything new that she hasn’t already said over the last eight months.
I rub my face as she carries on and then let my eyes wander around my office. They snag on a picture—the last picture I have of my family together. My youngest, Tabitha, was thirteen. It was over Thanksgiving. I wasn’t there.
Natalia sits on a stool with Tabby in front of her and our two sons, Seth and Briar, over her shoulders. They look happy. Nothing about the picture looks like someone is missing.
Behind the picture is the last one that I was in. Tabby was three. Fifteen years ago. Sometime after that, I stopped making a regular effort to go home.
All this time later, I’m still not sure why. Despite what Natalia thinks, it’s not because I have a second family. It’s not that I’m interested in someone else. It’s not because I’ve had affairs and they’re weighing on me.
It’s because I fell out of love with Natalia years ago and never knew what to do about it. Obviously, the decision to remain in my job eight hours north of where my wife and kids live wasn’t the smartest option to fix the situation. Considering it did exactly what I knew it would—make the void between us exponentially bigger—I’m not in the least bit surprised by this development.
