The House that We Build

He comes home from work. He walks through the door, happy but exhausted. Thinking of what’s for dinner, the video game he is going to play. But he is tired. The dogs greet him, the cats meow. Me, his wife before him, tense my shoulders and I told him how he didn’t empty the dishwasher this morning. That delayed me making dinner because the saucepan and all the other cookware were still in there.

Before me, the strongest man I’ve ever known. The gentlest, the most kind, the most loving. He creases his face. The lines between his brow turn downwards and a sarcastic chuckle comes out of his mouth. He steps forward and raises his voice in offense. “I just want to come home and be appreciated.” He stammers in frustration. “Is what I do not good enough for you?”

I take a step back. I pull my shoulders forward. The tension crawling up the back of my neck like a spider. My smirk matches his. “Well maybe if you care about me and stopped thinking only about yourself so much, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” I retort back.

His eyes bulge. I see him stumble for a response. I feel stronger. He throws his arms in the air. “Are you fucking serious? I work all damn day while you stay home, and you say I don’t care about you? That I’m not good enough?”

I slam the dishwasher I had to unload shut. Hard and loud. For just a moment, for just a minuscule second, I see him flinch. “Oh please, you get to leave the house and talk with your friends. I manage all the mental load.” I sneered back at him.

He walks past me, shaking his head in disbelief. Our dogs scatter. The cats continue to meow but in a different tone. A desperation. A plea. Their food bowls empty. The loud yelling and the crashing of things scare them. But it will wait. We have a fight to finish. A point to prove who is more right.

I follow behind him. “Answer me. Don’t pretend like you do all of this for just me!” I wave my hands dramatically. He flinches again. Just for a moment though. Just for a minuscule second. Just enough for the trained eye to catch his response to the frightening stimuli. And I know better.

He gets closer to me. Inches from my face like when he would lean down to kiss me. “I’m fucking leaving.” He says. And for just a moment. For just a minuscule second, I shrink inside myself.

He storms past me into our bedroom. He flings the accordion closet doors open. He grabs a few shirts blindly and in anger. He throws them into the backpack still slung over his shoulder from work. His face getting red. Spewing words he doesn’t mean and I’m not even listening anymore.

The strongest man I know. The wisest. Kindest. Most gentle. The absolute love of my life. Before me, I see it. For just a moment. For just a minuscule second, he is now six years old. I see him, that boy. And I realize that I, standing over him, am no longer the wife that holds him. The wife that protects and cares for him. I am his father. A man gone for over 10 years. Frightening him. The movements I make scare him into thinking that blow is about to punch right into his little boyish gut, knocking all the wind from his frail, hungry body. In me, in my yelling and criticizing, I am no better than that man who raised his fist high against a son who only loved him. He is just a boy before me. Haunted by those slaps and those kicks and those words.

He throws pants now into his backpack. Shoes and socks go stumbling too. Now, I am frightened. I start to beg him to stay. Please don’t leave me. I spew my apologies. Like the flip of a switch, I am on my knees. Pleading with him to not to go. And before him, I am eight years old. And he is no longer himself, but the mother who didn’t care for me. A woman I prayed to come home. Leave those boyfriend’s houses, to bring home some food. Cabinets bare and a heart that’s even barer. A woman gone for over 5 years. Haunting me.

We are just kids, a product of our raising. He fears the pain his father gave him. Every lashing, every curse. I fear abandonment, the fear of the nights alone by myself. And in each other’s eyes, we are those parents that never cared. That was never satisfied with their child.

They are just ghosts now. People gone years ago. Leaving this world, but not taking with them the pain, the trauma, the hurt. Leaving behind us broken kids who turned into traumatized adults. They still haunt us.

My husband sees me on my knees. Pleading, begging, screaming for him not to leave. He looks around. Clarity. What is he even doing, he thinks. He sees eight-year-old me. And in my eyes, he sees the ghost I am looking at. My mother. That’s who he is to me.

He crouches on the floor. I lift my hands to his falls. He pulls his head back. I see he is only six years old and the hand reaching out to touch him is the balled-up fist of his father.

The parents who are no longer with us, but just poltergeists in our own home. In our own minds. In our own actions. Continuing to torment. Continuing to control us. To assume every word and movement we make.

We stayed crouched. Our cats’ meow. Our dogs’ collars clink to hide in the bathtub. Their safe spot. And that brings us out. Before him, I am his wife. Before me, he is my husband. The strongest, kindest, most gentle man I have ever known.

He grabs my hand it brings it to his face. Touch me, he dares, I know you will never hurt me. I remove his backpack from his shoulder. I know you won’t ever leave me.

Together, those parents vanish. And now before us, is the one person who decides, day after day, to live for the other. To have raised voices in happiness, to have loving hands push his hair out of his eyes, to come home every night on the dot, not a minute or a moment or a minuscule second late. Continuing to be haunted by the parents that could never love us like that. They shaped our worlds when we were younger. Now, we remold it like clay.

I feel the ghost of my mother letting me go, evaporating as the face of someone constantly fills that void. I see the ghost of my husband’s father unclench the fists balled on his shoulders. Then, as quickly as they came, they left. They whisper to us, though, that they will be back. To haunt us. To terrorize us. To tell us the other one will leave you and the other will hurt you. We will never be ready for that. We will turn back into that frightened child. But as we look into each other’s loving eyes, we promise that those ghosts will never win.

Our love is greater than their hate.