Fuse

I haven't been involved in anything like that since I was married.

Since the dark-haired girl gave up her apartment, it has been tense. There has been brooding, there have been sharp words, and there has been trouble.

Close quarters, too much stuff in a small space, no privacy, and teenage boys have made it difficult, and the closing of the escape route put the lid on the pressure cooker.

Friday night we went out to celebrate her friend's birthday. That morning I had suggested we head out of town for the weekend, since we needed a break, and the boys were with their mother for a few days at last. Later in the day I expanded upon my idea, and by the evening we had a general plan.

At the dinner table, we did discuss the trip a bit despite it being not our occasion, and at one point she said, "decision made." I was feeling a bit tired, and thinking that leaving that night after the birthday meal might be a bit much, and said, "but I haven't made up my mind."

The brooding began. At the end of dinner, she drove her friend home, and I went home separately, running an errand along the way.

It just happened that we both arrived home at exactly the same time, and when we went inside, she was shocked to see my eldest son there. I wasn't, at least not entirely, because I had had a call earlier. He wanted to visit some friends, and since his mother now lives about 20 minutes out of town, he wanted to know if he could use my place to hang out in between bring dropped off by his mother and when his friends would actually be ready for him. He should have been long gone by the time we got home, but he wasn't, since his friends changed their plans slightly. He left within a few minutes, walking, having asked for ride "if it didn't inconvenience" us, and having been turned down by me since I felt it was more important to smooth the dark-haired girl's feathers at that moment. There was no talking, however, and she left. I left as well, picking up my son a few blocks away, and driving him to his friend's place.

I spent the evening running errands and shopping, in the area of her old apartment, thinking that she was there packing up, and perhaps I could stop by and help her once she had cooled down a bit. She didn't answer her phone, however, and I wasn't going to stop by unannounced, so I ended up home, sad and alone.

She stayed the night in her bedless apartment. It took a few calls in the morning, and a lot of driving around, but I found her. She asked me not to come by, but since she had willingly told me where she was when I asked, I knew from past experience that I could - more than once I've gotten into trouble for not chasing after her when she was mad. In some ways, she has internalized cliched movie plotlines.

We talked, we cried, we revealed.

She cannot stand my decision-making process. Cannot stand it. A decision, once made, is final. There can be no doubt, no going back over it, perhaps even no tweaking.

I told her my greatest fear, that she would just one day have had enough, and end the relationship.

We pulled ourselves together, and headed out of town on the road trip, as planned, just late.

The drive was good, and we got along fine, but the next day we were back to the world of trouble.

I had said, before starting out originally, that perhaps if we had time we could stop by my friends' place that was an hour farther than our main destination. That morning we got out of bed a bit late. I suggested that we could still see my friends if we left the mall an hour before it closed. She became incensed, demanding to know what was the point of a shopping trip if there were only four hours to shop after 12 hours of driving. It didn't make sense to me, since the mall was only open 8 hours to begin with, and we would get there shortly after it opened, meaning we would still have 7 hours.

The drive was tense. She didn't make sense to me. She said things such as "it would be fine if you said that we were going to shop and then if there were time visit your friends", which confused me because it was something I had said originally.

As we neared the supermall, we drove through some beautiful wooded farms, and her mood lightened. "Are we finished?," she said, referring to the argument, and I agreed.

It didn't last long. She wanted to use my U.S. credit card, which she had on a previous trip, and I tried to explain that I no longer had U.S. income, so it no longer saved money to use it. I tried to explain, but she cut me off mid-sentence, saying she would use her own, turned and walked away. I went outside the store and waited.

She went into another store, and I duly followed. She glowered. She asked if I had some other stores I wanted to shop in, and I said that I would wait in the car. I left, and shortly afterward she angrily followed. In the car, she said that she was humiliated by my actions - saying I would wait in the car, and leaving. She wanted to leave, and leave now. I refused, saying that we had come this far, that we had just arrived, that a plan was a plan. She angrily started slamming her fists on her thighs in frustration.

It became more than I could take. I took her car keys and her passport out of my pocket, and left them on the driver's seat. I packed my belongings into my suitcase. I left. I mentally went through what I would have to do in order to get home without a car as I walked over to the part of the mall that we had planned on visiting next, and went into the store where I had planned on picking up t-shirts for my sons. The store clerk greeted me, "how are you doing?" and I mumbled fine. The dark-haired girl came in at that moment, and asked me to leave the store.

I did so, and we sat on the bench in front of the store. A few words were exchanged. What was she supposed to do, leave me there? She didn't even have my local cell phone number. I gave it to her. She got up, threw the car keys on the ground, about ten feet opposite the direction she was walking. I debated picking them up, not wanted to increase my embarassment by doing so, but not wanting them to be picked up by a stranger. After ten or so people walked past them, ignoring them, I got up, put them in my suitcase, and went back in the store.

She called my cell phone and asked if I were finished. She asked me to come back to the car. I agreed, but as I finished paying for the shirts I couldn't immediately bring myself to do it. After another call, and a few steps in the opposite direction, I made my way over to the car.

She suggested that we drive over to the other part of the mall and finish our shopping. I started the car, and left the parking lot, but instead of crossing the main street to the other half of the mall, I signaled to turn right. "What are you doing?" she asked. She threatened to get out, but I said, "Give me 30 seconds. I have a better idea."

I drove around to the back of mall, into the empty parking lot of a business that was closed on Sundays. "Let it out," I told her. "There's no one around, no one looking at you."

She screamed. She pounded her fists into her thighs again.

I waited.

"That actually helped," she said. She wasn't all better, but she was better. I drove back over to the mall.

We tentatively made our way through the rest of the day, trying to normalize our conversations.

Eventually she said...

"Sorry"

"Apology accepted, " I replied, echoing what my kids were forced by their mother to say to each other after they had been fighting.

Pause.

"You're supposed to say 'Sorry', too," she said.

"I'm sorry for my part in all this," I replied.

Pause.

"You're supposed to say 'Apology accepted', too," I said.

"Apology accepted."

We carried on, finishing up the day's shopping. I moped, in a way that I hadn't in a long time. She could tell I still hurt, and asked a couple of times if I were alright. "Yeah," I said.

Yesterday we talked about it a little bit on the drive home, and she said "I love you more now than I did before."

Before this weeked, I believed that volatility in a relationship was something I had left behind when I divorced. No matter who I dated, arguments never reached the level where emotions swept reason away, and became even remotely physical.

Now I have a new fear, a new unease.