Impossible Choices:

Impossible Choices:

          Matt and l had our first fight today. Not the kind of fight in which one hurls objects and recriminations. Rather, a battle of wills. A parrying of egos. It rocked the languid boat of our marriage non-too gently. He had wanted me to accompany him on a pre-paid trip. To just up and run, abandoning the office and my clients to my partner Arthur.

‘'It is impossible'’, I had told him. It might have helped had l been consulted in advance. ‘'Am sure Arthur would understand-lf you explain…,’’he’d insisted. Matt can be stubborn when he wants things to go his way. When lt comes to sheer arrogant bull-headedness, he takes the trophy.’

‘‘There is nothing to explain'’, I had d replied irritably..'I too have a career--and a life. Am not just an appendage to trail in your wake."

 "No, “he had said quietly. Too quietly. "You are my wife..........and am
 asking for your support."

I had striven to placate him. “Maybe next time.......", but there had been no passion in his embrace, no kindling of intimacy. I had sensed him slipping away .and had felt unaccountably, afraid.

 It isn't as though ours has been a relationship of unmitigated bliss. We’ve had our share of the rocky moments which afflict every young marriage. Our careers demand a fair degree of sacrifice and re-adjustment every now and then. I spend a lot of times in the city office l share with Arthur, while Matt writes in solitude in a studio at our house. He has been reasonably tolerant and supportive, often cooking our diners and eating alone, while l frown over unfinished project designs well into the late night. Ironically, our closeness is largely due in part to our separate career paths. We hoard the minutes spent together, counting them out as a miser would, his coins, trying to stretch them beyond their natural limit. Such moments are the talisman that cements us together. However this morning, the talisman had failed.

 "You should have gone with him, “Arthur admonished when I got to the office and narrated the episode. "It certainly would have been better than pacing a hole in the floor."

 "I can't work and be with him at the same time,"i argued stubbornly. "It is
unfair that l should have to choose."

‘’What lf…..you had to choose?” he asked after a moment silence. For the first time, I let myself face that unnerving possibility; Matt and my career........impossible choices......like having to pick between burning at the stake and freezing to death. Whichever way the coin falls, I lose.                            

Yet, later as I drive home an inner thought waxes stronger. Hasn’t our marriage been the tall sheltering tree whose strength has harnessed the stormy gales that would have otherwise snapped us in two, and blown us our separate ways? Like two young plants we've grown side by side, beneath its towering boughs, swaying rather than bending towards each other. Wasn’t it better to bend a little than to break?

 I let myself into the silent house. There is a folded note on the mantle above the fire place. ‘Thanks for putting my ego back in place’, Matt had written simply. I stare at the familiar scrawl, tears glazing my eyes. The phone rings. He wants to give me the schedule for the conference he is attending. "About this morning….” he murmurs. "Forgive me?" I choke back the tears. "There is nothing to forgive....but, can you forgive me?" I whisper.

"There is nothing to forgive..........,"he says.