You Were With Him Too

            She loved the Palm Sunday liturgy, not least because it was the one Sunday of the year when she had no sermon to prepare but also because of the drama of that almost tangible moment when the Gospel moves from ‘hosannas’ to betrayal, when the mood of the narrative changes and humanity is revealed again as capable and culpable of destroying that which is good. And now she was home and although Holy Week loomed, she had all her meditations ready and had even written the sermon for the ecumenical service on Good Friday. She’d been given the charge to preach on Judas on that significant date since no-one else had volunteered to write about the villain of the piece but then, the writing hadn’t been hard for her, for she knew much about betrayal!

            Lunch was over, the afternoon stretched ahead of them with shrubs to be planted and some household chores needing attention. Before they went in to the garden she asked Robert to go on the web to see if he could get the Golden Wedding gift for his aunt from the MOMA site – she just wasn’t comfortable on the net yet. He’d always labeled her a ‘Ludite’ and a ‘technophobe’ and so, knowing her incapable, he would have to accept doing that job himself   Within moments he’d located the site but then James, their next door neighbor, came to the door ready to help Robert with some chain sawing. Ruth was left to complete the search on her own. “Even you can type in descriptions to find the right thing” said Robert showing her where to type in the request and leaving her in the study as he joined James in the yard.

            Three quarters of a frustrating hour later, she closed the site without finding what she wanted and looked at the screen. A single e-mail remained in the mail box and reading she saw it was from Belinda. This she could do! With a click of the mouse the mail was open! “Oh God, no!” her mind screamed as she scanned the words from her friend. “Our bedtime chat made me so randy that I can’t wait for our good hard fuck next week,” read the start of the message. She read no more.

            Panic and sickness flooded her system but she walked quietly outside but not before she hit reply and wrote “Sh*t, and you are supposed to be my friend”. “Robert, you need to see this e-mail”, she called as James approached her asking if she was alright. She made some remark about the heat disagreeing with her and turned to go back in to the house. Within minutes Robert had returned to the yard and resumed his work with James. Ruth went back into the study but the computer screen was now blank. Why hadn’t she paid more attention during Robert’s attempts to teach her how to use the computer? Maybe then she would know how to retrieve the e-mail.

            Hours passed- or was it moments- before Robert came back in and sat in the sun room. She sat down, too. “I presume there is no conference in Bradford next week’, was her redundant statement. His response confirmed that it was a ploy to fly to England to spend time with Belinda. Stupidly Ruth burbled about how proud she had been when she believed he had been invited to give a paper at the supposed peace conference, about how she had boasted to everyone of this honor and how she had thought it would help his C.V. He sat impassive – not responding, not explaining not sympathizing not doing anything. Finally he picked up the phone. It was obvious that he had dialed Belinda’s number but she couldn’t listen in.

            “I presume you want to be with her,” she said when he got off the phone. He blurted out that yes, it was Belinda he loved and wanted to be with and cruelly added the statement that he had not really loved Ruth for many years. His face was triumphant as he gloated at her pain. “I’ll phone the Bishop tomorrow,” she said and quietly got up. Without words she went into the kitchen where she had already prepared the vegetables and meat for dinner and systematically threw it all away.                           

Hours passed with few words passing between them but with her head bursting with the pain of too many words, too many questions not articulated. Ruth’s body again resonated with the sickness in every part that she well knew from the past. Strange how the body has a memory all of its own! Vomiting and dry heaving followed. She wanted to cry but she couldn’t, so she cleaned the bathroom and watered the plants before finally sitting down when he turned on the TV to watch “American Dream”. He poured them both a glass of wine and placed a bowl of nuts in front of each of their places and he sat and watched the program. As she watched him work his way through the nuts, Ruth’s stomach rebelled once again and after another visit to the bathroom her wine and nuts joined the Sunday dinner in the trash.