I

Every night after finishing their dinner, Daniel and Megan loved spending time in each other’s arms. They spoke about each other’s day as Daniel put his arm around Megan and she placed her head on his shoulder. It was one of those little things that made their married life special. However, tonight was not one of those nights. They were in the hall but there was an invisible barrier between the two. Something they both had recognized for the past few days! No marriage is perfect, even theirs was not. There were ups and down in their married life, it was their “down” phase going on. The brightly lit room failed to illuminate the dark corner of Megan’s mind. The thoughts nibbling at the back of her mind were so obviously shown on her face that Daniel felt the heaviness in his chest. He loved his Meg, but lately things were shaping up from bad to worse.

Megan was standing at the window, looking outside. Daniel was seated on the couch, watching Megan. He always loved the way Megan’s hair rose and fell on her shoulders as the breeze whistled past her hair; that made her look sensuous. Even tonight, Daniel wanted to get up from the couch and hug her but she was not in the mood.

Daniel knew something was wrong and he had played a role in it. But he could not fathom the seriousness of the matter when Megan told him that she wanted a divorce. He had tried his best to make her understand, tried telling her how much he loved her, he had apologized for his mistakes of the past and promised her that he would not repeat his mistakes in future but nothing, absolutely nothing convinced her enough.

“There are some decisions in life that you should allow me to take on my own” Megan complained

“Fine, but I have the right to say something if it involves my life as well” Daniel explained.

“You just said your part, now let me take my decision” Megan said firmly.

Daniel exhaled; his shoulders drooped low as if burdened with tons of weight. That is how he was feeling lately.

“Fine” He finally gave up.

“I want a divorce” Megan said sitting down on the couch.

“Tell me something I do not know already” Daniel said rubbing his forehead.

“Fine, I want you to know that I am not really happy about this whole thing.”

“Then why do you want it?”

“Because …” Megan could not continue. She covered her face with her hands. Then taking a deep breath she said “Because I fear it is not going to work out this time.”

“It always has worked out all these times, has it not? We both have worked towards it. We will work on it together, this time too.” Daniel pleaded.

I wish it could work out this time too, Megan thought, aloud she said, “Not this time, Daniel.”

“You feel so after all these years of our marriage?” Daniel questioned

“Do you even remember how many years we have been married?” Megan said placing her hands on her hips.

“Six” Daniel replied immediately.

“Five” Megan corrected him

“I counted one year of courtship too.”

In spite of all their differences and the ups and downs in their life of past one and a half year, despite the harsh fact that their marriage was on the verge of breaking, Megan’s lips curved at the corners and tears welled up in her eyes.

“See!” Daniel exclaimed “I still affect you the way I used to! We can sail through this, trust me.”

Megan was silent, she wanted to trust him, she really wanted to. But she was not sure whether he would trust her this time, if she came out with the entire truth. There was a dark corner in her mind that did not let her sleep for past many weeks, she just wanted to get it out of her head but she could not. But in the end she had to, she reminded herself.

Daniel knew there was something that had been disturbing his wife. That was the reason he had secretly planned a vacation, taking time out of his busy schedule. He was aware that Megan was upset with him because he could not give enough time to her. He knew that she did not have any extraordinary expectations from him; she just wanted him to spend some time with her. During the courtship days Daniel had gone out of his way to make her feel special, even after their marriage, the first few years were special. He had done a lot of things others might consider crazy but Megan had loved it. The little things he did for her were the special feature of their married life. The next few years, Daniel failed to do those little things for her as he got busy in his work.

Megan had been tolerating for a long time, adjusting to his busy schedule, bouts of anger when things went wrong at work, his sudden change of plans, etc. She started complaining when it went beyond her tolerance levels. Daniel often apologized about his hectic schedule and promised that he would not repeat it but then took back to doing the same things again, after a few days. Megan, tired of complaining, took to her ways of dealing with it.

Her ways of dealing with it, Megan thought, turned out to be not what she had expected.

“Are you listening?” Daniel asked her

Coming out of her reverie Megan said, “Yes I am listening, Daniel. But the truth is that I just want to get out of this, for my good and for your good!”

“My good, are you kidding?” Daniel complained

“Just listen to what you are saying, Meg. Here I am trying to make you understand that I want to be married to you for the rest of my life and you are concluding that the divorce is what is in my best interest!” Daniel was confused.

“Wait a minute” Daniel said all of a sudden realizing something

“Am I missing something?” he asked.

“A lot” she wanted to say. “Things I did; things I should have not done.” Megan thought and closed her eyes.

“Just leave me alone for some time, Daniel” Megan said feeling exhausted.

Daniel got up and walked out of the room. Though Megan told Daniel that she wanted Divorce, she was not really happy about it, in fact she did not want to consider the option but the events of recent past had forced her to think about divorce. She loved Daniel, she really loved him with all her heart and she could not imagine living a life with him that was full of guilt. Guilt, it was the main reason for her being upset.

Megan looked outside the window and visualized the events of the past that affected her present and would change her future, for the good or for the bad.

.... to be continued