I Feel _____ When by Laura White Gray

She did it again. I’m always surprised. What does that say about me? I certainly don’t learn. We have an agreement, and she consistently breaks it. We’ve been practicing the Pass the Feather method. Our marriage counselor says we have to work on not interrupting each other and mirroring what the other says so that they know we’re listening, really listening. And our assignment this week is to replace all “you make me feel” statements with “I feel ‘blank’ when you do ‘blank.’”

I used the feather to talk to her about the problem. I say in carefully neutral words that we exercise a level of civility and courteousness with people at work, our coworkers and certainly our bosses. In general, we demonstrate restraint and sensitivity with the clerk in the store and the call center person on the phone. We wish them good days. We smile even if we’re on the phone because everybody knows you can hear a smile. We try to cooperate, to show that we are responding to their preferences and requests when possible and they don’t stomp on our self-respect.

If our coworker would prefer it if we don’t leave our coffee cup overnight on the desk we share, we wash it out before we leave and put it back in the staff kitchen cupboard. We do it because it’s reasonable and because we want mutual respect. If our boss asks that we complete email transactions first, we do them first. If our teenage son has asked that we knock before we enter, we knock and then burst through before he has time to hide what he’s up to. Right?

My wife wants the ketchup in front of the mustard, the mustard in front of the relish, and the relish in front of the mayonnaise on the left side, middle shelf of the refrigerator. It’s a condiment choo choo train. What was my response? I said to her, “It will take time for me to internalize this and do it consistently, but I’m committed to mastering the practice because it’s important to you.” She even took up feather time to talk about this. That’s how important it was to her. I also found out that she wants the messy folds of the towels facing out on the shelf. This was a little harder for me. I was more invested in this one. I’d been showing the smooth, rounded side, clean and color arranged. Did I nod and repeat, showing that I heard her, really hear her?

Yes, of course I did. It hurt to turn the towels around, folds exposed to the world. It felt like I had left my dirty underwear hanging on the tub edge. Crazy, but that’s how I felt. Then came the noodle incident. I knew that was going to come up during our Feather Time. It doesn’t take a person with a big noodle to know the future on that one. She’d already yelled at me, not once, but three times about the three noodles stuck to the pan. I’d sent them down the garbage disposal. A crime. Punishable. It definitely was.

That night, by the television light, it was muted and paused, though, she took the feather. She leaned forward, looked earnestly at me, and said with irritatingly slow and measured words that it hurt her soul that I take so lightly the work she puts into shopping and saving us money and that I am so wasteful. Whew. That one was a hard one, partly because we’d started Grey’s Anatomy, and I really wanted to know if the baby belonged to Owen. “Belonged” is the wrong word since that was the whole point of the episode. A child belonged to the one who embraced it, right? So it’s a little more complicated than that.

The show was frozen at the moment before the great reveal, and I’d started to dread these feather moments. I took the feather. I watched my hand move through space, trying to make it drift, you know, like a gliding bird, not snatch it from her. That’s also what the therapist says—“Work at not being in wait mode, just wanting that feather to speak your truth. Listen to theirs. Show that you value their perspective.”

We may be our therapist’s first same-sex couple because she said once that we might want to think about having more separate domains, you know, tasks that contribute to running the household. We’re too much in each other’s face. In most couples (code for heterosexual) the roles are more delineated. So, I thought about that when my wife flipped out about the noodles.

I repeated her statement about the stupid noodles, telling her that I understand it hurt her and that she works hard to have food in the house and money in the bank for all of us and that I appreciate it. I don’t go on to talk about her Costco obsession and the boxes and boxes of gluten-free chocolate chip cookies even though no one is wheat sensitive, or the thirty boxes of cereal, many more than two years old, seven of them cheerios because they’ve been free at Fry’s on various Fridays over the last decade, or the diet supplements and the witch doctor quick fixes for growing old and hurting, the ones that end up going bad after she’s taken them for a week or two and then abandoned them for a sexier package. I don’t mention how much food we threw out once the moths settled in, food expired years ago.

Nope, I don’t say any of that. I’m doing my work. I’m owning my part. I’ve learned a lot of lingo from therapy.

Instead, I tell her my truth about Brownie, our hamster, named by our daughter at the age of four, an age where you can’t stop kids from naming their white horse “Whitie,” their black horse “Blacky,” and their red horse “Reddie.” I did a lot of scrambling and wincing in public when she took her toy horses on grocery store excursions. “Blacky wants to ride in the cart.” “Whitie wants another candy bar.” And so on. Kyra’s now nine, so Brownie’s demise was inevitable and more than nine months ago.

I use an “I feel” statement. I’m proud of myself. I say to her, “I feel grossed out to find a stiff hamster when I’m reaching for the chicken. Dead pets should not be stored with food.” The second I say it I know that she can hardly wait to get the feather. She’s going to tell me that the chicken used to have feathers, a head, feet. A cow has sweet brown eyes and hopes and dreams. That’s a bit much. She wouldn’t say that. After all, she’s a biologist. She’d still bring up the fact that those pork chops came from smart, living and breathing animals looking at us square in the eye as we fatten them up with crap and steroids.

All of it. I go on, trying a different approach, “It makes me sad seeing Brownie every time I open the freezer. The loss.” I can tell by her eyes, her expression, she doesn’t buy it. Underneath Brownie is his sister Pinkie. When she was little, she had a pink nose. She’s been there for over a year. I didn’t like that name, either. Pinkie is the word my wife uses when she snatches baby mice from their mother and plop them writhing and crying into Hairy the Tarantula’s cage. Underneath that are her Emperor Scorpions also named “Blacky.” Our daughter added “One” and “Two.” She insisted she could tell the difference between the two of them. Underneath them our family tortoise. He didn’t get enough Vitamin D. His name was Shelly. And one more layer down Stripey our garter snake. Next to them are mice and pinkies in bags and labeled by the date she bought them, the oldest on top. I’m a scientist, my wife says all the time. That should explain it all.

Months ago, she claimed she was waiting for the ground to thaw as if she were going to arrange a proper burial. It’s late summer.

I try yet another approach. “I feel disturbed when you treat our pets like they’re nothing more than Saturday’s dinner.”

She nods, a smirk threatening to take hold, and extends her hand for the feather. “I hear you say that it upsets you to find our pets in the freezer. I hear you. I really do.”

The rules of the Pass the Feather Time are being broken. The feather drops between us. She grabs my hands, the hold firm and warm. “I appreciate that you make us wonderful dinners every night except for Taco Tuesday and Fridays when Basha’s has 5 dollar pizza.”

For a second, I bristle at her need to include an addendum, but an effort is being made. Finally, our five years in couples therapy is paying off.

“I never meant to be insensitive.” Then she says, “I think it’s time to get that freezer for the garage I’ve been asking for. That’ll make everyone happy, won’t it?”

I look over at our dachshund sprawled out on the couch next to me, gray turning her black hair white around her eyes, on her belly, and on her feet.

I pick up the feather and pet “Oreo.”

I sigh. It’s the sound of resignation. For now.

Laura White Gray’s work has appeared in Whiskey Island Magazine, Berkeley Fiction Review, Black Warrior Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Northwest Review, Pennsylvania English, Event, Confrontation, Kaleidoscope, Calyx, Xavier Review, Potomac Review, and Southern California Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Arizona with her rambunctious family of dogs, children, and women.