Not the man

 I was married to the man for a little over 3 years.

I was happily married like, pinch-in-me-on-the-butt-cause-it-has-to-be-a-dream deliriously happy.

I was basically one of those Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) wives, waiting with much excitement for the return of my man whenever we were apart.

Be it an hour or weeks, as soon as his feet crossed the threshold, I would be on him – bathing him with kisses, choking him with hugs, eager to catch up on lost time (must have been super tiring for the man).

Before the man, I did not see myself as a forever kind of girl. The longest I had been in a relationship with a “son of Adam” was all of 9 months. In my opinion, when it came to having a relationship with members of the opposite sex, the whole affair was best handled like seasonal fruit.

We worked together the man and I. we tried to build a home.

We were friends, we were a couple. We argued, we made up. We mourned over losses, we celebrated wins. We had our highs and our lows.

(Once we had an argument on a very hot night. This man had the audacity to not only go to bed but appear to be sleeping soundly while I simmered in anger. I was livid!

Rather than do one of the 3 things a rational human would do, I went to the freezer, filled a bucket with ice cubes and proceeded to pour it over the sleeping man.

This beautiful man, he woke up with a start. Mouth foaming in rage, instinctively reaching for a weapon of sorts and looking ready for a fight to the death.

The way he switched from ‘stark raving beast’ to ‘mild mannered lamb’ when he recognized that I was the culprit is a sequence that will forever remain with me. After swearing in a dialect I do not comprehend, he brushed ice off his pillow, picked it up and went to continue his sleep someplace else.)

No matter the issue, whether I was right or wrong, my personal rule was ‘never go to bed fighting’. There was no offence a few strokes from the cane could not absolve. It was a-an ah, erm… quid pro quo.

I was hormonal one day and got wildly upset over a flimsy issue. It was not a big deal but, it was important. I was convinced he owed me an apology.

Hours after our fight, this man had still not texted or attempted to call. Well, two could play that game. Personal rule or not, I decided it would be that day. It would be first time since we were together that I was NOT going to be the “bigger man”. 

I was going to assert myself and stand my ground.

I would not call, I would not text, I was not even going to look at the images he sent previously. I was supposed to be the man’s bloody Queen! So, this time I was not going to be the first to communicate.

I went to bed.

I was in my third trimester – a little over 8 months pregnant and marinating a grudge.

The first thing I did when I woke was check my phone. I had forgiven the man hours before but was still waiting on him to make the first move. After we had ‘kissed and made up’, my plan was to bring up this incident at every opportunity I got. I was going to have so much fun reminding him of our childish fight – being petty was going to be so much fun!

I needed to run some errands so, I was distracted for a bit. I returned, ready to give in and make a move. My musings were interrupted by a notification on my phone. Relieved, I jumped to grab my phone in a hurry to see the message. I must admit, being mad at the love of my life was exhausting.

The message was not from the man. It was a message from a dear friend (who cut me off later – a loss I am yet to get over). It was an image with the caption “is this your hubby?”

The image was a picture of a man.

He bore a striking resemblance to the man, but I could not admit it was my man.

This person was wearing outfits that seemed familiar. He wore the same brown khaki’s I got from a PEP store I discovered while wandering one day. They were my favorite shorts because it had a somewhat large 34’ waistband with just enough wiggle room for slipping in a mischievous finger or two. The yellow polo shirt this man wore looked like the one I brought from the Sports Direct at the Birmingham bullring shopping center. I intended to gift the brightly colored shirt to my dad, who had habit of losing his sense of time and got hard to spot when he visited his backyard garden. I later decided the shirt looked better discarded in haste by the foot of our bed and gave it to the man instead.

I had a jolting memory of getting my man to try on the same pieces of clothing and laughing my head off at the terrible strip tease he tried to do afterwards.

The clothes looked identical, but they were all wrong.

The yellow shirt had blood on one side of the man’s body. It seemed to ooze out from him.  Starting from his chest and spreading out like tendrils of a bad rumor, blocking the truth of the bright yellow beneath. It was red, angry looking and all over the place.

The brown khakis were mud stained. It had a darker shade, it was dirty! The shorts were mostly on the floor, covering the lower half of an inanimate, static person. My man was a neat freak, he was a force to be reckoned with and always in motion.

My hubby? Nope, that wasn’t him. I had mixed feelings of fear, anger, and dread.

I was calling the man nonstop now.

Why wasn’t he picking up my calls? I badly wanted to talk to him. There were a lot of things I needed to say.

I wanted to be the first to apologize for the silly argument we had hours before, I wanted to let him know he made me happy and that I believed in him. My man was alive and well and getting on my nerves. I willed him to return my calls, I needed him to call or text me. Being petty or right was far from my mind. I only wanted to hear his voice and hear the words “I love you”.

My man was stubborn, sweet affectionate and human. With all his faults and perfections, he is a memory. Alive, well and not returning my calls. Living forever in my mind. The man in the picture was still, fragile looking and lifeless – he was not the man I knew.