Portrait of a Perfect Marriage

Portrait of a Perfect Marriage

Sometimes at night, when he holds you, he whispers a name. Not yours. You shut your eyes and pretend you didn't hear what he said. He holds you close, and then, in his sleep, he pushes you away, as if you say that you are not the one he wants. Even in unconsciousness, he isn't really with you.

In the morning, first thing after the alarm goes off, your four children climb into bed with you. First, Natalie, the youngest, and the most rambunctious. She bounces when she gets in under the covers, and he always laughs and tickles her stomach, and she giggles hysterically. Then the twins, Henry and David, who are practically carbon copies of Fred and George. They run in, yelling some kind of war cry from a Muggle TV show, and you resist the urge to pull the duvet over your head. And finally, your oldest child, quiet little Christopher, who wanders in shyly, climbs in, and tucks himself under his father's arm. This is a portrait of a perfect family.

During the day, he embraces you often, and while you are in his strong arms, you imagine for a moment that it is you he is in love with, it's you that he thinks about every minute of the day. But you know that his hugs and kisses are reminders to himself that it is you he is with, not... him.

You remember during the war, he was distant with you even after you were engaged; his eyes were preoccupied always. You didn't know why then. He was always rushing out to meetings in the middle of your dates, kissing you absently when he was with you, pulling away from you too soon after an embrace. You blamed it on all the weight that was on his shoulders; a twenty year old should be out having fun with his friends and his devoted girlfriend, not planning the next attack on an evil warlord.

You remember the Saturday the last remnants of light in his eyes died. It was a sunny day, and you had just woken up and wandered into the kitchen of the cozy little flat you shared with him. He was reading the newspaper. On page three, the title of the story blazed out in flashing red letters: 'Trusted spy for Ministry dead.' He was staring at the newspaper, his eyes behind his glasses shining with unshed tears. He put the paper down, carefully folding it in half, and laying it on the table. He then quietly stated that he was going for a walk. That 'walk' lasted two weeks.

When he came back, you noticed something had changed about him. His eyes were grimmer, darker. He set out, with a vengeance, to slay the proverbial dragon, and a scant three months later, the news came that he had defeated the Dark Lord.

The world rejoiced, and you did too, because now, you and he could start planning your wedding. He smiled indulgently when you talked of what flowers to arrange on the tables, and who to invite, and which bowtie looked better, the white or the black? There were times when you were happy, and you convinced yourself he was too, though the smile never reached his eyes, though he avoided your gaze sometimes, as if it hurt him to look at you.

The wedding came and went. It was a happy blur for you, a blur of white and red roses and smiling faces. This wedding event was the event to be invited to, and when you left the church and walked out into the sunlight, a deafening cheer arose. This wedding was the first happy event since the end of the war. He smiled that day as if he really meant it. And you were happy because he was happy; perhaps now you two could go on with your lives, and forget the war that tore apart your childhood.

The very first year after you were married, you had a blissful private life in the country. Somehow the reporters refrained from visiting you at your little cottage. He left once a week to survey over the work that was being done on the large house you two were building. He intended to have lots of space for lots of children, and you wouldn't mind bearing and caring for children as long as they were his.

The house was finished fourteen months after you were married. And a little later, you bore him his first child: Christopher John. You remember the tears in his eyes as he looked upon his newborn child. His eyes were full of light again, as they were years and years ago. You always look at Christopher with some awe even now, as Christopher has blond hair and gray eyes. Everyone from your side of the family has red hair, and his Mum and Dad had red and black hair respectively. And you know no one from either of your families had gray eyes.

Then came the twins, Henry and David, and then just under two years ago, Natalie. Every single day, you look around at your beautiful family, and then you look at him. Is he really happy, you wonder. He seems happy enough.

You imagine someday, when your children are grown up and have children of their own, you'll be sitting beside him, like you've always been, and he'll be on his deathbed, and his eyes will be peaceful green meadows. And he'll look at you and ramble on about meaningless things, and you'll nod with tears in your eyes as you watch your beloved husband slip further and further away from you.

And one day, just before he falls asleep forever, he'll look right at you, even though his eyes are looking through you, and he'll say, 'I'm sorry I didn't love you the way you deserved.' And you'll say that it was all right, that it doesn't really matter to you; all the matters is that you were with him and bore his children and lived with him for forty-some years.

And you'll be lying. You'll resent that he loved another all during the time he was married to you, you'll hate that you were just second-best, you who was always near him, you who was his support and shadow, practically, for years. You'll hate that despite all that you've done for him, he was always in love with another. You'll feel like yelling, 'How is it that you, a person who was only with him for two years at most, was able to hold his heart in the palm of your hand for the rest of his life while I only got his body and sometimes his mind. Never his heart!' And the spirit will reply, gray eyes gleaming, 'Because I was in love with him.' And you'll be furious, because the spirit is implying you were never really in love with him, and you'll feel like clawing his eyes out, but you can't because he's been dead for more than forty years.