Mid-way through our call this morning, the phone started cutting out.
“I can’t hear you,” my husband said. I least I think that’s what he said. It sounded like, “I --n’t h--r y--.”
I repeated what I’d said, but I suppose he could only hear half of it, and then he gave up. “We’ll talk tonight,” he said. Or more like, “--’ll t--- --nigh-.”
Sure we will. Just like we’ll finally hang something on the kitchen walls, which were painted a year-and-a-half ago, and how I’ll remember to tell him my idea for his mother’s birthday present. Frankly, it’ll be easier just to buy it and wrap it. Then he can be as surprised as she is when she opens it. And who doesn’t like a surprise?
Relationship experts and Oprah say that the key to a good marriage is communication. I hope that email counts, because it’s the only way my husband and I seem to be able to maintain conversations around here. When we are actually in the same room at the same time, other things get in the way of our conversations: The kids fight, the phone rings, a neighbor’s kid shows up at the door, someone asks for something that’s in the other room, the clothes dryer buzzes, I get a text message, the kids ask a question—you get the idea.
At dinner, we manage to talk to the children and they talk to us. Sometimes we relay what we did that day and often, I run down the schedule for the days ahead. But we can’t talk about things the kids don’t need to hear at dinner, and today, anyhow, we couldn’t talk about it on the phone, either. If it weren’t for email, we’d never talk to each other.
In fact, after nearly twelve years of parenthood, I can honestly say that “getting lucky” means completing full sentences—in person—with my husband. Oh, how good that feels.
Recently, a friend of mine forwarded a funny e-mail to me. When I told her that I liked it so much, I sent it to my husband, she replied, “Don’t y’all live in the same house?” Yes. Yes, we do. But the reception is really fuzzy in here.
