The Most Patient Man by yaxxsu

I have always been the most patient man I know.

My wife, Sandra, used to say so herself – or at least, she would have, if she were more expressive. Some people show gratitude openly, and Sandra was simply not that kind of person. I accepted that about her. That's what patience looks like.

The night she left – and I want to be precise here, because precision matters to me – I was sitting in my chair. A very good chair. I had bought it because Sandra mentioned, once, that the living room needed updating. I acted on that within the week: I went to the store, chose the chair, had it delivered, and arranged it myself facing the television. Sandra stood in the doorway when they brought it in and said nothing for a long moment. Then she went upstairs. She was overwhelmed by my expressive love for her. I understood.

That evening – the last evening—she came downstairs dressed in her coat. An odd choice, since we had no plans. I asked where she was going and she said, quite simply: out. Just that word. I want to be fair: Sandra had a habit of being unnecessarily taciturn. I believe she enjoyed the confusion it caused. I asked again, very calmly at that and I cannot stress this enough. When all she did was toward the door, I stood up from my chair and placed myself in the hallway. This was not blocking – there was plenty of room for a thin woman to pass, if she simply asked politely.

She said, "Please move."

I said, "We're having a conversation."

She said, "We are not."

I want you all to see, as I saw, how she constructed this argument – this scandal – out of nothing. How she stubbornly refused to engage. She had her bag – that enormous bag she'd started carrying six months earlier, filled with God knows what – and she held it with both hands in front of her like some kind of shield. From me. Her gentle, loving husband of eleven years. I found that genuinely hurtful.

I explained that it was nine o'clock, that dinner hadn't been dealt with. I explained it all and I kept my voice perfectly level, I have a talent for this. The reason I'm telling you all of this is so you understand: I was the one trying to save something in this marriage.

Sandra was looking past my shoulder. She had a habit of doing that, as though there was someone standing behind me more important than I was. I found it dismissive, and I told her just that – I was very calm, very loving. She closed her eyes for a moment, slowly, and then she made a sound – not quite a sigh, something tighter – and her knuckles went white around the strap of the bag.

I asked her what that sound was supposed to mean.

She said, "Nothing. It meant nothing."

I said, "You should hear yourself."

And she looked at me then. Actually looked at me – which she hadn't done in, I realize now, quite some time. There was no anger in her face, I want to be honest about that, because I have tried to reconstruct it fairly. It was not anger. It was something much harder to argue with. She looked, if I'm being precise, the way a person looks when they have already traveled a very great distance.

The front door opened. I hadn't moved from the hallway – I want to be clear about that – so she turned sideways, pressed herself against the doorframe, and left without touching me, or without another word, as if she had thought over the angle of her own departure.

I sat back down in my chair.

I was perfectly calm yet hurt by her actions.

The house was quiet and I turned on the television and I was perfectly calm, as I sat there in the chair I –the loving husband I was – had chosen for us, and I was the most patient man.

Outside, her car started immediately.

She really had a bag packed for some time, it seemed.