Christopher WunderLee - Moore's Mythopoeia

Norma apologized for how long dinner was taking, but no one seemed to care, as they sat nibbling on appetizers and talking about inane subjects until the turkey was finally finished and they all sat down for dinner. It was a content affair, almost time to give her the present, and Norma received several compliments on her culinary abilities, which she took sincerely and appreciatively (and a little off-handedly) and served dessert, a big angel food cake with white frosting and fresh strawberries. Joseph did not eat any, he couldn’t stomach it, he was so apprehensive, all he wanted to do was give her his present and feel the joy of it.

When everyone was finished, Norma, with the help of several other women, cleared the table and brought out coffee for everyone. Then, people started presenting their gifts and Norma pretended she was surprised and said, “oh, you didn’t have to do that” several times and thanked everyone all at once and began to open them. Joseph, who had struggled for the time to finally come, felt a deep sense of calm, and he patiently waited for her to open all of their gifts before presenting her with his own. She pulled the string from a small box and admired a gold watch, thanked the couple who had gotten it for her personally, and daintily pulled open a larger box with a wide brimmed hat with a blue and white kerchief and tried it on and thanked that couple personally, until there was nothing more but ripped paper and a pile of goods.

Joseph left the party and went out to the garage, he pulled the painting out of its packaging and then, placed it back inside. He quickly wrote, “for Norma, love Joseph” on the outside and carried it inside. Everyone, who had thought the gift-giving was over, noticed Joseph as he came forward with an enormous rectangle in white wrapping and he blushed as he placed it down on the table, upsetting several coffee cups, but pretending not to notice and said: “here Norma, this is from me.” She smiled around the table, as if saying, “look at this, what a swell husband” to everyone.

“What is this?” she asked rhetorically.

“It’s for you, from me.”

She was obviously pleased. “Joseph, that is so sweet. I wonder what it is?”

“Open it.”

Norma slipped off the twine (which was more cosmetic than required) and slowly opened the white wrapping paper, finally revealing the present. She stared down at the painting.

“What is it?” a woman asked and the entire table leaned forward to see what it was she was looking at. Then, they settled back in their seats: “well isn’t that nice” and “beautiful, very nice” and “what a thoughtful gift”.

Norma hadn’t removed her eyes from the painting and Joseph watched her, pleased that she was still looking at it, waiting for the response that he had planned, he grinned slightly, in anticipation. “What,” she began, her voice sounding deep inside herself, Joseph believing she was about to get emotional, she was so appreciative, she’d weep right there in front of everyone, “what is this?”

Joseph stammered, swallowed, and replied meekly: “I made it for you — it’s a painting, I painted it for you — for your birthday.”

Norma didn’t take her eyes off it. “You made it. Why?”

“For your birthday,” he tried, “I wanted to do something… something special for you.”

Norma licked her lips and turned her head towards two or three of the people at the table, she took the white wrapping still around the painting and folded it down over the canvas. Joseph didn’t understand, she’d not pulled it out and shown it to everyone, she’d not gazed at it and started to cry, she’d not clutched her chest and said anything, she’d just looked at it and was putting it away. He heard her say: “thank you Joseph, that was very nice of you.”

As if someone else was saying it, “don’t you like it?”

“It’s very nice, Joseph. Shall we retire into the living room,” she said to the table. She still hadn’t met his eyes. Joseph could feel an intense fear rising from within him, that he had been foolish, that they were all thinking that he was foolish, that he’d disappointed her. Why would he give her a painting he had painted? Why would he give it to her in front of everyone like that? What was she supposed to do with it?

“I painted it myself,” he tried as they began to move away from the table. “I thought you’d like it.”

“Joseph,” Norma replied quickly, finally meeting his gaze, with a not-now.

“I, I — it took me hours to paint it, I worked on it for hours.”

“Then you keep it,” she shot back as she picked up two plates and began to follow the rest of the crowd into the living room.

“But it’s for you…”

“Yes…”

“…I made it for you…”

“No…”

“Why?”

Norma stood motionless, half in the other room, her eyes focused on something on the carpet. Her voice was slow, as if each word was a great effort: “I have one day a year,” she began, “one day that I can expect something, something just for me, not for the children or for you or for anyone else. I do all I can to make sure that my day is perfect. I cook, I clean, I invite friends over, I make cakes. All you have to do is stand there, that’s it. I give you a list of things I want. All you have to do is pick one. These are the things I want. You don’t have to do anything but buy one of those things and give it to me at the right time.”

“I did it for you,” Joseph tried.

“No Joseph. No, if you had done it for me you would have gotten me something from my list. Why would I want that ?” she gestured with a dirty plate towards the rewrapped painting. “That was for you, for you to give me what you thought I’d want.”

“No,” he stared straight ahead. He could tell they were all listening from the other room. The women shaking their heads every time Norma said something, perhaps even grimacing at times. He stared away from her, like a admonished child. She had not liked the gift, he had been a fool, he was sure she was right, but he had planned it so carefully, he couldn’t let it be such a disaster. “No, Norma, I wanted to make you something… I thought, I thought it would be special.”

“SPECIAL,” now her voice had raised, “why would that ,” again the plate dives over the rewrapped painting, “be speCIAL? SPEcial to whom? To YOU? NOT to me. I told you what I wanted. That would have been SPECIAL. Anything on my list would have been SPECIAL. This is your inability to understand that this is MY day. MY DAY.”

“I’ll take it and put it back in the garage and give it you later…”

“I DON’T WANT IT.”

“…when we’re alone and you’ll see why…”

“JOOSEEPHHH, I DON’T WANT IT.”

“…its special…”

“ARE YOU LISTENING?”

“…and tomorrow, I’ll go out, I still have… I still have your list and I’ll buy you something off of it…”

“IT’S TOO LATE.”

“…maybe two or three things off of it.”

“JOOSSEEPHHH, IT’S TOO LATE, today was my birthday, NOT tomorrow. I won’t want that ever, not ever, you could have given me something — something like our friends gave me — something I could wear or show off or use, but YOU didn’t, you didn’t, it’s over.”

Joseph felt asphyxiated, he was shaking, embarrassed, he felt guilty, horrible for what he’d done, his lips were chapped, his mouth dry, he lurched forward and grabbed the painting and dragged it out of the room, knocking over several chairs, he hurried, he felt as though he’d cry but he tried not to, he wiped the tears from his eyes quickly, he could not breath, not until he, not until he could get away. He threw the garage door open and pulled the painting inside, he left it leaning against the wall, he circled the cement floor, wringing his hands, wiping his forehead, trying to force back tears, trying to forget that there were people in his house, trying to forget that his wife had been disappointed, trying to think of anything else but his failure. He snatched up the painting and threw it down, lifted up one corner and twisted it until it snapped and he felt splinters collide with his shins and he kept turning it and yanking it and bending it, until the paint had cracked and the wood was broken. Then he folded it up as small as he could and forced it into the garbage can. He looked at the small portion visible, he looked at it and remembered the hours it had taken him to paint it, he felt the swelling around his eyes and the convulsions that started from his abdomen and he bent down on a circular rug and he let himself cry over it.