I wonder if it's me. If there is something about me that just repels commitment. I think I have made my skin too thick.
'A lady sits heart and legs crossed', my mother used to tell me. I guess I took her advice. Well, part of it anyway.
I have tried so hard to adapt, to transform, but it's not enough.
Maybe it's all my fault, I make someone the center of my universe til they buckle under the weight. It's habitual. I latch on, squeeze til they've had enough. Or maybe I'm just too cold.
Or maybe I should just try harder.

Margaret stared down at the beautifully arranged pieces of sushi on her plate. They looked like small pieces of art, the fish glistening and the ginger shaped like a flower. It was beautiful, real food made with care by someone who actually cared, made from ingredients that weren't powdered. And she couldn't eat any. It felt like her stomach was in a big knot.

Going out for sushi had been her idea, Donald didn't even like it. Watching him fumble with the chopsticks pleased her, his hands were so big and clumsy. Nothing like a surgeon's hand. He couldn't handle the wasabi either, every time he tried some, he did a little closed-mouth cough and reached for his glass. 'Maybe stay away from the wasabi then, darling', she wanted to say, but couldn't really be bothered. What kind of man couldn't handle wasabi? What kind of woman suggested a restaurant she knew her husband disliked? What kind of marriage did they have if she sat across the man she had promised to love for richer and for poor and felt lonelier than ever? That was a sign of a marriage in trouble if she had ever seen one. A sure sign of things falling apart, withering.

She looked at his reflection in the window. He was handsome, she had to give him that. They did look good together, to anyone passing by, looking in, they made a beautiful couple. Until that someone realized the beautiful couple were leaning away from each other, looking anywhere but at the person across the table, each in their own bubble of silence. They so rarely talked anymore at all, it seemed like the only communication they did was through arguing. It was their routine now. But afterward, nothing was resolved, nothing forgiven, and there was only silence, neither of them able to let anything go, not really. Both of them growing bitter in silence.

Margaret stared at her husband's reflection and couldn't think of a single thing she wanted to say to him, not one topic she wanted to bring up. He hadn't even asked her anything, just a short 'So, how are things?' when they met at the airport. Once upon a time, he had yelled her name. Come running up to her, people parting in his way, making room for the handsome man in uniform with his eyes set on his woman. He had picked her up and spun her around, making her squeal and hold on to her hat, and then dipping her in a kiss. It had been perfect. Like a movie. A performance. Maybe that was all it had ever been.

Yesterday, she got a quick peck on the cheek, before quietly following his broad back through the crowd, no one parting for them, they were just two tired people in a sea of others.

'So, how are things?' He didn't really want to know, and she didn't really have the energy to tell. There was no point in talking about things if the other person didn't make the tiniest bit of effort to understand. When she talked about her work, he always seemed to get uncomfortable and quickly changed the subject.

What had they ever talked about? The war effort. His work. His chances of getting promoted. The house he was thinking of buying for them when they got back. She had actually really liked that, decorating it in her mind. Light green curtains in the living room, a velvet couch to match. Gray satin sheets on the bed, and the quilted bedspread her grandmother had made. Donald had talked about his family a lot but asked very little about hers. His mother, who was a saint, apparently, he sure liked to talk about her. A passive-aggressive saint, covering insults in syrup. 'Dear Margaret, Donald sent me a picture of the two of you, and aren't you a doll! So rustic and charming, you look very athletic.' Margaret felt fairly sure 'rustic' and 'athletic' weren't qualities her mother-in-law valued very highly.

The insane former maid, the drunk chauffeur, and the rustic daughter in law, Mrs. Penobscott certainly treasured the Houlihans in her life.

Mrs. Penobscott, that was what Margaret was too, and yet, she still never even used it. The wheels turned slowly in the army, and to them, she was still just Houlihan. In the beginning, it had truly annoyed her, but now it was just another unimportant thing, she barely felt like a wife anyway. And her husband across the table might as well be a stranger. Maybe it would have been better if he had been, that would at least be exciting. Maybe then they would have something to talk about.

Maybe Margaret should tell her husband something. A little tale of what happened one night on the dirt floor of a small hut in the countryside. What happened between two people, scared out of their minds, who wanted nothing more than to feel alive, and how the thing that happened changed something. In the way she saw herself, in the way she saw her husband. A letter put in the wrong envelope, a near-death experience, and the unexpected comfort from someone you thought you had figured out, well, that can for sure change your outlook on life.

Maybe she should have sent Donald the Dear Hank-letter after all, then they would have had something to talk about, for sure. For a couple of seconds, she was truly tempted to tell him, just

to see his reaction, to watch him choke in another way, unrelated to the wasabi. The very thought seemed quite powerful, because Donald coughed again and reached for his glass. Margaret reached for hers. 'Here's to our bright future, husband of mine', she thought. 'Here's to a weekend I would rather have spent back in camp, where my presence actually makes a difference. Where it's valued. Among people who do nothing but talk most of the time, and no matter how infuriating that can be, they still care enough to ask. Here's to letting a marriage dissolve into silence.'

That was what you get from marrying someone you don't even know. For wanting something, someone of your own so badly the pure want covers everything rational in a pink haze.

That's what you get for getting so giddy over the idea of a husband that you forget that you are stuck with a man you don't know anything about. A man who never asks.

It's truly remarkable, the things you are willing to accept when you want love, when the longing is like a physical pain, a creature gnawing away at you. A restlessness that haunts your days and follows you into your dreams. You welcome love in whatever form it comes, regardless of circumstances. However fantastical, however peculiar, suddenly it's within reach and you grab onto it, thinking it might one day transform itself into the perfect love you've been chasing. Until that happens you accept. Wait. Tell yourself tiny lies that make everything better. Lies are good like that, always there when the truth isn't an option. Lies are opportunists. Like dandelions.

Donald refilled her glass and then his, so hey, maybe they were soulmates after all. She drank and tried to erase him, imagining an empty seat in front of her. A weekend alone in Tokyo. What would she do? Enjoy the beautiful meal in front of her, that was for sure. Go to a bar. Go dancing. Let someone spin her around and around til the world felt soft and surreal. Get a massage. God, she missed her old friend Bill, the masseur turned warranty officer. He could do wonders with his hands, release all kinds of tension. She smiled a little when she thought about those hands, and what they had done for her in the past.

"What?"

She hadn't realized Donald was looking at her.

"Nothing, I was just thinking about things to do here in town." Did she actually blush a little, her cheeks felt hot all of a sudden? She hoped he didn't notice, thank God for the dimly lit room.

"Well, I'm kind of beat, we should just get back to the hotel. Make good use of that King size bed, that room wasn't cheap."

He pressed his leg against hers under the table, and she had to fight the urge to pull hers away. Since she sent him a big chunk of her pay every month, she was paying for that room too, and yet she was in no hurry to get back to it.

She stared down at her plate again. She would be damned if she let this beautiful meal go to waste.

"I'm not done eating yet," she said with a smile and grabbed her chopsticks. Smeared a big wallop of wasabi on a beautiful piece of salmon and put it in her mouth. It was light and delicious; the heat of the wasabi made its way up to her nose and it was delightful. No coughing. She was just rustic like that. Sturdy. And she would savor every bite, get one good memory out of the weekend, even if that memory was made of rice and raw fish. That was still more solid than her marriage. A marriage made of… what? Hopes, dreams, and tiny, fleeting moments of happiness. Sex that was fun and exciting in the beginning, but now mostly something to do instead of talking. A break from arguing, a faint hope that it would fix something.

Well fine, Margaret Houlihan could adapt. She would eat her dinner until there was nothing left. Fight for her marriage until she had nothing left to give. Then pick herself up and fight again, if necessary. But preferably heal. Heal whatever had gone wrong between them.

But what if what had once been was so far behind them now, getting so small in the rearview mirror that it would soon disappear altogether? How could she heal what might not have been there at all, that was all an illusion?

No, that was a weak way of thinking, she needed to be strong, to try harder, keep her eyes on the price. A happily ever after. She was not a quitter, never had been, never would be.

She was having a lovely meal with her husband. That she loved. She pressed her leg against his under the table and smiled when his eyes met hers again. It was still there between them, the magic, the connection, it had to be.

'I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you'. Yes. She was a wife in love with her husband. If she wasn't a wife, then what was she? Back at square one. No, that was unacceptable. She would fix things, heal, that's what she did. All she ever wanted to do. She let her smile grow bigger. It didn't melt the ice inside, but that was unimportant.

Come what may, Margaret Houlihan would adapt.