35th

As she lay in bed she listens to him pee, no longer even bothering to close the door. She hears the water run as he brushes his teeth and the rest of his morning routine as she has for the past thirty years.
Nothing new, nothing different. As the shower kicks on she pulls herself out of bed and walks through the old house switching on the lights as she goes. Feeling an unusual chill she starts the coffee pot and scrambles eggs, just as she has for almost thirty years. He’ll come down and fill he travel mug with black coffee, eat his eggs quietly and quickly, and then leave for the day – off earning his living.
About an hour after he’s left the sun has come up and the house is still cold. It’s early November and starting to stay cold after day break. She fumbles with the thermostat for a while before realizing that it must be broken and needs fixing. That’s how most of the house is – needs fixed. She started to bug him incessantly about moving about five years ago, but he refused, saying that he’d just fix the falling down house. That has yet to happen. Usually he walks through the sticking front door not even bothering the re-hang the hinges. Hearing the groan and scrape of the door each morning reminds her of the evenings that their children would drop whatever they were doing and run to it when their father got home. They would scream, “Daddy!” and throw their hands in the air waiting to be swept up in his big arms.
Going about the daily chores she sees the water stains on the wood floors in the laundry room. She hates them. They remind her of the big fight they had when their oldest was just in diapers. They had fought when she was filling the washer, and he had gone to his mother’s. He stayed there two weeks. The washer had broken and over flowed, and she had blamed him for not being there to fix it. And the torn screen on their son’s old window. The room was now a sewing room that was never used, and the screen had never been fixed. He had run away after his father swatted him for drinking in high school. Her husband had spent the whole night out looking for their son, and when he returned his eyes were red rimed and puffy. He had told her it was his fault for hitting the boy, and that he blamed himself. The boy resurfaced again the next day at a friend’s house and had never been hit again.
Driving to the grocery she passed the small church where they had gotten married. Those days had held so much promise and excitement. It was also the place they had buried their daughter’s first child, he had been born with a bad heart and never learned to talk. She had really thought it was the end of their world, and their daughter had moved back in for a while. He never complained that he slept on the couch for three months straight while her daughter stayed in their bed trying to heal. He never mentioned that she kept them up at night crying or rattling around the house because she couldn’t sleep; he still put in a full day’s hard work no matter how long he had slept.
The cheese isle is right across from the wine isle in the grocery, and she remembers that first year they were married. They had split a bottle of wine every Saturday night for almost that whole year, until she’d gotten pregnant. Their children had both been colic, and he had paced the house as much as she had in those days, just hoping that the baby would eventually quiet down. Their anniversary was coming up. 35 years. She was 54, he was sixty, an age difference that much of her family had scorned. They had told her he would get old before she did, that he would not want the same things, that he would die when she was still young. Well, neither of them were very young any more, not like when she was just nineteen and getting married. They both had achy joints, heart burn, and she was sure he was going deaf.
That night she was preparing dinner as he walked in. The potatoes were on the stove and the chicken was almost done. Silently he walked up stairs and she heard the shower once again. He apparently had a very long day, being in construction was a very difficult job. She heard the sound of his boots stop as he stripped and then the sound of the toilet flushing. This was his routine. He came home every night and went to the bathroom, changed his close, and some nights he took a shower. He was a man of little words and he usually didn’t say much to her beyond complementing dinner and on occasion telling her that he needed clean pants.
Tonight was no different. He came down and sat in front of his plate, and started eating without looking up. She placed a glass of his favorite wine at the top of his plate and took a seat across from him. He looked up at her and said, “Wine?”
“Yup.” She said, didn’t really know what else to say.  “Furnace is busted.”
“Trying to get me drunk so I don’t argue that I don’t know what I’m doing.” He stated, shooting a small smile at her.
“Yup.”  She said. Then her eyes softened and she asked, “Remember that time when we were first married? It was getting late and the TV wasn’t working right. So you insisted on fixing it, and my dad had to buy us a new one because you broke it?”
“I do,” He said, starting to laugh. “Remember how your dad threatened that he wouldn’t be doing that again, that we needed to find a good repair man?”
“Yes,” She said, laughing harder at the memory of her father’s face.
“Later, when you went inside, he told me I had to grow up and provide for you. That you were my responsibility now.” He had sobered up telling her this, and she could tell it struck a chord in him.
“Really?” She asked, astounded that her father would do that. He was never a nurturing man.
“Yup.” And then he fell silent again. It was not strained nor was there an undertone; he was just a quite man.
That night she turned in early, complaining of sore feet, and left him to watch the news. After about a half hour of lying there she heard the furnace kick on, and a few minutes later she heard him on the stairs.  He sat down beside her on the bed, not turning on any lights or anything, and took her hand.
“I love you Jean,” He said to her, she could hear a reverent tone to his voice. They never said that anymore, rarely even touched.
She just squeezed his hand tightly and ran her finger over his wedding band.