malaise*lithium

When my wife and I first married, we found we disagreed about a lot of insignificant things. We had different ways of taking care of the menial daily tasks of housekeeping and for the most part had good reasons for the methods we used. For instance, I liked using kitchen sponges, but Megan had been disgusted by smelly and soggy sponges left around by her former roommates. My way was to rinse the sponge well and leave it on a tiny soap rack to dry; and though this appeased my sense of hygiene, for Megan the sponge was still a touch too odious.

There were certain of her methods that bothered me, too, but in general it seemed to me that she put too much faith in cleaning agents and not enough faith in scrubbing. No matter, though. We quickly worked out a system that divided the work between us fairly and also kept each of us separated from the things that peeved us.

The exact division and allotments of labor have eluded me, save only that it was my duty to do the dishes and hers to put them away (it came as no small delight to both of us that each preferred to do the job the other disliked).

It was a few days until I noticed the problem. At first I thought, somewhat naively, I suppose, that it was only a mistake (and who has more license to be naive than a young husband?). An oversight, I concluded. A consequence of her crowded schedule. Surely she had not meant to do such a thing on purpose.

But then, one day, with profound horror, I saw her do it. I was across the room, scribbling in a notebook, when it happened. She pulled a handful of silverware from the basket in the dishwasher, shook off a few drops of water, and dropped it wholesale into the silverware drawer. She wore an indifferent half-smile. Her hair was hooked behind her ear. Another handful clashed into the drawer, right on top of the plastic organizer. She stood up straight and lifted the dishwasher door closed with her toe. She was still barefoot, but otherwise was dressed for the day; a brilliant blue oxford shirt with the cuffs unbuttoned and carefully folded back, black slacks, that slightly clumsy makeup job. She grabbed the silverware drawer and jiggled it in and out so that the knives and forks and spoons settled enough to jam the drawer closed.

She went into the other room. I was stunned for several moments. My pen stood motionless on the paper, its fancy liquid ink soaking into the sheet. She came back and took the lunch I had made her out of the fridge. She put on her wool coat and took her bag and kissed me on the cheek. After she was gone, I got shakily to my feet.

Inside the drawer, it was hell. Butter knifes hobnobbing with forks; blades and handles all intermixed. Some spoons were upside down, some were half-sideways. Handles pointed in every direction. Teaspoons and tablespoons cavorted as though — my goodness — as though they weren’t really different at all. I closed my eyes, swallowed hard, and then closed the drawer, unable to bear any more.

That night, Megan easily dismissed my concerns. I offered to get a better organizer tray. She declined. I begged. She rebuffed. She dismissed my bed-making analogy, calling my logic “dubious.” I tried to trade her chores. She didn’t want me mucking up the things she liked done a certain way.

I tried to appeal to her sense of civility. I said, “Dropping the silverware in the drawer like that is tantamount to admitting you’re an anarchist.”

She said she wasn’t going to waste one lousy minute of her life sorting spoons.

We were both, at that moment, utilitarians (obviously, as we were talking about utensils) but she was Jeremy Bentham and I was John Stuart Mill. At least so far as menial tasks were concerned, she was only interested in the immediate result of her act — pleasure or pain? delectable or distasteful? But I was also mindful of the later consequences. This meant I had to spend more time considering these things before I acted, but once I had I was sure of my decision. Megan was also sure of her course, but I tried to appeal to the same sensibilities that had let her to her present policy.

“Isn’t it awful to have to search through that drawer every time you need something?” I’d said.
“It’s all right there,” she’d replied with enviable certainty, “I just see what see what I want and grab it.”

It was evident that I couldn’t match her on the planes of reason, so I appealed to her emotional side. I snuck up behind her, wrapped her with my arms, and whispered something in her ear. She just laughed.

In the end I agreed to put the dishes away in addition to my other responsibilities. I had to. It was the only way to keep the rule of law in that drawer. And in a silly, indefensible way, it was the only way to protect the happiness we had from the influence of petty squabbles.

I guess it was about a year later that she was diagnosed with cancer. Six months after that she was gone. I’ve moved away, tried to get away, tried to find some way to hold myself together, but there are innumerable tiny things in the day that remind me of her, and the grief comes up from somewhere dark and hard inside me, and I have to turn my head.
But today, a tiny, guilty joy. I noticed something that was simple and beautiful, something I’ve been doing for a while without knowing it. I was putting away the silverware and realized that I was holding it out above the drawer in thick handfuls. I dropped it, letting it splash into the drawer in a mess of interlaced fork tines spoons lying head to tail with knifes. The sound was like laughter. I shook the drawer the way Megan had, thinking of the bend that had been in her elbow, that careful and quixotically deliberate smile. I had to close the drawer, I was able to bear no more.