By the time I admitted that Wendell's house bothered me, I had already found a dozen reasons not to mention it.
I told myself he might be embarrassed.
I told myself he could be dealing with repairs.
I even wondered whether he had some family difficulty he wasn't ready to discuss.
Any of those things would have been understandable.
What troubled me was that he never gave me enough information to know which explanation, if any, was true.
He simply kept the door closed.
Whenever the subject came up, I tried to make my questions sound casual.
I didn't want him to think I was demanding access to every corner of his life.
I had no interest in controlling him.
I wanted to feel that he trusted me.
There was a difference, although I wasn't always sure I knew where it ended.
One afternoon, I asked whether he had finished the work he'd mentioned needing to do at home.
He paused before answering.
It was only a moment, but I noticed.
"Not yet," he said.
I waited for him to explain.
He didn't.
So I nodded and asked about something else.
That became our pattern.
I asked.
He deflected.
I pretended not to notice.
The more often it happened, the more determined I became not to make an issue of it.
I had spent enough years in a marriage to know that people needed space.
Dwight had his habits, and I had mine.
We didn't tell each other every thought that crossed our minds.
We didn't need to.
But Dwight had never made me feel as though an ordinary question was dangerous.
That was what I couldn't put out of my mind.
With Wendell, I sometimes felt as if I had wandered too close to a line I couldn't see.
He was never cruel when I crossed it.
He didn't raise his voice or tell me to mind my business.
He simply became quiet, and the warmth between us changed.
Then, when I moved away from the subject, he would seem relieved.
I noticed that relief.
I hated myself for noticing it.
I wanted to be the kind of woman who could accept a man's boundaries without turning them into a personal rejection.
I also wanted to stop feeling like a guest in a relationship I was helping build.
Those two desires kept fighting each other.
For a while, I managed to ignore the conflict.
Wendell continued to be thoughtful.
He remembered things that mattered to me.
He listened when I spoke about Dwight, even when the memories made my voice falter.
He didn't tell me to move on.
He didn't suggest that my grief was inconvenient.
If anything, he seemed to understand that some losses never become small.
That made me feel safe with him.
And because I felt safe in so many other ways, I began treating the locked door as a minor flaw.
Everybody had something.
Perhaps this was his.
I said that to myself often enough that it almost sounded like wisdom.
But I was not wise.
I was afraid of losing the first person who had made me feel less alone since Dwight died.
I worried that one difficult conversation might destroy something I had barely allowed myself to enjoy.
So I kept my questions gentle.
I gave him room.
I waited.
And I told myself that love was not supposed to feel like an investigation.
The trouble was that I had never wanted to investigate him in the first place.
I had wanted to know him.
Those are not the same thing.
As the weeks passed, I found myself wondering about his house at the oddest moments.
I wondered what his kitchen looked like.
I wondered whether he had photographs of his family.
I wondered whether his favorite chair was worn through at the arms, the way Dwight's had been.
Ordinary things.
That was all I wanted.
A place to hang my coat.
A cup of coffee at his table.
A chance to sit beside him somewhere that belonged to him.
I could imagine all those things easily.
What I couldn't imagine was why they seemed to trouble him so much.
Sometimes I considered asking him directly whether he was ashamed of his home.
The thought made me uncomfortable.
If he was embarrassed, I didn't want to hurt him.
If he wasn't embarrassed, I didn't want to insult him.
And if there was another reason, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it.
That last possibility was the one I tried hardest to ignore.
I had become very good at avoiding thoughts that threatened my happiness.
It was an ability I mistook for maturity.
Then came the day I found myself thinking about the approaching Christmas season.
I had always liked Christmas, even when life was difficult.
After Dwight died, I found the holiday harder to face.
There were too many reminders of the years we had spent together, too many familiar habits that suddenly had nowhere to go.
I had considered doing very little that year.
A quiet meal.
A few decorations.
Perhaps a call to someone I hadn't spoken to in a while.
I wasn't looking for a grand celebration.
I only wanted the day to feel manageable.
Wendell and I talked about Christmas, and I found myself wondering whether we might spend some of it together.
The idea made me nervous.
It also made me happy.
I tried not to show how much.
I didn't want him to think I expected him to fill every empty space Dwight had left behind.
That wasn't what I wanted.
I wanted to make a new memory without feeling as though I had betrayed an old one.
Wendell seemed to understand that.
He didn't promise anything elaborate.
He didn't make a big announcement about the holiday.
But there was something in his expression that made me think the date mattered to him too.
I couldn't have explained why.
I only knew that when Christmas came up, he became more thoughtful than usual.
I wondered whether he had family traditions he missed.
I wondered whether he had lost someone too.
I didn't press him.
I had learned that he would tell me what he wanted me to know, and nothing more.
At least, that was how I understood it then.
A few days later, I found myself thinking about how little I knew about the private parts of his life.
I knew the sound of his laugh.
I knew the look he got when he was trying not to smile.
I knew how he could make a simple conversation feel important.
But I didn't know what waited behind his front door.
That realization left me uneasy.
Not because I believed every relationship required complete openness.
Because I had started to understand that I was doing all the work of making his secrecy comfortable.
I was the one changing the subject.
I was the one making excuses.
I was the one reminding myself that I had no right to ask for more.
And all the while, I was hoping he would decide to give it to me.
I didn't say any of that to Wendell.
I was afraid the words would sound like an accusation.
Instead, I carried the questions quietly.
I thought time would settle them.
I thought affection would make the problem disappear.
I thought that if I could show him I wasn't going to judge him, he might finally trust me enough to open the door.
What I failed to understand was that trust couldn't be built by one person doing all the forgiving before anything had even been explained.
I was preparing to excuse something I didn't understand.
I just didn't know what it was yet.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Followed a Simple Invitation Into a Place I Had Never Been Allowed to Enter, Expecting an Ordinary Answer to My Questions
I Thought the Hardest Thing About Losing My Husband Was Learning to Sleep Alone Until Another Man Made Me Question Everything
Part 2 of 20
