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Things in my house are hitting an uncomfortable point. Yesterday, I had a conversation with Chris that went like this:
J (carrying African Violet into the kitchen from my bedroom): I think my plant is thirsty.
C (from couch, where he's watching the Cartoon Network): If I'd known there was another plant in your bedroom, I would have watered it, too.
J: Oh, you watered the two violets in the living room?
C: Yes. I saw them there and thought they needed water.
J: How did you water them?
C: What do you mean?
J: I mean--did you just pour the water into the plant, or did you put it into the dish under the plant, or what?
C (talking to me like I'm a four-year-old): I filled a glass with water and poured it into the plant. Why do you ask?
J: Because violets are funny things, and my grandmother told me to water them a certain way. They don't like to get their leaves wet, and they don't like to sit in water, so she told me to put them in the sink, pour the water in under the leaves and then let it drain out. And they don't get watered very often, or you'll kill them.
C: I know this is probably going to sound callous, Jen, but I just poured the water in. If they needed special attention, perhaps you should have left a note. And if they die because I watered them wrong, I will have been more upset about other things.
(large pause while I consider running into the living room and throttling Chris with a frying pan)
J: Okay, well here's the deal, Chris. Those plants were my grandmother's, and it's very important to me that they stay alive. I would have asked you if they needed attention while I was gone. So thanks for watering them, although you didn't need to, and please don't touch them again.
C: Whatever. (turns up the TV)
Thanks, Chris, for being such a big help. I knew the boy had issues when he moved in, but his issues are not my problem. Or, they shouldn�t be my problem. But God help me if he kills my grandmother�s plants. It will not be a pretty scene.
*****
In response to an email conversation with the Artboy last week, I copied the entries from my diary about the abortion and sent them to him. I didn�t mean to make him cry, but apparently I did. I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I do believe that the experience should have had a lasting effect on him�if it didn�t, it would make him less human, and much less of a person than I�d always believed him to be. On the other, I didn�t want to bring up old wounds for him. Writing about it was very cathartic for me. He wanted to read it, but I don�t know that he was really prepared to relive the whole experience again.
I wish life could be very cut and dry and simple. I wish I could just close that chapter of my history and put it away, where I didn�t have to live with it daily. I wish it didn�t tie me to a place in my past that I�ve moved away from in so many other ways.
Carla told me that she�s afraid my communication with the Artboy is unhealthy. I laughed. Of the things in my life connected with the Artboy that have been unhealthy, I think our present communication ranks pretty low on the list. I�m not sure yet why I continue to talk to him. I think the pregnancy has a lot to do with it. It�s the one part of my history with him that I feel unsettled about on a continual basis. And that doesn�t come from him--that just comes from the situation. He just happens to be the only person I can talk to about it that actually understands where I was, and where I am, because he was there, too.
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