On The Solid Black Line

I must have taken a pen to those final papers a dozen times, before I finally signed them.  I read, re-read each line, each paragraph, enough times to have worn a hole in them.  Each time ending the same way.  I'd put that cap back on the pen, place it back into the drawer, leaving that line blank.   The one where my name went.1

I would sit there, thinking back.  Funny, how all I could remember right then were the good times, the best times.  I'd remember vacations, or birthdays, or Christmases.  I'd remember the laughter, the jokes, the cookouts.  Those loving moments, hidden notes, poignant words. Nights he'd held me while I cried, when the world became more than I could bear.2

When we'd lost the baby, when my mother died, then my dad.3

I would remember how it was before we began keeping score, before the hurts and the slights became too many to take back.  Before the deep pain set in and the anger took over.  Once it did, it chased every other emotion out.4

Then, one day, I realized that perhaps love had never really been there in the first place.  There had been tolerance, then his constant condescention. Then this low, seething anger that had begun to build in me, over the passage of time.  I began to see how somethings can never be taken back, covered over, aplogized for.  Some things can be forgiven, but not forgotten.  And there in was the problem.  Love forgives, I couldn't.    5

That day, I took a pen out of my purse, one that did not have a cap, just in case I was tempted.  I had to dig deep, a small yellow post it note falling out as I retrieved the pen.  6

It was folded, and dirty from being in my purse for so long.  I picked it up, from where it had fallen on the counter.  I unfolded it, read it.  (Though I had long ago memorized every word)  In faded red ink, it read "A word of advice upon your marriage.  Never go to bed angry."  I signed my name on that solid black line.  Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I would not go to bed angry.7