An Abalone Pendant Instead of a Sleeping Bag
Christopher communicated physically; I communicated verbally. We couldn’t find a shared language.
After my eighteen-year marriage ended, I started dating again and making art too. Things Men Gave Me is the serialized story of what followed: the men I met, the things they offered me both material and intangible, and how I reclaimed myself and my creative power.
This is the second story published. View the list of previously published stories.
“My birthday’s coming up. What are you going to get me?” I asked Christopher.
“A sleeping bag. You’ll need one when we go backpacking this summer, no?”
“What about jewelry? That’s more romantic.”
He came back from Mexico with a thick silver pendant, inlaid with abalone, heavy and expensive-looking. It reminded me of something a wealthy woman in her sixties might wear to a gallery opening. I usually wore delicate things, but I thanked him. Maybe I was ready for something more substantial. Maybe Christopher could provide it.
We were well matched, on paper. Our mothers had been sorority sisters at CU Boulder; our fathers, retired physicians, still gossiped in Denver. Christopher was tall, handsome, and comfortable with himself. His voice was a low growl, his body softening at the edges of midlife. I found him extremely appealing.
But he didn’t talk much. I asked questions designed to build intimacy. I tried to draw him out by talking about things in his world: his work as a real estate asset manager, his love of cycling, his last relationship. He preferred podcasts instead. On a road trip to Santa Fe, he agreed to conversation at first, then after two hours turned on This American Life. “Would you rather have invisibility or flight?” the host asked.
“This is stupid,” I blurted, tired of substituting commentary for connection.
“You ruin everything,” Christopher said.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that.
Still, I stayed. We backpacked to a lake at 11,000 feet. He carried good cheese, chocolate, bourbon. I carried layers, since I didn’t own a proper sleeping bag. At night we lay close, our bodies communicating what our words could not. In the morning, I watched the krummholz pressed flat against the ground, trees bent by wind, surviving by surrender. I wondered if I was doing the same.
We planned another backpacking trip. The night before, he canceled. The next day, I saw him online. Soon after, we ended.
Sometimes I imagine the sleeping bag he never gave me: the warmth, the mountain air, the safety of being beside someone who didn’t need words. As with the pendant, as with dating, what I thought I wanted and what I needed were two different things.
Later, another man gave me a sleeping bag. He could connect both verbally and physically. We were happy in the mountains. Everywhere else was hell.