The Mountain Between Us

by Charles Martin

We hadn’t talked yet about our predicament. The being-stuck part. One of the things I’ve learned both in medicine and climbing mountains is that you attack one crisis at a time. The next was her face and head.

“The best kept secret about the whole marriage thing is that the loving part gets better. You lose—at least I did—all the ‘I’ve got to prove something’ or whatever it is. I guess us guys get our ideas of what it ought to be through movies. When in fact, it’s little or nothing like that. It’s more of a sharing than a taking. Movies don’t do a very good job of portraying this. They show the hot, sweaty side. And that’s great, I’m not knocking it; I’m just exposing the myth that that’s as good as it gets.

“Our wedding was one of the happier days either of us ever knew. On our own. It was a launching out. A beginning. We were free to love each other without interference. I think when two people really love each other…I mean…” My voice cracked. “…Way down deep…like where their souls sleep and dreams happen, where pain can’t live ’cause there’s nothing for it to feed on…then a wedding is a bleeding together of those two souls. Like two rivers running together. All that water becoming the same water. Mine did that.

I swallowed. How then does one live? A memory echoed from beyond the dunes. Put one foot in front of the other. Maybe piecing is continual. Maybe the glue takes time to dry. Maybe bones take time to mend. Maybe it’s okay that the mess I call me is in process. Maybe it’s a long, hard walk out of the crash site. Maybe the distance is different for each of us. Maybe love is bigger than my mess.