Candlelight Moon

Where Has Margie Gone?

In all those years of marriage, Margie never thought Steve would leave her. In fact, through all her infatuations, years and years of the same story pinned nicely on to miscellaneous men, Margie tried to make the story fit like pieces of fabric up against a model, adjusting, readjusting, standing back, then making the alternations where necessary. It wasn't easy. People are not dress forms, they are always out of character. But, Margie worked with what she had: her imagination. In all those years of tending to fantasies about other men, it never occurred to her that Steve might leave her. That he might be unhappy. To Margie, Steve seemed faithful and loving.

The story line always started with Steve dying. It was a swift, completely unfortunate tragedy whereby Steve was rendered conveniently out of the picture. Years like this. Each day dream -the stream of constant imaginary stories-- had a prologue that she elaborate on, just enough to absolve her of guilt. To get to the meat of the plot-- there would be a car accident, or heart attack, or the wrong place at the wrong time, an unnecessary victim of an pointless crime. Something like: Steve walks into a convenience store for a pack of gum. Bam, its over. Then the fantasies began. They were the making of epic love stories.

In reality, she didn't want Steve to die, but it was the only scenario she could conceive of to situate her fantasies, to be available -being widowed was perfect, it cast a kind of forlorn need over her character, a wistful vulnerability. Never once did she imagine infidelity, nor did she ever pretend she was divorced. She wasn't that kind of woman; raised Catholic, an extra-marital affair was out of the question.

She just wanted the dream: like that period from 1999-2003 with the neighbor who resembled Captain Von Trapp. That fantasy lasted all those years. Once in a while there had been times when Margie thought:

this is slipping out. This is slipping into reality. Captain Von Trapp (her neighbor George) knows what I'm thinking. That I have been obsessively day dreaming about him.

She might panic like this if George passed by while she was working in the yard. Walking alongside his son on a tricycle, saying to her, "gorgeous flowers" Margie might wince and swallow hard.

Captain Von Trapp knows. George can see through this transparent illusion-my real life, the appearance of a housewife, gardening.

But, in reality he probably hadn't seen through her. And besides if he'd recognized an attraction and reciprocated -in those benign interactions-- Margie maybe would have come to see that George wasn't really even that much like the Captain. He was close enough in appearance, close enough to how Captain von Trap looked after he had softened, after he had fallen in love with Julie Andrews. Of course the real George was married so in the daydream-which had become elaborately complicated--his wife had some rotten fate too before the daydream would start. Fast. Uncomplicated.

Then, with all complications addressed, it would resume. It was the same fantasy over and over. The story line a reenactment of something Margie couldn't exactly put her finger on.

Sitting at a stop light with just the right soft rock playing: Nora Jones or Dave Matthews, then it would commence. The light, the color obscuring her field of vision and all of Margie's life, the tedium in particular; all of it giving way to the romantic story that caused her to blush or bat her eyes. Margie the star of the rom-com, caught in some quirky coincidence, something that would happen to Meg Ryan. It was the incarnation of "high estrogen levels" the fertility doctor told her year after year. Her estrogen was four times that of the normal woman. A normal woman. "A classic case of hysteria."

No one would ever believe her and even the one or two friends she confided in about her fantasies thought, sure it's your estrogen, really they thought something is wrong between you and Steve. And, this would scare her. It would scare her down deep. Down to the core. She sometimes worried she was crazy, but she had heard once that if you are truly crazy, you don't know it. And, more importantly, you can't control it. Insanity is obvious to everyone around you. If she were insane she would not be such an effective, convincing wife and mother. It wouldn't be possible.