Independence Day
Ken Sieben
The moment Walter Martin slammed the door, he felt surprised he had not let it close by force of its own weight. That would have been more like Walter, for he was a quiet, logical person, a computer programmer, who normally did not indulge in demonstrations of temper. In seventeen years he’d never even shouted at Joan.
Walter had walked out the door in quiet anger many times over the three years he’d known their marriage was disintegrating, so the instinctive, unintended act of slamming the door signaled to him a finality, like driving a nail through the surface of wet lumber. This time he would not go back.
The problem was not that Joan denied him sex but that she showed the same attitude as when doing dishes or laundry. To her, his erection was like a torn sock or an uncleared table'something that required her to perform a duty. And she always did her duty. Her life was one continuous duty.
Walter had once loved Joan and felt sorry for her now, but he no longer felt responsible; he had not done it to her. For three years he had failed to find a cause for Joan’s inability to derive any pleasure, satisfaction, or enjoyment from life.
At first he thought it was the fault of her older sister who never married or even dated and, Walter figured, had apparently never experimented with or had any curiosity about the sexual act. Some people were just like that and there was no precise cause. It was just the way things happened. But no one, Walter realized, not even Joan, could be influenced by Catherine.
Two summers ago, Walter had concluded the problem was related to their daughter, who, then twelve, seemed suddenly aware of her own sexuality. Carolyn had inherited from him both her height and her skin that tanned so easily, and would spend every Saturday and Sunday afternoon either playing volleyball on the beach with the high school kids or waterskiing behind some older boy’s speedboat as it raced around the bay.
One of the reasons Walter enjoyed living by the water was the opportunity to see people having fun. After his own daily morning swim he would linger just to watch the little kids build castles in the sand and the men cast lures from the beach. He owned a small outboard runabout which he docked right at their bayfront condo. Carolyn had been skiing since she was eight and still went crabbing with him, though not as often as when she was younger. She was comfortable on the boat. She seemed naturally comfortable on the water. She could handle a small sailboat by herself and wanted a windsurfer for Christmas.
The Fourth of July when Carolyn was thirteen was the first time Joan did not go with them to watch the fireworks. She said that she had a headache and the noise would make it worse. They had always gone by boat because it seemed more exciting than sitting in packed bleachers. Aunt Catherine would accompany them and Carolyn would usually invite her best friend of that summer.
Fourth of July was Walter’s favorite holiday. He’d taught Carolyn that it was good for a family to enjoy themselves when in the midst of other people also enjoying themselves. They could have an evening swim, a picnic supper and a moonlight boat ride on any night, but to do these things in the sight and presence of other American families on the national holiday gave Walter a very special feeling. It was one of the deliberate steps he took to connect himself with the world. Joan never made connections. She could perceive only the noise, the expense, the drinking; she could not comprehend the human need for shared spectacle.
Carolyn did not show any disappointment that her mother wasn’t coming. When Walter told her, she immediately'and correctly'assumed Catherine would likewise not come and asked permission to bring three friends. Walter agreed, not realizing two of them would be muscular sixteen-year-old boys. He didn’t really mind; the idea had simply surprised him at first. On consideration, he knew his daughter was beginning a new phase of her life. She had always been a fun-loving kid, and now the range of her fun was going to expand. That was certainly nothing to fret about.
Joan would fret, he knew as soon as the boys arrived, and he was right. She raised no objections, only her eyebrows, but when he returned late that night to find her asleep over her knitting, he could still see the furrows in her forehead.
So the next Fourth of July when Joan said, “You know I don’t go to the fireworks anymore,” Walter declared his independence.
