The Distance Between Us
MY SPOUSE, ERIC, ABRUPTLY EXPRESSED A NEED FOR “DISTANCE”. HAVING SHARED TWELVE YEARS, THIS CAME AS A PROFOUND SURPRISE. HE PREPARED A SMALL BAG, STATING HE WOULD SLEEP IN HIS VEHICLE, MERELY TO ORGANIZE HIS THOUGHTS. I IMMEDIATELY BECAME DOUBTFUL. WAS HE BEING UNFAITHFUL?
EVERY EVENING, HE DEPARTED FOLLOWING OUR MEAL AND REAPPEARED AT DAWN, APPEARING DRAINED. I OBSERVED HIM QUIETLY EXITING WITH HIS CUSHION. BY THE TENTH EVENING, MY PATIENCE WAS EXHAUSTED.
I SHADOWED HIM TO A PARK IN CLOSE PROXIMITY, WHERE HE HALTED THE AUTOMOBILE BENEATH A TREE AND EXTINGUISHED THE HEADLIGHTS. I PRESUMED HE WAS AWAITING HIS LOVER, THEREFORE I APPROACHED CLOSER, BUT THEN I WITNESSED WHAT HE EXTRACTED. ⬇️… a telescope. A rather large telescope, carefully extracted from the back seat. He then proceeded to assemble it with surprising deftness in the dim light. My confusion warred with my suspicion. Was this some elaborate ruse? Was his lover an astronomer?
Hesitantly, I stepped closer, the crunching of leaves underfoot betraying my approach. He turned, startled, the beam of his small flashlight momentarily blinding me.
“Sarah?” His voice was a mixture of surprise and something akin to… relief? “What are you doing here?”
“What am *I* doing here, Eric?” I retorted, my voice trembling with a week’s worth of pent-up anxiety and hurt. “What are *you* doing here? Every night, leaving me alone, sleeping in your car, and now… a telescope?”
He sighed, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Sarah, please, just… let me explain.” He gestured to the telescope. “This is… this is why I needed the ‘distance’.”
He led me closer to the assembled telescope, his hand gently guiding mine to the eyepiece. “Look,” he whispered.
I peered through the lens, my initial anger momentarily forgotten. The world shifted, and suddenly, I wasn’t in a park anymore. I was looking at the moon, magnified and breathtaking in its detail. Craters I’d only ever seen in pictures were now real, tangible, under my eye. My breath hitched.
“Wow,” I breathed, genuinely awestruck.
Eric stepped back, allowing me to continue observing. “I’ve been feeling… lost lately,” he admitted, his voice low and vulnerable. “Stressed at work, disconnected from everything, even from myself. Remember how we used to talk about the stars when we were younger? Dream about space?”
I nodded, a faint memory stirring. We *had* spent summer nights lying on blankets, pointing out constellations and making wishes on shooting stars.
“I needed to reconnect with that feeling,” he continued, “that sense of wonder, of perspective. Being out here, under the vastness of the night sky, looking at something so much bigger than my daily worries… it helps. It calms me.”
He turned to face me fully, his eyes filled with a sincerity that melted my remaining doubt. “I didn’t know how to explain it. I didn’t want you to worry. I just needed… space. Real space, and mental space.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, but this time, they weren’t tears of suspicion or anger. They were tears of understanding, and a profound wave of guilt washed over me. I had jumped to the worst conclusion, blinded by fear and insecurity, completely missing the real reason for his strange behavior.
“Oh, Eric,” I whispered, stepping closer and taking his hand. “I’m so sorry. I… I thought…” I couldn’t even bring myself to voice my suspicions aloud.
He squeezed my hand gently. “I understand. It probably looked suspicious. I should have talked to you. I just… I didn’t want to burden you with my mood.”
“You could never burden me,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “We’re partners, Eric. We should be sharing everything, the good and the bad.”
He pulled me into a hug, holding me tight. “You’re right,” he murmured into my hair. “I’m so sorry for shutting you out. And… thank you for following me. If you hadn’t, I probably would have kept doing this in secret, making things worse.”
We stood there for a long moment, under the watchful gaze of the moon, the silence between us now comfortable and understanding. Later, we packed up the telescope together, the unspoken tension of the past ten days finally dissipating. As we drove home, side-by-side in the car, no longer separated by unspoken anxieties, I knew we had weathered a storm, not of infidelity, but of miscommunication. And in its wake, a deeper understanding, and a renewed appreciation for the vastness of the universe, and the even greater vastness of the love we shared. That night, Eric slept in our bed, and for the first time in a long time, we both slept soundly, under the same stars, together.