365 Days (Part 1) | ✓

37. Puzzle

37. Puzzle: Write about putting together the pieces of puzzles.

Tommy looked at his wife in confusion. He figured he did an awful lot of that, all things considered. She puzzled him; always had and (Tommy guessed) always would. He never knew what she was going to do next. Folks around those parts -- well, they were pretty predictable. But Peri? She was a mystery.

He hadn't known her more than two months, and yet here they were, married and living together. She was a foreigner, an immigrant, from someplace in France. She'd only been in the United States less than a year herself, and nothing but misfortune had followed her. She had arrived on American soil with two parents and a brother, but now she was an orphan.

He had married her in a fit of gallantry. Here was this beautiful, young, helpless woman, and he had been overcome with pity and heroic feelings. He imagined they would eventually fall deeply in love, but that had not been the case. Peri's English was rudimentary, at best, and she didn't seem inclined to improve it. Mostly she kept quiet and still. She cleaned the house, cooked the meals, fed the chickens... She never forgot a chore. Tommy always came home to a clean house, but it was not a happy home. He knew it had to do with her not being happy, even though she never said anything. She was not the type to complain, but Tommy saw it in her eyes.

He also heard it in her tears at night. Almost silent, but there. Definitely there. They slept in the same bed, but they did not sleep together. Tommy didn't force her, and for all she acknowledged it, she could have been completely oblivious to her wifely duties. She was such a young thing, he almost wondered if she was.

He had told her that his house was her house, and given permission to do what she wished with it. She had changed it very little. He expected to see those "wifely touches," like in his married friends' homes. He wanted to pretend to be exasperated at the flowers and lace and other feminine items but secretly love them. He looked forward to seeing his manly house change to a loving home. However, those alterations never occured. The only thing different about the house was that it was significantly cleaner than he had been wont to keep it.

That's why he wasn't going to say anything when Peri got out the card table. He wasn't going to say one word when she set it up in the corner of the living room. Not a peep. When she shook the contents of a puzzle box onto the tabletop, though, he did allow himself to look in a very perplexed manner toward her.

The card table was a rarely used item. Back in his poker playing days, he received it as a gift from his buddies, so he could host their game nights every once in a while. Tommy preferred solitaire to poker now, though, and those buddies of his had since gotten married. They didn't care to play poker now. Or rather, their wives didn't.

Tommy wondered what Peri would say to him playing poker. He didn't know. There were so many things about her that he didn't know.

Peri started to spread out the pieces of the puzzle. There must have been thousands. He didn't even know he owned a puzzle. She must have bought it. Tommy felt an odd surge of pleasure at this. She was a very frugal woman. He liked that she had bought herself something. His money was her money now. He didn't want her to be lackadaisical with it, of course, but he wasnt destitute. She could afford a new dress every now and then. Maybe then he would have a clue of what she liked. Maybe then he could buy her something himself.

Peri didn't pull a chair up to the table. She just stared at the pieces intently, with those light blue eyes of hers that Tommy found so fascinating. Then she picked up one single piece and placed it at the corner of the table. And another. And another. Soon she had all four corners of the puzzle laid out.

For the next few minutes Peri looked at the puzzle, and occasionally she would find a piece and connect it. Tommy found himself watching her, in simple, manly enjoyment. She was such a lithe, graceful creature. Every smooth movement of her hands provided him with pleasure. The concentration her whole form emanated made him think her beautiful.