A Vow to Cherish by Deborah Raney Page A

watching TV in the den, she turned to him, eyebrows arched, fire in her eyes. “I don’t see why these donney on the brackers!”
    “What?” John asked, looking at her askance.
    She sighed and slowly articulated, as though speaking to a half-wit, “I don’t see why these donney on the brackers!”
    “Ellen, I don’t have the faintest idea what you are talking about.” A sinister warning bell clanged in his subconscious.
    But she laughed and wagged her head like a dog shaking dry after a bath. “Well, I don’t either, John.” She started giggling. It was a contagious, bubbling laughter, and John had to laugh with her. They laughed till they were holding their bellies and wiping away tears. Then abruptly Ellen’s face contorted, and her guffaws became sobs—maniacal, bellowing sobs. Within seconds, she was hysterical and inconsolable. Alarmed, John tried to put his arms around her, but she shoved him away with a strength that surprised him.
    When she finally quit thrashing, she hunched on the sofa hugging her knees to her chin, rocking back and forth, weeping uncontrollably.
    John felt like a spineless coward, but he could not stay in the room with her another minute. He backed away, grabbed his jacket off the hook in the front hall and fled into the chilly night.
    The street was dark and a light mist dampened the pavement so the streetlights were multiplied in the reflection. He jogged briskly for a few minutes. Then, out of breath, he slowed to a walk.
    The streets were deserted, but he was painfully aware of the lights that burned in the windows of the stately two-story homes lining either side of the street. Here and there he could hear music floating from an open door. And through curtains, not yet closed to the evening darkness, he saw life going on as usual for those within. Businessmen read newspapers in their easy chairs; children argued over games; mothers rocked their babies. Their world—his and Ellen’s—was falling in upon them, yet all around them life went on.
    Despair crept over him like a vine. What would become of them? Communication had always been the foundation of their marriage. He and Ellen had taken immense joy in discussing people, politics, philosophy, psychology. And if an exchange turned into a debate or even an argument, so much the better. They had never been happier than when they wrangled over some controversial topic. It had become a high for them, an energizer. With their words, they played an exhilarating game of catch—tossing ideas and waiting with anticipation for them to be thrown back. Now he threw words against a hard wall, and if they came back to him at all, they came back senseless and unpredictable.
    There were so many things he and Ellen could have gone without—their wealth, their sight, their arms or legs. Why? John railed. Why did it have to be their words? And it was their words, for Ellen’s silences left him as impotent of speech as if he physically shared her disease.
    The rage simmering in him boiled over. He shook his fist at the heavens, and through clenched teeth he shouted into the darkness, not caring who heard. “Why, God? Tell me why! ” But the heavens were like a canyon. His voice echoed back to him through the empty street—the only answer the gentle sound of rain on the pavement.
    He sat down on the curb, utterly exhausted. The rain soaked into his jeans, leaving him shivering and damp. Hopelessness seeped into every fiber of his being, and for the first time since little Catherine had died, he put his head in his hands and sobbed.
    He wept till there were no tears left. Finally, he picked himself up leadenly and walked slowly back to the house. The lights were off downstairs, but the lamp in their attic bedroom still burned.
    When John came up the stairs, he saw Ellen through the bedroom door. She was sitting up in bed reading—or pretending to read. John wasn’t sure she could even make sense of the printed page anymore. He came quietly