Trav and I sat at opposite ends of our couch on a strangely warm day in late January with a thermometer reading in the upper thirties that prompted a pseudospring of melting ice and felt like the cruelest sort of joke in a state with fifteen hours of daily winter darkness that does not grow consistent green grass until May.
“Is this how couples break up?” he asked.
We had reached a life stage where it seemed like every month a different friend or family member announced a split.
Trav poured himself a cup of coffee, and he refreshed my tea water from our orange kettle. He would leave soon for his last nighttime performance before our road trip, and I had already been home from campus for an hour. I brought takeout food, but like his tea water refresh, it seemed like the smallest of gestures. Winter and ambivalence overwhelmed us both.
Trav is a musician, and I am a writer. Having managed opposite schedules since we first met, when we find ourselves in a rare moment of overlapping time, we are generally direct and honest in our assessments.
He continued, facing forward with no eye contact. “I can see why some couples divorce.”
The divorce word gave me pause, not because I wasn’t thinking it myself, but because I did not know it was on Trav’s mind.
Our tactic had always been to let situations breathe, but that night on the couch felt absent of oxygen. I studied his strong and muscular features—after all these years, a familiar silhouette. He wore a flannel shirt and jeans, sock-footed, with his boots beside the coffee table. In profile, I watched him sip from his mug and unwrap his veggie focaccia sandwich, a sandwich I have ordered for him a hundred times. Salt and pepper, no mayonnaise.
The word divorce felt like a test in the way canaries were used in old coal mines, and I considered my reaction.
It had been a rough year.
Trav went public with the sex abuse he had endured while studying at the American Boychoir School, and the anger and the repercussions reverberated through our marriage until the noise was so loud, I could no longer hear. For Trav, getting through the day was a win, and sleeping through the night was a gold medal.
Once Trav’s vague memories of his time as a choirboy became more detailed, the details did not stop. This afternoon he remembered the effects of his friend’s most violent rape. It was the worst to date. He coped by doing fifty hard push-ups after telling me. Finding no physical release, he smashed an old dartboard with a hammer until the noise scared our dog. I brought him an antianxiety pill, and we sat together.
This is what post-traumatic stress disorder looks like in our house.
“Why didn’t I tell anyone?” he asked.
“Because you were a little boy, had no language, and did not feel safe,” I said. It was a small comfort, and when the first pill did not work, he swallowed more until his words slurred.
Compounding the issue, Trav had misjudged the time and was due onstage in two hours.
“Do you think you can perform?” I asked, glancing at the clock.
“If I am seated, yes.”
Placing a warm washcloth on Trav’s neck, I visualized the dim, rear-corner stage setup. The venue was a blues bar, and the show was a power lounge trio. Trav had worked this spot regularly for more than a year, and since the bar staff loved him, they would cut him some slack for a seated performance.
“B.B. King performed seated,” I joked. “You are channeling your blues master roots.”
Though alert enough to pack his own equipment, Trav was in no way able to drive. I left a heads-up message with the bass player who booked the gig, and as I piloted the van into town, I asked Trav to sing to me.
His voice projected well, and he remembered most of the lyrics. This was a comfort.
The drummer met us at the curb, saw Trav’s nodding head, and left to find coffee. I thanked him, grateful for the discretion and absence of questions.
Trav righted his shoulders and inhaled deeply. He opened the passenger-side door and stepped onto the curb. A bartender on a smoke break greeted him with a hearty handshake, and Trav walked inside, smiling, steady, and not stumbling.
By the time I returned after midnight to drive him home, I had baked three apple pies from scratch as stress relief. While the pies bubbled in the oven, with a full name from Trav’s afternoon memory now attached to the most sadistic perpetrator, I searched online and learned that the man, a social studies and physical education teacher just like Trav’s fuzzy recollections suggested but could not confirm, was arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault that had occurred in November of 1989, one year into Trav’s education.
The only media attention I could locate was on page ten of a Princeton community newspaper, on the bottom of the page next to a camera advertisement. It noted a single isolated incident and a single victim. Later, this faculty member was punished with a $430 fine and four years of probation.11
https://archive.org/stream/towntopicsprince4601unse#page/10/mode/2up
“One instance? One perpetrator? One victim?” Trav would respond the next morning when I shared the research, disgust in his voice.
As I drove to pick him up after the show, the scent of cinnamon and pastry crust covered the van’s usual plastic cable, dog, and cigar smoke odor. I inhaled and exhaled the apple pie scent with intention, still debating whether to share the court information, wondering if the details would validate his new memories or create an even worse headspace. The murky recollections that plagued Trav’s memory were confirmed by my research, but I had no idea whether this confirmation would help or hurt the situation.
I parked the van by the curb; Trav stood waiting in the venue vestibule. He had sobered up, and when he slid his guitar into the vehicle, his face reflected shame despite the guys making light as I handed them the still-warm pie pans through the window.
“You are living the life, my friend!” they joked. “A hot chauffeur with homemade dessert!”
I gave a thumbs-up as Trav settled into the seat, wondering how much—if anything—these band guys knew. No fans noticed any difference in the performance quality, Trav said, but he would later thrash himself awake and upright in the early morning hours, sweating next to me. On instinct, I reached my arm over the body pillow that had divided our bed since we moved in together. I rubbed his shoulder and coaxed him to breathe.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “You’re okay.”
In the predawn hours, I repeated the words. “You’re okay.”
Eventually Trav’s breathing became regular, as it always does. That is the beauty of his current combination of medications: The night terrors still happen, but he doesn’t always remember them.
1 https://archive.org/stream/towntopicsprince4601unse#page/10/mode/2up
“I need for the Boychoir to not take up