“Her quiet sobs echoing in his ears, Tom went back to his cell feeling useless and depressed.
Even so, he was glad for the next call, the next visit. Tom looked forward to seeing his wife on visitors’ day and to getting letters from her.
She was his world – all the world that mattered to him.
Her visits, however were sometimes as upsetting as her calls. Tom was a little chagrined at Pat’s behavior when she came to Jackson. Pat waged full-scale war on the authorities who controlled her husband’s destiny. She never failed to cause, at the very least, a hassle – and often a scene.” (p. 252)
“Pat and Tom usually talked on the phone late at night, and each time Tom hoped they could make it through an entire call without accusations and depressing thoughts. “…I love you, darlin’. I miss you more than anything in this world,” he whispered one night into the phone. (…)
It was not going to be a good phone call and he had only a few minutes to talk. (…)
He had done something to make her angry. She could change so quickly from being sweet to being mad at him, and he seldom knew what he had done to cause it.” (p. 227-8)s
“With each legal setback, Pat grew more negative. She reminded Tom in every phone call that he was going to prison for at least twelve years and that she would be ‘an old woman’ when he got out. Her voice was very soft, alternately choked with tears and icily accusatory. His was desperate as he pleaded with her to try to understand. But it seemed there was no way he could win with Pat in their phone conversations. Each time he heard her voice, he hoped they could have a loving, warm call, but she twisted his worlds, found fault in almost everything he said, and accused him of being cruel to her. Tom was baffled. She knew he would never do anything to hurt her. What more did he have to do to prove he still loved her?” (p. 224-5)
I see some of myself in the descriptions of Pat’s behavior toward Tom. Alejandro isn’t in prison, but we are in a difficult situation with his status and papers. I actually hardly ever mention that to him per se, but I do complain a lot about living with my parents in their house – something that we probably wouldn’t have to do if he had an income. I have never blamed him for that, definitely not out loud, and honestly I don’t think even in my mind. I think that I see it mostly as an unexpected, challenging situation that, if it is trapping us both unfairly (if it is trapping anyone). But still it’s possible that it seems to him like I’m complaining about his unemployment. And I know that I have gone through periods of time during which I’ve turned every one of our conversations into a litany of my own complaints – eg., about how uncomfortable/difficult/unfulfilling work is, how irritated I feel about one or both of my parents, how tired and crummy I feel, etc., etc. Often I don’t even realize until it is too late that I have done it. I also know that I habitually contradict him when he talks about his family or his childhood, and put his family down in conversation by what I say and what I do (eg., rolling eyes, etc.). For example, I acted annoyed and accusatory about when his mom asked him to fix the stroller (although I think that it is Marisol’s problem to fix it, not Alejandro’s, because it’s Marisol’s child and stroller, not Alejandro’s). But when I do it every time, it looks like I want nothing to do with his family, and I want him to have nothing to do with them, either. (Sometimes I wonder if that is true – I hope that is not what I really want! But I question myself.) Even if his family did put him down a lot, I don’t want to be the one who looks like I’m trying to cut him off from everyone but myself and my family.
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