The Woman and the Lake

She went to the lake when the sky was bruised with dusk, her heart heavier than her shadow. “I am terrified of marriage,” she confessed, and the water rippled as if listening.

“Didn’t you like being married?” asked the lake, its surface trembling with curiosity.

S.E. Linn's "The Woman and the Lake"

She thought carefully, her reflection bending with her thoughts. “Yes,” she said at last. “I loved being married. My wedding day was beautiful. When I admired my husband, believed we would grow together, and trusted that he would keep me safe, I believed in marriage.”

The lake lapped softly against the stones. “Then it is not marriage you fear,” it murmured. “You fear being unloved.”

She walked on, the trees whispering in the wind, until she came to a birch tree, silver and swaying. “I never want to be married again,” she told it.

“Why?” asked the birch, its leaves trembling like laughter. “What did you lose in that?”

“Myself,” she said, her voice thick with old storms. “I worked so hard. Cooked dinners, cleaned and scrubbed, took care of him, and our children, and nothing was ever good enough.”

The birch sighed and let fall a pale leaf. “Then it is not marriage you resent,” it said softly. “It is being unappreciated.”

The woman nodded and continued down the forest path until she reached a cliff above a sleeping valley.

“Marriage is contemporary slavery,” she cried. “I never want to lose my freedom again.”

“Why is it slavery?” asked the cliff, its voice deep and patient as stone.

“Because that is how it felt,” she said. “Like I was a stranger in my own home. Leaving was the hardest thing I have ever done. I never want to have to do that again.”

“Well,” said the cliff, rumbling gently, “it is not marriage you fear, child. You fear that which tries to control you.”

She walked on again, her feet soft on the pine needles, until she came upon a fox nesting with her kits in a fallen log.

“Marriage destroyed my life,” said the woman. “I lost so much. It was painful and hard. I never want to go through that again.”

The fox blinked up at her with wise amber eyes. “It would seem that the blame is not on marriage,” she said. “What really hurt you was not built of love, but spun of careless lies from one who swore to protect you. It is not marriage you fear, but being abandoned with your children.”

The woman stood for a long time, watching the kits tumble in the grass. She thought of nights spent sleepless, of feeling completely alone, stones in her chest, with him sleeping unfettered beside her.

Then she turned and looked back at the path behind her — the lake, the birch, the cliff, and the fox — each voice still echoing softly in her heart.

At last she whispered to the wind, her voice no longer shaking but strong. “It was never marriage that I learned to fear,” she said. “It was the breaking of it. It was divorce that tried to bury me, but could not. I walked out of the ruins, and I am still standing. I am still me. And I am free.”

For a long time she stood by the water’s edge, watching her reflection in the ripples. The face staring back was the same, yet different — older, wiser, confused no longer. And in that still moment, clarity perched upon a nearby branch, quiet and certain. She saw that the blame she had carried all this time had been misplaced. The wind stirred the trees, whispering its agreement. It was not marriage she loathed after all, but divorce — the breaking, the abandonment, the hollow ache of being left to rebuild alone. That was the fanged monster that haunted her dreams. As the lake smoothed itself into calm, so did she. Her belief shifted like sunlight across the water, and she finally understood that what she feared most was never love itself, but knowing it, having it, and then watching it leave.

S.E. Linn