Aversion

(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)

The body has a curious, involuntary response to a disagreeable situation. In the creation of taste aversions, the body associates two contemporaneously (rather than causally) related events. When one eats a bowl of mint chip ice cream and shortly thereafter vomits and breaks out in a cold sweat, the body draws the conclusion that the mint chip ice cream to blame. Every subsequent time a person so much as smells mint chip ice cream, one feels a tide of nausea rise inside her and wishes to exit the setting. Though the stomach flu was the real culprit, the mint ice cream is judged guilty by association. The creamy, clean sweetness has the same taste as it always did, but it's examined through a different lens.

The mind has an analogous, though admittedly less document, response. Emiline Sortiere developed an aversion to her husband of 26 years somewhere in the second year. Emiline Schlager was married to Lloyd Sortiere in the fall of 1928. Both were admittedly desperate as the number thirty swiftly pursued them. In accordance with their yearnings, the two of them were blind to the premonitions of discord.

Lloyd was deceptive, though admittedly without trying to be. A man of few words and simple pleasures, he often gave the impression of being a sage. In truth, he was little more than an old--often sad--child. During their courtship, Emiline admired his emotional consistency and Lloyd admired her talent in the kitchen.

Emiline was inconsistent to a fault. On a drive in his Chevrolet in the spring of 1927, Emiline vented at how "crusty" Bach's "Organ Fugue in G Major" sounded. When asked for clarification, she answered, "I think organs are simply dreadful instruments. So abrasive!" In the winter of 1927 when the same fugue flowed in over the dining room radio, Emiline pleaded with Lloyd to buy her a record of that "wonderful music."

The marriage began as a symbiotic relationship. Emiline would tend to all things domestic; Lloyd would provide for all things in general. So long as he kept her company and she kept him fed and properly dressed, all was well. She could imagine that he wanted to be with her in a way the romantics wrote of in their poems. He could imagine that she wanted to nurture him in a way his alcoholic mother never managed to do.

All self-loathing people have disdain for their own company. Some self-loathing people have greater disdain for the company of others. Though neither understood it, only Lloyd belonged in the second camp. It was for this reason that he could stomach his dull, tedious work-life, and she was given to fits of depression in their dull, tedious home-life.

On a foggy early summer morning in 1930, the mind of Emiline Sortiere created an aversion to Lloyd that would cast a pall over the rest of her life and sour what little sweetness was available in his. Lloyd had for the past month been putting in long hours at the office. Emiline initially tried to take advantage of the superabundance of time. She marked several items of off the "rainy-day list," including sewing a different set of curtains for the guest bedroom (canary yellow with little green star bursts throughout) and repairing a pocket in her favorite winter coat (long, black and red tartan). The diversions were insufficient to keep a nagging sense of disappointment at bay. This is not how marriage is supposed to be.

Emiline had been anticipating a pleasant Saturday and dropping hints about going on a picnic. Unfortunately for her, Lloyd had a major deadline and a compassionless boss looming. Early Saturday morning after he covertly crept out of bedroom, Lloyd wrote a brief apologetic note and promised to return in time for dinner. Infuriated upon discovery of the note, Emiline resolved to make a picnic lunch for herself and to go to the city park without him. Not thinking clearly about how far off lunchtime was, Emiline took to making a sandwich and introspecting. Wondering how it was the idyllic marriage she had waited for all her life had eluded her finally despite the bold-faced fact that she was now finally married, Emiline sliced through the tip of her left index finger as well as the heirloom tomato. Shades of red mingled together on the wooden cutting board as she shrieked. Gripping her hand tightly with the other, she cried to release the torrent of pain and commiserate the ruination of her once beautiful hands.

The pointer is the most important finger! It will be so ugly now! Damn! Damn! Damn! It's all his fault! If he would have stayed with me today, I wouldn't be so maimed! Oooooo! If he would have come home a decent hour a few times during the workweek, maybe I wouldn't have needed to go on a picnic so damned much! Am I to be blamed for being lonely? A woman can't keep herself company--her husband is supposed to. People aren't supposed to be alone! He was so much more caring before we married!

Gripping the finger tightly within an increasingly bloody white dishrag, Emiline collected herself and walked next door. She proceeded to ask her neighbor to take her to the hospital, where she received a topical anesthetic, stitches, and a bandage. Later that evening, she refused to explain to Lloyd the reason for the gauze on her finger. Her fingertip scarred over as did her heart.

Ever since, the mention of Lloyd's name prompted Emiline's blood pressure to rise. A nearly imperceptible grimace darted across her face whenever she heard his voice. Seeing the initials "LS" on the backs of certain models of automobiles made her left eye twitch with rage. Emaline blamed Lloyd for everything wrong with her life, except for her red hair--whose fault was her fair-skinned father's. Doors squeaking, nails chipping, boredom pervading, breasts drooping, paint fading--all were the products of Lloyd Sortiere. In their subsequent interactions, Emiline would vacillate between yelling at Lloyd and ignoring him. Lloyd stayed loyal to her because through it all, she never stopped making dinner.