With grave disappointment we learned that our frequent night trains were also day trains and that freight rail traffic was predicted to significantly increase due to rising gas prices. The trains drowned out conversations, television, and music. Artwork hung crooked on walls like a house out of a Lemony Snicket novel. Each time I passed through a room, I adjusted paintings, mirrors and other artwork to a balanced perspective.
Candler mentioned how the severe, repeated vibration might cause structural damage to the furnishings in which I had heavily invested. From that moment forward my daily routine involved examination of every piece of furniture for signs of injury; without which, we could not have been luxury home managers. We noticed a hairline fracture had appeared in the concrete slab of the unfinished basement floor and on the exterior rear wall. The house looked well built, but clearly the train had begun to take its toll.
On the afternoon of the third day, I was standing on the master bed measuring the space above the headboard for art placement when Candler returned from one of his multiple daily trips to the grocery store.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Hanging the art,” I replied.
“Not those,” he said, pointing to the 18th century lithographs I had custom framed in Rome.
“Those are the ones,” I replied.
“What are you thinking?” he shouted.
“You don’t like them?” I asked.
“They’ve got glass on them,” he said.
“To protect the lithograph,” I said. Slipping a nail in the hook I held against the wall with my left hand and raised the hammer with my right.
“Stop!” he said.
I lowered the hammer to my side, “Am I off?” I asked, stepping back on the mattress and examining the wall.
“No glass over my head,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“No glass,” he said insistently.
“They aren’t heavy. It’ll be fine,” I said.
“No glass or I’m not sleeping in that bed,” he said.
“Suit yourself,” I said, moving toward the wall.
“Violet, you can’t put glass over the beds,” he said.
“I thought the rule about glass only applied to floors, walls, windows and skylights,” I said.
“What if that art falls off the wall and cuts my head off?” he asked tersely.
“I can’t accommodate every paranoia you have,” I said, beginning to feel annoyed.
“I got my head smashed in by glass,” he shouted, touching the back of his skull.
“Actually, you got your head smashed in by a car, the glass was incidental. Look, maybe this is a great way to start getting past that,” I suggested.
“Use a piece of art without glass,” he said.
“That isn’t possible in every room,” I told him.
“Then leave the walls blank,” he said.
“We’ve been hired to decorate. I need to create a finished look, which means art over the beds,” I explained.
“Not the bed I’m sleeping in. It will fall off the wall and cut my throat and I’ll die,” he said.
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked.
“The whole house shakes like a level 8 earthquake twenty times a day. The art you’ve already hung can’t even stay straight on the walls,” he replied.
“That’s true,” I said, remembering his father had died falling through a glass skylight. “Got it,” I said. “No glass over the bed you sleep in.”
“You’re not planning to hang those big mirrors are you?” he asked.
“I am,” I said.
“You’ve got a death wish,” he said.
“No mirrors either? Anywhere in the house?” I asked.
“Not near where I’ll be sitting. They’ll shimmy off their hook and kill me.”
“What if I hire a professional hanger so you’ll know they’re secure?”
Panic rose in his voice, “No mirrors anywhere near me!”
What was my need for beauty compared to his fear of death? How could I not acquiesce? “Okay,” I said. People-Pleasing Violet and Compassionate Violet created a world with no self.
As I began to consider Candler’s fear of glass, I noticed there was glass everywhere, a glass front door, a three-sided glass master shower, enormous bathroom mirrors, skylights, glass desk, glass coffee tables, crystal, china, and windows everywhere. We were living in a glass bubble — with no curtains and enormous windows that enabled any passerby to peer in on our unprotected world.
I was confident Candler was overreacting, but I could see panic rise in his eyes every time I brought a glass of water into the bedroom.
“Can’t you buy some plastic glasses?” he asked.
Plastic glasses? A chill ran up my spin. That trip to delve into his Aussie roots seemed evermore pressing. Plastic was for the uncouth. I didn’t even use plastic on picnics; I packed my picnic crystal and china. Appropriate crystal and china for every occasion is a vitally important socioeconomic truth. I know because my mother taught me from birth that no self-respecting person would be caught dead using a plastic glass. But after much pleading by Candler, I finally gave in and bought him two plastic glasses, which were tucked out of sight at the first sign of any outsider coming into our home. He was forbidden to use them in my mother’s presence for fear she would have a heart attack.
Between catering to Candler’s fears, the showhome company’s rules, the builder’s constraints on window treatments, and the realtor’s requirements for cleanliness, I began to bend myself like Gumby trying to satisfy everyone’s demands. Thank God I was taking yoga, as my ability to twist myself into whatever someone wanted was unrivaled.