The Three Words

On the boat, when I was moving the snorkel gear, the lunch tin spilled open and the gluten-free sandwich I’d requested special for you fell onto the deck floor.

Without looking, I could feel your jaw set and your teeth grind.

“I didn’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Later on the curving beach, with the boat 30 yards away, you said I’d made it about myself. That I didn’t think of you first. Because I started with “I didn’t know” and “I didn’t know” isn’t about taking care of you, but taking care of me.

The sand floor of the beach shimmered through the clear Kauai’i waters like a school of sliver dollars darting in a blue glass.

I made no mea culpa because what is there to say? My intentions are meaningless. Any explanation or words I use to pull it apart and say my truth will just be heard as a defense. A defense of me. And who I am. And how much I care. A reflexive reflection of the selfish animal I am, the man who doesn’t think of his wife first. The man who makes everything all about himself.

Silently I looked back at the small pontoon boat lined with tourists in bathing suits. Our two boys worked their feet into fins, on their way to us.

20 years ago, I wondered, is this how “I didn’t know” was understood? Would your observation have been the same as the one you have today? Have we really come this far from where we started?

“It’s fine,” you said pulling down your mask. “You just don’t take care of me the way I want you to. You never have.”

Then you splashed into the water like a mermaid and made your way back to the place where the tin fell and this conversation began with a simple, “I didn’t know.”

I stood in the shallows, jungle behind me, wondering how 20 years came together to make this moment, a moment where my intentions were so unseen and I have no where to go but back to the boat that I thought we were in together.