37. Puzzle: Write about putting together the pieces of puzzles.

Tommy looked at his wife in confusion. He figured he did an awful lot of that, all things considered. She puzzled him; always had and (Tommy guessed) always would. He never knew what she was going to do next. Folks around those parts -- well, they were pretty predictable. But Peri? She was a mystery.

He hadn't known her more than two months, and yet here they were, married and living together. She was a foreigner, an immigrant, from someplace in France. She'd only been in the United States less than a year herself, and nothing but misfortune had followed her. She had arrived on American soil with two parents and a brother, but now she was an orphan.

He had married her in a fit of gallantry. Here was this beautiful, young, helpless woman, and he had been overcome with pity and heroic feelings. He imagined they would eventually fall deeply in love, but that had not been the case. Peri's English was rudimentary, at best, and she didn't seem inclined to improve it. Mostly she kept quiet and still. She cleaned the house, cooked the meals, fed the chickens... She never forgot a chore. Tommy always came home to a clean house, but it was not a happy home. He knew it had to do with her not being happy, even though she never said anything. She was not the type to complain, but Tommy saw it in her eyes.

He also heard it in her tears at night. Almost silent, but there. Definitely there. They slept in the same bed, but they did not sleep together. Tommy didn't force her, and for all she acknowledged it, she could have been completely oblivious to her wifely duties. She was such a young thing, he almost wondered if she was.

He had told her that his house was her house, and given permission to do what she wished with it. She had changed it very little. He expected to see those "wifely touches," like in his married friends' homes. He wanted to pretend to be exasperated at the flowers and lace and other feminine items but secretly love them. He looked forward to seeing his manly house change to a loving home. However, those alterations never occured. The only thing different about the house was that it was significantly cleaner than he had been wont to keep it.

That's why he wasn't going to say anything when Peri got out the card table. He wasn't going to say one word when she set it up in the corner of the living room. Not a peep. When she shook the contents of a puzzle box onto the tabletop, though, he did allow himself to look in a very perplexed manner toward her.

The card table was a rarely used item. Back in his poker playing days, he received it as a gift from his buddies, so he could host their game nights every once in a while. Tommy preferred solitaire to poker now, though, and those buddies of his had since gotten married. They didn't care to play poker now. Or rather, their wives didn't.

Tommy wondered what Peri would say to him playing poker. He didn't know. There were so many things about her that he didn't know.

Peri started to spread out the pieces of the puzzle. There must have been thousands. He didn't even know he owned a puzzle. She must have bought it. Tommy felt an odd surge of pleasure at this. She was a very frugal woman. He liked that she had bought herself something. His money was her money now. He didn't want her to be lackadaisical with it, of course, but he wasnt destitute. She could afford a new dress every now and then. Maybe then he would have a clue of what she liked. Maybe then he could buy her something himself.

Peri didn't pull a chair up to the table. She just stared at the pieces intently, with those light blue eyes of hers that Tommy found so fascinating. Then she picked up one single piece and placed it at the corner of the table. And another. And another. Soon she had all four corners of the puzzle laid out.

For the next few minutes Peri looked at the puzzle, and occasionally she would find a piece and connect it. Tommy found himself watching her, in simple, manly enjoyment. She was such a lithe, graceful creature. Every smooth movement of her hands provided him with pleasure. The concentration her whole form emanated made him think her beautiful.

Suddenly, Peri looked up at the clock on the wall, and without a word or a glance, went to fix dinner. Nothing was said about the puzzle on it by either of them, and Peri acted as composed as ever, but Tommy found his eyes drawn irresistibly to the table throughout the meal. The mystery of its symbolism haunted him. That night he was the last one to fall asleep, for a change. Tommy looked upon the face of his sleeping wife, peaceful and serene, and kissed her forehead.

*

Over the next few days, the puzzle started to form a picture. Peri never went to it more than a few minutes at a time, but she would stop every time she passed by. Tommy found himself pausing to check her progress too. He had not looked at the box, so he did not know what picture would be formed. He was waiting to be surprised.

Tommy felt that having missed his chance to question her the first night, he had no right to do it on subsequent nights, but he burned with curiousity. Was this a French hobby? No. He knew, just as he knew she was sad, that to Peri, the puzzle was more than a mere hobby. It meant something to her. Tommy wanted to know what, but felt that he would not understand unless she told of him, not because she was asked, but because she wanted him to know.

*

Peri was sick. She had a stomach flu or something. Tommy had never nursed someone, so he wasn't certain, but she said it was so. He was surprised by how much he worried about her. He didn't like to see her miserable. Tommy had tried to cook her chicken noodle soup, but his didn't turn out as good as hers was. She had smiled at him when he brought it, though, and Tommy had felt warm inside. Peri's smiles were rare, but they were like the sun after rain. He knew that with Peri, it really was the thought that counted.

Tommy went to the drug store to get Peri some medicine. She had told him what she needed, and had even wrote it down for him. It was the first time she had wrote him something. Her handwriting was as flowing and lovely as she was, even though she had spelled many of the American words wrong. Tommy kept the note in his breast pocket, close to his heart, and only reluctantly handed it over to the pharmacist.

While the man looked for the items on Peri's list, Tommy's eyes wandered. He saw on the shelves a puzzle box. Peri had now completed the puzzle enough that Tommy could tell it was some sort of landscape. Now he saw the full picture. He could see why she had picked it. It was the serene countryside, as peaceful as the evening after work is done.

"Like the puzzle, Tom?" the pharmacist said, placing the collected items on the counter.

"Yes, my wife is doing it."

"Ah. I always forget you married the Frenchwoman," came the reply, as he bagged the purchases. That's what the townsfolk called her: the Frenchwoman. Like that's what defined her.

Tommy felt immediately defensive. "Now, listen --"

"Oh, no, m'boy! Don't be sensitive. I think she's fine. She never spends your money!" he said. He was a chesp man and money mattered more to him than perhaps anything else. "Why, even her puzzle -- she didn't use your credit even then. I couldn't understand what she was saying, at first... but --"

Tommy was already leaving.

*

He didn't cofront Peri. There was nothing to confront her about, but Tommy felt strange, nonetheless. He felt... disappointment. He had thought her buying something with his money meant, in a small way, that she accepted that she was his wife.

Tommy realized then that he was falling in love with her, only now he wasn't sure if he wanted to.

But he went home and nursed Peri back to health, with all the care he felt for her and yet all the distance he wanted to feel. Life went on. Tommy worked. Peri took care of the house. She didn't become any livelier, but she seemed to be more relaxed, like she was settling. Tommy wanted more than that, though.

*

It was the puzzle. One day, Tommy was stopping by it to see how it was coming along, and he saw a piece that could be attached. He simply picked it up and put it where it belonged before thinking about it. He had dreamed about doing the puzzle along with Peri so often, that it felt natural. Then he glanced toward his wife. She was looking at him; she had seen him. But she merely bent her head and continued to knit.

*

Then they were both doing it. Never together, but still, it was the first thing that connected them. The progress went by more quickly with two pairs of eyes searching for matching pieces. Neither of them ever spoke a word to the other about the puzzle. It was like it existed in a different world, one that would be destroyed if mentioned.

Tommy thought of it at the strangest times. It was the only part of his wife he really knew, and so he clung to it.

*

Then it was over. It was all finished, except for... one piece.

"It's missing!" Tommy exclaimed, bending down on the floor to look for it.

Peri was serene. "Yes," she agreed. "Something is always missing."

He got to his feet. Looked at her. Looked at the puzzle. Then he realized that they were not the same thing. "Did you choose it because it reminds you of Paris?" he asked.

"No," Peri said. "I choose it because it remind me of life. Now."

Tommy looked again at the picture again. It was pastoral, beautiful, calming, and lovely. The missing piece... well, Tommy supposed they all had one.

"What do you want to do with it?" Tommy asked, already planning to frame it and hang it on the wall.

Without a word, Peri swept all of the pieces into the box.

Tommy was shocked. All that work... all of the emotions ne had invested, and it had been complete -- well, almost complete -- for all of one minute.

"We start again," Peri said.

It was not lost on him that she said we.

He did not know what to say for a second. Then he did, because he knew her. Finally knew her. And not by her words, but by her actions, and that is a truer way to know a person. He had observed her day and nignt since being married to her. So he knew what to say.

"I bought you a present," he said.

"Me?"

"Yes." He left, and came back with a box. A puzzle box. Her delighted smile was enough for him. "That one... well, that was your puzzle. But this one... I was hoping it could be ours."

She took it, held it reverantly, stared at him. With her, it was the thought that counted. He wanted to kiss her, but he didn't. He just looked.

"Ours," she said distinctly, with her pretty French voice.

*

That night he found the missing puzzle piece on his pillow. Written on it was one word: "You."

He was the one thing missing from her life.

But that was the last day he was. She had found him.

*

A/N: My Gram would keep a card table in the corner of her living room with a puzzle on it. Every so often she would piece it together. Sometimes she went weeks without ever looking at it. Sometimes she would sit at it for hours. It was the work of months. I always liked that she did that, for some reason. So I wrote a story about it. :)